The History of Shipping and How It Created the Modern World - Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

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Ever since the dawn of human civilization, it has been shaped by the movement of people, goods and ideas. Yet for almost the entirety of that time, transportation was very difficult, and in some places it was extremely difficult. Yet the transportation of goods has been responsible for the rise of cities, civilizations, and much of the modern world. Learn more about the history of shipping and transportation and how it shaped the world we live in today on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by hexclad. You've heard me talk about how I've been using hexclad in my kitchen for about a year and a half now. Well, now hexclad is taking its hybrid technology outdoors with a barbecue collection designed for foods that usually treat grill grates like an escape hatch. The hexclad barbecue grill pan is perfect for vegetables, seafood, fish and kebabs. Its perforated design allows heat and smoke to circulate so you still get the real grilled flavor. It combines the searing power of stainless steel, the durability of cast iron, and the convenience of non stick. It's heat safe up to 900 degrees, dishwasher safe, easy to clean, and backed by a lifetime warranty. So if you're planning on spending time behind the grill this summer, don't make it harder than it needs to be. Stop losing food through the grates, stop fighting cleanup and upgrade your backyard cooking setup with hexclad's barbecue collection. For a limited time only, my listeners get 10% off their order with my exclusive link. Just head to hexclad.com daily. Support the show and check them out at hexclashad.com daily and make sure to let them know I sent you. This episode is sponsored by Square. There's a local cafe I visit where paying is almost effortless. They use Square, and whether I'm tapping a card or leaving a tip, the whole process takes just a few seconds. That smooth checkout means the staff can spend less time wrestling with technology and more time dealing with customers. That's what Square does for businesses. It brings payments, point of sale, inventory, staffing and online sales together in one system. Its AI powered tools can handle routine tasks, while real insights help owners make smarter decisions. Square can work for someone opening their first location or a business expanding into several. With Free plus and premium plans, transparent pricing and no long term contracts, Square helps you run your business more smoothly, bringing payments, operations and insights together in one place so you're ready for whatever next. Right now, listeners can get up to $200 off square hardware when you sign up at square.com God that's sq U-A-R-E.com godaily get started with Square and build a setup that works the way you do. This episode is going to be a little bit different. The genesis of this episode dates back to a quote that I remember from President James Monroe. I recall, and I forget where I read it, that he once spoke of the tyranny of space and the problems with moving people and goods into the American hint. For years I have tried to find the source of that quote and have come up empty. Maybe it was the Marquis de Lafayette who said something similar, but I came up with nothing, no matter how much I tried. But I eventually realized that what I thought the quote was was probably an example of the Mandela effect, something that I thought was true, but it wasn't, and I was putting off doing an episode on the subject until I could verify the quote. But I eventually realized after years Regardless of what James Monroe might or might not have said, what lay behind my fictitious quote was probably still worth talking about, that being the Importance and Difficulty of Shipping when the first human civilizations arose, almost all of them were established on riverbanks or along coasts, and the primary reason for this was agriculture. Those river valleys were extremely fertile, and they offered opportunities for easy irrigation. However, these locations near the water also had another significant easy transportation and shipping. Before the industrial age, transportation was governed by one overwhelming economic reality. Water transportation was far, far cheaper than land transportation. A ship or river barge could carry a load that would require hundreds of pack animals and and dozens of wagons. As a result, most large cities, commercial centers, and manufacturing regions developed beside rivers, natural harbors, or navigable coasts. Long before written history, people moved goods by carrying them personally, dragging them on sleds, or loading them onto domesticated animals. The domestication of donkeys, oxen, horses, camels, and llamas expanded the distance and quality of overland trade. The wheel appeared in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions during the fourth millennium BC Wheeled carts increased carrying capacity on firm, level ground, but they didn't make land transportation cheap. Water transportation developed, at least as early dugout canoes, skin boats, reed boats, and simple rafts allowed people to carry much heavier loads along rivers and coastlines. The Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow rivers served as transportation arteries connecting agricultural regions and urban centers along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. And in East Asia, seafaring trading civilizations arose, but there was very little in the way of overland trade. If you remember back to my episode on the Silk Road, most Trade via this route, around 80 to 90% at least, was by sea, not by land. Camel caravans make for a very romantic image. But a camel can only carry so much, and they require constant maintenance and food. And this was the state of transportation and shipping for thousands of years. Transportation by sail was relatively easy and cheap when compared to transportation by land. Now, I want to fast forward to the early 18th century in Britain. And I'm fast forwarding to this point Simply because we have robust data available from this period and in this country. And the fundamentals of transportation hadn't really changed a lot from thousands of years earlier. Around 1700, moving 1 ton of goods 1 mile by road. Cost approximately 1.2 shillings per ton mile. Moving the same ton 1 mile on a naturally navigable river. Cost about 0.12 shillings, or roughly 1/10 as much. Coastal shipping was cheaper. Even still, this was a tenfold difference in transportation by land versus by water. For coal that was shipped from Newcastle to London around the year 1750, the sea freight charge was approximately 0.02 shillings per ton mile. Moving the same coal by road would have cost roughly 60 times as much per mile for the complete journey. Sea Freight cost about 5.4 shillings per ton. While an estimated road journey would have cost more than 300 shillings. To be sure, terrain, season, cargo, direction of travel, and insurance. Could change rates considerably over time. Nonetheless, the overall economic difference between land and water transportation. Was consistent across much of the pre industrial world. In the late 18th century, it was supposedly the same cost. To ship a piece of furniture from London to New York. As it was from New York to just 40 miles inland by wagon. This made industrialization extremely expensive for any factory. Without access to cheap waterborne transportation. Oxen and horses simply couldn't economically carry enough coal or iron ore. The first major improvement in overland transportation. Came through better roads rather than new vehicles. In Britain, turnpike trust companies collected tolls. And used the revenue. To improve road surfaces, drainage bridges, and