Patented: History of Inventions

How do we go from wolves to modern dogs? And where do Killer Beavers fit into the story? Humans domesticated wolves long before any other animal (or even any plants). Yet what exactly happened is shrouded in mystery. We cover ancient origins, the explosion of breeds in the Victorian era, and some very strange experiments in Soviet Russia. Dallas’s guest today is Greger Larson, an evolutionary gene...

"Eject! Eject!" Imagine hearing that and the next second flying out into the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, your life in the hands of a chair. Luckily it's a very special chair that has rockets, restraining harnesses, parachutes and more. Today is the story of the invention of Ejector Seats and there's no one better to tell it than John Nichol, who had to eject while on duty in the first Gulf W...

Every second McDonald’s sells 75 hamburgers. It serves 70 million customers each day (more than the population of the UK). All this began at a roadside stand manned by two brothers: Dick and Mac McDonald (no joke). Then along came Ray Kroc who turned the roadside business into a global brand. To hear the origin story of McDonald’s Dallas is joined by Lisa Napoli, author of Ray & Joan : The Man Who...

Who invented the Kitchen? It might seem silly to ask that but there is in fact one kitchen that people point to as the mother-of-all-kitchens. It was built in 1926 in the middle of a German housing crisis, by an architect called Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. It became known simply as the "Frankfurt Kitchen". Dallas is joined by S.E. Eisterer, a historian of architecture who has long been fascinated...

The first ever Pride Flag was 30 ft high and 60 ft wide. A suitably epic beginning for a flag that has had a massive impact on the world. Who design that first flag? Why? And is Judy Garland involved in all this? Dallas is talking to Journalist Jake Hall, author of The Art of Drag . Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original p...

Is the pencil an example of perfect design? What is the greatest pencil of all time? What does a fallen down tree in the Lake District have to do with its invention?  Dallas talks to Caroline Weaver, pencil expert and author of “Pencils You Should Know: A History of the Ultimate Writing Utensil in 75 Anecdotes” about the origins of the pencil. Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Ch...

In Victorian England, a prisoner was promised their freedom if only they could pick a lock... This week on Patented it's the history of locks and the wild stories of the race for perfect security during the Industrial Revolution. Culminating in the Great Lock Controversy of 1851. Dallas's guest is David Churchill, a historian of locks and security at the University of Leeds. Discover the past on H...

Hold onto your lab coats, because the suffragette scientists are here to shake things up! Patricia Fara, author of A Lab of One's Own , joins Dallas to tell the stories of forgotten pioneers of invention during the Suffragette era. Patricia and Dallas also discuss the wider question of why there are so many more men in the history of invention than women (at least in our telling of it). You can ta...

Vulture. Snake. Baboon in a Basket. Get ready for hieroglyphs, history, and hilarity as Dallas talks to Egyptologist Chris Naunton. We discover the mysteries of the Narmer Palette and the birth of hieroglyphs, crack the code with the Rosetta Stone and ponder where Emojis fit into the story. Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long You can take part in our...

Stone Tools are technology 1.0. They’re where it all begins. For millions of years, Stone Tools were our primary piece of technology. At some point we became dependent on them for survival. They became a defining part of what it meant to be human. Dallas's guest today is John Shea, an anthropologist whose latest book is The Unstoppable Human Species: The Emergence of Homo sapiens in Prehistory. Ed...

There's a theory that the invention of paint had something to do with the dawn of humanity. We are on a never-ending quest to create brighter, better colours. From grinding rocks, to crushing bugs, concocting chemicals and now manipulating nanotubes - a mind-boggling array of beautiful pigments and dyes litter our history. Today's guest is Kassia St Clair, author of international bestseller The Se...

Giant mouse ears at the ready, we're off to Disneyland! Hop on board and travel with us inside Walt Disney's mind (for better or for worse). We discover how he came up with the idea, what it all means, and how his dream of a Utopian city led indirectly to the Magic Kingdom. Dallas's guest today is Sabrina Mittermeier, author of 'A Cultural History of Disneyland Theme Parks: Middle Class Kingdoms'....

