This article was originally published on mentalfloss.com as The Great Smog Descended on London More Than 70 Years Ago—And its Cause Took Almost As Long to Discover.

Still, this is not the full extent of the catastrophe that's etched in history as the Great Smog of London. What was life like then, and did the smog's departure really mean an end to the problem?

Studies of London’s Great Smog of 1952 for example, which is classed as an “extreme episode”, estimate that over 10,000 people died as a result, despite it lasting just a few days. Image: A policeman ...