00:00On December 5, 1952, a nauseating yellow-gray fog engulfed London, claiming 12,000 lives.
00:09This wasn't mere mist.
00:11It stank of rotting eggs and stretched 30 miles wide.
00:15Buses halted, planes were grounded, and ambulances were trapped.
00:19For five days, the city vanished in the stench and sludge.
00:23Streets slipped with a black ooze.
00:25Those who dared ventured out stumbled blindly, smudging their faces while birds crashed into
00:31buildings.
00:32With visibility zero, thieves ran rampant, and even indoor shows were canceled.
00:38The great smoke sent over 100,000 people to hospitals, leaving a grim legacy of demise
00:44and decay.
00:47The causes of this tragedy started long into the past.
00:51Something called pea-soup fog became one of the symbols of London in the 19th century.
00:57Nature wasn't to blame for this fog.
00:59It was caused by people burning coal to heat their homes and run factories.
01:04In fact, London's air started getting smoky all the way back in the 13th century, when
01:09people began widely using coal.
01:12It got worse as the city grew bigger.
01:14By the 17th century, people were already complaining about the dirty air.
01:19King James I tried to prevent so much coal-burning with new laws, but nothing really changed.
01:25As more factories popped up during the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, the problem
01:31blew out of proportion.
01:32The air was full of tiny particles that water clung to and formed dark heavy clouds.
01:38This mix of smoke and fog became so bad, people called it smog.
01:44This word was invented in London in the early 20th century.
01:48The smog got so thick sometimes it could last for a whole week, and it made people
01:53ill.
01:54Some even passed away because of it.
01:57Even though the smog was harmful, people didn't want to stop using coal because it gave them
02:02jobs and kept their homes warm.
02:04So the problem lingered.
02:07By the 20th century, thick fogs were happening less frequently, finally, because factories
02:12started moving away from the city.
02:15On that December day in 1952, an anti-cyclone appeared over London.
02:21This meant that the cold air near the ground got trapped under warmer air higher up, like
02:26a lid keeping everything underneath.
02:29Because of this, all the smoke from factories, cars, and home fireplaces couldn't float
02:34up and away like usual.
02:36Instead, it clung near the ground, mixed with water in the air, and produced an extremely
02:41thick dirty fog.
02:43Plus, daylight in December is shorter, and it was really cold.
02:47So people had to use even more coal for heating and lighting than they normally did.
02:52All this led to a disaster.
02:55It was clear that sulfur particles from the burning coal made the fog yellow and smell
02:59like rotten eggs.
03:01But scientists couldn't figure out why and how these particles turned into sulfuric acid.
03:07Decades later, an international team of researchers recreated that scary fog in a lab.
03:13They used samples of air and atmospheric measurements from the fog in two large Chinese cities that
03:19have high levels of sulfur dioxide in the air, just like London during the Great Smoke.
03:25They learned that the thick dirty air, called haze, doesn't form in the same way in London
03:30and in China.
03:32In London's fog, smoke from burning coal released two gases – sulfur dioxide and
03:38nitrogen dioxide.
03:40These gases mixed with water droplets in the fog, which made it harmless at first because
03:45the water diluted the harmful chemicals.
03:48But as the water evaporated, and there was nothing to dilute the two dioxides, the fog
03:53became very acidic and hazardous to breathe, so it damaged people's lungs.
03:58In present-day China, things are a little different.
04:01A third chemical, ammonia, joins the mix.
04:05Now ammonia, which comes from farms and cars, helps balance out the acidity of the fog,
04:10so it's less harmful than London's deadly fog.
04:13But the scientists found that cutting down on nitrogen dioxide and ammonia could still
04:18help China reduce its air quality problems.
04:22They hope that their discovery will help both understand London's past fogs and give China
04:27ideas for making its air cleaner.
04:30It could also save the health of millions of people around the world who are now living
04:34in cities with bad air quality.
04:37After the terrible fog of 1952, everyone realized how serious London's air problem was.
04:44Four years later, the British authorities created a law called the Clean Air Act to
04:49stop something like that from happening again.
04:51This law banned people from burning smoky fuels like coal in their homes or in factory
04:57furnaces in some parts of the city.
04:59To help people adjust, the authorities gave them money so that they could switch to cleaner
05:04heating options like oil, natural gas, or electricity.
05:09It took time for these changes to make a big difference, and sadly, another dangerous smog
05:14happened in 1962.
05:16But the Clean Air Act was a very important first step for protecting the environment
05:20and people's health.
05:23Almost a century before the Great Smoke, another smelly event happened to London – the Great
05:29Stink.
05:30Back then, people didn't have proper bathrooms or sewers, and all the waste from houses and
05:35factories went straight into the river Thames.
05:38When the weather got super hot in July and August, the water level in the river went
05:43down, and piles of waste, sometimes 6 feet, popped up on the muddy banks.
05:49The smell was so terrible that even Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had to cancel their
05:54relaxing boat ride on the river.
05:56The politicians working in the brand-new Parliament buildings, which were right by
06:00the river, couldn't handle the smell either.
06:03The air inside was so terrible that they had to hold handkerchiefs over their noses to
06:07breathe.
06:08They even tried soaking the curtains in chloride of lime, hoping it would cover up the horrible
06:13odor.
06:14Many Londoners believe that the bad air, called miasma, caused horrible things like cholera,
06:20which had already taken the lives of lots of people.
06:23Engineer Joseph Basil Getty solved the problem as he built a new sewer system that would
06:28move all the waste away from the city.
06:30His sewer system was so well-designed that it still works today, even though London has
06:35grown to over 8 million people.
06:39On the other side of the Atlantic, in the United States, there was also a day when you
06:43couldn't see your hand before your face, and it was impossible to breathe outside.
06:48But the reasons for this Black Sunday were very different from the Great Smoke of London.
06:54In 1931, it almost completely stopped raining in the southern Great Plains.
06:59This drought lasted for nearly 10 years.
07:02Without rain, the farms dried up, and the soil turned to dust.
07:06Strong winds blew this dry dirt into the air and created huge dust storms.
07:11These storms, called black blizzards, made it hard to breathe and see anything.
07:16People tried to protect themselves by putting Vaseline in their noses, wearing masks, and
07:21sealing their homes.
07:22But the dust still made many of them sick.
07:25In 1934, things got even worse.
07:28It was the driest year in over a thousand years.
07:32Temperatures went over 100 degrees for weeks, and the land became even drier.
07:37On April 14, 1935, after months of terrible weather, the sky finally looked clear, and
07:43there was barely any wind, which was rare for this area.
07:47People came outside as they were hoping that the worst was finally over.
07:52When Oklahoma Minister announced that a few good rainstorms would make the land fertile
07:56again.
07:57But unfortunately, that morning, a cold wind from Canada met warm air in the Dakotas and
08:03started a massive dust storm.
08:05The storm grew to hundreds of miles wide and thousands of feet tall.
08:09A sunny day instantly became completely dark.
08:13Drivers had to hide in their cars, and other people went down into basements, found refuge
08:18in barns, fire stations, tornado shelters, and under their beds to stay safe.
08:24The storm didn't stop for hours and took at least 20 lives.
08:28Many people couldn't stop coughing, and one man went blind.
08:32The storm was so strong, it carried 300,000 tons of dirt across the country and even reached
08:38the East Coast.
08:42That's it for today!
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