Patented: History of Inventions

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Toilets Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

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 toilet bowl of history as they uncover the origins of the flush toilet.

Listen in to find out how Queen Elizabeth’s naughty cousin tried to win back her favour, why sewers don’t smell as bad as we think, and what a condom filled with miso paste has to do with all this.

Edited by Aidan Lonergan, produced by Freddy Chick, senior producer is Charlotte Long.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Caesarean section Jan 22, 2023

Show notes

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 a story about how the law of unintended consequences led to Caesarean Section becoming the world’s most common major surgery.

Our guest today is Jackie Wolf, is a historian of medicine and author of Caesarean Section: An American History of Risk, Technology, and Consequence. She’s also a repeat guest on Patented. Go back and check out her episode on Baby Formula if you haven’t heard it.

WARNING: This episode contains descriptions of childbirth and the death of a baby during childbirth.

Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sawing Someone in Half Trick Jan 18, 2023

Show notes

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 iconic magic trick of all - Sawing Someone In Half.

It turns out that Dallas is something of a magician himself and has been fascinated by the history of magic for a long time. And Jim, author of Hiding the Elephant and many other books on magic, is something of a hero.

Edited by Joseph Knight, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

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Levi's Jeans Jan 15, 2023

Show notes

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 & Co.

How did Levi’s jeans come to be? Why are there a pair of horses on the label? What’s with the tiny rivets on all the pockets? And why are they called ‘501s’?

Find out on today’s episode of Patented with our guest Tracey Panek, historian for Levi Strauss & Co.

Produced by Freddy Chick, Editing and Sound Design by Thomas Ntinas, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

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Sex (and the fish who invented it) Jan 11, 2023

Show notes

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 is Australian palaeontologist John Long, author of The Dawn of the Deed.

Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior producer is Charlotte Long.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Plastic Jan 08, 2023

Show notes

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. But it didn’t take long for things to get out of hand.

In this episode we trace the story of plastic past, present and future by way of three inventions.

The invention of plastics
The dawn of disposable plastic culture
The possibly new creatures that will emerge in response to the vast amounts of plastic littering the earth

Our guest today is Heather Davis, professor of media and culture and the New School in New York. She’s pondered these questions for a long time and her book, Plastic Matter, looks at how plastics change our way of life.

Produced by Freddy Chick, edited by Thomas Ntinas, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Open Plan Office Jan 04, 2023

Show notes

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 Plan was supposed to create the offices that the egalitarian, free-thinking children of that revolution would want to work in.

The Open Plan Office was supposed to do away with stultifying hierarchies of post-war offices (think Mad Men). To give workers the flexibility to be their best selves and to allow the free flow of ideas.

Oh how the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry!

Here to tell the story is Jennifer Kaufmann Buhler, a design historian and author of the book Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office.

Produced by Freddy Chick, edited by Joseph Knight, senior producer is Charlotte Long

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Timekeeping Dec 28, 2022

Show notes

Today we’re bringing you an episode from Dan Snow’s History Hit. Normal 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 begin? From Roman sundials to mediaeval water-clocks, people of all cultures have made and used clocks for thousands of years. Dan speaks to horologist, historian and former curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, David Rooney, about the importance of time, and what clocks can tell us about the history of human civilisation. David’s book, About Time: A History of Civilisation in Twelve Clocks, is out now.

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Christmas Crackers Dec 21, 2022

Show notes

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 Christmas Cracker ever made

🧑‍🎄Learn what makes the “CRACK”!

Produced by Freddy Chick, senior producer is Charlotte Long

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Monopoly Dec 18, 2022

Show notes

There’s so many versions of Monopoly these days. Which one is the original? London? No. Atlantic City? Uh uh. The original had property names like ‘Poverty Place’ and ‘La Swell Hotel’ and was designed as an anti-Capitalist game.

Our guest to tell the story of Lizzie Magie, the real inventor of the game we now know as Monopoly, is David Parlett a games historian and inventor.

And don’t all rush off to play Monopoly at the end because we’ve got a special update to one of our previous episodes.

After news that US scientists had made a breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion Power we got Arthur Turrell, author of The Starbuilders, back on to update us on what’s happened.

If you’ve not listened to our amazing episode all about the race to conquer Nuclear Fusion Power then go back to October and check it out.

Produced and edited by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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