The doctor who discovered how cholera spread

The doctor who discovered how cholera spread

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The Cu Chi tunnels of the Vietnam War

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

The first Day of the Dead parade

On 29 October 2016, Mexico City held the first Día de los Muertos parade, inspired by the opening scene of the 2015 James Bond film, Spectre.The Day of the Dead, an annual festival in Mexico, has been celebrated for thousands of years but didn't used to involve a carnival process ...  Show more

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Day Drinkers (Sort of) Helped Stop Cholera in London
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Dr. Jon Snow -- no relation to the guy from A Song of Ice and Fire -- was in a pickle. Cholera was ravaging London, particularly in the Soho area, and no one knew how to stop it from spreading like poisonous wildfire. As the crisis raged on, Snow was able to use his medical knowl ...  Show more

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Throughout human history, cities have grappled with how to keep excrement separate from drinking water. In the Middle Ages, gong farmers excavated human waste from city dwellers and took it to the countryside to be used as fertilizer. In the 19th century, cities grew so big, this ...  Show more

Special Episode: On the Origin of Epidemiology
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The classic tale of epidemiology almost always begins with public health hero John Snow traipsing all over London to track down the source of the 1854 cholera epidemic, ultimately identified as the Broad Street Pump. While Snow’s famous endeavor earned him the title “the fathe ...

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