History of Technology

What do we know about the economics of AI?
What do we know about the economics of AI? For all the talk about artificial intelligence upending the world, its economic effects remain uncertain. There is massive investment in AI but little clarity about what it will produce.Examining AI has become a significant part of Nobel-winning economist Daron Acemoglu’s ...
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light in six documents
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light in six documents This autumn sees the long-awaited broadcast of the dramatisation of Hilary Mantel’s final book in her Wolf Hall trilogy, a notable event for those of us fascinated by the Tudor period. It is being released in the UK by the ...
Exploring early photography through collaborative digital experimentation
Exploring early photography through collaborative digital experimentation Recent advancements in AI, improvements to collaboration platforms, and new tools for telling stories offer exciting opportunities for how researchers and the public understand and engage with the past. To explore some of these, The National Archives is hosting a ...
How mass migration remade postwar Europe
How mass migration remade postwar Europe Migrants have become a flashpoint in global politics. But new research by an MIT political scientist, focused on West Germany and Poland after World War II, shows that in the long term, those countries developed stronger states, more prosperous economies, ...
Extraordinary new clue about the Princes in the Tower found at The National Archives
Extraordinary new clue about the Princes in the Tower found at The National Archives Extraordinary new evidence has been found at The National Archives which offers a fresh clue about what happened to The Princes in the Tower.
An entry in a 16th century registry of wills shows a treasured possession belonging to elder prince, ...
Latest accredited archive services announced
Latest accredited archive services announced Following a recent Archive Service Accreditation Panel, the UK Archive Service Accreditation Committee is pleased to announce that the following archive services have been awarded accredited status for the first time:
Cardiff University Library
Northamptonshire Archive Service
All accredited archive services must apply ...
Catalogue Week 2024
Catalogue Week 2024 This final week in November marks our annual celebration of a selection of cataloguing projects and other initiatives currently taking place across The National Archives. Catalogue Week is now in its fourth year as an online event and brings together ...
Samurai in Japan, then engineers at MIT
Samurai in Japan, then engineers at MIT In 1867, five Japanese students took a long sea voyage to Massachusetts for some advanced schooling. The group included a 13-year-old named Eiichirō Honma, who was from one of the samurai families that ruled Japan. Honma expected to become a samurai ...
HIV and AIDS Archives: a workshop and a symposium
HIV and AIDS Archives: a workshop and a symposium The National Archives holds an extensive collection of material related to the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. This includes cabinet papers and records documenting the government response, public health campaigns, and scientific research connected to the spread and ...
The Detached Papers: New records on the transatlantic slave trade on Discovery
The Detached Papers: New records on the transatlantic slave trade on Discovery Content note: This blog highlights documents that contain racist language and descriptions of the conditions faced by enslaved Africans. Original language is preserved here to accurately represent our records and to help us fully understand the past.
Over the last few months, ...
Admir Masic: Using lessons from the past to build a better future
Admir Masic: Using lessons from the past to build a better future As a teenager living in a small village in what was then Yugoslavia, Admir Masic witnessed the collapse of his home country and the outbreak of the Bosnian war. When his childhood home was destroyed by a tank, his family ...
The National Archives Welcomes New Board Members
The National Archives Welcomes New Board Members  
The National Archives welcomes the appointment of two new non-executive Board members, Lopa Patel MBE and Nigel Baker. They replace Baroness Ros Scott of Needham Market and Mark Richards who both step down on 30 December 2024 after highly ...
Researching the 1934 Gresford Colliery disaster 
Researching the 1934 Gresford Colliery disaster  If you’ve watched the TV series Welcome to Wrexham you will know that it follows the fortunes of Wrexham AFC and the local community. If you made it past the disappointment of the football club failing to get promoted at ...
Seeking our future in the deep past
Seeking our future in the deep past Used to be, societies would recycle building materials. In Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica was made from the stones of the Colosseum. The Inca reused stones from one project to the next. Today we rarely do that.As MIT associate professor of ...
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 3: Tasmania to Perth
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 3: Tasmania to Perth I’ve been journeying through The National Archives inspired by historian Corinne Fowler’s latest talk with us, about her work ‘Walking through countryside’s forgotten colonial histories’. Collections experts Philippa Hellawell, Elizabeth Haines and Chris Day have joined me to re-enact one ...
Translating MIT research into real-world results
Translating MIT research into real-world results Inventive solutions to some of the world’s most critical problems are being discovered in labs, classrooms, and centers across MIT every day. Many of these solutions move from the lab to the commercial world with the help of over 85 ...
Risk, culture, and control
Risk, culture, and control Some people think the world is wildly unpredictable, and are glad insurance can handle the risk and uncertainty they face. Other people believe their destiny is written in the stars, and consult a daily horoscope to reveal what is in ...
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences welcomes nine new faculty
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences welcomes nine new faculty Dean Agustín Rayo and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences recently welcomed nine new professors to the MIT community. They arrive with diverse backgrounds and vast knowledge in their areas of research.Sonya Atalay joins the Anthropology Section as ...
Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it”
Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it” Tristan Brown is the S.C. Fang Chinese Language and Culture Career Development Professor at MIT. He specializes in law, science, environment and religion of late imperial China, a period running from the 16th through early 20th centuries.In this Q&A, Brown ...
Investigating the past to see technology’s future
Investigating the past to see technology’s future The MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) recently organized and hosted a two-day symposium, The History of Technology: Past, Present, and Future.The symposium was held June 7-8 at MIT’s Wong Auditorium, and featured scholars from a variety of ...

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