Discovery Channel - More Industrial Revelations (2010)

How did we get from horse-drawn ploughs and village water-mills to combine harvesters and food factories? Mark Williams explains and drinks a few beers along the way. Today, clothes are so cheap they’re almost disposable, churned out by specialised machinery in huge factories. But it wasn’t always so. Mark Williams shows us how it happened. How did the first motor cars get their engines? Mark Williams uncovers an intriguing tale of genius and invention, beginning with William Murdoch’s dream of powered road transport in the early days of steam. Mark Williams explores how the Industrial Revolution created the mass media industry, producing books and newspapers that everybody could afford.

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Part 1: Bread and Beer
Mark Williams explains how 19th-century Britons drank beer as a healthy alternative to water because the fermentation process killed many harmful bacteria.


Part 2: What to Wear
Mark Williams discovers how 19th-century hats were made of rabbit fur that had been shrunk in urine.


Part 3: Gas on Wheels
Mark Williams explains the use of gas to power the machines and inventions from the Industrial Revolution, and examines the work of Scottish inventor William Murdoch.


Part 4: Print and Paper
Mark Williams explores the history of printing, discovering why early typesetters arranged lower-case letters according to their usage, with the most common being in the middle.


Part 5: Under Pressure
Mark Williams visits a pub cellar and bridges across the Tyne, all powered by hydraulics, revealing how the beer pump started a power revolution


Part 6: Building a Revolution
How the massive construction boom triggered by the Industrial Revolution forced the building industry to find new materials to cope with increasing demand.


Part 7: Bright Sparks
How the electricity industry was created from scientific experimentation and entrepreneurial enthusiasm, becoming the world's main power source.


Part 8: Heavy Metal
The development of the Cornish mining industry, from pebble-picking in streams to the building of a honeycomb of mines beneath the sea.


Part 9: Cutting It Fine
The role silk played in the invention of the binary code, and its subsequent impact on the computer revolution.


Part 10: Machine Tools
Mark Williams learns about Joseph Whitworth, the man who standardised the threaded screw. Plus, the total cost of wood required to build HMS Victory.







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