Curated playlist
Ancient inventions
- WatermillIn the 2nd century AD, a French complex at Barbegal ran 16 waterwheels to grind flour.
- ToiletThe word toilet once meant a little cloth draped over the shoulders during hairdressing.
- Roman concreteLime lumps in Roman concrete were once blamed on sloppy mixing, but they help it heal.
- GlassblowingGlassblowing starts when a glassblower exhales into molten glass. That breath inflates it into a bubble.
- Paper moneyPaper money began as receipts for heavy strings of coins in Tang dynasty China. Merchants nicknamed them flying money.
- CompassThe oldest ancestor of the compass was a fortune-telling spoon. Chinese geomancers used it in the second century BC.
- Armillary sphereThe armillary sphere on Portugal's flag began as one prince's personal badge.
- TragedyTragedy takes its name from the Greek words for goat song. A billy goat was reportedly the prize for the first tragedy.
- LeverThree tiny bones in your middle ear work as a chain of levers. They carry sound from the eardrum to the cochlea.
- OrreryA wool carder built a working planet model across his living room ceiling. Eise Eisinga finished it in Franeker in 1781.
- Antikythera mechanismThe Antikythera mechanism sat unrecognized in a museum for two years. A politician then spotted a gear in it.