Sometimes our mistakes can be more valuable to us than our successes. They can make us more aware of the intricacies of day-to-day problems and lead us to innovative new solutions. But this can only happen if we acknowledge our mistakes, rather than covering them up...

The 1950s was a decade marked not only by phenomenal advances in science, but by an enormous amount of public interest in scientific and technological progress. This was the Space Age, when writers of science fiction looked forward to a boundless future in which human...

Designers of private homes have often been given short shrift by the historians of architecture, who tend to focus on grander and more impressive structures: skyscrapers, monuments, museums and the like. In some sense this would appear perfectly appropriate; public...

Forty years ago, personal computing was a niche hobby for enthusiasts willing to spend hours tinkering with parts, something like building a ham radio kit. Mentioning a “computer” in the business world at that time would conjure up the image of an entire room full of...

In this series we’ve discovered the stories of successful people who struggled to make their mark on the world. These struggles have often been bound up with prominent disadvantages that many of us are familiar with: poverty, obscurity, prejudice and other...

Industrial design is a field that many of us don’t consider often, even though it affects how we live and work every day. From the chairs that keep us comfortable to the coffee mugs that keep us awake, the products we use are all the result of someone’s design ideas....

“To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of preserving friendly relations with the Southern white man who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: ‘Cast down your bucket where you are. Cast it...