Caroline Fraser

I mean, there's Jack the Ripper.

But this guy talks about that whole period because that was the Industrial Revolution.

That was a period when there was a lot of lead paint being produced in England.

And so Jack the Ripper may have had a little bit too much lead.

led on top of whatever else was wrong with them.

I mean, we don't even know who he was.

Yeah.

And coal includes a lot of compounds that are really dangerous to breathe.

There was a whole thing that happened in London in the 1950s where they got –

I don't remember why this happened, but, you know, I mean, it was a really difficult time for that country after World War II.

There was, you know, economically, they were really struggling.

And I think they got, during one war,

winter in the 1950s, they got some really bad quality coal delivered to London, which caused this horrific smog event, essentially, that was so heavy that people were killed just trying to cross the street because you couldn't see anything.

Yeah, it was like there was a whole episode of The Crown.

That was devoted to this.

It was while Winston Churchill was prime minister.

Yeah.

And, you know, when I was a kid and read books about England in that, you know, in the earlier, like Charles Dickens or whatever, you know, we would talk about fog all the time in London.

And I just thought fog, oh –

That's from the ocean or something.