Margaret Bridge

This guide to Margaret Bridge in Budapest centers on a Saturday rush hour, November 4, 1944, when German sappers were secretly priming the bridge's piers with explosives while trams and crowds crossed overhead, meaning to blow it only once the Soviet army drew near. You'll hear the disputed accounts of what set the charges off early, with the bridge still full of people, and meet Endre Kabos, the Olympic fencing champion who was crossing at the time. It also traces the odd, deliberate kink toward Margaret Island that Budapest still jokes makes it a lying Eiffel Tower.