Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

    We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable 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 “The Data Detective”) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, and hilarious fiascos. They'll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser. New episodes every other Friday.

  • Demonizing Dungeons & Dragons (Classic)

  • Captain Coward and the Blame Game

  • Get Happier, Help Others: Some Good Ideas About Giving

  • RoboPod and the Perpetual Money Machine - Cautionary Questions 2

  • Darwin's Grandpa and the Art of Sex Appeal

  • The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween

  • Cautionary Tales Presents: Death Fraud and Other Risky Business

  • The Poet Who Toppled The British Empire

  • Reason, Wrath and Rebellion on the High Seas

  • Steel and Kindness: Clash of the Skyscrapers

  • The Nice Guy, the Bully and the Kiss

  • Tim's Tolkien Obsession & Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power

  • The Human Guinea Pigs of Camp Lazear

  • Embracing the Escape Fire (with Adam Grant)

  • Cautionary Tales Presents Vultures from Lost Hills: Dark Canyon

  • Flying Too High: AI and Air France Flight 447

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

  • Adidas v Puma: A Battle of Boots and Brothers

  • The Revenge of the Whales

  • When the Robots Take Over... - Cautionary Questions

  • WW2: How Britain Ignored the Mother of All Secrets

  • The Fraudster's Guide to Magic Money

  • Blood and Gold (with Dan Snow)

  • The Rise and Fall of a Megalomaniac

  • Inside the Bizarre World of Dictators

  • Pushkin Hosts Celebrate World Happiness Day

  • Do Nothing, Then Do Less

  • Buried Evil: V2 Rocket (Part 3)

  • Into the Black Lair: V2 Rocket (Part 2)

  • Supersonic Nazi Vengeance: V2 Rocket (Part 1)

  • Tenerife: The Most Deadly Air Disaster

  • Martin Luther King, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking (Classic)

  • DANGER: Rocks Ahead! (Classic)

  • When Stalin Killed the Weekend (with The Happiness Lab)

  • How the Radium Girls Fought Back

  • Glowing Peril: The Magical Glitter That Poisoned a City

  • George Washington's Beard of Beetles (with The Dollop)

  • Laser Versus Parchment: Doomsday for the Disc

  • Cautionary Tales Presents The Dream

  • Killers of the Flower Moon: Osage Chief Jim Gray In Conversation

  • Oil and Blood: The Osage Murders

  • DOUBLE BILL: A Monkey For Mayor / A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet

  • "7000 horses are being flown across space..." - Cautionary Questions #2

  • Cautionary Tales Presents: Getting out of Dodge from Revisionist History

  • A Chorus of Contempt at The Sydney Opera House

  • The City That Sold Itself To Wall Street

  • General Ludd's Rage Against the Machines

  • Andy Warhol's Factory of Truth

  • Poles Apart: How A Journalist Divided A City

  • The Father of Space Travel

  • A Fascination with Failure: Death On The Dancefloor (Classic)

  • When Parakeets Plundered New York

  • The Coup, the Poet and the Secret to Winning Wimbledon

  • The Man Who Played With Hurricanes

  • Cautionary Tales Presents: Lost Hills - The Dark Prince

  • Sonic Poison? The Genesis of Havana Syndrome

  • Airships, AI and Alan Cumming: Tim Answers Your Questions

  • The Man Who Bet His House on a Pop Song - A Eurovision Tale

  • The Dark Money Behind Mother's Day

  • The True Scandal of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound

  • What if Terrorists Could Weaponize Covid?

  • The Vigilante and the Air Traffic Controller

  • America's Mata Hari? The Double Life of Esther Reed

  • Office Hell: the Demise of the Playful Workspace

  • La La Land: Galileo’s Warning (Classic)

  • The Scientist and the Swindler

  • The Hero Who Rode His Segway Off a Cliff

  • The Mummy's Curse (Classic)

  • The Final Illusion of the Great Lafayette

  • LIVE: The Myth of the Million Dollar Tulip Bulb

  • DOUBLE BILL: When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft/Blood on the Tracks

  • "Snow Crashing Into The Metaverse" from Imaginary Worlds

  • The Company That Cancelled Christmas

  • The Wild Turkeys of Schleswig

  • Cautionary Conversation: The Blitz Spirit and the Blackout Ripper

  • The Inventor Who Almost Ended the World

  • The Halloween Poisoner

  • Cautionary Conversation: The Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind

  • Cautionary Tales Presents: Warfare, The Life of Anne Frank

  • The Online Date That's Too Good to be True

  • A Leap of Faith From the Eiffel Tower

  • Cautionary Conversation: Flying on Empty

  • Tim Talks Bicycles with Patented

  • "You’re Not Howard Hughes!"

  • "Who would you dine with? Scott or Amundsen?" Malcolm Gladwell and Tim Harford in Discussion.

  • South Pole Race: When the Limeys Get Scurvy

  • The Bowery Boys and the Black Tom Explosion

  • South Pole Race: “Mummy, is Amundsen a good man?”

  • South Pole Race: David and Goliath on Ice

  • Chicago When It Sizzles

  • The French Knight’s Guide to Corporate Culture

  • Frankenstein Versus the Volcano

  • Bless the Coal-black Hearts of the Broadway Critics

  • Monkey for Mayor from This Day in Esoteric Political History

  • When the Autopilot Switched Off

  • Cautionary Tales Presents: World's Greatest Con

  • Photographing Fairies

  • Tim Joins ‘No Such Thing As A Fish'

  • The False Dawn of the Electric Car

  • The Balloons That Ate Cleveland (A Cautionary Tales Short)

  • Death on the Dance Floor

  • Cautionary Tales Returns Every Other Friday from March 25th

  • The Mummy’s Curse

  • The Truth About Hansel and Gretel

  • Do NOT Pass GO!

  • Wrong Tools Cost Lives

  • Fritterin’ Away Genius

  • The Fan Who Infected a Movie Star

  • Whistleblower on the 28th Floor

  • Masterly Inactivity Versus Micromanaging

  • Demonizing Dungeons & Dragons

  • Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop

  • The Curse of Knowledge Meets The Valley of Death

  • The Dunning Kruger Hijack (and Other Criminally Stupid Acts)

  • Catching a KiIler Doctor

  • The Art Forger, the Nazi, and "The Pope"

  • Florence Nightingale and Her Geeks Declare War on Death

  • Martin Luther King Jr, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking

  • Bonus: Why We Believe What Isn't True (with Axios Today)

  • The Data Detective

  • BONUS: Storks, Smoking and the Power of Doubt

  • How To End A Pandemic

  • That Turn To Pascagoula

  • The Village of Heroes

  • The Spreadsheet of Life and Death

  • A Tsunami of Misery

  • Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club

  • Cautionary Tales Presents: TED Talk Daily

  • You Have Reached Your Destination

  • Bowie, Jazz and the Unplayable Piano

  • How Britain Invented, Then Ignored, Blitzkrieg

  • Buried by the Wall Street Crash

  • The Deadly Airship Race

  • La La Land: Galileo's Warning

  • The Rogue Dressed as a Captain

  • DANGER: Rocks Ahead!

  • Introducing: Cautionary Tales

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