gradients. Engineers developed more systematic road building methods. Thomas Telford used strong stone foundations, While John Loudon McAdam developed carefully graded layers of compacted stone, A process that he called McAdamization. Better roads allowed wagons to carry larger loads, Travel more days of the year, and use fewer animals. Real British road freight rates fell by roughly 40% between the mid 18th century and the year 1800. And even after that decline, however, roads remained much more expensive than water transportation. However, what dropped cost even further than good roads Was the development of canals. Canals had been around for a long time. China created the enormous Grand Canal, which connected the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. Almost 5,000 years ago, ancient Egypt built the Canal of the Pharaohs, a precursor to the Suez Canal. A horse walking along a towpath could pull a barge carrying dozens of tons. That same horse might only be able to pull one or two tons on an ordinary road. Locks allowed canals to cross changes in elevation, while aqueducts and cuttings extended water transportation into regions without navigable rivers. By about 1790, British canal freight averaged approximately 0.25 shillings per ton mile. And in contrast to 1700 prices, which was about an 80% decline compared to 1700 wagon rates, by the year 1840, canal costs had fallen another 50% to about 0.12 shillings. In the same price terms. In the early United States, the problem was far more challenging than it was in Britain. It was an entire continent that needed to be accessed. However, compared to every other country in the world, the United States had something going for it. Amazing water transportation networks. In fact, the United States has three of the best waterways in the world. The first is the Mississippi river basin. As I noted in the episode on the Mississippi river, the Mississippi and its tributaries have more miles of navigable riverway than the rest of the world's rivers combined. The Great Lakes were the second, allowing ports as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota, to connect to the Atlantic Ocean or once locks were built, to handle changes in water elevation. And the third is the Intercoastal Waterway. It's a network of protected coastal rivers, bays, canals, and sounds running along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. It extends about 3,000 miles, or 4,800 kilometers, from Texas all the way up the east coast. The Hudson river goes inland from New York City, which has a great natural harbor. So the Erie Canal, which was completed in 1825, connected the Hudson river with Lake Erie. Freight rates between Buffalo and Albany fell from approximately 1.68 cents per ton mile after the canal opened to about 1 cent by the middle of the 19th century. As good as inland waterways were for transportation, they were still limited to areas with water, which left out most of the American West. The real revolution in inland transportation was the development of the railroad. Railroads made it profitable to ship wheat from the continental interior to coastal cities, to develop coal and mineral deposits far from rivers, to create national rather than local markets, and to build factories inland rather than directly beside ports. How much more affordable did railroads reduce the cost of inland transportation? British railway freight rates were approximately 0.1 shillings per mile ton by 1865. The 1865 railroad rate was only about One twelfth that of the 1700 wagon rate. Railroads also opened up vast amounts of otherwise difficult to reach land in the western United States, Canada, Australia, and Siberia. The topic of railroads will be its own episode, but suffice it to say, while rail dramatically reduced the cost of inland transportation, it still wasn't cheaper than transportation by water. Also, while railroads did expand where inland transportation could go, it now just made railroad towns instead of river cities. The advancement which allowed for true inland shipping to almost anywhere people might live, assuming they had access to a road, was the automobile, or more specifically, the truck. Detroit carriage maker August Fruehof is generally credited with building the first practical modern semi trailer in 1914 after a customer asked him to devise a way to tow a boat behind a ford automobile. Freight company soon requested similar vehicles, and Fruehof established the Fruehof Trailer Company in 1918. I'm not going to dwell too much on the trucking industry Because I'm going to do a full episode on that subject in the future. But suffice it to say, it improved roads, improved trucks, and improved standardization all drove the cost of inland shipping, now almost anywhere, even lower. Yet despite all the developments with railroad and trucking, it was still cheaper to ship by sea. In fact, the greatest innovation in sea transportation in the 20th century was really an innovation in every form of transportation. Containerization. Shipping containers revolutionized everything. Modern containerization began in 1956 when trucking entrepreneur Malcolm mclean converted the ship ideal x to carry detachable truck bodies between Newark, New Jersey, and Houston, Texas. And I've previously done an entire episode on this subject. Before containerization, dock workers would have to load and unload cargo as individual sacks, barrels, crates, and bales. A large break bulk freighter might remain in port for a week to 10 days, loading and unloading. But with containerization, cranes could transfer standardized boxes directly between ships, trucks, and trains. Comparable port turnarounds could fall to roughly 10, 24 hours, although very large ships or congested ports might require a little longer. One study found ship turnaround times falling from about 8 days to to 11 hours, a 94% reduction. Furthermore, a container can be placed on a flatbed trailer for a truck or two on a flatbed car for a train. Whereas the first container ship carried only 58 containers, the largest container ship in the world today can carry over 24,000. So what is the ultimate result of all the advancements in shipping that have taken place over the last 300 years? If you adjust for inflation using historical British data, which is very difficult to do over a 300 year period, the reduction in shipping costs has been astonishing. There are many variables, but the reduction in land shipping costs comparing an animal drawn wagon versus a modern semi would be close to 95 to 97% per ton mile. And the amazing thing is the cost of shipping by sea has gotten even cheaper. Given the massive cost advantages of container shipping and the incredible efficiencies of ultra large ships, costs have dropped by 99%. Cheap shipping made the modern global economy possible by allowing raw materials, food, fuel and manufactured goods to move vast distances at low cost. It enabled factories to specialize, companies to build international supply chains, cities to grow far from local food sources and consumers to buy products made around the world. It also reduced regional shortages and price differences. Grain, oil, machinery and medicine could be sent to where they were needed rather than consumed near where they were produced. In effect, cheap transportation shrank economic distance, turning separate local markets into a single interconnected world. Maybe President James Monroe didn't talk about the tyranny of space, but it's a problem that we have solved with a vengeance. There are many technological and social advancements which have helped build our modern world, but one of the biggest is one that we seldom think the ability to ship stuff cheaply. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible, and I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read on the show.

