The Great Stink
The Thames reeks so badly Parliament considers fleeing
In the hot summer of 1858 the sewage in the Thames stank so badly that Parliament's curtains were soaked in chloride of lime and MPs discussed moving to Oxford. The stench finally pushed through Joseph Bazalgette's sewer system, which still serves London.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 5 years earlier
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 3 years later
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — 6 years later
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 9 years later
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — 11 years later
Middle East
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — 19 years earlier
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — 19 years earlier
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 18 years later
Africa
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — 23 years earlier
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — 11 years earlier
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — 11 years later
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 21 years later
Asia
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — 8 years earlier
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 5 years earlier
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — 10 years later
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — 18 years later
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 25 years later
Americas
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — 3 years later
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — 5 years later
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — 6 years later
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 18 years later
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 21 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 7 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 49)
- Abraham Lincoln (aged 49)
- Karl Marx (aged 40)
- Queen Victoria (aged 39)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 37)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 30)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 24)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 18)
- Thomas Edison (aged 11)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 5)