Cholera, typhoid, mill fever, syphillis…they were all killers and Mancunians contracted them in suffocating numbers during the 19th century.
The authorities didn’t much care because there were always hundreds of would-be immigrants ready to come over from Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and Italy and fill the factories, even if the fumes would soon be choking them into an untimely death.
Slowly, things improved. Just.
Did you see Oppenheimer, the blockbuster, Oscar-winning film about the atom bomb, named after J. Robert Oppenheimer, organiser of the Manhattan Project which dropped the bombs on Japan in 1945?
Ed Glinert of New Manchester Walks, who has hosted countless local tours that include stopping at the atomic bunker on Chinatown’s George Street, and gives talks on the story of the atom bomb on cruise ships, relates the full atomic story to coincide with the release of the film and as the 78th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs in August 1945 to end the Second World War approaches. Continue reading
