"Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker--a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable...

This episode examines how Britain's Industrial Revolution created the modern world with inventors such as James Watt and George Stevenson improving the steam engines and railways. Trade with China was opened up, albeit illegally with the Chinese Opium Wars at the ports of Guangzhou. Following in Britain footsteps, in Russia social change was underway when Count Leo Tolstoy attempted to free his serfs at his Yasnaya Polyana Estate. However, they were...

"The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother's husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects...

The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods. The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines--on punishment of death--and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction....

Sparked by the Industrial Revolution, a wave of migrants flood the United States. One-third of the entire population of Norway and Sweden migrate to America, transforming the Pacific Northwest.

During the Great Depression, the U.S. government detained and deported almost 2 million Mexican American citizens and people of Mexican descent, in an initiative known as the Repatriation Drives.

It began as a protest against the Conscription Act of 1863 – but quickly descended into the bloodiest race riot in US history. So why did New York’s White working class kill at least 120 people during the New York Draft Riots?

In the 20th century, polio was one of the most dreaded childhood diseases, devastating its victims. Ingenuity, trial and error, even acts of scientific desperation would pave the way to one of the greatest breakthroughs in scientific history - a vaccine. Modern Marvels traces the technology that eradicated the health scourge of the century.

Carnegie hires a hatchet man, Henry Frick, to help him achieve his goal of besting Rockefellar. The partnership seems promising, but Carnegie does not know that Frick is running his factories far beyond capacity.