Innovation, Ikea style

It was dreamed up in 1978 by an Ikea designer called Gillis Lundgren who sketched it on the back of a napkin, worried that he would forget it. Now there are 60-odd million in the world, nearly one for every 100 people – not bad for a humble bookcase.

Boxing clever

Toys from China, copper from Chile, T-shirts from Bangladesh, wine from New Zealand, coffee from Ethiopia, and tomatoes from Spain. In the early 1960s, world trade in merchandise was less than 20% of world economic output, or gross domestic product .