Patented: History of Inventions

It’s perhaps the most overlooked invention of all time. Consigned to a forgotten corner in the basement of history. The Filing Cabinet.Yet the humble Filing Cabinet was at the centre of an information revolution and became critical to the infrastructure of 20th century nation states and businesses. One sign of the deep mark it has left on us are the names we give things on our computers - Files, Folders, Tabs.To help us restore the filing cabinet to its rightful place is Craig Robertson, author of The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information.Produced and edited by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

In the year 2000 Japan was asked what its greatest invention of the twentieth century was. They had a LOT to choose from. The Walkman. The bullet train. Digital Cameras. Pokemon. But the winner was Instant Noodles.Today Dallas learns about Momofuku Ando, the inventor-cum-tax-evader who invented instant noodles. Listen to Dallas’s chat with Barak Kushner, author of “Slurp! A Social and Culinary History of Ramen”, to discover:Who invented the original ramen dish that these noodles are based on;What America’s preparation for a land-invasion of Japan in WWII has to do with the story;and Dallas’s recipe for a curry Pot Noodle sandwich!!!Produced by Freddy Chick, edited by Anisha Deva, Senior Producer is Charlotte LongFor more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store 

At its peak, the BlackBerry was the world’s most popular smartphone with almost 50% of the US market. They were called the ‘CrackBerry’ so many people wanted one. Now they have a 0% share of the market. This is the story of their rise-and-fall.Today on Patented we’re handing over the mic to a podcast we think you’ll like called ‘Today In History…with The Retrospectors’. A podcast where hosts Arion, Rebecca and Olly tell a ten minute story from this day in history in each episode.If you enjoy what you hear then you can discover over 450 episodes over at podfollow.com/retrospectors

If God invented Heaven and Earth, then who invented God? To explain how gods ‘are invented’, how they evolve and why so many seem to have vanished, Dallas is joined by Francesca Stavrakopoulou, author of ‘God: An Anatomy’. They explore the human instinct to create deities and the origins of the God of Abraham, of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Who, it turns out, was once a lowly storm deity with black eyeliner and a pierced ear.Produced by Freddie Chick. Mixed by Benjie Guy. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long.

It’s the most famous bath of all time. But what exactly was Archimedes so excited about?We discover the truth behind the legend of Archimedes, and find out about the industrial revolution that almost happened in Ancient Greece, with today’s guest Armand D’Angour. He’s a Professor of Classics at Oxford University and author of How To Innovate: An Ancient Guide to Creative Thinking.Edited by Joseph Knight. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store 

It turns out that all those times you played Snakes and Ladders (Chutes and Ladders) as a child you were playing a game that once symbolised the whole universe and our place in it. Instead of crying when you landed on a snake you should really have been reflecting upon the nature of reality.Get ready for a story that takes us back through Victorian England, to an India where boardgames were steeped in mysticism, and on to the empty nothingness at the heart of the universe. Leading Dallas down the rabbit hole is the wonderful Jacob Schmidt-Madsen from the University of Copenhagen, a historian of Indian board games and the culture surrounding them.Edited by Stuart Beckwith, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Exactly when, where, how, why our ancient ancestors ‘invented’ farming is one of the great questions of archaeology.Surely if we can answer it we will understand something profound about humanity and the journey we are on.But like all good invention stories, this one isn’t straightforward.Dallas’s guest today is Robert Spengler, director of the Paleoethnobotany Laboratories at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, author of Fruit from the Sands, with an upcoming book about domestication.Edited by Thomas Ntinas, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

Spam Spam Spam, glorious Spam! Who invented Spam Emails? Just how much Spam activity is there online? And how will we survive once Spam AI gets going?Spam has been the nemesis of the internet since its earliest days. And soon AI-powered spambots will force us to radically change our online behaviour if we don’t want to be perpetually duped.Taking us on a tour of the murky world of spammers is Finn Brunton, Professor at UC Davis in Science and Technology Studies and author of the book Spam: a Shadow History of the Internet.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

Fonts are usually invisible to us; we absorb the written word without noticing the medium (unless someone sends you an email in comic sans and then you can’t see past the choice of font!)But every font is a piece of design, created for a specific purpose at a specific point in time. Laden with meanings, some of which we subconsciously absorb when we see it.Today’s guest is Sarah Hyndman, author of Why Fonts Matter and whose company Type Tasting delves into the power that typography has over us.Edited by Joseph Knight, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. 

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.Helping Dallas explore the origins of this blasted test is John Carson, historian and author of The Measure of Merit: Talents, Intelligence, and Inequality in the French and American Republics, 1750-1940.Edited by Joseph Knight, produced by Freddy Chick, senior producer is Charlotte Long.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.