Summary6 min read

Everything Everywhere Daily – Episode Summary

Episode Title: The History of Shipping and How It Created the Modern World
Host: Gary Arndt
Release Date: July 29, 2026
Podcast Theme: Educational—daily explorations across history, science, geography, and culture
Episode Focus: The central role shipping and transportation have played in shaping societies, economies, and the modern world, from ancient river valleys to containerization.

Episode Overview

Gary Arndt dives into the monumental impact shipping and transportation have had on the development of civilization. He traces humanity’s journey from the earliest riverine settlements to today's global, interconnected economy, spotlighting the relentless drive to reduce the friction of moving goods, people, and ideas. By examining how shipping costs and practicalities forged economic, political, and social realities, Gary argues that the seemingly mundane topic of "moving stuff" is, in fact, one of the unsung engines of our modern life.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The "Tyranny of Space" and the Genesis of the Episode

Gary introduces the idea with a (possibly apocryphal) quote attributed to President James Monroe about the "tyranny of space"—the fundamental problem of moving people and goods over long distances ([03:10]).
- Quote: “What I thought the quote was was probably an example of the Mandela effect... Regardless of what James Monroe might or might not have said, what lay behind my fictitious quote was probably still worth talking about, that being the importance and difficulty of shipping.” — Gary Arndt ([03:30])
This sets the stage for the episode's exploration into why shipping mattered so much through history.

