Five great inventions that changed the world
The History Hour14 Jul 2023

Five great inventions that changed the world

Max Pearson presents a selection of this week’s Witness History stories.

In 1999, Aibo: the world's first robot dog, hit the shops in Japan and sold out in just 20 minutes.

We hear from Toshitada Doi who spent six years on the project when he worked at Sony. Plus we hear from Dr Ella Haig about the development of artificial intelligence.

Japanese software developer Shigetaka Kurita created the first emoji in 1999.

Valerie Hunter Gordon, from England, invented disposable nappies in 1947 after the birth of her third child. We hear from Valerie’s son, Nigel Hunter Gordon.

Hungarian journalist László Bíró was sick of smudging the ink from his fountain pen and so he invented the ballpoint pen in 1938.

Finally, a Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik invented what's known as the Rubik's Cube.

Contributors:

Toshitada Doi on developing Aibo: The world's first robot dog Dr Ella Haig, Reader in Artificial Intelligence, in the School of Computing at the University of Portsmouth in the UK Japanese software developer Shigetaka Kurita, who created the first emoji Nigel Hunter Gordon, the son of Valerie Hunter Gordon, on disposable nappies Hungarian journalist László Bíró, the inventor of the ballpoint pen Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik's Cube

(Photo: The original Aibo. Credit: Jun Sato/WireImage via Getty Images)

Episoder(470)

The Good Friday Agreement

The Good Friday Agreement

In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war. We hear from Paul Murphy, the junior minister for Northern Ireland at the time. Plus, a cross-community choir in Bosnia and women pioneers from the worlds of finance and oceanography.PHOTO: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) pose with the mediator

31 Mar 201850min

The Battle of the Airwaves in Latin America

The Battle of the Airwaves in Latin America

Why the BBC started broadcasting to South and Central America, plus the My Lai Massacre, Brazil's careful transition to democracy, and Moscow's show trials in the 1930s.Photo: Members of the BBC's Brazil service rehearsing in a London studio in 1943. Credit: BBC.

17 Mar 201850min

Deaf Rights Protest

Deaf Rights Protest

A landmark protest by deaf students in the US; the early fight for women's reproductive rights; the life and times of political thinker, Hannah Arendt; language and history in Azerbaijan, and Wonder Woman.Picture: Student protestors, courtesy of Gallaudet University in Washington DC

10 Mar 201850min

China's Barefoot Doctors

China's Barefoot Doctors

How China's barefoot doctor scheme revolutionised rural healthcare; plus M*A*S*H, the ground-breaking American TV show that taught a generation about war; the assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme; the German and Russian soldiers who fought on the Eastern Front in the First World War; and the Angel of the North, a huge steel sculpture that has become an icon for the north-east of England.Picture: Gordon Liu

3 Mar 201851min

The Boy in the Bubble

The Boy in the Bubble

How a young boy lived with a rare genetic disorder; plus "Ghana Must Go" - when 1 million Africans were expelled from Nigeria, battling the last major smallpox epidemic in India, reporting the Jimmy Swaggart scandal and the story behind the acclaimed novel "Infinite Jest" (Photo: David Vetter and his mother Carol-Ann Demaret Credit: Carol-Ann Demaret)

24 Feb 201849min

Women's Rights In Iran

Women's Rights In Iran

We hear from Mahnaz Afkhami, Iran's first ever minister for Women's Affairs, appointed in 1975. Plus, the so-called "headscarf revolutionaries" who fought for improvements in Britain's notoriously dangerous fishing industry, a member of the Viet Cong recalls one of the biggest battles of the Vietnam War, finding the lost notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the 1970s lesbian separatist movement in America.Photo: Mahnaz Afkhami at the UN in 1975. (Mahnaz Afkhami)

17 Feb 201850min

The Munich Air Disaster

The Munich Air Disaster

The plane crash that killed eight of Manchester United's top players, the courage of the British Suffragettes, uncovering South Africa's nuclear secrets, plus tracking down Nazis in South America and the attack on a South Korean airliner ahead of the Seoul Olympics.(Photo: Plane wreckage at Munich airport - AFP/Getty Images)

10 Feb 201850min

The Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive

In January 1968, North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong guerrillas launched a huge surprise attack on towns, cities and military bases across South Vietnam. The events of the Tet offensive had a profound impact on American public opinion and marked a turning point in the war. Plus the roots of the Rohingya crisis, the birth of gospel music, Ireland's Bloody Sunday, and the end of corporal punishment in Britain.Photo: Julian Pettifer reporting under fire near the Presidential Palace in Saigon, 31st January 1968 (BBC)

3 Feb 201850min

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