American Innovations

By Wondery

History Kids & Family

What's American Innovations about?

DNA science. Artificial intelligence. Smartphones and 3D printers. Science and technology have transformed the world we live in. But how did we get here? It wasn’t by accident. Well, sometimes it was. It was also the result of hard work, teamwork, and competition. And incredibly surprising moments. Hosted by bestselling author Steven Johnson (“How We Got To Now”), American Innovations uses immersive scenes to tell the stories of the scientists, engineers, and ordinary people behind the greatest discoveries of the past century. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts.

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Listen Now: 'Tis The Grinch...

11.20.2023

Cuddly as a cactus and charming as an eel, he’s your new favorite snarky talk show host. Join The Grinch (and his faithful dog Max) each week as he rants against Christmas cheer and roasts celebrity guests like chestnuts on ...

American Innovations episodes:

11.20.2023 Listen Now: 'Tis The Grinch Holiday Talk Show Cuddly as a cactus and charming as an eel, he’s your new favorite snarky talk show host. Join The Grinch (and his faithful dog Max) each week as he rants against Christmas cheer and roasts celebrity guests like chestnuts on ...
11.06.2023 Listen Now: The Daily Stoic For centuries, all sorts of people—generals and politicians, athletes and coaches, writers and leaders—have looked to the teachings of Stoicism to help guide their lives. Each day, author and speaker Ryan Holiday brings you a new lesson about life, inspired ...
10.11.2023 Listen Now: Six Trophies with Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcion Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcion are back! And this time they’re combing through all the NBA news from the past week and handing out six pop culture-themed trophies to six basketball-related activities. Every week, superlatives will reign down on basketball ...
12.30.2021 Tech’s Next Big Waves \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. For our last episode before American Innovations goes on hiatus, we look to the future of new technology from artificial intelligence and virtual reality to carbon capture and the electrification of mobility. ...
12.16.2021 The Mystery of Stuxnet \| Cracking the Code \| 1 In the summer of 2010, a mysterious computer virus called Stuxnet lands on the desk of Symantec cybersecurity analyst Liam O’Murchu. Stuxnet is unlike anything O’Murchu has ever seen: a highly sophisticated piece of malware that serves no obvious purpose. ...
11.11.2021 Man with No Memory \| The Accident \| 1 Even as recently as the early 1950s, we didn’t understand that there were different types of memory, or how the brain processed and stored memories. Then, in 1953, a radical surgery by a reckless doctor gave us tremendous insights into ...
10.14.2021 Predator Drone \| From Albatross to Amber \| 1 What if you could design a spy plane that could be flown remotely and hover in the sky for hours, providing reconnaissance for troops on the ground? In the early 1980s, the visionary inventor Abe Karem begins building drones out ...
10.07.2021 Pushing Painkillers \| An Untapped Market \| 1 Doctors once shied away from using opioids to treat chronic pain, citing the risk of addiction. But in the 1970s, a new generation of doctors started to argue that opioids should be reconsidered, and that allowing terminal patients to suffer ...
09.30.2021 Encore: Organ Transplant \| A Short History of Living Longer \| 4 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. In the past 100 years, we’ve doubled life expectancy. It might be the single greatest achievement of the modern era. So why haven’t we done more to celebrate it? On this episode, ...
09.23.2021 Encore: Organ Transplant \| The Heart Race \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. In 1967, an unlikely surgeon performs the first human heart transplant – and shocks the world. As others race to replicate his achievement, one surgical team makes a mistake that could spell ...
08.12.2021 Social Media \| Find Your Friends \| 1 Today social media is such a dominant part of our daily lives, it's hard to believe that only 20 years ago, it didn’t exist. Then a newly single tech entrepreneur named Jonathan Abrams wondered: What if you could use the ...
08.05.2021 Fracking \| Interview: The Price of Gas \| 4 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. Families who leased their gas-rich land to fracking companies during the boom are still wrestling with the impact of that decision. On this episode, Steven talks to Eliza Griswold, an award-winning poet, ...
07.15.2021 Fracking \| The Source Rock \| 1 In the late 1970s, oil and natural gas fields across the U.S. were drying up, making the country increasingly dependent on foreign oil. Then, a Texas energy magnate named George Mitchell decided to try extracting natural gas from shale, a ...
07.08.2021 Encore: Heimlich Maneuver \| Heimlich’s Maneuver \| 1 In the 1960s, choking was a national epidemic. In the United States alone, close to 4,000 people were dying from choking every year. Lobster, ham, and hamburger were common culprits. But steak was by far the greatest offender. Coroners called ...
