corpus.blog
41554 blogs · [ { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64e07608cd", "title": "The chopine, or how Venice balanced status on a fifty-centimetre platform", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/chopines/", "published_at": "2026-05-27T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c18d6671", "title": "The Phoenician alphabet, or how twenty-two consonants built the rest", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/phoenician-alphabet/", "published_at": "2026-05-26T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64e223e3be", "title": "Hakem, Shems, and the first coffeehouse", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/first-coffeehouse-constantinople/", "published_at": "2026-05-26T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b652686f524", "title": "Turing's imitation game", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/turing-imitation-game/", "published_at": "2026-05-26T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b652f25099f", "title": "Lisp, or the language that ran before anyone knew it could", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/lisp/", "published_at": "2026-05-26T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64f3eddf26", "title": "Trevithick's Puffing Devil: up Camborne Hill on Christmas Eve", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/trevithicks-puffing-devil/", "published_at": "2026-05-25T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b651d18d08d", "title": "Shannon's switching circuits, 1937", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/shannons-switching-circuits/", "published_at": "2026-05-25T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b654b87318d", "title": "Turbo Pascal: the whole IDE in thirty-eight kilobytes", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/turbo-pascal/", "published_at": "2026-05-25T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b654d79374b", "title": "Seven boxes in Washington", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/osi-reference-model-1984/", "published_at": "2026-05-25T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cda0b323", "title": "The aureus and the long debasement", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-roman-aureus/", "published_at": "2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64e00f1d96", "title": "Trithemius's Polygraphia: the abbot's grid that launched three centuries of polyalphabetic ciphers", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/trithemius-polygraphia/", "published_at": "2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6546625717", "title": "Space Invaders: the glitch Nishikado kept", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/space-invaders/", "published_at": "2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d1702f9e", "title": "Tabula Peutingeriana: seven metres of Roman roads", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/tabula-peutingeriana/", "published_at": "2026-05-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d2609542", "title": "Anji Bridge: the flattest arch in the ancient world", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/anji-bridge/", "published_at": "2026-05-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64f318c468", "title": "Bramah's challenge lock: a 200-guinea dare that stood for sixty-seven years", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/bramah-challenge-lock/", "published_at": "2026-05-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64da806340", "title": "The poulaine, or how a pointed toe became a matter for Parliament", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/poulaines/", "published_at": "2026-05-20T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64da85f0c2", "title": "The Salisbury clock, or the machine that forgot to have a face", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/salisbury-cathedral-clock/", "published_at": "2026-05-20T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6532a1fd6a", "title": "Touch-Tone: Bell's push-button phone and the day dialing became a command", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/touch-tone-1963/", "published_at": "2026-05-20T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c1559ed2", "title": "Oracle bone script, or how the Shang talked to their ancestors", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/oracle-bone-script/", "published_at": "2026-05-19T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64dbe4a41b", "title": "Qahwa and the Sufi monks of Aden", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/sufi-qahwa-aden/", "published_at": "2026-05-19T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65214e372d", "title": "McCulloch and Pitts, or a mind made of thresholds", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/mcculloch-pitts-1943/", "published_at": "2026-05-19T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b652c542d4d", "title": "Fortran, or the compiler nobody believed in", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/fortran/", "published_at": "2026-05-19T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64ef8c5642", "title": "Cugnot's fardier: the first machine to move under its own power", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/cugnots-steam-fardier/", "published_at": "2026-05-18T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65118eed77", "title": "The trust that outgrew its name", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/ctr-1911/", "published_at": "2026-05-18T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6541f4cbfd", "title": "The machine at the end of the hallway", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-machine-at-the-end-of-the-hallway/", "published_at": "2026-05-18T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65434252f3", "title": "EMACS, or the macro that became an editor", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/emacs/", "published_at": "2026-05-18T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cae5f54b", "title": "The Roman denarius, or the coin that named money", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-roman-denarius/", "published_at": "2026-05-15T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64dd828dbb", "title": "Alberti's