False Flags: The Lusitania's Sinking

In 1669, the French government imprisoned a man whose identity they went to great lengths to keep hidden. The conditions of his lifelong incarceration — hide his face, keep him quiet — inspired rumors...

25 Touko 202243min

In the summer of 1951, a French town became ground zero for a mysterious illness that caused hallucinations, convulsions, and in some cases, death. For decades, the most popular explanation was ergot ...

23 Touko 202242min

The death of the Director in 1972 put an end to a reign that spanned 48 years, and left America to live in his outsized shadow. What happened to Hoover’s secret files? How is the modern FBI still shap...

18 Touko 202242min

While antiwar and Civil Rights movements charged forward, Hoover unleashed the FBI upon his enemies and adversaries. By the end of the 1960s, he was proclaiming that America’s greatest domestic threat...

16 Touko 202247min

In the 1960s, the Director’s adversaries included the Kennedy brothers and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, which he believed to be part of a larger communist conspiracy. He would do everything i...

11 Touko 202246min

A new president in the White House meant a new opportunity for a power play. Unfortunately for Hoover, Truman already thought the Bureau was becoming a secret police force. So he checked their power, ...

9 Touko 202243min

By the 1930s, Hoover was America's top cop. He went after bank robbers and bandits in his War on Crime, never losing sight of his real nemesis: communism. Every maneuver went toward Hoover’s carefully...

4 Touko 202248min

J. Edgar Hoover was eager and ruthless. The young intelligence officer believed wholeheartedly in the communist conspiracy, and he’d do anything to protect his country. Raids, deportations, mass arres...

2 Touko 202248min