A Brief History of Failure

New Reasonings. From hopeless efforts to agree on a location for zero degrees longitude to a failure to support the discovery of X-rays, humanity is careering towards global war at the end of the end of the 19th Century...and it's little wonder.

The Age of Reform. From 1830 to 1850, people were doing some remarkably stupid things to ensure social reform continued to drive forward. From the unwanted release of cartographers by the Abolitionists to suffragettes storming courthouses in turkey costumes, the great awakening had its share of hopeless failure.

Science and Stamps. At beginning of the 19th century, science was all the rage but the ability to confirm the simplest of things such as the mass of Planet Earth or concoct a rudimentary chemical fertiliser seemed beyond the wit of most cretins.

The Renaissance. From mankind's early disasters circumnavigating the globe to misguided revolutionary tactics in both America and France as the lunatics take over the asylum.

Anno Domini. From the tribute acts failing to follow the deeds of Queen Boudicca to the inept cures for the Black Death, episode 2 spotlights worrisome failures across the Middle Ages.

Early Art. The earliest artistic failures in Persian caves around 200,000 BC were subject to some of the harshest critical acclaim.