cipher disk: the wheel that broke frequency analysis", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/alberti-cipher-disk/", "published_at": "2026-05-15T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65452773d3", "title": "The Atari 2600, or the machine Bushnell sold Atari to build", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/atari-2600/", "published_at": "2026-05-15T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cf193c81", "title": "Ptolemy's Geography and the grid that outlasted Rome", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/ptolemy-geography/", "published_at": "2026-05-14T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64f1d683db", "title": "The precise lift, or how a Hoxton locksmith beat the pick", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/barron-double-acting-tumbler/", "published_at": "2026-05-14T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d628812a", "title": "The turnshoe, or how medieval cordwainers sewed the seam inside", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/medieval-turnshoe/", "published_at": "2026-05-13T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d9525c11", "title": "The mechanical escapement, or when clocks learned to tick", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/mechanical-escapement/", "published_at": "2026-05-13T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b652412f54e", "title": "The car phone, or how eighty pounds of vacuum tubes first put a telephone on the road", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/bell-system-mts-1946/", "published_at": "2026-05-13T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bd3cc496", "title": "The Indus Valley script, or what five signs can hide", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/indus-valley-script/", "published_at": "2026-05-12T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b651be86fab", "title": "Turing's machine, or the question no algorithm can answer", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/turing-on-computable-numbers/", "published_at": "2026-05-12T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b652753bb97", "title": "The first assembler", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-first-assembler/", "published_at": "2026-05-12T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b653ccca7e9", "title": "What the module doesn't tell you", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/what-the-module-doesnt-tell-you/", "published_at": "2026-05-11T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6543df333d", "title": "vi, or the editor that made modes out of necessity", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/vi/", "published_at": "2026-05-11T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64ca3d3b8b", "title": "The ban liang, or the coin that outlasted its empire", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-ban-liang/", "published_at": "2026-05-08T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d3e33ec2", "title": "Al-Kindi's frequency analysis, or how counting letters broke every substitution cipher", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/al-kindi-frequency-analysis/", "published_at": "2026-05-08T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b653d3ce393", "title": "Pong, or the game Alcorn built to learn his job", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/pong/", "published_at": "2026-05-08T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c956efeb", "title": "Eratosthenes measures the Earth, or how a shadow told the whole story", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/eratosthenes-measures-the-earth/", "published_at": "2026-05-07T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cef705ae", "title": "Trajan's Bridge, or how to cross a river by moving it first", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/trajans-bridge-danube/", "published_at": "2026-05-07T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64dbbd08ee", "title": "The guild masterpiece, or the keyhole that wasn't there", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/medieval-iron-lock/", "published_at": "2026-05-07T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64ced10073", "title": "Han dynasty silk shoes, or the hierarchy sewn into every sole", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/han-dynasty-silk-shoes/", "published_at": "2026-05-06T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d506d932", "title": "Su Song's clock tower, or the machine that told the whole sky", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/su-songs-clock-tower/", "published_at": "2026-05-06T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b651882b0e2", "title": "The call across the Atlantic, or how Rocky Point and Rugby shrank the ocean", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/transatlantic-call-1927/", "published_at": "2026-05-06T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bb9a57d3", "title": "Egyptian hieroglyphs, or how language learned to last", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/egyptian-hieroglyphs/", "published_at": "2026-05-05T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6501f8d2d3", "title": "Frege's Begriffsschrift", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/freges-begriffsschrift/", "published_at": "2026-05-05T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65251c441d", "title": "Short Code, or the first time a machine did the translating", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/short-code/", "published_at": "2026-05-05T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b650932c367", "title": "The Hollerith tabulator, or how counting Americans built a company called IBM", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/hollerith-tabulator/", "published_at": "2026-05-04T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b653453cd82", "title": "Simula 67, or how a Norwegian harbor simulation gave software its objects", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/simula-67/", "published_at": "2026-05-04T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65388bc627", "title": "ed: