Articles about the origins of everyday objects
In 1959, Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seatbelt, and the company made the patent freely available. From how an aircraft ejection seat engineer came to design a car safety device, to decades of resistance against wearing them and the legislative battles that followed.
A Viking steering oar on the right side of a ship, a confusing similarity between 'larboard' and 'starboard', and a 1972 document by internet pioneers — these three moments connect into one story explaining why we board planes from the left and why your computer has network ports.
From the feathered fans found in Tutankhamun's tomb to Leonardo da Vinci's aerial screw sketch and the Wright brothers' airfoil propellers, this is the story of how humans learned to move air—and how that idea reshaped power, flight, and the sea.
The image of ancient humans as cave-dwellers is largely a myth born of archaeological bias. From mammoth-bone structures in Ukraine to hunter-gatherers who built stone temples before farming, the origins of architecture tell a far stranger and more compelling story.
In 1851, a lock that had remained unpickable for 61 years was finally opened at London's Great Exhibition. From ancient Egyptian wooden pin locks to Yale's cylinder lock, combination locks, and smart locks — explore 6,000 years of the arms race between those who lock and those who pick.