How No-fly Zones Work
They have become such a ubiquitous tool used by the UN and NATO to intervene in international crises, that it seems like no-fly zones have been around forever. But it was only the 1990s that the first...
28 Mar 201325min
How Apartheid Worked
After WWII, while the rest of the world grew more socially progressive, the government of South Africa turned inward to focus its attention on domination of the white minority over the non-white major...
19 Mar 201335min
How the U.S. Postal Service Works
The USPS is currently teetering on the edge of going under and there are a lot of plans to save it, from cutting Saturday service to creating federally-protected email addresses linked to individuals ...
14 Mar 201343min
How Police Sketches Work
Creating composite drawings of suspected criminals from eyewitness accounts has been around since a Frenchman introduced it in the 19th century. Despite the introduction of new techniques and software...
12 Mar 201337min
Can We Build an Elevator to Space?
With the end of the shuttle program and an International Space Station still in need of supplies, the aerospace industry is working the kinks of out of a century-old idea to build a service elevator f...
9 Mar 201330min
Do People Really Run Off to Join the French Foreign Legion?
Anyone who knows anything about Jean-Claude Van Damme knows he played a French legionnaire in the movies. He was just one of many actors to star in films that romanticized this mercenary force. Check ...
7 Mar 201320min
What Makes a One-hit Wonder?
The term "one-hit wonder" gets thrown around a lot, and - yes - you probably are using it correctly, but Chuck Bryant went to the trouble to really define what makes a one-hit wonder in the article th...
5 Mar 201327min
How the Papacy Works
In February 2013, Pope Benedict said he would become the first pope to retire in 600 years. Check out this episode of Stuff You Should Know to find out just what the pope does and the process of choos...
28 Feb 201334min
