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We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable life lessons, but these cautionary tales are for the education of the grown-ups — and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of Messy and The Undercover Economist) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos. They’ll delight you and scare you, but also make you wiser.

Most Recent Episode

Darwin’s Grandpa and the Art of Sex Appeal

Take the Cautionary Tales listener survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HCHGGZ3 Charles Darwin was stumped by peacocks. According to his theory of evolution, some creatures were better equipped to survive in their particular…

The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween

Take the Cautionary Tales listener survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HCHGGZ3 In 1827, Edinburgh, Scotland was a world centre for anatomical study, but there was a shortage of cadavers for medical students to dissect.…

The Poet Who Toppled The British Empire

India, 1930. Sarojini Naidu is marching towards a British-controlled saltwork; behind her is a long column of protestors all dressed in white. The great campaigner for India's Independence, Gandhi, is now…

Reason, Wrath and Rebellion on the High Seas

Early morning, April 1789. Captain Bligh is abruptly dragged from his cabin. Wrists bound, bayonet pressed to his chest, he and a few loyal sailors are forced into a tiny…

Steel and Kindness: Clash of the Skyscrapers

Paul Starrett has just won a major building contract. If everything goes according to plan, this will be the tallest building in the world. But will everything go according to plan? This…

The Nice Guy, the Bully and the Kiss

Leo Durocher would stop at nothing to win. The baseball player-turned-manager was a skilled tactician and famously tough. But he also cheated, intimidated umpires and was violent; he was even known to…

Tim’s Tolkien Obsession & Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power

Tim Harford's life has been building up to this moment. In this Cautionary Conversation, he discusses the works of his favorite author J.R.R. Tolkien and the social science at play…

The Human Guinea Pigs of Camp Lazear

Young doctor Jesse Lazear has deadly Yellow Fever. He thrashes around and convulses in his sick bed, and his vomit is black. He is just 34 when he dies. Curiously,…

Embracing the Escape Fire (with Adam Grant)

Cautionary Conversation: Steve Jobs hated his phone so much that he smashed it against a wall. He also referred to mobile carriers as "orifices". Yet he went on to invent…

Flying Too High: AI and Air France Flight 447

Panic has erupted in the cockpit of Air France Flight 447. The pilots are convinced they’ve lost control of the plane. It’s lurching violently. Then, it begins plummeting from the sky at…

Run, Switzer, Run: The Women Who Broke the Marathon Taboo

Until the 1960s, it was deemed too "dangerous" for women athletes to run distances longer than 200m - and a marathon would kill them, or leave them unable to have…

Adidas v Puma: A Battle of Boots and Brothers

Adi and Rudi Dassler made sports shoes together - until a feud erupted between them. They set up competing companies, Adidas and Puma, and their bitter rivalry divided the sporting…

The Revenge of the Whales

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in 1819, Owen Chase is standing on a slowly sinking ship. It's just been headbutted by an 85 foot whale. It's taking in…

When the Robots Take Over… – Cautionary Questions

Tim Harford is joined by Jacob Goldstein to answer your questions. Does winning the lottery make you unhappy? Is Bitcoin bad for the economy? When does correlation imply causation? And what will Tim…

WW2: How Britain Ignored the Mother of All Secrets

Cautionary Tales will be LIVE on stage in London this May. Tickets are on sale now: https://www.tegeurope.com/events/cautionary-tales/ Neatly dressed in his suit, Hans Ferdinand Mayer was every inch the unassuming corporate…

The Fraudster’s Guide to Magic Money

Cautionary Tales will be LIVE on stage in London this May. Tickets are on sale now: https://www.tegeurope.com/events/cautionary-tales/ Sam Israel had a problem. The investors in his hedge fund, Bayou Capital, were expecting…

Blood and Gold (with Dan Snow)

Bonus: When Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru in 1526, it was the beginning of the end for the Inca. Their bloody pursuit of gold, fame and fortune was rife with…

The Rise and Fall of a Megalomaniac

Nicolae Ceaușescu was not beloved. His regime was vicious and he treated Romania as his personal wallet: while Ceaușescu emptied the coffers to construct a vast, ornate palace, his people starved.…

Inside the Bizarre World of Dictators

Why are so many autocrats germaphobes? Why was the truth so dangerous for Soviet engineers? And what can salami reveal to us about the mind of Vladimir Putin? This is…

Do Nothing, Then Do Less

Chuck Yeager's plane pitched and rolled as it plummeted from the sky. He grappled with the controls inside the cockpit, but to no avail: he couldn't steady the aircraft. The…

Buried Evil: V2 Rocket (Part 3)

As US troops approached a Nazi prison camp, they could hear agonized wailing. The stench of rotting flesh filled their nostrils. Moments later they discovered a pile of smoldering corpses,…

Supersonic Nazi Vengeance: V2 Rocket (Part 1)

At the height of World War Two, British intelligence began receiving reports that the enemy was developing a rocket weapon. The idea seemed fantastical — resources in Nazi Germany were…

Tenerife: The Most Deadly Air Disaster

Teaser: In 1977, two planes collided on the runway at Tenerife Airport. Why did the crash happen? And, given that it took place on the ground, why didn't more people…

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