William Kidd: A Pirate's Rep for Me
William Kidd had settled down by 1695, but privateering was still in his blood. He struck up a plan to attack pirates plaguing English ships and enlisted investors to back his efforts. Eventually he w...
11 Jun 201223min
Nikola Tesla and the War of the Currents, Part 2
By 1887, Nikola Tesla secured seven patents for components of his alternating current system. In 1888, George Westinghouse offered to hire Tesla to develop the AC system, and that's when the Current W...
6 Jun 201227min
Laura Bridgman's Education
Laura Bridgman was the first deafblind person to be educated -- a feat accomplished by Samuel Gridley Howe in the 1830s. People from around the world came to see her, including Charles Dickens, who wr...
4 Jun 201226min
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 Mai 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 Mai 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 Mai 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 Mai 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 Mai 201221min
