BackStory

Climate Control: A History of Heating and Cooling

In this episode, the History Guys consider the advent of air conditioning, and explore its far-reaching implications on everything from architecture and leisure to demography and politics. They also look at what happened when stoves became widely available in the mid-19th century, and how technology altered Americans’ way of life.

Weathering the Storm

This week on BackStory, we tackle extreme weather: how we’ve tried to predict it, control it, make sense of it. Along the way, we discover that our responses to wind, sleet, and rain have said as much about us as about the natural world.