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As I'm sitting in an airport lounge waiting to board my plane, Stevie Wonder playing on my ipod, drink in my hand, I start to think how did I get here? Aircraft, Stevie Wonder & even the drink in my hand has it's roots in the 1700s.

Man first flew in the late 1700s courtesy of the hot air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brother's in 1783. Any airplane I fly in has to have a flush toilet on board and yes, you've guessed it the flush toilet was also invented in the 18th century thanks to Alexander Cummings (1775).

Now back to my ipod have you been wondering how Stevie Wonder fits in? Well I love how he plays the piano and the piano as we know it was invented in 1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori.

It would be hard to imagine where bars and cafes around the world would be without carbonated drinks? The first carbonated water was invented in 1767 by Joseph Priestley.

What do you do to pass the time on planes do you watch the movie or read a book? I like to read or do crossword puzzles and thanks to Benjamin Franklin I can use bifocals as they were also invented in 1785.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't find many airports in little villages they tend to be around cities and the development of cities have their roots in the Agricultural, Industrial and Transport Revolutions which all began in the 18th century.

The Agricultural Revolution brought about new ideas, the exchange of new ideas and inventions such as the seed drill (1701), the Rotherham plough (1730) & Meikle's threshing machine (1786). This led to more food being produced using less labour which had a two fold effect. One, it freed up labour for the burgeoning Industrial Revolution & two it meant enough food was produced to be sold to people working in the new factories.

The textile industry was a big winner in the 18th century with a number of inventions causing it to change from a home based business to a thriving factory based industry. The first invention that helped this transformation come about was the flying shuttle in 1733. John Kay's invention allowed the weavers to make wider cloth using only one weaver instead of two which essentially doubled the amount of cloth made.

In 1764 the Spinning Jenny was invented by James Hargreaves which allowed 8 spindles to work off of one wheel instead of one spindle hence increasing the yarn eightfold. Meanwhile Richard Arkwright was busy with a team of artisans producing the Spinning Frame that produced a much stronger thread than that produced by the Spinning

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