In 1436, Johannes Gutenberg  invented the printing press, setting the stage for a new era in information exchange on a massive scale and kick-starting the era of scientific discovery.

The Compass made it possible for sailors to move into deep sea and explore new lands, ultimately boosting international trade.

Tune in to this episode to listen to other impactful inventions through history.

In the 1990s, North Korea acquired access to Pakistani centrifuge technology and designs from scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had directed the militarization of Pakistan’s nuclear program. In exchange, Pakistan received North Korean missile technology. 

Through his job at URENCO, A.Q Khan methodically stole classified plans for a centrifuge, that would create bomb-grade uranium.

In the fall of 1980, Israeli military intelligence reported that the Osiris nuclear reactor, 12 miles southeast of Baghdad, would become operational between July and November of 1981. Failure was not an option for Israel and PM Menachem Begin gave the go ahead to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor.

On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to a group of London merchants for exclusive overseas trading rights with the East Indies. The new English East India Company was a monopoly in the sense that no other British subjects could legally trade in that territory, but it faced stiff competition from the Spanish and Portuguese, who already had trading outposts in India, and also the Dutch East Indies Company, founded in 1602.

Before the East India Company, most clothes in England were made out of wool and designed for durability, not fashion. But that began to change as British markets were flooded with inexpensive, beautifully woven cotton textiles from India, where each region of the country produced cloth in different colors and patterns. When a new pattern arrived, it would suddenly become all the rage on the streets of London. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the EIC earned rights to collect land revenue in Bengal. diversifying it into a tax collector.

With the colonization of North America, a vast global market opened up for trade in goods across various colonial regions.

In 1920, Charles Ponzi started the Ponzi scheme which promised a 50% return on investments after 90 days. After a few successful months, his luck ran out as new investments dried and Ponzi came under the radar of investigators. 

Victor Lustig conned two buyers and sold a national monument.

The two biggest corporate bankruptcies in the United States came about due to Accounting Fraud.

The 1MDB moeny laundering happened at the highest levels of government, in Malaysia.

The Dust Bowl in the 1930s caused by extensive soil erosion in the southern plains region of the United States, led to  severe dust storms during a period of extensive drought.

For five days in December 1952, the Great Smog of London smothered the city, wreaking havoc and killing thousands.

In the early 1950s, the Minamata Bay was the center of the outbreak of the Minamata Disease caused by Mercury poisoning caused by toxic waste from the nearby Chisso Chemical Plant.

In December 1984, the world's worst industrial disaster happened in the City of Bhopal in India after the poisonous gas Methyl Isocyanate leaked from the local Union Carbide plant.

On May 15, 1967 Egyptian President Nasser ordered his army to march into Sinai Peninsula and then demanded that the United Nations pull its peacekeepers from the peninsula. Then he declared the Straits of Tiran, closed to Israeli shipping. 

Subsequently, on June 5, 1967, the Israel Defense Forces initiated Operation Focus, a coordinated aerial attack on Egypt. After catching the Egyptians by surprise, they assaulted 18 different airfields and eliminated roughly 90 percent of the Egyptian air force as it sat on the ground. Israel then expanded the range of its attack and decimated the air forces of Jordan, Syria and Iraq.

In the five days that followed Israel routed the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. It captured the Gaza Strip and the Sinai desert from Egypt; the Golan Heights from Syria; and the West Bank and East Jerusalem, from Jordan. And for the first time in almost two millennia the Jewish holy places in Jerusalem were under the control of Jews. 

The trans-Atlantic slave trade was one leg of a three-part system known as the triangular trade. The forming of the triangle began when European ships, carrying firearms and manufactured goods, sailed to Africa, where the commodities were traded for enslaved men, women and children. Next, the same ships transported the human cargo across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. 

This horrific journey was called the Middle Passage. Completing the triangle, the ships—having disembarked the enslaved Africans—were reloaded with cotton, sugar, tobacco and other cash crops produced by slave labor, and returned to Europe.

The countries that enslaved the highest number of Africans, from the most to the least, were Portugal, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States and Denmark

Another downplayed factor is the central role played by ruling African states in the capture and sale of fellow Africans to European traders—an estimated 90 percent of all captives. The main motivation behind these transactions was the acquisition of guns for use in inter-ethnic warfare. The enslaved were abducted from as far north as present-day Senegal to as far south as Angola, and transported to destinations as far south as Argentina and as far north as New England.

In December 2001, Afghan delegates convened in Bonn, Germany, by the United Nations selected Hamid Karzai to serve as head of an interim national government, marking the beginning of post-Taliban governance.

Nine years later, in late 2010, secret negotiations began between a Taliban representative and some U.S. officials. The talks centered largely on confidence-building measures, specifically the issues of a prisoner exchange and the opening of a Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar.

In mid-2018, President Trump was reportedly frustrated with the lack of military progress against the Taliban, and he ordered formal and direct U.S.-Taliban talks without Afghan government participation.

On April 14, 2021, President Biden announced that the United States would begin a “final withdrawal” on May 1, to be completed by September 11, 2021

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with the expectation of capture of its capital Kyiv within 3 days and a subsequent change of government in Ukraine. But within a month, the Russian forces were beating a retreat into their comfort zone in Eastern Ukraine, realizing their inability to achieve their primary battle aims. In the East too, the going has been tough. From corruption to poor planning to underestimating the support from NATO, Russia committed several blunders to end up pushed back into 15% of Ukrainian territory in the East by December of 2022.

Post WWII, Israel hunts and captures the dreaded Nazi Official, Adolph Eichmann in a foreign country and smuggles him out, to bring him to justice in Israel. The CIA conducts the espionage coup of the century by taking over a key crypto provider without its clients having any knowledge. The KGB masterminds the first documented case of cyber espionage.