A 15-foot wave tore through a London slum in 1814 and killed 8 people — all women and children. It was made of beer. Behind the St Giles rookery, the Horse Shoe Brewery’s two-storey wooden vat burst after a clerk ignored a slipped iron hoop. A tide of porter brought down the brewery wall and poured into the cellars where whole families lived below street level. Five of the dead were at a wake, mourning a two-year-old boy. The jury ruled it “an act of God.” No one was blamed. The families got nothing — and Parliament refunded the brewery’s tax on the lost beer. An act of God — or of someone? Save this for more forgotten British history. #BritishHistory #ForgottenHistory #LondonHistory #HiddenHistory