Sixteen years have passed since Ferdinand De Lesseps’ catastrophic failure in Panama, and the dramatic collapse of the French Panama Canal company. Now, President Theodore Roosevelt has picked up ...

Beneath all the tariff craziness — the taxes on islands inhabited only by penguins, the pseudo-profound mathematical definition of “reciprocal”, the idea that the settled trade policy of every ...

In 1978, a dredging gang working for British Waterways was struggling with a problem. They were trying to clear obstacles on the Chesterfield Canal so they could stabilise a concrete wall — not an ...

Ferdinand De Lesseps, “the Great Frenchman”, was convinced that he was the man to build the Panama Canal. No, he wasn’t an engineer and no, he’d never actually been to Panama before. But he’d managed ...

Who can predict what he will do next? Back in 1987, one of the world’s most celebrated experts opined: “Sad to say, the poor fellow has incurable emotional problems. At times he feels euphoric and can ...

In 1978 the world is on the brink of declaring victory over smallpox. No cases have been seen for months, and it looks like the end for a deadly, painful disease. When a photographer in Birmingham ...

Of all the dubious claims uttered recently by Elon Musk, I have yet to see a more interesting one than his tweet asserting that “a more accurate measure of GDP would exclude government spending.

“Thanks to Tim Harford’s characteristic wit and magnetic storytelling, you may not realize you’re getting an advanced course in how to understand the kinds of statistics we’re all faced with every day ...

20 years ago, a book called Freakonomics became an instant bestseller and worldwide sensation. Tim Harford got his hands on the first copy that Steve Levitt ever signed… and promptly sold it on eBay.

1957. Jørn Utzon receives a phone call: he’s just won an international competition to design a brand new opera house for the Australian city of Sydney. Utzon is unknown in the field, so this is a ...