Connections 2

Discover how the steam engine led to safety matches, imitation diamonds and the moon in a wild ride.

What has Freud got to do with maps? Or prison reform with blue dye? Or the inside of a star with the Himalayas? India reveals the answers.

Start by examining a SWAT team, which leads to hot air ballooning, the root of many inventions.

Who stole a set of billiard balls in 1902 and why was he the most famous crook in history? The clues: maps from 1775, Charles Darwin's cousin and the FBI.

Something impossible happened 400 years ago. And we wound up in outer space, thanks (en route) to pigeon lovers, the Pope, and electric Italian frogs.

On his way to finding the secret of the universe, Burke takes us to the Buddhist tea ceremony, ties it to international spies and Lincoln's assassination.

The Le Mans 24-hour race is the backdrop for linking photography and bullets, relativity and blimps.

Two trails split over slavery in the 18th Century. One route leads to the Wild West and Brooklyn Bridge, the other coining money and TV. Both end with a threat to peace.

Unwrap a sandwich and you're on a path to World War II radar and Neo-Impressionist painters.

History repeats itself, when you know how to look. Pizzaro beats the Incas, the first stock market opens. The Queen of England salutes a Mexican beetle and Hitler's plans misfire.

Microscopic bugs inspired the novel "Frankenstein" which aided the birth of Socialism.

The connections between a cup of tea, opium dens, the London Zoo and a switch that releases bombs.

The greatest medical accident in history starts a trail that leads to Helen of Troy, 17th Century flower-power, the invention of soda pop and earthquake detection.

A Baltimore man invented the bottle, which led to razors and clock springs, and the Hubble telescope.

Hairdressers, Gold Rush miners, Irish potato farmers and English parliamentarians are really tied together.

A sick lawyer in 18th Century France changes farming and triggers the French Revolution and new medical research.

One medieval word kicks off the investigation into different cultures with the same stories that ends in cultural anthropology.

Dutch piracy starts international law and French probability math, phonetics and Victorian séances.

How the zipper started with technology Jefferson picked up in Paris during a row about Creation.

Robin Hood starts us on a trail from medieval showbiz to land drainage, to the invention of decimals that end up in U.S. currency, thanks to the guy who started the Erie Canal.