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A drawing of a city skyline filled with skyscrapers.

The Man Who Saved the Skyscraper

Fazlur Khan and the idea that would turn architecture on its head.
by Nick Greene via Mental Floss on July 21, 2024
Diagram and article about Dunlap Creek Bridge

Tom Paine’s Bridge

We do not often think of Paine as a revolutionary inventor. But in a very real sense, that is what he believed himself to be.
by Edward G. Gray via Commonplace on April 16, 2020

Reversing a River: How Chicago Flushed its Human Waste Downstream

In 1906, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Chicago to move forward with a spectacularly disgusting feat of modern engineering.
by Gregory D. Smithers via We're History on February 18, 2020
Street sign for Flatville, surrounded by flat agricultural fields.

The View from the Middle of Everything

Dispatches From Flatville, Illinois.
by Kristin L. Hoganson via Literary Hub on April 25, 2019
Aerial map showing New Orleans and steamboats on the Mississippi River.

How Humans Sank New Orleans

Engineering put the Crescent City below sea level. Now, its future is at risk.
by Richard Campanella via The Atlantic on February 6, 2018
A very large American home with three garages.

The Invention that Accidentally Made McMansions

How gang-nail plates led to bigger homes.
by Stewart Hicks via YouTube on December 12, 2024
Charles F. Ritchell and his flying machine.

25 Years Before the Wright Brothers Took to the Skies, This Flying Machine Captivated America

First exhibited in 1878, Charles F. Ritchel's dirigible was about as wacky, dangerous and impractical as any airship ever launched.
by Erik Ofgang via Smithsonian on June 11, 2024
Amtrak trains sitting on tracks at a rail yard.
partner

America Doesn't Deserve Fast Trains

For 70 years, the U.S. has failed to achieve faster trains—because it refuses to do what it takes to make them work.
by David Alff via Made By History on December 11, 2023
The cult-like aesthetic of technocracy, 1942.

Margaret Mead, Technocracy, and the Origins of AI's Ideological Divide

The anthropologist helped popularize both techno-optimism and the concept of existential risk.
by Benjamin Breen via Res Obscura on November 21, 2023
A modern paper map of Boston, marked with Sharpie lines.

Boston's Map, Explained

Boston has more "made" land than any other American city.
by Daniel Steiner via YouTube on October 26, 2023
AR-15 trigger, with banner of AR-15 on Confederate monument behind

How the AR-15 Became an American Brand

The rifle is a consumer product to which advertisers successfully attached an identity—one that has translated to a particularly intractable politics.
by Emily Witt via The New Yorker on September 27, 2023
Venable Mound, Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, built ca. 700–1200 CE.

Monuments Upon the Tumultuous Earth

For thousands of years, Indigenous societies were building hundred-foot pyramids along the Mississippi River.
by Boyce Upholt via Emergence Magazine on March 23, 2023
A boat makes a morning trip through the Erie Canal in Rochester, New York, October 2021.

A Brief History of the Erie Canal

The waterway opened up the heartland to trade, transforming small hamlets into industrial centers.
by Nick Yetto via Smithsonian on February 14, 2023
Six frames of a rider on his horse going through the motions of trotting.

Palo Alto’s First Tech Giant Was a Horse Farm

The region has been in the disruption business for nearly 150 years.
by Malcolm Harris via The Atlantic on February 8, 2023
Bill Clinton presenting the V-chip, 1996.

Cold Controls

“National security” and the history of US export controls.
by Ella Coon via Phenomenal World on January 18, 2023
Lillian Gilbreth lecturing at Purdue University.

Recognizing the Humanity of the Worker

Lillian Gilbreth, who died just over fifty years ago, saw that the worker could not be understood as a cog in the machine.
by Richard Gunderman via Law & Liberty on January 12, 2023
Khalifa International Stadium near Doha, Qatar.

Qatar, the World Cup & the Echoes of History

How stadiums in Qatar connect to a bridge in Kentucky and a dam in West Virginia.
by Jason Steinhauer via History Club on December 4, 2022
A 1955 AT&T publicity photo shows [in palm, from left] a phototransistor, a junction transistor, and a point-contact transistor.

How the First Transistor Worked

Even its inventors didn’t fully understand the point-contact transistor.
by Glenn Zorpette via IEEE Spectrum on November 20, 2022
The Ashokan Reservoir in upstate New York at sunset.

The Towns at the Bottom of New York City’s Reservoirs

A new book uncovers the story of New York’s pursuit of water, and the homes and communities destroyed in the process.
by Robert Sullivan via The New Republic on November 10, 2022
A girl sits on a cot as she floats it across a flooded street in Baluchistan province on Oct. 4.
partner

A History of U.S. Interference Worsened Pakistan’s Devastating Floods

Development aid targeted for water as an economic and technical matter had environmental and financial consequences.
by Maira Hayat via Made By History on October 12, 2022
Two DJs, DJ Aladdin on the left.

Scratch Cyborgs: The Hip-Hop DJ as Technology

Hip-hop DJ culture provides a rich site for exploring how culture and industry can converge and collaborate, as well as how they need each other to move forward.
by André Sirois via The MIT Press Reader on September 22, 2022
Picture of four men holding a model B-52 plane, in front of backdrop of two aircrafts.

The B-52 Was Designed In A Hotel Room Over One Weekend (And Will Probably Fly For 100 Years)

The B-52’s prolific service career spans not only decades and conflicts, but eras of aviation.
by Alex Hollings via Sandboxx on September 13, 2022
Drawing depicting Buckminster Fuller in front of a dome

Buckminster Fuller’s Greatest Invention

His vision of a tech-optimized future inspired a generation. But his true talent was for burnishing his own image.
by Rebecca Onion via The New Republic on August 19, 2022
Black and white photo of pedestrian and vehicle traffic in Los Angeles

When Cities Treated Cars as Dangerous Intruders

To many urban Americans in the 1920s, the car and its driver were tyrants that deprived others of their freedom.
by Peter Norton via The MIT Press Reader on July 25, 2022
Illustration of screens, electronics, and sound waves.

The Hidden History of Screen Readers

For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs.
by Sheon Han via The Verge on July 14, 2022

Why Roller Coaster Loops Aren’t Circular Anymore

Just over 100 years ago, loop-the-loops were painful, not sturdy, and much more dangerous than they are today.
by Edward Vega via Vox on June 29, 2022
Henry Ford on an early tractor.

American Power Pull

The farm tractor wasn’t born overnight. Perfecting it led to a three-way battle between Ford, John Deere and International Harvester.
by Michael Taube via The Wall Street Journal on December 29, 2021
Magazine illustration depicting fantastical inventions for travel on water, land, and air, titled March of Intellect, by William Heath, c. 1828.

A Utopia of Useful Things

On the nineteenth-century artists and thinkers who pictured a future of abundance powered by steam.
by Michael Rawson via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 24, 2021
birds eye view of an intersecting highway with a speeding car

How America Broke the Speed Limit

How we wound up with the worst of both worlds: thousands of speed-related deaths, and a system of enforcement that is both ineffective and inescapable.
by Henry Grabar via Slate on December 15, 2021
Split image - half a 1980s computer, other half a modern laptop; on the screen for both, an hourglass icon that symbolizes loading.

54 Years Ago, a Computer Programmer Fixed a Massive Bug — and Created an Existential Crisis

A blinking cursor follows us everywhere in the digital world, but who invented it and why?
by Sarah Wells via Inverse on December 3, 2021
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