Sign up to the economist for in-depth

expert analysis of world events

and topics ranging from business and culture

to science and technology.

You'll get the weekly digital edition, online only articles,

curated newsletters on politics, the markets, science, culture and China.

And full access to The Economist Podcast Plus.

The Economist is Independent Journalism for Independent Thinking.

Go to Economist.com and get your first month free. Time.

Throughout the ages people have tried to command it.

Visionaries push the limits of technology to conquer it.

With dreams and determination, they made it happen.

Two ribbons of steel laid across a wild country, binding it together.

Nobody really believed A.L. Williams, a high school football coach in Georgia.

When he set up a life insurance business

back in the 1970s, he became a pariah.

And his sales crew were called termites.

And honestly, I have to say, I almost like that term as much as Hunbots, perhaps even more.

But Williams was determined to make his business work.

And he even coined the phrase, buy term and invest the difference.

Not that this went perfectly.

According to CNN money, good idea.

...