Early Civilizations: Rivers, Water, and the Economics of Transportation

Ancient civilizations clustered around rivers and coasts primarily for agriculture, but also for easier transportation ([04:15]).
Water transport "was far, far cheaper than land transportation" ([04:45]).
- Rivers like the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow became the first "arteries" of civilization ([05:30]).
- Long-distance overland trade was minimal; even the Silk Road saw 80–90% of trade conducted by sea ([06:00]).
- Quote: “A ship or river barge could carry a load that would require hundreds of pack animals and dozens of wagons.” — Gary ([04:50])

Land vs. Water: Quantifying Old Shipping Costs

Detailed comparison of 18th-century Britain:
- Moving one ton of goods one mile by road: ~1.2 shillings
- By river: ~0.12 shillings
- By sea: as low as 0.02 shillings for coal ([08:00])
- Example: “Moving the same coal by road would have cost roughly 60 times as much per mile for the complete journey.” ([08:50])
Sea and river shipping allowed cities and industries to flourish; cost structure made cheap water access a decisive economic factor.

Innovations: Roads, Canals, and Railroads

Road Improvements:
- Turnpike companies, better drainage, and “McAdamization” greatly reduced land transport costs in Britain, yet land remained more expensive than water ([11:05]).
- “British road freight rates fell by roughly 40% between the mid-18th century and the year 1800” ([11:45]).
Canals:
- Ancient canals in China (Grand Canal) and Egypt (Canal of the Pharaohs).
- British canal freight rates dropped 80%, and by 1840 had fallen further to just 0.12 shillings per ton mile ([13:30]).
- In the US, rivers and the Erie Canal connected inland cities, dramatically reducing shipping costs ([15:00]).
Railroads:
- Allowed expansion inland, but didn’t undercut water for price.
- British railway rates in 1865: 0.1 shillings/ton mile—"only about one-twelfth that of the 1700 wagon rate" ([17:55]).
- Railroads made “railroad towns” as significant as old “river cities.”

The 20th Century: Trucks and Containerization

Trucking Revolution:
- The invention of the semi-trailer made shipping goods over roads efficient and practical almost everywhere ([19:30]).
- “Improved roads, improved trucks, and improved standardization all drove the cost of inland shipping, now almost anywhere, even lower.” ([19:55])
Containerization:
- Malcolm McLean’s 1956 innovation: standardized shipping containers transformed how cargo moves between ships, trucks, and trains ([20:45]).
- Massive efficiency: “Ship turnaround times falling from about 8 days to 11 hours, a 94% reduction.” ([22:00])
- Largest modern container ships can carry over 24,000 containers ([22:40]).
- Quote: “Containerization revolutionized everything... not just shipping, but every form of transportation.” — Gary ([21:00])

The Modern World: Shipping, Globalization, and Shrinking Distance

Cumulative decline in shipping costs:
- Land shipping: 95–97% cheaper now than animal-drawn wagons.
- Sea shipping: costs fell by 99% ([24:00]).
Cheap shipping enables:
- International supply chains
- Global consumer goods access
- Specialization and economies of scale
- Flexibility to send grain, oil, machinery, and more wherever needed ([24:55])
- Quote: “In effect, cheap transportation shrank economic distance, turning separate local markets into a single interconnected world.” — Gary ([25:20])
The ability to "ship stuff cheaply" is, in Gary’s words, “one of the biggest [advancements] we seldom think about” ([26:00]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the importance of shipping:
“What lay behind my fictitious quote was probably still worth talking about, that being the importance and difficulty of shipping.” ([03:30])
On historical water transport:
“A ship or river barge could carry a load that would require hundreds of pack animals and dozens of wagons.” ([04:50])
On costs in 18th-century Britain:
“Moving the same coal by road would have cost roughly 60 times as much per mile for the complete journey.” ([08:50])
On containerization’s impact:
“Containerization revolutionized everything... not just shipping, but every form of transportation.” ([21:00])
On what shipping enabled:
“In effect, cheap transportation shrank economic distance, turning separate local markets into a single interconnected world.” ([25:20])
On solving the "tyranny of space":
“Maybe President James Monroe didn’t talk about the tyranny of space, but it’s a problem that we have solved with a vengeance.” ([26:05])