the editor that still ships with every Unix", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/ed/", "published_at": "2026-05-04T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c6cd9243", "title": "The Lydian stater", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/lydian-stater/", "published_at": "2026-05-01T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d229b4e9", "title": "The Kama Sutra cipher, or why secret writing was the forty-fourth art", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/kama-sutra-cipher/", "published_at": "2026-05-01T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6539f0029a", "title": "Computer Space, the world's first coin-operated video game", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/computer-space/", "published_at": "2026-05-01T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c94cc571", "title": "Ctesibius's clepsydra, or the water clock that fixed itself", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/ctesibius-clepsydra/", "published_at": "2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64ce23c8c6", "title": "The Pont du Gard, or how Rome moved a river across a gorge", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/pont-du-gard/", "published_at": "2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cfa347ed", "title": "The barbed-spring padlock", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/han-dynasty-padlock/", "published_at": "2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d2428c59", "title": "The incense clock, or how China measured the night in smoke", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/chinese-incense-clock/", "published_at": "2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cb10206f", "title": "Roman caligae, or why the empire marched on hobnails", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/roman-caligae/", "published_at": "2026-04-29T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6515f743db", "title": "The wheel that replaced the operator", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/rotary-dial-1919/", "published_at": "2026-04-29T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bb644fb9", "title": "Cuneiform: the script that could say your name", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/cuneiform-script/", "published_at": "2026-04-28T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64fbf93834", "title": "Boole's algebra of thought", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/booles-algebra-of-thought/", "published_at": "2026-04-28T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65238218b3", "title": "Plankalkül, or how to invent a programming language during an air raid", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/plankalkul/", "published_at": "2026-04-28T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64f8fd0fa2", "title": "Ada Lovelace's Notes on an engine that never ran", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/ada-lovelaces-notes/", "published_at": "2026-04-27T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b653403cd1d", "title": "QED, or how fifteen years of mathematics became a search command", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/qed/", "published_at": "2026-04-27T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b653e32fb25", "title": "What the flowchart hides", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/what-the-flowchart-hides/", "published_at": "2026-04-27T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c0d2937c", "title": "The shell that circled the world", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/cowrie-shells/", "published_at": "2026-04-24T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cd2d8deb", "title": "The Caesar cipher, or how a shift of three kept Rome's orders from Gallic hands", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/caesar-cipher/", "published_at": "2026-04-24T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b6530055f6b", "title": "Spacewar!, or the game no one thought to sell", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/spacewar/", "published_at": "2026-04-24T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c0558387", "title": "The Arkadiko bridge, or the oldest arch still standing", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/arkadiko-bridge/", "published_at": "2026-04-23T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c785e742", "title": "Anaximander's world map, or how a philosopher drew the whole earth", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/anaximander-world-map/", "published_at": "2026-04-23T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cba4d9cb", "title": "The Roman warded lock", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/roman-warded-lock/", "published_at": "2026-04-23T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bc4aae79", "title": "The Mesopotamian shekel, or how a weight became money", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-mesopotamian-shekel/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bca1d18d", "title": "The bridge at Girsu, or the world's oldest crossing", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/bridge-at-girsu/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64be9ead12", "title": "The Egyptian clepsydra, or how priests told time without the sun", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/egyptian-clepsydra/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c716c186", "title": "The Babylonian world map, or how an empire drew the edge of everything", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/babylonian-imago-mundi/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c875a96f", "title": "Greek krepis and kothornos — the shoe as theater", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/greek-krepis-and-kothornos/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c8e17f82", "title": "The scytale, or how Sparta encrypted its orders", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-spartan-scytale/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64eb62da37", "title": "Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator, or let us calculate who is right", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/leibniz-calculus-ratiocinator/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64f7504ec8", "title": "Babbage's Difference Engine, or the most expensive one-seventh of a calculator", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/babbages-difference-engine/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b65095d4ed0", "title": "The undertaker who put telephone operators out of a job", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/strowger-switch-1892/", "published_at": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64b8010655", "title": "The Abauntz map, or how a hunter scratched the world onto a stone", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/abauntz-cave-map/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64b839eb46", "title": "Fort Rock sandals, the oldest shoes in the world", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/fort-rock-sandals/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64b91c851f", "title": "The wooden lock, or the first machine for keeping people out", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/egyptian-wooden-lock/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64b9f0f787", "title": "Proto-cuneiform tokens: the first writing was a receipt", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/proto-cuneiform-tokens/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64ba81bf2d", "title": "The shadow clock, or how Egypt turned sunlight into hours", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/egyptian-shadow-clock/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bad0fe95", "title": "The Areni-1 shoe, and the art of making leather last", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/areni-1-shoe/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64baeaebe3", "title": "Ötzi's shoes, or the engineering in a glacier", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/otzis-shoes/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bd6e1493", "title": "The abacus, or how humanity learned to compute with pebbles", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-abacus/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64bf53520f", "title": "Egyptian papyrus sandals — footwear as social code, c. 1500 BCE", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/egyptian-papyrus-sandals/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64c92f83c3", "title": "The Prior Analytics, or the first argument written in letters", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/aristotles-prior-analytics/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64cc60f651", "title": "The Antikythera mechanism, or the computer the sea kept", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-antikythera-mechanism/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d319839e", "title": "Al-Khwarizmi, or how a name became a word", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/al-khwarizmi/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64d830a89e", "title": "Al-Jazari's musicians, or the first machine you could reprogram", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/al-jazaris-automata/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64da2ca600", "title": "Llull's Ars Magna, or how a troubadour built the first reasoning machine", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/llulls-ars-magna/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64e7667888", "title": "Napier's bones, or how a Scottish laird made multiplication optional", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/napiers-bones/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" }, { "id": "01a08c54-5d05-715d-82d2-3b64e79f907f", "title": "The slide rule, or how a clergyman's shortcut ran the world for three centuries", "url": "https://thingshavehistory.com/posts/the-slide-rule/", "published_at": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00" } ] posts Claim your blog
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2026

The chopine, or how Venice balanced status on a fifty-centimetre platformoriginal ↗
27 May 2026
The Phoenician alphabet, or how twenty-two consonants built the restoriginal ↗
26 May 2026
Hakem, Shems, and the first coffeehouseoriginal ↗
26 May 2026
Turing's imitation gameoriginal ↗
26 May 2026
Lisp, or the language that ran before anyone knew it couldoriginal ↗
26 May 2026
Trevithick's Puffing Devil: up Camborne Hill on Christmas Eveoriginal ↗
25 May 2026
Shannon's switching circuits, 1937original ↗
25 May 2026
Turbo Pascal: the whole IDE in thirty-eight kilobytesoriginal ↗
25 May 2026
Seven boxes in Washingtonoriginal ↗
25 May 2026
The aureus and the long debasementoriginal ↗
22 May 2026
Trithemius's Polygraphia: the abbot's grid that launched three centuries of polyalphabetic ciphersoriginal ↗
22 May 2026
Space Invaders: the glitch Nishikado keptoriginal ↗
22 May 2026
Tabula Peutingeriana: seven metres of Roman roadsoriginal ↗
21 May 2026
Anji Bridge: the flattest arch in the ancient worldoriginal ↗
21 May 2026
Bramah's challenge lock: a 200-guinea dare that stood for sixty-seven yearsoriginal ↗
21 May 2026
The poulaine, or how a pointed toe became a matter for Parliamentoriginal ↗
20 May 2026
The Salisbury clock, or the machine that forgot to have a faceoriginal ↗
20 May 2026
Touch-Tone: Bell's push-button phone and the day dialing became a commandoriginal ↗
20 May 2026
Oracle bone script, or how the Shang talked to their ancestorsoriginal ↗
19 May 2026
Qahwa and the Sufi monks of Adenoriginal ↗
19 May 2026
McCulloch and Pitts, or a mind made of thresholdsoriginal ↗
19 May 2026
Fortran, or the compiler nobody believed inoriginal ↗
19 May 2026
Cugnot's fardier: the first machine to move under its own poweroriginal ↗
18 May 2026
The trust that outgrew its nameoriginal ↗
18 May 2026
The machine at the end of the hallwayoriginal ↗
18 May 2026
EMACS, or the macro that became an editororiginal ↗
18 May 2026
The Roman denarius, or the coin that named moneyoriginal ↗
15 May 2026
Alberti's cipher disk: the wheel that broke frequency analysisoriginal ↗
15 May 2026
The Atari 2600, or the machine Bushnell sold Atari to buildoriginal ↗
15 May 2026
