Cautionary Tales

In 1860, police officer Robert O'Hara Burke plans an expedition to map the mysterious blank in the centre of Australia. Joining him is scientist William Wills, and a ragtag team of hires.

Robert O'Hara Burke's catastrophic expedition to cross the Australian interior — the most well-funded, best-equipped expedition in Australian history, which failed because its leader prioritized speed and glory over competence and planning.

Millionaire-making tech start-ups are most often associated with Silicon Valley. But this software revolution begins on a woman’s kitchen table in rural Britain in the 1960s. Steve Shirley faced extraordinary odds.

As the Victorian era dawns, modernisation erodes the old ways of life and poverty rises. In the unrest, an unlikely hero emerges, capturing the imagination of the countryside's working class. He claims to be the new Messiah, and promises a better future.

The story of a self-proclaimed messiah who led desperate, impoverished workers in a doomed rebellion in 19th-century England — the last pitched battle ever fought on English soil.

In November 1979, Flight 901 departs New Zealand on a sightseeing journey over Antarctica, heading directly towards a volcano. When the plane vanishes, investigators are left with a mystery: how could a seasoned pilot miss a 12,000-foot peak?

Air New Zealand Flight 901 departed on a sightseeing journey over Antarctica in November 1979, heading directly toward Mount Erebus — a 12,000-foot volcano — because someone had changed the flight coordinates without telling the crew.

This episode comes to you from the new podcast Drug Story, which investigates the origins, workings and cautionary tales behind today's medical interventions.

Robert Propst is more than an inventor: he is a visionary, an innovator dreaming up how to make the perfect office workstation. When he reveals his bold design for a creative, flexible 'cockpit of tomorrow', he comes into conflict with the unyielding push for workplace efficiency.

Robert Propst invented the office cubicle as a tool for worker liberation — flexible, configurable, private. Companies turned it into the soul-crushing cube farm. Harford examines how good inventions get corrupted by the environments they're deployed in.

Muhammad Ali's 1963 arrival in England to fight Henry Cooper — the 'Louisville Loud-mouth' who used psychological warfare as effectively as his fists. Harford examines how Ali weaponized overconfidence, showmanship, and prediction.

In 1999, a series of bombs explode in Russian apartments, killing hundreds and spreading panic. No one knows who is behind it. But when one device is spotted before it detonates, troubling questions emerge. Was it really a bomb? Why is the country's security service changing its story?

In 1999, a series of apartment bombings across Russia killed hundreds and spread panic. The bombings were blamed on Chechen terrorists and used to justify the Second Chechen War — but one unexploded device raised troubling questions about who was really responsible.

Donald Crowhurst is a brilliant inventor with a failing business. When he hears about the Golden Globe Race offering publicity and cash to the fastest to sail around the world, it feels like the perfect solution.

Who will be the first to sail non-stop around the world? In 1968, The Sunday Times announces a trophy and a cash prize for the winner, and the Golden Globe Race is on.

This episode comes to you from American Criminal, the true-crime history podcast that takes you inside the minds of some of America's most notorious outlaws, exploring the dark side of the American dream.

Chris McKinlay is a good-looking, smart student at UCLA, but he can't seem to get a girlfriend. He's a computing expert, so why not use his technology prowess to supercharge his search for a soulmate? He starts building an army of bots and unleashes them into the world of online dating.

In the final days of the Sixties, The Rolling Stones join forces with other rock legends to plan a free concert at Altamont Speedway that will rival Woodstock. The "bad boys of rock" don't have the warmest relationship with the police, so they choose another option for security: The Hells Angels.

Run by the charismatic Nicole Deadone, OneTaste billed itself as a sexual wellness startup celebrating the power of female orgasm. But behind the celebrity endorsements and promises of healing, lay a darker reality.

Tony Hsieh, the billionaire CEO of Zappos, is passionate about community. He pours his time, energy and fortune into building a network of like-minded people - first in Las Vegas, then Park City, Utah.

They say the company Zappos is harder to get into than Harvard. Zappos may sell shoes, but its mission is to deliver WOW through a fun-focused company culture, making it one of the most coveted places to work in America.

The sewing machine was once thought to be an impossible invention. It was such a complicated contraption that it would take more than one inventor, with more than one good idea, to make it work.

Claude Shannon was brilliant. He was the Einstein of computer science...

Sherlock Holmes is known for approaching all mysteries with cool logic - and yet when his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saw photographs taken by two young girls purporting to show real life fairies at play...

Playing board games and spending too much money are time-honored Christmas traditions, so to mark the festive season, Tim is joined by the creator of Magic: The Gathering - Richard Garfield - for a special Q&A about economics and game design.How should you go about building the perfect game?

A megaplant near the small village of Flixborough, England, is busy churning out a key ingredient of nylon 6, a material used in everything from stockings to toothbrushes to electronics.

At the start of the 20th century, Britain was slowly becoming a freer place for women. Young Grace Oakeshott seized every opportunity to learn and improve the world around her - though she found those opportunities frustratingly narrow.

The 1912 Piltdown Man hoax — one of the greatest scientific frauds in history. A forged skull fooled the British scientific establishment for 40 years because scientists saw what they wanted to see: evidence that humans evolved in England.

Ever wished you could be a fly on the wall while Cautionary Tales is being made? Now you can. We just launched the Cautionary Club - our new Patreon community for Cautionary Tales fans who want to go deeper.

