Breakthrough: The Ideas That Changed the World

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• 2019-2019
• 1 Season
• PBS
• Documentary

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• Watchlist

This is the amazing story of how humans changed the world forever, told through six iconic inventions that we take for granted: the telescope, the airplane, the robot, the car, the rocket, and the smartphone. These are the secrets of how we got to our modern world, told in an accessible, exciting format with broad appeal. Each invention is the culmination of a long-held human dream - to explore, to communicate, or to find our place in the universe. They are familiar, yet hidden within them are thousands of years of thought, struggle, sacrifice, determination, and insight. Each one is packed with incredible and often little-known stories. There are surprising accidents, colorful characters, and moments of joy or despair stretching back in time, often to the beginning of human civilization itself. The shows are littered with visionaries - people with the passion that drove them to risk death, poverty, or ridicule. Each, whether knowingly or not, advanced our species' progression to where we are now, often at considerable cost to themselves. The result is a mind-blowing science-led journey through human history, full of unintended consequences and incredible connections. It reveals how science, invention, and technology built on one another to change everything - a process that continues to this very day.