Lessons were learned but on the 10th anniversary, the smog descended on Yorkshire and it was found not too much seemed to have changed. On December 6, in certain parts of Leeds, the sulphur dioxide concentrations were higher than the lethal levels recorded in London a decade earlier.
Here is our report and comment:

LONDON and Leeds were the areas worst hit by smog yesterday. In London last night the number of deaths neared the 70 mark and in Leeds over 50 people were in hospital "acutely ill" with respiratory illness.
But there was good news last night when 22 English counties were covered in fog. The Meteorological Office forecast that it was expected to thin in the morning and to clear from all areas during the afternoon.
A Ministry of Health spokesman reported 235 people admitted to hospitals in London up to 9pm yesterday through the Emergency Bed Service. The figure on Wednesday was 394.
From midday to 3pm and 3pm to 5pm in London yesterday the average concentration of smoke was four and five times higher respectively than the concentration on a normal winter day. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research also said that the sulphur dioxide concentration was six and five times higher than normal.
Pollution compared to that of the 1952 smog, the experts said. But without the Clean Air Act conditions would have been worse than in 1952.
In the Kirkstall Road area of Leeds, the sulphur dioxide concentration was greater than that registered in London in 1952. At 5,185 microgrammes per cubic metre it was the highest ever registered in the city.
The smoke content of the air has decreased since the last bad smog in 1959 said Mr RA Dalley the city's analyst. This was due to the smoke control zone.
Admission to St James's Hospital, Leeds, of patients with respiratory disease has been limited to emergency cases. The position would be reviewed daily said a spokesman for the 'A' Group Management Committee.
Smog figures from other Yorkshire centres:
Wakefield – Three or four times as much sulphur dioxide in the air as on any ordinary December day.
Bradford – At its worst, six times higher than normal – strong enough to tarnish metal. Last night down to five times the average.
Doncaster – Thirteen times more smoke and nine times more sulphur dioxide in the air than on a normal day.
Sheffield – Four times normal – but "we are winning all along the line" said Mr JW Batey, chief smoke inspector of the city's clean air campaign.
Visibility over most of Yorkshire last night was between 50 and 200 yards. The Automobile Association said that key patches were likely throughout the country.
In 14 degrees of frost and through the fog, two junior nurses both walk about four miles to Chequerfield Hospital, Pontefract, in order to be on duty by 9pm on Wednesday. "I don't think we need worry about the quality of our young nurses when I tell you that", said Miss C Parfitt, matron of Pontefract Infirmary at the prize giving yesterday of the Pontefract, Castleford and Ackton school of nursing.
Under the heading "Smog : The Guilty Ones", this is what our leader writer had to say about it.
Fog is a natural phenomenon. It is not particularly harmful. Rising from the sea or over a green pasture it has even inspired composers and poets. Fog mixed with smoke, chemicals and fumes, such as the major industrial conurbations and London have suffered in the last three days, damages lung tissue, stomach lining, nasal passages.
Children's lungs so damaged "will never be the same again". So said Dr Mary Catterall, Research Officer in Respiratory Diseases at Leeds General Infirmary on Tuesday. She added: "Tonight there are probably thousands of people in the West Riding alone not only suffering from breathlessness but from pain in the chest and sleeplessness. In the great London smog of 10 years ago thousands died as a direct result of smoky fog. Nor is it to physical health only that damage is done; but it is by far the most important.
Can nothing be done? Of course it can. The United States has turned many once grim, grimy, lethal industrial cities into shining, clean places where it is not only a joy to live but is also safe to live. Not so Britain. The Clean Air Act was passed over six years ago. Local authorities were vested with full powers to enforce smokeless zones.
They have done very little. They have preferred to enlarge small difficulties into major obstacles; they have temporised. By so doing, they have put the health and well-being of those to whom and for whom they are responsible in hazard. They are responsible for deaths by smog.
It is not to be tolerated that Leeds will not be smokeless before 1975, Hull before 1971, York before 1972, Bradford before 1975. The inhabitants of the cities and towns of England should bring every
kind of pressure to bear on local authorities and MPs to accelerate the abatement of this filthy, costly, deadly nuisance. They will be supported by The Yorkshire Post.

