logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2023
10m 58s

Black Metallurgists, Iron And The Indust...

NPR
About this episode
The ability to create wrought iron cheaply has been called one of the most significant innovations in the British Industrial Revolution. It's known today as the Cort process, named after British banker Henry Cort, who patented the technique. But Dr. Jenny Bulstrode, a historian at University College London (UCL), found that Cort stole the innovation from 76 Black enslaved ironworkers in Jamaica.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy
Up next
Yesterday
Meet the Third Ever (!!) Interstellar Comet
A rare visitor from another star system has been spotted: the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS! It was detected July 1 by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS. Most known comets orbit the Sun and are bound by the gravity of the solar system ... but t ... Show More
8m 43s
Jul 9
Evolution Went On Trial 100 Years Ago. Where Are We Now?
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" — where a teacher was charged with the crime of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. At the time, it was illegal in Tennessee to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creatio ... Show More
12m 37s
Jul 8
Itchy? Air Pollution May Be Making It Worse
Short Wave producer Hannah Chinn has adult-onset eczema. They're not the only one. Up to ten percent of people in the United States have it, according to the National Eczema Association — and its prevalence is increasing. Despite its ubiquity, a lot about this skin condition rema ... Show More
13m 11s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2010
The Industrial Revolution
In the first of two programmes, Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Industrial Revolution.Between the middle of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, Britain was transformed. This was a revolution, but not a political one: over the course of a few gene ... Show More
42m 16s
Mar 2011
The Iron Age
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the dawn of the European Iron Age.In around 3000 BC European metalworkers started to make tools and weapons out of bronze. A complex trading network evolved to convey this valuable metal and other goods around the continent. But two millennia l ... Show More
41m 56s
Mar 2024
Women inventors
Datshiane Navanayagam meets two engineers who want more women to become inventors. Roma Agrawal is best known for her work on The Shard, the UK’s tallest building. She’s also the author of Nuts & Bolts, a book which explores the history of seven tiny but fundamental inventions th ... Show More
27m 9s
Oct 2016
John Dalton
The scientist John Dalton was born in North England in 1766. Although he came from a relatively poor Quaker family, he managed to become one of the most celebrated scientists of his age. Through his work, he helped to establish Manchester as a place where not only products were m ... Show More
45m 40s
Dec 2010
Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the far-reaching consequences of the Industrial Revolution. After more than a century of rapid technological change, and the massive growth of its urban centres, Britain was changed forever. Lifestyles changed as workers moved from agricultural ... Show More
42m 16s
Jun 2024
Unstoppable: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the engineer ... Show More
26m 28s
Sep 2023
How to fight a patent pirate
Back in the 1990s, Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar was in his office in New Delhi when he came across a puzzling story in the newspaper. Some university scientists in the U.S. had apparently filed a patent for using turmeric to help heal wounds. Mashelkar was shocked, because he knew tha ... Show More
25m 18s
Jul 2023
Myanmar plunges into even greater violence warns UN
Calls for nations to stop supplying military rulers with foreign weapons. Also: The company that operated the submersible that imploded on a trip to the Titanic, killing everyone on board, has suspended all activities, and how a pioneering iron making technique that helped forge ... Show More
31m 35s
Feb 2015
The Wealth of Nations
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Adam Smith's celebrated economic treatise The Wealth of Nations. Smith was one of Scotland's greatest thinkers, a moral philosopher and pioneer of economic theory whose 1776 masterpiece has come to define classical economics. Based on his caref ... Show More
46m 5s
Apr 2023
Richard Sharp Resignationcast
The BBC chairman Richard Sharp has resigned after a report found he broke transparency rules over his dealings with Boris Johnson ahead of his appointment. Adam is joined by culture and media editor, Katie Razzall, and whitehall editor at the Sunday Times, Gabriel Pogrund, who un ... Show More
30m 40s