In economic history the last 150 years or so has been the period when we escaped from a thing known as the 'malthusian trap' - the mathusian trap basically states that population increases at a rate that cannot be sustained by food production, therefore the cycle follows that, when population is low, wages go up, life quality increases, more food to go around, high fertility rate - then due to high fertility as population increases, wages go down, less food to go around, health falls, fertility rate drops, population falls and then the cycle repeats itself.

This maltusian model was pretty much the way it was for all the years in human history up until about 1790-1830 , when in England the industrial revolution occurred, which broke the malthusian cycle as it massively made more efficient the use of labour and capital (and TFP). Providing higher wages, fast technological development, better science, trade, medicine ,sanitation - all good things

However, it is very easy to look at the industrial revolution and think it was just a random chance of luck to occur when it did that some bright sparks here and there spontaneously invented steam power/electricty/ring spinning techniques and all of a sudden our way of life was transformed.

It must be seen that the industrial revolution was the culmination of centuries of minor economic developments and gains such as slowly reduced transport costs, therefore increasing trade, spread of ideas, rise of a merchant middle class with more free time, better access to education. Capitalistic ideals taking over everyday life with the end of the open field system of agriculture towards enclosure and a market based system, profit seeking, rise in income The development of the 'putting out system' which can be argued to have caused a 'protoindustrialisation' which was the first necessary stage of a full scale industrial revolution, as it allowed a rise in large scale entrepreneurs and merchant capitalists who benefited from economies of scale, and allowed lower classes (peasants) to work from home, not rely so heavily on agriculture which is risky as relies on seasons, good harvest and income is spread unevenly throughout the year e.g. not much in winter.

The rise in urbanisation that followed due to the breaking of the european marriage pattern, meant the population could increase and not decrease the quality of life of society

there are a lot more reasons for the start of the industrial revolution which ended the thousands of years old malthusian trap