Tunnel workers meet under the Channel
1990On December 1, the UK became linked to Europe for the first time since the Ice Age, 8,000 years ago. Construction workers drilled through the final half metre wall of rock to join the two halves of the Channel Tunnel and link Britain to France.
A French worker, Philippe Cozette, and his British counterpart, Robert Fagg, waved flags and shook hands as the first men able to walk between the two countries.
The Channel Tunnel was formally put forward in 1963 although discussions went back much further than that. Work had begun in 1986 and by the time it was finished a year late in 1994, the cost had risen to £12bn – more than double original estimates.
Original expectations of passengers proved over optimistic and Eurotunnel, the tunnel operator, unveiled a loss of £925m in 1995 – one of the biggest in UK corporate history.
A further major setback was a fire in the tunnel which lead to freight traffic being suspended for more than six months in 1996.
It eventually caught on as a mode of transport and Eurotunnel announced its first net profits in 1999.

Controversy as birth control pill is made available on the NHS
1961It was Enoch Powell of all people who took what was was probably the single biggest step forward for female emancipation on December 4. As Health Minister he announced he was making the birth control pill available to all on the National Health Service (at a cost of one shilling per pill to the NHS).
The first human contraceptive pill had been invented by Carl Djerassi at a laboratory in Mexico in 1951. This was developed by an American chemist, Frank Colton, who brought out the first commercially available oral contraceptive called Enovid in 1960.
Not everyone thought it was a good move to make it universally available in this country. Sir Charles Dodds, described as Britain's leading expert on the drugs contained in the Pill said there could be long-term side-effects. He compared a woman's body with a clock mechanism. "Even if you thoroughly understand the mechanism of a clock, provided it is going well it is very much better to leave it alone. To interfere with it if you do not understand it can be disastrous," he said.
The Family Planning Association, was undecided whether to give the go-ahead to its physicians to issue the Pill to married women.
But the demand was immediate and huge.
The Pill remains the most popular reversible contraceptive in the UK and the US in spite of various health scares.
To prevent side-effects produced by combined hormone pills - fluid retention, depression, weight gain, and in rare cases thrombosis – progestogen-only
pills were developed in the 1980s.

Britain 'has lost an Empire but not yet found a role'
1962On December 6, Dean Acheson, America's former Secretary of State, made a rational appraisal of Britain's position in the world. For those in Britain who wished that large parts of the globe were still painted red and did not feel inclined to adjust, this was hard to stomach. It was a particularly hurtful analysis because it seemed to be correct. Acheson's remarks, caused an outcry and sent out shockwaves which rumbled on for weeks.
Under the headline, "Played-out Role of Britain" this was our report: "Mr Dean Acheson, former Secretary of State, said tonight that Britain 'had lost an Empire and has not yet found a role' in the contemporary world. Mr Acheson is President Kennedy's adviser on NATO affairs.
He was reviewing the European political situation to students at the military academy here. He said the British attempt to play "a role based on a 'special relationship' with the United States – a role based on being the head of a Commonwealth which has no political structure or unity or strength, and enjoys a fragile and precarious economic relationship – this role is about played out".
Britain's application to join the Common Market was a decisive turning point. It if succeeded, it would be a forward step of vast importance.
The United States might find its alliances an actual impediment to action in the event of a new Berlin crisis. The danger of such delay "may be mitigated if the United States and West Germany act together with determined vigour". The impediment to action, Mr Acheson explained, lay in the lack of agreement among NATO members on political purposes and courses of action.
The political situation in Europe was "chaotic, weak and ominous", though economic progress had been made. "Four regimes – Germany, France, Portugal and Spain – hang upon the lives of men beyond the age when heads of Government usually lay down their burdens," he said.
"In none of them can one see clearly the next phase and to the four already mentioned we might also add Italy. In some the next phase might be one of disintegration – Germany is perhaps the most already."
Discussing Germany, Mr Acheson said there had been a tendency "even in West Germany" itself to pay lip service to unification while studiously avoiding any ideas about how, when and by whom it can be brought about.

Edwina's exit over egg gaffe
1988On December 4, the outspoken junior health minister Edwina Currie said goodbye to her career in government with a statement about bad eggs.
In a television interview, Mrs Currie, MP for south Derbyshire, claimed most of Britain's egg production was infected with the salmonella bacteria. This angered farmers, politicians and egg producers. Mrs Currie's own officials in the Department of Health were unable to provide evidence that most chickens were infected.
The British Egg Industry Council sought legal advice on whether it could sue Mrs Currie over "factually incorrect and highly irresponsible" remarks. A spokesman said the risk of an egg being infected with salmonella was less than 200m to one.
Two weeks later she resigned. As egg sales plummeted, the government was forced to offer a compensation package of millions of pounds to cover the cost of purchasing surplus eggs and for the slaughter of unwanted hens.
Mrs Currie lost her seat in the 1997 General Election. She turned to broadcasting and novel writing. In her autobiography in 2002 she revealed she had a four year affair with the former Prime Minister John Major in the late 1980s.