Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

It's 1990. A new company called General Magic is going to build its vision of the future: the smart phone. They have talent, almost unlimited cash, and a 15 year head start on the iPhone. What could go wrong? This episode was based, with permission, on David Epstein's book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make us Better . For a list of sources, see the show notes. Join our Cautionary Club to get episodes ad-free, hear bonus interviews and get an extra Cautionary Tale every month. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Evel Knievel, the world-famous daredevil, is planning his greatest ever stunt. In 1974, he wants to leap over Snake River Canyon in Idaho. The chasm is almost a third of a mile wide, much bigger than any jump he's done before. To make it work, he'll need a custom-made rocket-powered "Skycycle," TV camera crews and - most importantly - a very positive attitude. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com . Join our Cautionary Club to get episodes ad-free, hear bonus interviews and get an extra Cautionary Tale every month. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1942, eight men are sent from Nazi Germany to infiltrate America. Their mission: to sabotage critical infrastructure. Their problem: they're idiots. Operation Pastorius soon devolves into one of the most baffling failures of World War II. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a special crossover episode with Business History. John DeLorean was a visionary who wanted to create a futuristic new sports car - a stainless steel marvel with distinctive gull-wing doors. The British Government agreed to finance the project, provided he built his factory in a troubled part of Northern Ireland. Production stumbled, sales fizzled and DeLorean liked to fiddle with the numbers. As the company approached ruin, a neighbour offered DeLorean a lifeline, if he'd only come in on a cocaine deal. See the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How does a story on Cautionary Tales come to life? In this episode of our subscriber-exclusive series, Proceed with Caution, sound designer Pascal Wyse shows Tim how the audio magic happens. He explains how he picks the music in an episode, why it's best to avoid 'Mickey Mousing', and how to sound design some of the stranger moments of Cautionary Tales. To subscribe to the Cautionary Club and hear more like this, go to patreon.com/cautionaryclub. Dumm und Dümmer : Hitler Invades Florida is available now on Patreon , or will be released on this feed on August 28th. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talented and beautiful, Molly O'Day is a rising star in 1920s Hollywood. But when Molly's teenage body starts to change and she can no longer fit into the dress she wore when she was 16, the studio wants nothing to do with her. As the scripts dry up and the money runs out, Molly faces a difficult but painfully familiar choice. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mary Bateman lived in Yorkshire in the late 18th Century, an age that prized rational thought. Many people still longed to believe in the old ways and Bateman used this to her advantage, selling spells and enchantments to the desperate. Dr Maddy Pelling, co-host of the After Dark podcast and author of Hoax: Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment, joins Tim to tell the tale of the villainous Yorkshire Witch, and just how far she was willing to go. For the sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Herald of Free Enterprise is a new class of ferry that allows cars to drive directly into the ship. The doors must be closed before every departure, or the ship sails with a gaping hole at one end. One black night in 1987, on the freezing waters off Zebrugge, Belgium, a single crew member falls asleep at the worst possible time. For the sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Windscale is supposed to be Britain's big leap into the nuclear age, bringing science fiction to life in 1950s Northern England. But in the race to catch up with America's nuclear program, scientists are tinkering with forces they don't fully understand. When the reactor catches fire, no-one knows how bad it could be, or how to put it out. As the reactor workers scramble to save lives, other eyes on Windscale are much more concerned with containing the political fallout and burying the truth. See the show notes at timharford.com . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you tuned in to late-night WOR radio in 1950s New York, you'd enter the secret world of Jean Shepherd. Shepherd's nonconformist style, off-beat humor and love of pranks gathered a small but loyal following. These "Night People" loved being in on the joke, while the oblivious "Day People" were often the butt of it. Shepherd's show is long gone, but his spirit lives on in corners of the internet. Today, though, Night People go by a different name. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the Luddites smashed factory frames in a bid to defend their craft and livelihoods, the machines came out on top. Today, AI and automation threaten to wipe out skilled jobs and flood us with inferior products at a fraction of the price: is history going to repeat itself? FT journalist and author of We Are Not Machines Sarah O'Connor joins Tim to discuss her findings from the front lines about the future of work. Which professions are most at risk, and is there anything workers can do about it? See the show notes at TimHarford.com Sarah's book, "We Are Not Machines: The Fight for the Future of Work", is available here (UK) and for pre-order here (US). