Dan Snow dives into the dark histories of London, Paris and New York, exploring their sordid histories from the ground up.
Medieval London. Cutting-edge CGI shows the streets of London 700 years ago as Dan follows in the footsteps of medieval Londoners – with wooden platforms designed to help him escape the sickening mess beneath his feet.
He spends a night as the savior of a medieval dungeon, moving up to 6 tons of feces and getting a hands-on look at a medieval slaughterhouse to see what the authorities had to do.
Revolutionary Paris. Stinking streets, ordinary people toiling in toxic industries, suffering from extreme poverty and disease. Dan dives into her world and visits a perfumer to recreate the stench of the 18th century city of Pound Paris.
He attempted one of the worst jobs in history — tanning leather using dog poop and urine using 18th-century methods — to craft exquisite luxury items that only the filthy rich could afford.
Industrial New York. Dan Snow returns to Manhattan seething during the Industrial Revolution. In the 19th century, millions of people fled persecution, poverty and hunger in Europe in search of a promised land. When they arrived, what they found was even worse than what they left behind.
New York was a city of filth and corruption, with its large immigrant population crammed into the slums of Lower Manhattan.
