"Captain Kirk Forgot to put the Machine on Stun"

Last week, Cautionary Tales described the rise and fall of General Magic, the startup with too much money and too few constraints. Was General Magic really doomed from the start, and what does its fat...

18 Sep 42min

It's 1990. A new company called General Magic is going to build its vision of the future: the smart phone. They have talent, almost unlimited cash, and a 15 year head start on the iPhone. What could g...

11 Sep 38min

Evel Knievel, the world-famous daredevil, is planning his greatest ever stunt. In 1974, he wants to leap over Snake River Canyon in Idaho. The chasm is almost a third of a mile wide, much bigger than ...

4 Sep 40min

In 1942, eight men are sent from Nazi Germany to infiltrate America. Their mission: to sabotage critical infrastructure. Their problem: they're idiots. Operation Pastorius soon devolves into one of th...

28 Aug 39min

This is a special crossover episode with Business History. John DeLorean was a visionary who wanted to create a futuristic new sports car - a stainless steel marvel with distinctive gull-wing doors. T...

21 Aug 49min

How does a story on Cautionary Tales come to life? In this episode of our subscriber-exclusive series, Proceed with Caution, sound designer Pascal Wyse shows Tim how the audio magic happens. He explai...

14 Aug 25min

Talented and beautiful, Molly O'Day is a rising star in 1920s Hollywood. But when Molly's teenage body starts to change and she can no longer fit into the dress she wore when she was 16, the studio wa...

7 Aug 41min

Mary Bateman lived in Yorkshire in the late 18th Century, an age that prized rational thought. Many people still longed to believe in the old ways and Bateman used this to her advantage, selling spell...

31 Jul 43min