A new true story every Sunday
Movie-style stories behind the inventions and customs you use every day, told by Baba: an electrical engineer and grandfather who still can't believe how we got here.
Tonight's questionHow did a pile of accidents build AI?
Start here
None of it had to exist. Each of these got here through an accident, a rivalry or a very close call. Touch one.
The voice in your phoneStory 01
The car in your drivewayStory 02
The TV on your wallStory 03
The plane over your roofStory 04
The engine outside your window seatStory 05
The tree in your living roomStory 06
The socket in your wallStory 07
The call you made this weekStory 08
The calendar on your fridgeStory 09
The toilet down the hallStory 10
The battery in everything you ownStory 11
The number in your bank appStory 12
The chip in your pocketStory 13
The dial on your wallStory 14
The hot shower you took todayStory 15By a whisker
A freshman needs one more class and picks philosophy. The logic he meets there ends up inside every computer.
Story 01 · The Relay Race →A Greek engineer built a working steam engine. It stayed a toy, with no job, for sixteen centuries.
Story 02 · The Engine →The shape of the modern airplane was engraved on a silver disc in 1799. It flew in 1903.
Story 04 · Human Flight →In 1903 the New York Times said flying might take one to ten million years. It took 69 days.
Story 04 · Human Flight →The jet engine's patent died over a five-pound renewal fee.
Story 05 · The Jet Engine →The fine for keeping Christmas in Massachusetts in 1659.
Story 06 · Christmas →An immigrant inventor couldn't pay a ten-dollar fee for his telephone.
Story 08 · The Telephone →In 1752, Britain lost eleven days from its calendar.
Story 09 · The Calendar →A poet built a queen a working flush toilet in 1596. Almost nobody copied it for two centuries.
Story 10 · The Toilet →In 1900 America built more electric cars than gasoline cars. Then came the detour.
Story 11 · The Electric Car →Season 1 · fifteen stories · Sundays, 2 PM Eastern
Watch in order: each story ends by handing the baton to the next one. A new one unlocks here every Sunday.
The voice in your phone
The baton passes to The Engine ↓
Story 01Coming Sunday
How did a pile of accidents build AI?
A philosophy class someone took to fill their schedule. A new employee with no vacation days. Two video-game cards in a bedroom at his parents' house. Almost none of it was planned.
The car in your driveway
The baton passes to Television ↓
Story 02Coming Sunday
Why is your car still measured in horses?
A Greek engineer built a steam engine and used it as a toy. For 1,600 years nobody gave it a job. Then England ran out of firewood, and a coal mine flooded.
The TV on your wall
The baton passes to Human Flight ↓
Story 03Coming Sunday
Why did the boy who dreamed up TV keep it from his own kids?
A farm boy imagined electronic television in a potato field, fought RCA for the credit, and later wouldn't let his own children watch it. Then one broadcast changed his mind.
The plane over your roof
The baton passes to The Jet Engine ↓
Story 04Coming Sunday
Why did the airplane wait 104 years to fly?
In 1799, an Englishman engraved the shape of the modern airplane on a silver disc. In 1903 the New York Times said a flying machine might take one to ten million years. It took 69 days.
The engine outside your window seat
The baton passes to Christmas ↓
Story 05Coming Sunday
Why did the men who built the first jet engine run from it?
In 1937 it ran away on its test stand, screaming like an air-raid siren. Its inventor had been told he was too short for the Air Force. And his patent died over a five-pound fee.
The tree in your living room
The baton passes to Electricity ↓
Story 06Coming Sunday
Why was Christmas once illegal in America?
In 1659, keeping Christmas in Massachusetts could cost you a five-shilling fine. So how did a banned holiday become the biggest celebration on Earth?
The socket in your wall
The baton passes to The Telephone ↓
Story 07Coming Sunday
What is really behind the socket in your wall?
A bookbinder's boy, an ugly war between Edison and Westinghouse, the plug that got your great-grandmother off a chair, and one tree in Ohio that switched off 50 million people.
The call you made this week
The baton passes to The Calendar ↓
Story 08Coming Sunday
Why did a horse help invent the telephone?
Fifteen years before Bell, a German schoolteacher sent half a sentence about a horse down a wire. Two lawyers walked into the same patent office on the same day. And the people with the money didn't want it at all.
The calendar on your fridge
The baton passes to The Toilet ↓
Story 09Coming Sunday
Where did the missing days go?
February 30 was a real date in Sweden. In Alaska, Friday was followed by another Friday. And in 1752, Britain lost 11 days.
The toilet down the hall
The baton passes to The Electric Car ↓
Story 10Coming Sunday
Why did a queen's flush toilet sit ignored for 200 years?
In 1596 a poet built Queen Elizabeth I a working flush toilet, and almost nobody copied it for 200 years. Even in 1940, about 4 in 10 American homes had no private indoor toilet.
The battery in everything you own
The baton passes to Money ↓
Story 11Coming Sunday
Why did the electric car vanish for 100 years?
In 1900, America built more electric cars than gasoline cars. Henry Ford's own wife drove one. Then they disappeared, until a camcorder battery brought them back.
The number in your bank app
The baton passes to The Chip ↓
Story 12Coming Sunday
How does a fortune sink to the sea floor and still count?
A family's fortune sank to the bottom of the sea, and the family stayed rich. Look at your bank balance: almost none of that money was ever printed.
The chip in your pocket
The baton passes to Central Heating ↓
Story 13Coming Sunday
Why doesn't your phone cost two trillion dollars?
At the old price of a single transistor, the 19 billion in your phone's main chip would cost about $1.8 trillion. How one little switch got that cheap: a razor blade, a boss nobody could stand, and a fire.
The dial on your wall
The baton passes to The Hot Shower ↓
Story 14Coming Sunday
How did anyone get through winter before the thermostat?
Thomas Jefferson's ink froze inside Monticello. A medieval family shared its house with the cow. And in 1940, more than half of American homes still had no central heat.
The hot shower you took today
Story 15Coming Sunday
Why does your hot shower have a prison in its family tree?
A hundred and fifty years ago the whole family bathed once a week in the same tub of water, and the youngest went last. Then a prison doctor in France had a guard climb a ladder with a watering can.
And the baton keeps moving. More stories are being written.
Subscribe on YouTube Or get one short email each Sunday when a story unlocks.House rules
Every episode keeps three things apart, and tells you which one you're looking at.
What happened, with dates, names and sources. Checked before it's said.
The legend everyone repeats but nobody can prove. Told as a legend, never as fact.
"What if it never happened?" My own speculation, labeled on screen every time.
One more honest thing: the host you see on screen is my AI avatar, speaking with my real voice. The historical scenes are AI-made dramatizations. The facts are real.
Who's Baba?
I'm Afshin. My grandkids call me Baba.
As a boy I secretly opened my father's calculator to see how it worked, and I never stopped asking that question. I became an electrical engineer, spent my career building software, and later worked as an AI researcher.
This channel is the stories I wish someone had told me: not dates and dull history, but the accidents, rivalries and lucky breaks behind the things we never think about.
Free printable
Every moment from Story 1, from 1830s human "computers" to the machine you talk to today. Great for the fridge, the classroom or quizzing the grandkids. Plus one short email each Sunday when a new story drops.
