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Tim Harford tells the fascinating stories of 50 inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world.
How animals make us smarter – we thought you might like to hear our brand new episode. It’s about a robotic arm inspired by an elephant’s tr...
Jump on-board a doomed mission to the Moon. Apollo 13: the extraordinary story, told by the people who flew it and saved it. Search for 13 M...
Johannes Gutenberg's printing press changed the course of human history. It created a new way of doing business, drastically reduced the cos...
First developed by a toy company in the 1890s, slot machines have become one of the most profitable tools of the gambling trade - but many w...
In 1997, Garry Kasparov, widely regarded as the world's greatest chess player, was defeated by Deep Blue, a computer. But how much did that...
Are things only worth what people are willing to pay for them? Tim Harford explains why a method of buying and selling that originated in an...
From reliable water supplies to large-scale electricity generation, the benefits brought by dams can be huge. But so can the problems. Tim H...
In the 1630s, the Netherlands experienced 'tulip mania' - a surge in demand for tulips from wealthy buyers, with some individual bulbs costi...
In the early 20th Century, makers of sanitary towels had to find a way to sell an item that some people found too embarrassing to mention. I...
Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's miniature greenhouses made it far easier to successfully transport plants, spreading them far beyond their native l...
There are more than 36,000 McDonald's restaurants around the world - but if the McDonald brothers had had their way, that might never have h...
Surveillance cameras were invented so Nazi scientists could observe rocket launches from a safe distance. They've come a long way since then...
As populations age, pension systems around the world are coming under strain. Governments, employers and economists are searching for ways t...
Why does Father Christmas wear red and white? It's not for the reason you may think. In an updated version of an episode from 2018, Tim Harf...
Women's lives were transformed by sewing machines, which made a "never-ending, ever-beginning task" far less arduous and time-consuming. But...
Data is a hugely profitable commodity - if you know how to process it. Tim Harford tells the story of Herman Hollerith, and how his 19th-cen...
In theory, stock options should motivate executives to perform better by tying their pay to their company's performance. So why do some argu...
Tim Harford goes back to the 1900s to tell the story of how charity fundraising became big business. But in the social media age, what's the...
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication - SWIFT - solved some big problems with international financial transfers, m...
Josiah Wedgwood is arguably the best-known name in the history of pottery - but it's not just his pots that made their mark on history. Tim...
Spectacles have been around for centuries, and have a huge impact on many people's quality of life. So why is it estimated that more than tw...
In 1952, economist William Vickrey devised an innovative system of turnstiles to help solve a major problem on New York’s subway network. It...
How dependent is the world on GPS - and what would happen if it stopped working? Tim Harford explains why it's not just our ability to navig...
In 1881, James Bonsack developed a machine that made it far easier to mass-produce cigarettes. But at the time, other tobacco products were...
When the US outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, it inadvertently created one of the most successful black markets in t...
Arpanet was a computer network developed in the 1960s that paved the way for today's internet. At its heart was the Interface Message Proces...
Developed for the military, dodging bureaucracy and fuelled by venture capital: canned food blazed a trail many of today's biggest tech inno...
Tim Harford tells the story of how Honoré Blanc, a gun-maker in 18th-century France, transformed the way the world manufactures things - but...
The price of oil is arguably the most important in the world economy. How did we become so dependent - and are we ever likely to wean oursel...
It's claimed that some computers can now pass the Turing test: convincing people that they are human. Tim Harford asks how important that di...
Solar power has been harnessed by civilisations since the days of the ancient Greeks, but it's now on the verge of being more important than...
Despite being highly toxic, the roots of the cassava plant are a vital source of nutrition in many countries. They also shed light on the hi...
Humanity's taming of fire may be where the story of economics really begins, some argue. Tim Harford explores how fire has shaped our world...
Radio frequency identification - RFID - is the foundation on which many contactless technologies are built. But is it getting left behind am...
In the mid-19th Century, a man named Rowland Hill got fed up with how Britain's postal service worked, and decided to come up with a new sys...
Rubber is an everyday substance with a controversial past. Tim Harford tells the story of the innovations that made it a hot property, and t...
CubeSat started life as a student engineering challenge: build a satellite that can fit in a little toy box. But now, as Tim Harford explain...
Tim Harford charts the history of the factory, from "dark, Satanic mills" to the sprawling industrial parks where today's consumer goods are...
Billions are being poured into startups working on blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin. Supporters say it could become as disruptive a...
Is the pencil underrated? Tim Harford examines the role pencils have played in developing our world, and finds out why some writers have cal...
Facebook’s 'like' button is ubiquitous across the web. It’s how user data is collected, meaning adverts and newsfeeds can be targeted more e...
The Population Bomb, published by Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich in 1968, predicted that populations would grow more quickly than food supp...
Did pornography help develop the internet? And has the internet made it more difficult for porn producers to make money? From photography, t...
Could recycling to save money be the answer to saving the planet? For decades, wealthy countries have been shipping their waste to China for...
A grid on a computer screen took the world of accountancy by storm in the early 1980s, making many accounting tasks effortless. But should w...
'I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble,' Caesar Augustus apparently boasted. If so, he wasn’t the only person to dismis...
Some say the Montgomery Ward shopping catalogue is one of the most influential books in US history. It transformed the middle-class way of l...
The bicycle was to prove transformative. Cheaper than a horse, it freed women and young working class people to roam free. And the bike was...
The QWERTY keyboard layout has stood the test of time, from the clattering of early typewriters to the virtual keyboard on the screen of any...
The last bonus episode of our new podcast. For more, search for 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter and subscribe. Or find it here: www.bbcworld...