A brief history of shipping from the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal has released a short video guiding us through the history of container shipping—from American innovator Malcolm McLean’s pioneering use of metal boxes, to standardised container sizes, behemothic Neopanamax ships, global price wars, and the rapid consolidation of major shipping companies.

It's a neat look at how the simple shipping container changed global trade forever... and how it's an ever-tougher industry in which many shipping companies don't survive.

In 2016, the collapse of the Hanjin Shipping Company—the largest bankruptcy in container shipping history—left a fleet of 150 container ships stranded at sea.