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Breakthrough: The Ideas That Changed the World
Polybius Square
Polybius, a Greek statesman and tutor to the Roman general, Scipio Africanus, sees that the Romans' method of signaling on the battlefield is limited to a small number of messages. He decides to invent a code so words can be exchanged between battalions freely. The result: the first long distance messaging system.
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Dial in to the fascinating history of the smartphone.
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Blast off into history to see how rockets originated not in the sky, but in a cave.
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Go for a ride through the 9,000-year history of the ultimate freedom machine: the car.
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Check out the history of robots and learn how they are becoming a part of everyday life.
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Take to the sky with the dreamers whose work gave humans the ability to fly.
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Look back in time to see how humans invented the telescope.