Do you have to dodge the contents of bedpans or step over rotting corpses on your way to work? Well, you may have had to if you'd lived in London, New York or Paris when they were filthy cities. Historian Dan Snow presents this immersive three-part series, which brings these cities' stinking histories vividly to life. Taking the travelogue in a whole new direction—with extraordinary, hands-on demos and stunts—it excavates the murky past in gruesome detail during defining periods in history. You'll find out how each of these modern capitals was forged in the muck of the past, emerging from 'filthy cities' into three of the world's model metropolises.
Episode 1: “Medieval London” airs Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016 at 10 p.m. - Historian Dan Snow gets down and dirty in medieval grime to discover the hard way how the London we know today was forged in the filth of the 14th century.
State of the art CGI reveals London's streets as they were 700 years ago and Dan steps into the shoes of a medieval Londoner - wooden platforms designed to help him rise above the disgusting mess underfoot.
He spends the night as a medieval muckraker shifting a staggering six tons of horse manure, and has a go at medieval butchery to find out what the medieval authorities were up against. Plus he meets the remains of a plague victim to discover how a catastrophic epidemic would help a new and cleaner London emerge from the muck of the past.
"Revolutionary Paris" airs Wednesday, Jan. 20 at 10 p.m., and "Industrial New York" airs Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV.
Historian Dan Snow is on Facebook, Instagram and you can follow @thehistoryguy on Twitter.
FILTHY CITIES is a BBC/Discovery co-production.
