Inventions That Shaped History

More than 50 videos featuring a range of inventions both old and new.

TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within TED-Ed’s growing library of TED-Ed animations, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed website (ed.ted.com).

The treadmill's dark and twisted past - Conor Heffernan.
How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries.
Why is glass transparent? - Mark Miodownik.
How the world's first metro system was built - Christian Wolmar.
The wacky history of cell theory - Lauren Royal-Woods.
The greatest machine that never was - John Graham-Cumming.
Why doesn’t anything stick to Teflon? - Ashwini Bharathula.
How do vaccines work? - Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut.
How the sandwich was invented | Moments of Vision 5 - Jessica Oreck.
The history of the barometer (and how it works) - Asaf Bar-Yosef.
How the bra was invented | Moments of Vision 1 - Jessica Oreck.
How do nuclear power plants work? - M. V. Ramana and Sajan Saini.
How the Band-Aid was invented | Moments of Vision 3 - Jessica Oreck.
How does fracking work? - Mia Nacamulli.
How coffee got quicker | Moments of Vision 2 - Jessica Oreck.
How Braille was invented | Moments of Vision 9 - Jessica Oreck.
How blue jeans were invented | Moments of Vision 10 - Jessica Oreck.
What is the world wide web? - Twila Camp.
How the bendy straw was invented | Moments of Vision 12 - Jessica Oreck.
How the popsicle was invented | Moments of Vision 11 - Jessica Oreck.
How super glue was invented | Moments of Vision 8 - Jessica Oreck.
What cameras see that our eyes don't - Bill Shribman.
How the rubber glove was invented | Moments of Vision 4 - Jessica Oreck.
How the stethoscope was invented | Moments of Vision 7 - Jessica Oreck.
How inventions change history (for better and for worse) - Kenneth C. Davis.
Rosalind Franklin: DNA's unsung hero - Cláudio L. Guerra.
How smudge-proof lipstick was invented | Moments of Vision 6 - Jessica Oreck.
How did trains standardize time in the United States? - William Heuisler.
The story behind your glasses - Eva Timothy.
How farming planted seeds for the Internet - Patricia Russac.
Which is stronger: Glue or tape? - Elizabeth Cox.
How one scientist averted a national health crisis - Andrea Tone.
What if cracks in concrete could fix themselves? - Congrui Jin.
The deadly irony of gunpowder - Eric Rosado.
How aspirin was discovered - Krishna Sudhir.
The hidden network that makes the internet possible - Sajan Saini.
A brief history of chess - Alex Gendler.
The history of the world according to corn - Chris A. Kniesly.
How does chemotherapy work? - Hyunsoo Joshua No.
Hacking bacteria to fight cancer - Tal Danino.
Why is cotton in everything? - Michael R. Stiff.
How bones make blood - Melody Smith.
How do blood transfusions work? - Bill Schutt.
Who was the world's first author? - Soraya Field Fiorio.
Why isn’t the Netherlands underwater? - Stefan Al.
How the world's longest underwater tunnel was built - Alex Gendler.
The greatest mathematician that never lived - Pratik Aghor.
A brief history of plastic.
A brief history of divorce - Rod Phillips.
Why every world map is wrong - Kayla Wolf.
A brief history of toilets - Francis de los Reyes.