Before he became an action star playing Rocky IV’s reviled Soviet boxer Ivan Drago, Dolph Lundgren left his native Sweden and traveled the world to study chemical engineering.

He grew up in a family of engineers, and his brother owned a petrochemical company. “He’s living a different life,” Lundgren says of his sibling. “He certainly doesn’t get punched by Sly Stallone or drive armored vehicles with .50 caliber machine guns on them. So, I think I lucked out. I think I had a very interesting life this way.”

Lundgren brings his passions for science and storytelling together as executive producer, host, and narrator of History’s Greatest Machines With Dolph Lundgren, an eight-part series exploring the biggest, fastest, most powerful, and most complex inventions that changed the course of world events.

While the printing press, the steam engine, the Ford Model T, and the transistor would help to build modern society, many of the most significant devices created by humans came from conflict, where humanity’s darker impulses…