Important Timestamps for Segments

03:10 – Introduction to “tyranny of space,” Mandela effect, and shipping’s historical challenge
04:15 – Geographic logic of ancient city locations, agricultural and shipping synergy
08:00 – Cost comparisons: land vs. water shipping (Britain, 1700–1800s)
11:05 – Turnpike trusts, improved roads, and the rise of “McAdamization”
13:30 – The canal boom and transformative cost declines
15:00 – US geography: Mississippi, Great Lakes, Erie Canal’s economic significance
17:55 – Railroads: expansion, economic transformation, but water remains cheaper
19:30 – The rise of trucking and road transportation
20:45 – Containerization: history, scale, and transformative logistics
24:00 – Statistical summary: dramatic cost reductions
25:20 – Modern world: globalization, supply chains, and why shipping matters
26:05 – Concluding thoughts: the “solved” tyranny of space

Takeaways

Shipping is foundational: More than just moving stuff, it shaped where civilizations grew, how economies expanded, and why globalization is possible.
Technological leaps (roads, canals, rail, trucks, containers) were breakthroughs that created the modern world’s interconnected economy.
Containerization and ultra-large ships made global trade routine and cheap, fundamentally changing access, specialization, and consumption.
Understanding shipping is understanding the modern economy’s DNA—it’s the hidden engine behind everyday products and prosperity.

Recommended for listeners interested in: History, economics, logistics, globalization, technology, and how overlooked advancements make the world work.

(Summary excludes ads, intro/outro, and credits. All content references made are to the main educational segment.)

