Season 4

2006-01-01 · 30m

With industrialisation, there were more mouths in towns and cities to feed and fewer men left to work the land. So how did food production keep up?

2006-01-01 · 30m

How did the building trade keep up with the demand for materials during the expansion of the Industrial Revolution, and what do oranges have to do with it?

2006-01-01 · 30m

Cities were traditionally developed around water until the railway age expanded their boundaries. As the population grew, how did they cope?

2006-01-01 · 30m

For centuries craftsmen and women turned natural fibres into clothes. Ronald Topp explores what happened when machines began to replace manual labour.

2006-01-01 · 30m

Eiffel was the world's greatest exponent of the use of iron in construction, creating the his famous Tower in 1889. How did engineering in iron reach such heights?

2006-01-01 · 30m

Ronald Top examines the beginnings of motor cars. Benz and Daimler were early pioneers, but prior to that there were attempts at steam-powered road vehicles.

2006-01-01 · 30m

Flight has always been humanity's dream. Ronald Top discovers that thanks to some paper thrown onto a fire, a duck, a cock and a sheep, it was made possible.

2006-01-01 · 30m

Ronald Topp investigates the new techniques and ways of working that turned local potteries into an international industry.

2006-01-01 · 30m

Ronald Top examines how railways conquered the mountains, with a little help from George Stevenson. He's in the Alps to see how funicular railways work.

2006-01-01 · 30m

Waterways are flourishing in Europe, but how is it that a system designed for 17th-century trade is still viable in the 21st? Ronald Topp finds out.