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Pushkin Industries

We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable lessons, but these Cautionary Tales are for the education of the grown ups – and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of “The Data Detective”) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, and hilarious fiascos. They'll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser. New episodes every Friday.

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

When the Luddites smashed factory frames in a bid to defend their craft and livelihoods, the machines came out on top. Today, AI and automation threaten to wipe out skilled jobs and flood us with inferior products at a fraction of the price: is history going to repeat itself? FT journalist and author of We Are Not Machines Sarah O'Connor joins Tim to discuss her findings from the front lines about the future of work. Which professions are most at risk, and is there anything workers can do about it? 
 
See the show notes at TimHarford.com
 
Sarah's book, "We Are Not Machines: The Fight for the Future of Work", is available here (UK) and for pre-order here (US). 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LIVE: We Are Not Machines - with Sarah O'Connor

The children of North End, Boston, play in the shadow of an enormous steel tank of molasses. The thick, sticky sugar syrup is being used to make munitions for the First World War. When a worker notices dark molasses seeping from the tank he warns the company that there could be a leak. But the man in charge, Arthur Jell, has more important things to worry about: schedules to meet and profits to make. Besides, it's only sugar. How dangerous could it be?
 
For the sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Treacle Tears: The Boston Molasses Disaster

In the early 1900s, Sir Arthur Vickers keeps the magnificent Irish Crown Jewels safe under lock and key at Dublin Castle. When the jewels disappear, the King rages, the police investigate, and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gets involved. No one is ever charged and no jewels are ever recovered. Except, we have a very good idea of who took them, and why the truth has stayed buried. 
 
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Thief, the Jewels, and the Dublin Castle Conspiracy

When John Darwin walks into a shop in London, it causes an instant stir. After all, John Darwin has been dead for five years. He claims to have amnesia, but everyone - from the police and the media to his insurance company - suspects he is lying. No one can prove a thing, until a young woman at home with her baby thinks of something everyone else has missed. 
 
For the show notes, see timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Dunning Canoe-ger Effect

This episode comes to you from the new series of This is History, the podcast which tells the story of the Plantagenet Dynasty. Historian Dan Jones takes you through 300 years of calamities, wars and rebellions that marked the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of the Tudor Dynasty. This is the first episode of the tenth series, where you'll meet 13-year-old Margaret Beaufort and her newborn, Henry Tudor. 
 
Listen to This is History wherever you get your podcasts. If you are a member of our Cautionary Club, you can listen ad-free with a month's free membership to their Patreon. Look out for the gift link on our Patreon. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Presenting...This is History: A Dynasty to Die For

As Governor of Britannia, Magnus Maximus has a huge army at his disposal, which is just what he needs to secure the Roman imperial throne. But perhaps the impressive general should have looked into the past before focusing on his future. Tim is joined by Paul Cooper, host of Fall of Civilizations Podcast, to explore why powerful civilizations such as the Assyrians, the Han dynasty and the Roman Empire all ultimately collapsed.
 
Paul Cooper is the author of Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline. For a full list of show notes, see timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How Civilizations Die - with Paul Cooper

It’s D-Day and the Allies are about to invade Nazi-occupied France. For the landings to succeed, American soldiers on Omaha Beach will have to break through some formidable coastal defences - Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. Sherman tanks will come in very handy - and the Allies have come up with a novel solution for getting them to the beach. These tanks will swim. Everyone from Winston Churchill down thought swimming tanks were a great idea… but were they? 
 
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at ⁠timharford.com⁠

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can You Make a Sherman Tank Float?

Thomas Midgley's inventions caused his own death, hastened the deaths of millions of people around the world, and very nearly extinguished all life on land. 
 
Midgley and his employers didn't set out to poison the air with leaded gasoline or wreck the ozone layer with CFCs - but while these dire consequences were unintended... could they have been anticipated?
 
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Inventor who Almost Ended the World (Classic)

We usually bring you failures of the past, but today we're sharing an episode from someone who uncovers failures as they happen. Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist and the host of Drilled, a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach.
 
Drilled's latest season, Carbon Cowboys, examines a group of people who've turned climate policy into a profit engine. In September 2025, a group of Brazilian government ministers flew to North Dakota to watch a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into “the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels.” It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota.
 
Here's episode 1 of Drilled: Carbon Cowboys. Find Drilled wherever you get podcasts and hear episodes early and ad-free with a Pushkin+ subscription. Sign up on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Drilled: The Carbon Gold Rush

Part Two: When Tudor polymath John Dee meets a man who claims he can speak with angels, his path to understanding the universe suddenly becomes clear. At their instruction, the pair begin searching for the fabled philosopher's stone. But the angels grow increasingly demanding, and soon Dee must confront a terrible ultimatum.
 
Centuries later, a strange incident in a French town suggests that angels may still be with us.
 
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How Civilizations Die - with Paul Cooper

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