Patented: History of Inventions
By History Hit
This podcast investigates the curious history of invention and innovation. Did Thomas Edison take credit for things he didn’t actually invent? What everyday items have surprising origins? And would man have ever got to the moon without… the bra?
Each episode host Dallas Campbell dives into stories of flukey discoveries, erased individuals and merky marketing ploys with the help of experts, scientists and historians.
Expect new episodes every Wednesday and Sunday.
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Latest episode
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The IQ Test
How would you feel if you found out you had a very high or a very low IQ? Would it change you? The IQ test has an awful allure to it. A single number that ranks your mental ability against everyone else’s, for better or for worse.Helpin… -
Toilets
It’s time to talk about the toilet, or crapper, or bog, or the john, head, the comfort station, khazi, dunny, can, throne, pissoir.Join Dallas and his guest, Rose George - author of The Big Necessity, on a trip down the to… -
Caesarean section
A hundred years ago next to no one was born via Caesarean Section. Today, one in five new arrivals on planet earth come via a Caesarean. Its meteoric rise is down to an invention most people won’t know. The Foetal Heart Monitor.This is … -
Sawing Someone in Half Trick
When this trick was first performed, ushers poured buckets of blood down the gutter outside the theatre to entice people into the macabre spectacle. Today Dallas is joined by Jim Steinmeyer to talk about the invention and development of the most i… -
Levi's Jeans
150 years ago a patent was lodged for the first ever pair of jeans (what we’d think of as jeans today at least). There were two names on it. One was the inventor Jacob Davis. The other was the company he was going into business with: Levi Strauss … -
Sex
250 million years ago the armour-plated Placoderm fish invented the act of sex as we know it. Hubba Hubba. Dive in the historical sack as we go in search of the origins of nature’s greatest ever invention.Dallas’s guest on this episode … -
Plastic
You can argue that plastics were invented to save nature from human depredation…that plan backfired a bit!Early plastics were designed as substitutes for scarce natural products like ivory and shellac or the shells of endangered snails.… -
Open Plan Office
The Open Plan Office. A little bit of you might die inside every time you hear those words. But we promise you the history of how they came to be is worth hearing.Born at the same time as the counter cultural revolution of the 60s, Open… -
Timekeeping
Today we’re bringing you an episode from Dan Snow’s History Hit. Normally Patented service will resume in the New Year.Accurate timekeeping is at the very root of all of the technological advances in the modern world, but how did it all… -
Christmas Crackers
Ho ho ho! Come with us on a Christmas tale of invention as we talk to the world’s only Christmas Cracker historian, Peter Kimpton of Norwich.🎄Hear about Tom Smith the inventor of the Christmas Cracker🎁Discover the strangest Chris…