07.01.2021 Cryonics \| Suspended Animation \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. Robert Ettinger was a science teacher and writer who launched the field of cryonics and became its most most fervent ambassador, even choosing to be cryogenically frozen himself. On this episode, Steven ...
06.24.2021 Cryonics \| Frozen Heroes \| 2 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. Bob Nelson is hoping cryonics will become the business boon he's been expecting. Operating on a shoestring budget and employing the most primitive methods of freezing and storing bodies, Nelson struggles to ...
06.17.2021 Cryonics \| Immortality On Ice \| 1 Not everyone chooses burial or cremation after death. Some believe in cryonics, freezing their bodies in the hopes of being reanimated sometime in the future. Bob Nelson, a TV repairman with no scientific background, made history when he froze the ...
06.10.2021 Storm Chasers \| Reaping the Whirlwind \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. Storm chasing is part scientific inquiry, part amateur thrill seeking — and sometimes, a bit of both. On this episode, Steven talks to journalist Brantley Hargrove, author of The Man Who Caught ...
05.27.2021 Storm Chasers \| Tornado Alley \| 1 No extreme weather phenomenon fascinates us more than tornadoes. For most of human history, very little was known about how these graceful yet violent columns of swirling air formed or behaved. Then, in the 1950s, a teenager from North Dakota ...
04.29.2021 Hacking \| What’s in the Blue Box? \| 1 Hackers: the criminals who prey on our digital lives. Today they steal credit cards and personal information, or even commit acts of cyber-terrorism. But in the early days, hackers were largely seen as harmless pranksters. And it wasn’t computers they ...
04.22.2021 Breaking The Sound Barrier \| Who Got to Mach 1 First? \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. In 1947, Chuck Yeager made history when he flew faster than the speed of sound. But was he really the first to do it? On this episode, Steven talks to aviation historian ...
04.15.2021 Breaking The Sound Barrier \| Sonic Boom or Bust \| 2 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. With each test run, pilot Chuck Yeager is getting closer to taking the top secret Bell X-1 plane past the speed of sound. But just before a critical flight, an accident on ...
04.08.2021 Breaking The Sound Barrier \| A Bullet With Wings \| 1 In the 1940s, as planes got faster, it seemed like they were hitting a wall -- literally. Many pilots tried to travel faster than the speed of sound, often with fatal results. Could American test pilot Chuck Yeager succeed where ...
04.01.2021 Encore: Electric Chair \| A Matter of Light and Death \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. In the summer of 1888, just as the electric chair controversy was unfolding, Nikola Tesla moved to Pittsburgh to work for George Westinghouse, fulfilling a year-long commitment he made when Westinghouse purchased ...
03.25.2021 Encore: Electric Chair \| The War Becomes Electric \| 2 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. After his unceremonious departure from Edison Electric, Nikola Tesla found himself broke and dejected, but more determined than ever to share his alternating current system with the world. And thanks to the ...
03.18.2021 Encore: Electric Chair \| Power to the People \| 1 On August 6, 1890, a prisoner named William Kemmler became the first man executed in the electric chair. It was designed to be a more humane form of execution, but the gruesome scene in the death chamber that day revealed ...
03.11.2021 Lie Detector \| The Future of Lying \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. What new technologies might eventually replace the still-popular but widely debunked polygraph? On this episode, Steven talks with Ken Alder, author of the book “The Lie Detectors: The History of an American ...
02.25.2021 Lie Detector \| The Heart of a Liar \| 1 Humans are shockingly bad at telling whether or not someone is lying. That’s why, a century ago, psychologists and criminologists developed machines to detect lies for us, by measuring blood pressure, pulse, and breathing rate. Their lie detectors promised to ...
01.14.2021 Mission To Mars \| Seeing Red \| 1 Even after the Apollo program put astronauts on the moon, Mars remained out of reach. Then, in 1990, an ambitious engineer hatched an ingenious plan to send the first humans to the red planet. But will anyone at NASA buy ...
12.17.2020 Year In Review \| When Will I Get the Vaccine? \| 1 2020 has been a year of struggle, uncertainty and loss. It has also forced us to adapt and innovate in nearly every aspect of our lives. But no innovation this year has been more important and more astounding than the ...
11.26.2020 Telephone \| Call Waiting \| 1 In the 19th Century, the telegraph is the cutting edge of communication. No one can imagine anything better—except Alexander Graham Bell. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App ...
11.19.2020 Auto-Tune: From Cher to Kanye \| 1 All Andy Hildebrand wanted to do was make a computer program to help singers sound better. He never expected it to kick off a battle for the soul of modern music. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively ...
11.12.2020 The Fight Against AIDS \| The AIDS-Covid Connection \| 4 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. With AIDS under control here in the U.S., we find ourselves in the middle of another deadly pandemic. Now the doctors who were on the front lines of the AIDS crisis are ...
