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Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford Episodes

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    Reason, Wrath and Rebellion on the High Seas

    History remembers Captain Bligh as a cruel, petty tyrant. The reality is more complicated

  2. Proceed with Caution - Pascal's Guide to Podcasts

    Pascal Wyse shows Tim how the audio magic happens.

  3. Powered by Orgasm: The Rise and Fall of a Sex Cult - with Ellen Huet

    Ellen Huet joins Tim to discuss why we should beware people promising pleasure.

  4. Poles Apart: How A Journalist Divided A City

    Heroic explorer Frederick Cook has just returned from the North Pole...

  5. Photographing Fairies (Classic)

    How did Elsie and Frances fool so many people with their photography?

  6. Paradise Poisoned: How Utopias Fall Apart

    Dore Strauch and Friedrich Ritter make an unconventional couple.

  7. Office Hell: The Demise of the Playful Workspace

    In the early 90s, cutting-edge advertising agency Chiat/Day announced a radical plan.

  8. Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop

    Why some botched competitions ruin businesses, while others short-change consumers.

  9. Missing on "Dead Mountain": A Cold War Cold Case

    In winter 1959, nine experienced hikers led by Igor Dyatlov set out on an expedition.

  10. Missing Fish and Fatal Feasts: Ritual and Ruin at the Sun King’s Table

    In the gilded court of Louis XIV, 17th Century France, manners are everything...

  11. Masterly Inactivity Versus Micromanaging

    Lady Sale (Helena Bonham Carter) was part of a British retreat from Afghanistan in 1842.

  12. Martin Luther King Jr, the Jewellery Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking

    Some speeches help us dream of a better world…while others become the stuff of nightmares

  13. LIVE: We Are Not Machines - with Sarah O'Connor

    Which professions are most at risk, and is there anything workers can do about it?

  14. Lights, Camera, Tax Break

    When Ernest Borgnine gets his big break, it's not the dream gig he thought it was.

  15. Liar, Bigamist, Brute: How Isaac Singer Liberated Women

    The sewing machine was once thought to be an impossible invention.

  16. Le Mans 55: The Deadliest Race

    A race for speed ends in disaster, changing motor sport forever.

  17. Lab Leak: Could Smallpox Come Back?

    When a photographer begins to feel ill, doctors are mystified.

  18. La La Land: Galileo's Warning

    Giving an Oscar to the wrong film proved that some safety systems can increase mistakes.

  19. Kyoto: The Battle that Defined Climate Politics - with Joe Robertson

    Tim is joined by playwright Joe Robertson to discuss Kyoto.

  20. Introducing... The Science of Happiness

    The Science of Happiness is available now on BBC Sounds.

  21. Introducing... Short History Of...

    Introducing Short History Of... The Dambusters. Listen other episodes on BBC Sounds now!

  22. Introducing... Series 3 of Death of an Artist

    A beloved author and her husband’s suicide leaves friends and family divided by grief.

  23. Into the Black Lair: V2 Rocket (Part 2)

    How Nazi Germany was convinced that they couldn’t afford to ignore rocket technology.

  24. How the Radium Girls Fought Back

    Tim Harford and Kate Moore discuss how the "Radium Girls" took on their employers.

  25. How Civilizations Die - with Paul Cooper

    Tim is joined by Paul Cooperto explore why the Han dynasty and the Roman Empire collapsed

  26. How Britain Invented, Then Ignored, Blitzkrieg

    Why organizations can't always see a brilliant idea that's staring them in the face.

  27. Houdini's Detective and her 1500 Dead Husbands (Part 2)

    Harry Houdini - part 2/3.

  28. Houdini: The Phone Call from the Coffin (Part 3)

    In 1926, Houdini's death shocks the world, but what follows is even more astounding.

  29. Houdini: A Message from the Spirits (Part 1)

    Part 1 of 3: Harry Houdini

  30. Homo deceptus: Science's Dirty Little Secret

    In 1912, a fossil discovery shakes the scientific world.

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