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The children of North End, Boston, play in the shadow of an enormous steel tank of molasses. The thick, sticky sugar syrup is being used to make munitions for the First World War. When a worker notices dark molasses seeping from the tank he warns the company that there could be a leak. But the man in charge, Arthur Jell, has more important things to worry about: schedules to meet and profits to make. Besides, it's only sugar. How dangerous could it be? For the sources, see the show notes at timharford.com . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early 1900s, Sir Arthur Vickers keeps the magnificent Irish Crown Jewels safe under lock and key at Dublin Castle. When the jewels disappear, the King rages, the police investigate, and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gets involved. No one is ever charged and no jewels are ever recovered. Except, we have a very good idea of who took them, and why the truth has stayed buried. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When John Darwin walks into a shop in London, it causes an instant stir. After all, John Darwin has been dead for five years. He claims to have amnesia, but everyone - from the police and the media to his insurance company - suspects he is lying. No one can prove a thing, until a young woman at home with her baby thinks of something everyone else has missed. For the show notes, see timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode comes to you from the new series of This is History, the podcast which tells the story of the Plantagenet Dynasty. Historian Dan Jones takes you through 300 years of calamities, wars and rebellions that marked the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of the Tudor Dynasty. This is the first episode of the tenth series, where you'll meet 13-year-old Margaret Beaufort and her newborn, Henry Tudor. Listen to This is History wherever you get your podcasts. If you are a member of our Cautionary Club, you can listen ad-free with a month's free membership to their Patreon. Look out for the gift link on our Patreon . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Governor of Britannia, Magnus Maximus has a huge army at his disposal, which is just what he needs to secure the Roman imperial throne. But perhaps the impressive general should have looked into the past before focusing on his future. Tim is joined by Paul Cooper, host of Fall of Civilizations Podcast , to explore why powerful civilizations such as the Assyrians, the Han dynasty and the Roman Empire all ultimately collapsed. Paul Cooper is the author of Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline . For a full list of show notes, see timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s D-Day and the Allies are about to invade Nazi-occupied France. For the landings to succeed, American soldiers on Omaha Beach will have to break through some formidable coastal defences - Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. Sherman tanks will come in very handy - and the Allies have come up with a novel solution for getting them to the beach. These tanks will swim. Everyone from Winston Churchill down thought swimming tanks were a great idea… but were they? For a full list of sources, see the show notes at ⁠timharford.com⁠ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thomas Midgley's inventions caused his own death, hastened the deaths of millions of people around the world, and very nearly extinguished all life on land. Midgley and his employers didn't set out to poison the air with leaded gasoline or wreck the ozone layer with CFCs - but while these dire consequences were unintended... could they have been anticipated? For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We usually bring you failures of the past, but today we're sharing an episode from someone who uncovers failures as they happen. Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist and the host of Drilled, a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach. Drilled's latest season, Carbon Cowboys, examines a group of people who've turned climate policy into a profit engine. In September 2025, a group of Brazilian government ministers flew to North Dakota to watch a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into “the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels.” It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota. Here's episode 1 of Drilled: Carbon Cowboys. Find Drilled wherever you get podcasts and hear episodes early and ad-free with a Pushkin+ subscription. Sign up on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Part Two: When Tudor polymath John Dee meets a man who claims he can speak with angels, his path to understanding the universe suddenly becomes clear. At their instruction, the pair begin searching for the fabled philosopher's stone. But the angels grow increasingly demanding, and soon Dee must confront a terrible ultimatum. Centuries later, a strange incident in a French town suggests that angels may still be with us. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.