-
- Written and presented by James Burke
- Directed by Mick Jackson
- Episode length: 50 minutes
- First aired in 1978
- Network: BBC
- Shot at over 150 locations in 19 countriesPalmers Guide: Connections DVD Information
-
-
Science historian James Burke’s ten part series Connections traces the progression of technology from ancient to modern times. According to Burke, every invention comes from putting the right pieces of already available technology together to build something new. By tracing the history of technology through a series of "triggers," each one of which sets off the next, Burke demonstrates how technology is an interconnected web and how one seemingly unrelated innovation leads to another.
-
Names and Events in Part One
- @2:30: The 16th Century Dutch cargo ships were much like the modern 747 Airplane of today, and they made the Dutch rich.
- @5:27: Shows how the Dutch converted the Galleon's of the time into being efficient cargo ships.
- @5:40: The Dutch were able to pick up trade all over the world and deliver it all over Europe with these new ships.
- @5:50: The English traded with the Dutch by sharing.."going Dutch" ...sharing travel costs. By the 17th Century the Bank of England was set up for this business.
- @7:21: In 1688, Edward Lloyd started Lloyd's of London in a small coffeehouse to offer Insurance to shipowners who were traveling the world more.
- @8:35: The lengthy voyages revealed vulnerabilities in the ships hull's, specifically worms that ate the wood.
- @9:30: The only treatment at the time was called "pitch" which needed Turpentine and Tar, In the early 18th Century, the British would use slave's in the Carolina's to labour for such materials.
-
Names and Events in Part Two
- @0:39: The British were essentially ripping off the America's, so by the end of the 18th Century, America revolted, as did cheap pitch for the British.
- @2:47: Scotland, under Archibald Cochrane was able to produce coal-tar to remedy the British pitch shortage
- @3:13: The British started using copper on the bottom of their boats.
- @3:33: Cochrane, told James Watt about an accident that occurred when making coal-tar, about flammable vapor, Watt was uninterested
- @4:13: In 1792, James Watt's parter William Murdoch invented gas lighting by illuminating the coal-tar.
- @7:00: Gas lighting in the Europe changed the night life.
- @8:10: The coal-tar produced from the gas lighting in London it was dumped into the Themes River, which polluted it terribly.
Names and Events in Part Three
- @0:05: In 1823, Charles Macintosh used produced a rubber solution from the coal-tar to invent weather proofing clothing.
- @2:36: In the 19th Century, the British were building plantations all over south east Asia, like a Nutmeg plantation, in Malaysia.
- @4:00: The plantations created pools of water where mosquitoes thrived, thus brewing up huge epidemics of Malaria, which weakened the empire in the area.
- @6:06: The Gin and Tonic drink was thought up as a remedy used to treat the Malaria.
- @9:00: The British became the Artificial Dyes capital of the world, off the back of German chemists.
Names and Events in Part Four
- @0:30: The German dye companies were churning out chemists and new colors and by 1870 the world seemed much more colorful then it had ever before.
- @2:44: Along with dyes the German chemists were developing medicines and other chemical based inventions.
- @2:49: The German industrial machine experienced some growing pains when the country ran out of bread, during the late 19th Century Germany did not import the inexpensive wheat being produced in America, and they exported all the rye bread that they produced. They tried to grow wheat themselves, but they had to import fertilizer.
- @5:00: 1900, German chemists tried to make fertilizer, and invented sodium nitrate.
- @8:20: in 1895 a French chemist invented calcium carbide, which went towards acetylene, which fast became the next natural replacement of gas lighting, but the bottom dropped out of the market after new gas lighting improvements were invented,
- @9:22: Suddenly there was an abundance of calcium carbide, and chemists were able to invent a cheap fertilizer for Germany.
Names and Events in Part Five
- @0:37: Germany quickly became a super power.
- @1:04: In 1900 the Wuppertal Schwebebahn launched, and Kaiser Wilhelm II worked on building up the German Navy to compete with the British for world trade markets.
- @2:25: The arms race that ensued resulted in World War I.
- @3:40: In 1939 at the World Fair in New York, DuPont unveiled Nylon and the new world of Plastic.
James Burke Connections Episode 7 Questions
-
Have you watched any of James Burkes documentaries? 2 AnswersAbsolutely! I loved both Connections and The Day the Universe Changed. The episodes that stand out were one where he took a whack at a cow carcass with a claymo... read more -
What is your favourite James Burke clip? 1 AnswerI like The Day the Universe Changed more than the Connections, because I am interested more in the Science field than history. In my point of view, the main hig... read more
-
Who is James Burke? 2 AnswersJames Burke (born 22 December 1936) is a Northern Irish science historian, author and television producer best known for his documentary television series calle... read more
view more questions...
