Seven Wonders of the Industrial World Episode Rating Graph

Set in London during the 1850s, this episode focuses on the construction of the London sewerage system, built to replace the antiquated medieval system that was overworked and inadequate for the needs of the-then largest metropolis in the world, causing epidemics of disease and a permanent foul stench to fill the air. The episode follows the efforts and work of Joseph Bazalgette, the brilliant engineer who designed the influential and modern sewer system that would purify the city, transform the streets above and would result in the end of the epidemics of cholera and typhoid that had ravaged the population - although not for the reasons that he initially thought.

Both the French and the American efforts build a sea-level canal through Panama linking the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean are presented in this episode; firstly, the ill-fated effort by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, to construct the canal, which - derailed by the ravages of tropical diseases (which decimated the workforce to the tune of over 22,000 men) and the impossibilities of constructing a sea-level canal through the mountains - saw financial scandals that ruined his reputation and brought down the French government. The episode then takes up the story seventeen years later, after the United States took up the challenge and, after leading a concentrated effort to eradicate the causes of the tropical diseases and switching from a sea-level to a lock-system canal, triumphantly saw the linking of the Pacific and the Atlantic.

The episode follows the construction of the Pacific Railroad, the first transcontinental rail system, which would unite the eastern and western seaboards of the United States. Started in Sacramento by a consortium of local shopkeepers with no experience in building a railroad, the episode follows their efforts to build from west to east through the forbidding Sierra Nevada mountains with the help of Chinese labourers whilst simultaneously following the efforts of the workers of the Union Pacific to build from east to west, and their problems in dealing with the lawless nature of the wild west, attacks by Native American raiding parties, and financial corruption and scandal.