The History Book

IN CONTEXT

Focus

Urban culture

Before

1858 The Great Stink in London prompts the building of an extensive sewer system still used in the 21st century.

1863 The first underground train comes into operation in London.

1868 The first elevated urban railway opens in New York.

1876 Los Angeles installs the world’s first electric street lights. London soon follows.

After

1895 A variety theater in Berlin, the Wintergarten, becomes the world’s first cinema.

1902 The first motor bus service starts in London.

The opening of the Eiffel Tower on March 31, 1889 was a startling assertion of Parisian bombast in the years between the humiliations of the Franco-Prussian War ...