Nikola Tesla and the War of Currents, Part 1
In 1857 Nikola Tesla began work on direct current motor issues. In 1884, he approached Thomas Edison with ideas about alternating current, but Edison championed direct current. Their disagreement led ...
30 Touko 201216min
P.T. Barnum's Biggest Stars
P.T. Barnum worked with many performers. Perhaps the most famous was the diminutive General Tom Thumb. Barnum also promoted Swedish singer Jenny Lind, but his biggest act was Jumbo the Elephant, an Af...
28 Touko 201226min
Operation Mincemeat, Part 2
Operation Mincemeat aimed to relay false information to the Nazis by dropping a corpse where they would find it, along with fake documents. The British agents gave their corpse a backstory to make it ...
23 Touko 201228min
A Visit to Clybourne Park
The Pulitzer-winning play "Clybourne Park" took inspiration from Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin the Sun." In this episode, we talk to Clybourne Park's Tony-nominated director Pam MacKinnon about the w...
21 Touko 201226min
The Prince of Humbug: P.T. Barnum
P.T. Barnum is best known as a circus man, but he spent most of his career running a curiosity museum and staging freak shows. Barnum attracted people to his American Museum through shrewd advertising...
16 Touko 201221min
Operation Mincemeat, Part 1
Once the Allies invaded North Africa, the Nazis began planning. Both sides knew Sicily was the obvious choice for the next Allied invasion, so the Allies needed some subterfuge. Luckily, the British h...
14 Touko 201226min
Freya of Arabia
After a childhood spent roaming Europe, Freya Stark began saving money to take Arabic lessons. Once fluent, she traveled into areas few outsiders had ever been, documenting her travels in best-selling...
9 Touko 201228min
The Battle of Sekigahara
After the Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi died, regents and bureaucrats scrambled for power. The rivals Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari rallied supporters to face off in Sekigahara. Tokugawa em...
7 Touko 201222min
