Thursday, May 31, 2018

The Great killing Smog of London: December 5th to 9th 1952

note: in Season one episode 4 of "The Crown" it goes into this actual killing event

of as many as 12,000 people from December 5th to 9th 1952 in London.


I had heard about this before, and after living through bad smog days of sum-

mers

from 1953 on in Los Angeles in Glendale and before that Tujunga as a child I know what bad smog can do to people. 

In the case of the London Smog it was caused by burning coal as individuals burning coal for heat combined with coal fired power plants right downtown in London that Killed thousands during this 4 or 5 day period. Winston Churchill's private secretary was also hit by a bus and died because the smog was so thick the bus driver couldn't see her as well. But, strangely enough, her death and him visiting her body in the hospital made him aware of how many were sick and dying and this saved his Prime Ministership at the time and he stayed on as prime Minister until 1955 and lived until age 91 in 1965 because he was born in 1874.

In Los Angeles the problem was before Catalytic converters were put on cars. The fuels burned were high sulfur content fuels and the gas was leaded on top of this which often caused brain damage of children downtown who lived near large thoroughfares of traffic in cities. So, like when I went to Verdugo Olympic sized Swimming pool in Glendale to swim on a smoggy day every breath felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest with a knife it was so painful. Also, I remember being little and if You started crying from the sulphur in the smoke in the air on a smoggy day you couldn't stop crying (tears coming from your eyes from the irritation then) in the 1950s in Los Angeles County all over. So, when the smog was bad people shut all their windows to keep out the worst of the smog so they could breathe, Just like the people who survived the London Smog did too. So, when I was crying from the smog being bad as a child I would go inside and my mother would give me a wet washcloth to wipe my eyes and let me run water over my eyes in the sink so I could stop crying from the sulphur in the air then from the smoke from cars in the air which was always the worst in the summertime when it was 90 to 110 degrees then in Los Angeles.

The stabbing sensation was from the combination of Chlorine in the swimming pool combined with the sulfur and lead in the smog from burned leaded sulphur gas and diesel in the air. Gasoline doesn't have the high sulphur content or lead in it anymore and neither does diesel either. (at least here in the U.S. in California this is true).

Great Smog of London - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London

The Great Smog of London, or Great Smog of 1952, was a severe air-pollution event that affected the British capital of London in early December 1952. ... It lasted from Friday, 5 December to Tuesday, 9December 1952 and then dispersed ..... Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the ...

People also ask





Smog kills thousands in England - Dec 04, 1952 - HISTORY.com

www.history.com/this-day-in-history/smog-kills-thousands-in-england

Heavy smog begins to hover over London, England, on this day in 1952. ... By the morning of December 5, there was a visible pall cast over hundreds of square miles. The Great Smog of 1952 became so thick and dense that by December 7 .... After nine days at sea aboard the S.S. George Washington, Wilson arrived at ...

No comments: