Sinking the Global Economy: The Lloyds of London Story Part II
In the 1980s, Lloyds of London insured satellites, rock singers' voices and the legs of sports stars. Everyone was having fun and making money - but disaster was just around the corner. Lloyds had al...
15 Apr 39min
The Insurers Who ALWAYS Paid Out: The Lloyds of London Story Part I
Edward Lloyd opened a coffee shop near the River Thames in the 1680s - it became a place where ship owners and money men rubbed shoulders and a trade in marine insurance sprang up. The coffee-drinkin...
8 Apr 32min
Betting on Taylor Swift or Who'll Be Made Pope: The Past and Present of Prediction Markets
A live mash-up between Business History and Bloomberg's Everybody's Business. On platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket you can bet on just about anything - from Taylor Swift's album sales to whether Pr...
25 Mar 36min
Bowie, McCartney & Michael Jackson: How Songwriters Learned to Play Hardball
Once if you wrote a hit song there was no guarantee it would make you rich. So songwriters formed a cartel - the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. ASCAP started suing concert hall...
18 Mar 45min
How GM Beat Ford
Ford was the pre-eminent American car maker and Henry Ford was the king of modern manufacturing, until a Michigan cigar salesman decided to consolidate a bunch of small auto companies into a single fi...
11 Mar 36min
Henry Ford Invented the Modern World... Then Got Left Behind
Farm boy Henry Ford hated toil. If only someone could invent ways to work more efficiently, as well as cheap, reliable machines to take some of the strain. Ford was a tinkerer and a lover of the newly...
4 Mar 50min
War, Exploration and Beer: How the Tin Can Changed the World
Old-fashioned ways of preserving food made for salty, vinegary or chewy meals - but it was often a choice between that or starving. Soldiers, explorers and ordinary people alike faced malnutrition and...
25 Feb 57min
The War on The A&P: When America Decided Cheap Groceries Were "Evil"
Mom and Pops grocery stores were charming, but inefficient. They contributed to Americans either spending a lot on their food or having to go hungry. The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company changed...
18 Feb 48min