11.05.2020 The Fight Against AIDS \| The Lazarus Effect \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. As AIDS activists keep up the pressure to find new treatments and lower the price of existing ones, they win unlikely allies at the highest levels of government. Meanwhile, some doctors on ...
10.22.2020 The Fight Against AIDS \| The Epidemic Begins \| 1 In the early 1980s, a mysterious new disease spread like wildfire through the gay communities of major U.S. cities. Before it even had a name, AIDS had already killed over half its victims. Public response was hampered by ignorance, fear, ...
08.27.2020 Keeping Cool \| A Chilly Reception \| 1 Muggy. Sticky. Miserable. For eons, that’s just what summer was. In fact, when air conditioning first became available, few people took advantage of it. Wasn’t summer supposed to be uncomfortable? This is the story of how people finally warmed up ...
08.18.2020 Fighting Coronavirus \| Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Vaccines (But Were Afraid to Ask) \| 18 The coronavirus has put our lives on pause, but it’s kicked the science behind vaccines into hyperdrive. Science writer Carl Zimmer walks Steven through some of the radical new approaches to making vaccines – and gives his best-case/worst-case scenarios for ...
07.30.2020 Video Games \| Electric Dreams \| 1 Call of Duty, Fortnite, Animal Crossing.... The video game industry generates billions of dollars each year. But not so long ago, video games were mostly played by the programmers who made them. On our new season, we’re telling the story ...
07.23.2020 Radar \| The Superpowers of Modern Radar \| 4 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. Since World War II, scientists have continued to use radar to explore what we can’t see or hear ourselves. And their uses have become increasingly creative. On this episode, we’re talking to ...
07.16.2020 Radar \| The Rad Lab \| 3 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. As German bombers raze England’s cities, American scientists race to build the world’s first air-to-air radar system. But building the system is only half the challenge. If the scientists succeed, they’ll also ...
07.09.2020 Radar \| Mr. Bowen Goes to Washington \| 2 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. As World War II rages on, American and English scientists race to develop a microwave radar system. But both sets of scientists have something the other team needs to cross the finish ...
07.07.2020 Fighting Coronavirus \| How We Can Still Win \| 16 When National Geographic science editor Nsikan Akpan began researching his latest article on the coronavirus, he asked every scientist he talked to the same question: Has the U.S. already lost? Every scientist said no – but we need a better ...
07.02.2020 Radar \| Welcome to Tuxedo Park \| 1 What technology won WWII? Most people would say the atomic bomb, but the real answer is radar. As a small island country, vulnerable to aerial attacks, England took the lead in developing radar in the 1930s. But the early radar ...
06.30.2020 Fighting Coronavirus \| Inside the NBA Bubble \| 15 Back in March, the NBA pressed pause on its 2019-20 season. Now, the league wants to pick up where it left off – but with Covid-19 rates on the rise, it’s not going to be easy. This week, Kavitha Davidson, ...
06.23.2020 Fighting Coronavirus \| Forest Fires, Memes, & Covid-19 \| 14 Forest fires. Ant colonies. Internet memes. On the surface, they have nothing in common. But, according to network scientist Samuel Scarpino, they’re all complex systems that spread. Sam’s job is to crack the rules underlying their spread, and then apply ...
06.16.2020 Fighting Coronavirus \| Can We Ditch the Office Forever? \| 13 Most CEOs hated the idea of employees working from home. But when the coronavirus hit, they didn’t have a choice. They sent their white-collar workers home before they’d even learned how to mute themselves on Zoom. What happened next surprised ...
06.09.2020 Fighting Coronavirus \| Why Covid-19 Disproportionately Kills Black Americans \| 12 There’s a saying in public health circles: “When white America sneezes, black America gets pneumonia.” When the coronavirus hit, health care experts knew that black Americans would be the hardest hit. But the numbers were still shocking. Black people make ...
06.04.2020 Ferris Wheel \| Scott A. Lukas and the History of Theme Parks \| 2 This episode is available exclusively for Wondery+ subscribers. George Ferris aspired to build a structure for the 1893 World's Fair that could rival Paris's Eiffel Tower. And when the Ferris wheel debuted, newspapers hailed it as the eighth wonder of ...
06.03.2020 Fighting Coronavirus \| Can Your Smartwatch Detect Covid-19? \| 11 These days, watches don’t just tell time. Smartwatches like Apple Watch and Fitbit measure your heart rate, count your steps, and track your sleep schedule. According to Dr. Michael Snyder, they can also tell you when you’re getting sick – ...
05.28.2020 Ferris Wheel \| Wheel in the Sky \| 1 The 1889 World’s Fair in Paris dazzles attendees with the Eiffel Tower. So, when plans begin for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the mandate is clear: beat the Tower. America’s architects and engineers compete to win the job – ...

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