Ptolemy's Geography and the grid that outlasted Romeoriginal ↗
14 May 2026
The precise lift, or how a Hoxton locksmith beat the pickoriginal ↗
14 May 2026
The turnshoe, or how medieval cordwainers sewed the seam insideoriginal ↗
13 May 2026
The mechanical escapement, or when clocks learned to tickoriginal ↗
13 May 2026
The car phone, or how eighty pounds of vacuum tubes first put a telephone on the roadoriginal ↗
13 May 2026
The Indus Valley script, or what five signs can hideoriginal ↗
12 May 2026
Turing's machine, or the question no algorithm can answeroriginal ↗
12 May 2026
The first assembleroriginal ↗
12 May 2026
What the module doesn't tell youoriginal ↗
11 May 2026
vi, or the editor that made modes out of necessityoriginal ↗
11 May 2026
The ban liang, or the coin that outlasted its empireoriginal ↗
8 May 2026
Al-Kindi's frequency analysis, or how counting letters broke every substitution cipheroriginal ↗
8 May 2026
Pong, or the game Alcorn built to learn his joboriginal ↗
8 May 2026
Eratosthenes measures the Earth, or how a shadow told the whole storyoriginal ↗
7 May 2026
Trajan's Bridge, or how to cross a river by moving it firstoriginal ↗
7 May 2026
The guild masterpiece, or the keyhole that wasn't thereoriginal ↗
7 May 2026
Han dynasty silk shoes, or the hierarchy sewn into every soleoriginal ↗
6 May 2026
Su Song's clock tower, or the machine that told the whole skyoriginal ↗
6 May 2026
The call across the Atlantic, or how Rocky Point and Rugby shrank the oceanoriginal ↗
6 May 2026
Egyptian hieroglyphs, or how language learned to lastoriginal ↗
5 May 2026
Frege's Begriffsschriftoriginal ↗
5 May 2026
Short Code, or the first time a machine did the translatingoriginal ↗
5 May 2026
The Hollerith tabulator, or how counting Americans built a company called IBMoriginal ↗
4 May 2026
Simula 67, or how a Norwegian harbor simulation gave software its objectsoriginal ↗
4 May 2026
ed: the editor that still ships with every Unixoriginal ↗
4 May 2026
The Lydian stateroriginal ↗
1 May 2026
The Kama Sutra cipher, or why secret writing was the forty-fourth artoriginal ↗
1 May 2026
Computer Space, the world's first coin-operated video gameoriginal ↗
1 May 2026
Ctesibius's clepsydra, or the water clock that fixed itselforiginal ↗
30 Apr 2026
The Pont du Gard, or how Rome moved a river across a gorgeoriginal ↗
30 Apr 2026
The barbed-spring padlockoriginal ↗
30 Apr 2026
The incense clock, or how China measured the night in smokeoriginal ↗
30 Apr 2026
Roman caligae, or why the empire marched on hobnailsoriginal ↗
29 Apr 2026
The wheel that replaced the operatororiginal ↗
29 Apr 2026
Cuneiform: the script that could say your nameoriginal ↗
28 Apr 2026
Boole's algebra of thoughtoriginal ↗
28 Apr 2026
Plankalkül, or how to invent a programming language during an air raidoriginal ↗
28 Apr 2026
Ada Lovelace's Notes on an engine that never ranoriginal ↗
27 Apr 2026
QED, or how fifteen years of mathematics became a search commandoriginal ↗
27 Apr 2026
What the flowchart hidesoriginal ↗
27 Apr 2026
The shell that circled the worldoriginal ↗
24 Apr 2026
The Caesar cipher, or how a shift of three kept Rome's orders from Gallic handsoriginal ↗
24 Apr 2026
Spacewar!, or the game no one thought to selloriginal ↗
24 Apr 2026
The Arkadiko bridge, or the oldest arch still standingoriginal ↗
23 Apr 2026
Anaximander's world map, or how a philosopher drew the whole earthoriginal ↗
23 Apr 2026
The Roman warded lockoriginal ↗
23 Apr 2026
The Mesopotamian shekel, or how a weight became moneyoriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
The bridge at Girsu, or the world's oldest crossingoriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
The Egyptian clepsydra, or how priests told time without the sunoriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
The Babylonian world map, or how an empire drew the edge of everythingoriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
Greek krepis and kothornos — the shoe as theateroriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
The scytale, or how Sparta encrypted its ordersoriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator, or let us calculate who is rightoriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
Babbage's Difference Engine, or the most expensive one-seventh of a calculatororiginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
The undertaker who put telephone operators out of a joboriginal ↗
22 Apr 2026
The Abauntz map, or how a hunter scratched the world onto a stoneoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Fort Rock sandals, the oldest shoes in the worldoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
The wooden lock, or the first machine for keeping people outoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Proto-cuneiform tokens: the first writing was a receiptoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
The shadow clock, or how Egypt turned sunlight into hoursoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
The Areni-1 shoe, and the art of making leather lastoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Ötzi's shoes, or the engineering in a glacieroriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
The abacus, or how humanity learned to compute with pebblesoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Egyptian papyrus sandals — footwear as social code, c. 1500 BCEoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
The Prior Analytics, or the first argument written in lettersoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
The Antikythera mechanism, or the computer the sea keptoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Al-Khwarizmi, or how a name became a wordoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Al-Jazari's musicians, or the first machine you could reprogramoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Llull's Ars Magna, or how a troubadour built the first reasoning machineoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
Napier's bones, or how a Scottish laird made multiplication optionaloriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
The slide rule, or how a clergyman's shortcut ran the world for three centuriesoriginal ↗
21 Apr 2026
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