The 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1974, cost $32 million to create. The largest investment in publishing history. And yet you can now buy the complete set for pennies. Who invented encyclopedias? Who wrote for them? And why did Samuel Taylor Coleridge get so upset about them? Dallas is joined by Simon Garfield, author of All the Knowledge in the World: The Extraordinary...

We live in a world where everything is bugged. We all know we are being monitored. The surprising thing is that this is nothing new. From tapped telegraph wires to bugged Martini olives, Dallas is finding out about the history of Wiretapping with Brian Hochman, author of The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States. Before that though Dallas chats to comedian, writer and masterful...

The most famous chicken nugget of them all, the McDonald’s McNugget, turns 40 this year. So we’re asking, who invented the Chicken Nugget?  Enter food-scientist Robert Baker who came up with them twenty years before the McNugget was even a glimmer in Ronald McDonald's eye. Baker was a poultry alchemist who could turn a chicken into anything he wanted. And he did it all to try to save the chic...

It's Cocktail Hour! In honour of James Bond we ask who invented cocktails? Have they always been a cool thing to drink? And where do horses bottoms fit into things? Dallas' guest today is the pre-eminent historian (and maker) of cocktails David Wondrich, author of 'Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this story, the cart really does come before the horse. Horse transport doesn't begin with people riding around on horses' backs. It starts with the invention of the Chariot. Dallas's guest to explain the origins of horse transport and how it changed the world is William T. Taylor, anthropologist at the University of Boulder and expert on all things ancient horse related. Saddle up partners, it...

Who was the first King of England? Who invented a place called 'England' anyway? And what on earth are the 'bracelets of sincerity'? With coronations in the air Dallas is going back in search of the origins of all things regal with his guest Matt Lewis, host of the History Hit podcast 'Gone Medieval'. If you are not a listener to Gone Medieval yet then go check it out! It's a fantastic show. Edite...

How’s this for a CV? 1821 - invented the Electric Motor. 1831 - invented the Electric Generator. Oh, and I also created the first Electric Transformer, discovered Benzene and liquidised Chlorine.  Michael Faraday is a giant of invention. Here to help Dallas tell the story of how he laid the foundations of the modern world is Frank James, editor of Michael Faraday’s correspondence and author o...

Fast and sleek with a satisfying rumble in the engine. What else could you want from a car? Well, for James Bond, the answer to this question is usually a couple of hidden weapons and some form of camouflage device. For this episode of 'Inventing Bond' - our series marking the 70th anniversary of Fleming's Bond - Dallas is joined by Jason Barlow, author of 'Bond Cars: The Definitive Guide'. We als...

The Book. It’s the most powerful object in history (sorry Sword fans). But how did it come to be? And what was wrong with good old scrolls in the first place? Dallas is joined by Keith Houston, author of The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time to unpack the story of how the book came to be. Edited by Siobhan Dale, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is...

Dagger shoes, Lipstick gas grenade, Razor rimmed hat, Milk bottle Grenade…Prosthetic Nipple. We’re continuing our exploration of the inventions that have made Bond, James Bond. This time it’s gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. Dallas talks to Andre Millard, author of Equipping James Bond , about the role of inventions in the Bond books and films. And to Andrew Hammond, curator of the Spy Museum in Washing...

Get ready for the story of how the telegraph went from a long line of monks holding hands to a technology that straddled the earth. One which foreshadowed the internet in many strange ways, from online dating to fraud. Dallas’s guest is Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet : The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers and deputy editor of The Econo...

Well before Bond was lasering and limboing himself out of fictional situations, these were the questions faced by the British forces trying to repatriate prisoners of war during the Second World War. In this episode, we explore the solutions that they came up with. Dallas is joined by Helen Fry, author of MI9: Escape and Evasion , to find out who the inventive 'Clutty' was, and how he managed to g...

Why did Sigmund Freud want a vasectomy at 67 years old? Why were goat gonads all the rage in the 1920s? Who was the first person to get the snip? Today we're handing over the mic to our sister podcast at History Hit - "Betwixt the Sheets" - to bring you the weird history of vasectomies. Host Kate Lister is joined by Georgia Grainger ( https://twitter.com/sniphist ) to discuss the vasectomy’s place...