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Transcript1 lines

[00:01]
A
Ever since the dawn of human civilization, it has been shaped by the movement of people, goods and ideas. Yet for almost the entirety of that time, transportation was very difficult, and in some places it was extremely difficult. Yet the transportation of goods has been responsible for the rise of cities, civilizations, and much of the modern world. Learn more about the history of shipping and transportation and how it shaped the world we live in today on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by hexclad. You've heard me talk about how I've been using hexclad in my kitchen for about a year and a half now. Well, now hexclad is taking its hybrid technology outdoors with a barbecue collection designed for foods that usually treat grill grates like an escape hatch. The hexclad barbecue grill pan is perfect for vegetables, seafood, fish and kebabs. Its perforated design allows heat and smoke to circulate so you still get the real grilled flavor. It combines the searing power of stainless steel, the durability of cast iron, and the convenience of non stick. It's heat safe up to 900 degrees, dishwasher safe, easy to clean, and backed by a lifetime warranty. So if you're planning on spending time behind the grill this summer, don't make it harder than it needs to be. Stop losing food through the grates, stop fighting cleanup and upgrade your backyard cooking setup with hexclad's barbecue collection. For a limited time only, my listeners get 10% off their order with my exclusive link. Just head to hexclad.com daily. Support the show and check them out at hexclashad.com daily and make sure to let them know I sent you. This episode is sponsored by Square. There's a local cafe I visit where paying is almost effortless. They use Square, and whether I'm tapping a card or leaving a tip, the whole process takes just a few seconds. That smooth checkout means the staff can spend less time wrestling with technology and more time dealing with customers. That's what Square does for businesses. It brings payments, point of sale, inventory, staffing and online sales together in one system. Its AI powered tools can handle routine tasks, while real insights help owners make smarter decisions. Square can work for someone opening their first location or a business expanding into several. With Free plus and premium plans, transparent pricing and no long term contracts, Square helps you run your business more smoothly, bringing payments, operations and insights together in one place so you're ready for whatever next. Right now, listeners can get up to $200 off square hardware when you sign up at square.com God that's sq U-A-R-E.com godaily get started with Square and build a setup that works the way you do. This episode is going to be a little bit different. The genesis of this episode dates back to a quote that I remember from President James Monroe. I recall, and I forget where I read it, that he once spoke of the tyranny of space and the problems with moving people and goods into the American hint. For years I have tried to find the source of that quote and have come up empty. Maybe it was the Marquis de Lafayette who said something similar, but I came up with nothing, no matter how much I tried. But I eventually realized that what I thought the quote was was probably an example of the Mandela effect, something that I thought was true, but it wasn't, and I was putting off doing an episode on the subject until I could verify the quote. But I eventually realized after years Regardless of what James Monroe might or might not have said, what lay behind my fictitious quote was probably still worth talking about, that being the Importance and Difficulty of Shipping when the first human civilizations arose, almost all of them were established on riverbanks or along coasts, and the primary reason for this was agriculture. Those river valleys were extremely fertile, and they offered opportunities for easy irrigation. However, these locations near the water also had another significant easy transportation and shipping. Before the industrial age, transportation was governed by one overwhelming economic reality. Water transportation was far, far cheaper than land transportation. A ship or river barge could carry a load that would require hundreds of pack animals and and dozens of wagons. As a result, most large cities, commercial centers, and manufacturing regions developed beside rivers, natural harbors, or navigable coasts. Long before written history, people moved goods by carrying them personally, dragging them on sleds, or loading them onto domesticated animals. The domestication of donkeys, oxen, horses, camels, and llamas expanded the distance and quality of overland trade. The wheel appeared in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions during the fourth millennium BC Wheeled carts increased carrying capacity on firm, level ground, but they didn't make land transportation cheap. Water transportation developed, at least as early dugout canoes, skin boats, reed boats, and simple rafts allowed people to carry much heavier loads along rivers and coastlines. The Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow rivers served as transportation arteries connecting agricultural regions and urban centers along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. And in East Asia, seafaring trading civilizations arose, but there was very little in the way of overland trade. If you remember back to my episode on the Silk Road, most Trade via this route, around 80 to 90% at least, was by sea, not by land. Camel caravans make for a very romantic image. But a camel can only carry so much, and they require constant maintenance and food. And this was the state of transportation and shipping for thousands of years. Transportation by sail was relatively easy and cheap when compared to transportation by land. Now, I want to fast forward to the early 18th century in Britain. And I'm fast forwarding to this point Simply because we have robust data available from this period and in this country. And the fundamentals of transportation hadn't really changed a lot from thousands of years earlier. Around 1700, moving 1 ton of goods 1 mile by road. Cost approximately 1.2 shillings per ton mile. Moving the same ton 1 mile on a naturally navigable river. Cost about 0.12 shillings, or roughly 1/10 as much. Coastal shipping was cheaper. Even still, this was a tenfold difference in transportation by land versus by water. For coal that was shipped from Newcastle to London around the year 1750, the sea freight charge was approximately 0.02 shillings per ton mile. Moving the same coal by road would have cost roughly 60 times as much per mile for the complete journey. Sea Freight cost about 5.4 shillings per ton. While an estimated road journey would have cost more than 300 shillings. To be sure, terrain, season, cargo, direction of travel, and insurance. Could change rates considerably over time. Nonetheless, the overall economic difference between land and water transportation. Was consistent across much of the pre industrial world. In the late 18th century, it was supposedly the same cost. To ship a piece of furniture from London to New York. As it was from New York to just 40 miles inland by wagon. This made industrialization extremely expensive for any factory. Without access to cheap waterborne transportation. Oxen and horses simply couldn't economically carry enough coal or iron ore. The first major improvement in overland transportation. Came through better roads rather than new vehicles. In Britain, turnpike trust companies collected tolls. And used the revenue. To improve road surfaces, drainage bridges, and gradients. Engineers developed more systematic road