The Bicycle: Born From ApocalypseHow a global climate disaster reinvented travel

From the show

The Secret Life of Objects

The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora plunged the world into a "Year Without a Summer," causing mass crop failure. As horses starved or were eaten for survival, Baron Karl von Drais desperately needed a new way to move. He crafted a wooden "running machine" to replace the dying animals, inadvertently launching the era of personal mechanical transport.