History Professor Jonathan Rees joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about the Industrial Revolution. Why did coal miners take canaries into the mines? What caused The Great Smog in London (1952)? What are the most important inventions to come from the Industrial Revolution? Answers to these questions and many more await on Industrial Revolution Support.

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00:00 – Industrial Revolution Support
00:13 – Spinning yarn and saving time since 1764
01:01 – 1700s: Steam engines. 2026: Prompt engines.
02:16 – The miner’s choir
02:36 – Stow, pick, pack, repeat
03:59 – Productivity? High. Visibility? Zero.
04:44 – The Eric Williams argument
05:10 – Move it or lose it, punk
06:31 – Bring your child to work day
07:28 – All hail King Ludd
08:09 – The Henry Ford effect
08:49 – Bessemer’s world, we’re just living in it
09:53 – Rudder-to-rudder during rush hour
10:50 – “Any color you like, as long as it’s black.”
11:26 – Factories, fossil fuels and Fortune 500s
12:53 – The epicenter of the Industrial Revolution
13:31 – The mass production glow-up
14:14 – The weaver’s lament
16:27 – Crop it like it’s hot
17:33 – 4 eras, 1 seismic shift in civilization

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Architect Riyad Joucka believes your home should be a mirror of who you are. Using 3D printing and ancient architectural wisdom, he’s designing efficient, personal homes that respond to context, climate and culture without sacrificing character. He makes the case that we should start designing for people, not the market. (Recorded at TED@BCG on October 23, 2025)

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On one hand, US-based, Black-founded startups have already raised $643M, 70% of what was raised in the entirety of last year.

But dig a little deeper into the numbers, and you’ll find that in the words of Crunchbase’s head of research: “…data has shown a persistent decline in funding to Black-founded companies that outpaces the overall decline in startup funding.”