building methods. Thomas Telford used strong stone foundations, While John Loudon McAdam developed carefully graded layers of compacted stone, A process that he called McAdamization. Better roads allowed wagons to carry larger loads, Travel more days of the year, and use fewer animals. Real British road freight rates fell by roughly 40% between the mid 18th century and the year 1800. And even after that decline, however, roads remained much more expensive than water transportation. However, what dropped cost even further than good roads Was the development of canals. Canals had been around for a long time. China created the enormous Grand Canal, which connected the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. Almost 5,000 years ago, ancient Egypt built the Canal of the Pharaohs, a precursor to the Suez Canal. A horse walking along a towpath could pull a barge carrying dozens of tons. That same horse might only be able to pull one or two tons on an ordinary road. Locks allowed canals to cross changes in elevation, while aqueducts and cuttings extended water transportation into regions without navigable rivers. By about 1790, British canal freight averaged approximately 0.25 shillings per ton mile. And in contrast to 1700 prices, which was about an 80% decline compared to 1700 wagon rates, by the year 1840, canal costs had fallen another 50% to about 0.12 shillings. In the same price terms. In the early United States, the problem was far more challenging than it was in Britain. It was an entire continent that needed to be accessed. However, compared to every other country in the world, the United States had something going for it. Amazing water transportation networks. In fact, the United States has three of the best waterways in the world. The first is the Mississippi river basin. As I noted in the episode on the Mississippi river, the Mississippi and its tributaries have more miles of navigable riverway than the rest of the world's rivers combined. The Great Lakes were the second, allowing ports as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota, to connect to the Atlantic Ocean or once locks were built, to handle changes in water elevation. And the third is the Intercoastal Waterway. It's a network of protected coastal rivers, bays, canals, and sounds running along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. It extends about 3,000 miles, or 4,800 kilometers, from Texas all the way up the east coast. The Hudson river goes inland from New York City, which has a great natural harbor. So the Erie Canal, which was completed in 1825, connected the Hudson river with Lake Erie. Freight rates between Buffalo and Albany fell from approximately 1.68 cents per ton mile after the canal opened to about 1 cent by the middle of the 19th century. As good as inland waterways were for transportation, they were still limited to areas with water, which left out most of the American West. The real revolution in inland transportation was the development of the railroad. Railroads made it profitable to ship wheat from the continental interior to coastal cities, to develop coal and mineral deposits far from rivers, to create national rather than local markets, and to build factories inland rather than directly beside ports. How much more affordable did railroads reduce the cost of inland transportation? British railway freight rates were approximately 0.1 shillings per mile ton by 1865. The 1865 railroad rate was only about One twelfth that of the 1700 wagon rate. Railroads also opened up vast amounts of otherwise difficult to reach land in the western United States, Canada, Australia, and Siberia. The topic of railroads will be its own episode, but suffice it to say, while rail dramatically reduced the cost of inland transportation, it still wasn't cheaper than transportation by water. Also, while railroads did expand where inland transportation could go, it now just made railroad towns instead of river cities. The advancement which allowed for true inland shipping to almost anywhere people might live, assuming they had access to a road, was the automobile, or more specifically, the truck. Detroit carriage maker August Fruehof is generally credited with building the first practical modern semi trailer in 1914 after a customer asked him to devise a way to tow a boat behind a ford automobile. Freight company soon requested similar vehicles, and Fruehof established the Fruehof Trailer Company in 1918. I'm not going to dwell too much on the trucking industry Because I'm going to do a full episode on that subject in the future. But suffice it to say, it improved roads, improved trucks, and improved standardization all drove the cost of inland shipping, now almost anywhere, even lower. Yet despite all the developments with railroad and trucking, it was still cheaper to ship by sea. In fact, the greatest innovation in sea transportation in the 20th century was really an innovation in every form of transportation. Containerization. Shipping containers revolutionized everything. Modern containerization began in 1956 when trucking entrepreneur Malcolm mclean converted the ship ideal x to carry detachable truck bodies between Newark, New Jersey, and Houston, Texas. And I've previously done an entire episode on this subject. Before containerization, dock workers would have to load and unload cargo as individual sacks, barrels, crates, and bales. A large break bulk freighter might remain in port for a week to 10 days, loading and unloading. But with containerization, cranes could transfer standardized boxes directly between ships, trucks, and trains. Comparable port turnarounds could fall to roughly 10, 24 hours, although very large ships or congested ports might require a little longer. One study found ship turnaround times falling from about 8 days to to 11 hours, a 94% reduction. Furthermore, a container can be placed on a flatbed trailer for a truck or two on a flatbed car for a train. Whereas the first container ship carried only 58 containers, the largest container ship in the world today can carry over 24,000. So what is the ultimate result of all the advancements in shipping that have taken place over the last 300 years? If you adjust for inflation using historical British data, which is very difficult to do over a 300 year period, the reduction in shipping costs has been astonishing. There are many variables, but the reduction in land shipping costs comparing an animal drawn wagon versus a modern semi would be close to 95 to 97% per ton mile. And the amazing thing is the cost of shipping by sea has gotten even cheaper. Given the massive cost advantages of container shipping and the incredible efficiencies of ultra large ships, costs have dropped by 99%. Cheap shipping made the modern global economy possible by allowing raw materials, food, fuel and manufactured goods to move vast distances at low cost. It enabled factories to specialize, companies to build international supply chains, cities to grow far from local food sources and consumers to buy products made around the world. It also reduced regional shortages and price differences. Grain, oil, machinery and medicine could be sent to where they were needed rather than consumed near where they were produced. In effect, cheap transportation shrank economic distance, turning separate local markets into a single interconnected world. Maybe President James Monroe didn't talk about the tyranny of space, but it's a problem that we have solved with a vengeance. There are many technological and social advancements which have helped build our modern world, but one of the biggest is one that we seldom think the ability to ship stuff cheaply. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible, and I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read on the show.