Every now and then, I go down a weird rathole. With the news of the Ever Given stuck in the Suez, and the fact that I live next to one of the world’s great historical waterways, I looked at the history of marine transportation.

It’s a story that involves the British love of tea, the standardization of firearms, mass production, and lots more. I guess it’s sort of inspired by James Burke’s Connections series. I’m not used to producing video content like this—and it could definitely use better production value—but I learned a lot, and I hope you do, too.

If you’d like me to do more stuff like this, let me know. What rathole should I go down next?