In 1912, a fossil discovery shakes the scientific world. Piltdown Man is the elusive missing link between humans and their ape-like ancestors. Forty years later, a researcher at the Natural History Museum gets a chance to see the relic for himself and notices something isn't quite right.

Misinformation, double-dealing, character assassination - lobbyist Don Pearlman will stop at nothing to prevent the world from agreeing to cut carbon emissions.

When Satanic Panic ripped through America, rock music was in the crosshairs. Could songs contain secret backwards messages urging children to take drugs and worship the devil? This special episode is from Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast all about the rich world of sound.

How Douglas Adams — author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — predicted the internet, smartphones, and AI decades before they existed. Harford examines why science fiction writers often see the future more clearly than technologists.

Robert O'Hara Burke led the first European expedition to cross Australia from south to north in 1860. Despite abundant supplies and detailed maps from Indigenous Australians, Burke's ego, impatience, and refusal to listen to local knowledge killed most of his party.

The Costa Concordia disaster of January 2012: Captain Francesco Schettino steered his enormous cruise ship too close to the Italian island of Giglio to perform a 'salute' for a retired captain onshore. 32 people died. Harford uses the story to explore how ego, performative displays, and organizational culture enable catastrophic risk-taking.

The Bhopal disaster of 1984 — when a pesticide plant in India released 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas, killing thousands immediately and tens of thousands over the following decades. The worst industrial disaster in history.

Ferdinand de Lesseps — the hero who built the Suez Canal — tried to repeat his triumph with the Panama Canal. His refusal to accept that Panama was fundamentally different from Suez killed 20,000 workers and bankrupted France.

Harford traces the 2008 financial crisis not to greedy bankers (the popular narrative) but to a shadow banking system that grew outside regulatory oversight precisely because regulation made traditional banking more expensive.

Darwin wrote that the sight of a peacock's tail made him sick because it seemed to contradict his theory of natural selection. Why would evolution produce something so extravagant and impractical? The answer — sexual selection — reveals how signaling and display drive decisions in nature and business.

In 1827 Edinburgh, a shortage of cadavers for medical students created a black market in corpses. Burke and Hare turned from grave robbery to murder, supplying the anatomy school of Dr. Robert Knox. Harford examines how perverse incentives produce horrifying outcomes.

Robert Propst invented the office cubicle in 1968 as a tool for worker freedom — movable walls that could be configured to individual needs. Instead, companies used his invention to pack workers into smaller spaces. The cautionary tale of an innovation perverted by cost-cutting.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 — how cost-cutting, schedule pressure, and the ignoring of multiple warning signs led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history and the deaths of 11 workers.

Donald Crowhurst entered the 1968 Golden Globe Race — a solo, non-stop sailing race around the world — knowing he was unprepared. Instead of completing the race, he faked his position reports while drifting in the Atlantic. The deception consumed him, and he vanished at sea.

The Flixborough explosion of 1974 — when a temporary pipe repair at a chemical plant became a permanent fixture, and the 'temporary' fix eventually detonated, killing 28 workers and flattening the plant.

The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 — caused not by routine operations but by a SAFETY TEST. Harford examines the supreme irony: the explosion was triggered by a test designed to prove the reactor could handle an emergency.

The Titanic disaster from the captain's perspective — how Captain Smith maintained full speed through an ice field because the culture of Atlantic crossing rewarded speed over safety, and because his entire career had taught him that nothing bad would happen.

The 1956 Dartmouth Summer Conference — when the founders of artificial intelligence predicted that machines would match human intelligence within a generation. Harford examines why AI's most confident predictions have consistently been wrong.

The Radium Girls — the young women who painted glow-in-the-dark watch dials with radium paint, were told it was safe, and died of radiation poisoning while their employer suppressed the evidence and fought their lawsuits.

How governments around the world prepared detailed pandemic plans — and then ignored them when COVID-19 arrived. Harford examines why institutional knowledge evaporates between crises.

Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes — how a Stanford dropout raised $700 million for blood-testing technology that didn't work, deceived investors, endangered patients, and became Silicon Valley's most famous fraud.

The 1998 MMR vaccine scare — when Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent study linking the MMR vaccine to autism. Harford traces how a single discredited paper caused a global decline in vaccination that killed thousands of children.

The collapse of the Monterey sardine fishery — how the most abundant fish in the Pacific was fished to commercial extinction within two decades, despite scientists' warnings that catches were unsustainable.

The Challenger disaster of 1986 — when NASA launched a shuttle despite engineers' warnings that cold weather would cause the O-ring seals to fail. Harford examines how institutional pressure overrode technical expertise.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse of 1940 — when a suspension bridge began swaying in moderate wind and tore itself apart within hours. Harford examines how engineers confused 'has never failed' with 'cannot fail.'

The Three Mile Island accident of 1979 — how a series of minor malfunctions, combined with operator confusion and misleading instrument readings, nearly caused a full nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania.

Hijackers of Flight 961 who demanded the pilot fly them to Australia — from the Comoros Islands, over the Indian Ocean — while ignoring his warnings that there wasn't enough fuel. The plane crashed, killing 125 people.

Donald Crowhurst entered the Golden Globe Race — the first solo non-stop round-the-world yacht race — with a boat he knew was inadequate, faked his position reports, and descended into madness when his deception spiraled out of control.

The wreck of the Torrey Canyon — one of the world's largest supertankers, deliberately steered toward deadly rocks by a captain fixated on making his schedule. Harford examines how goal fixation overrides rational risk assessment.