Futility Closet

In 1863 the residents of Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia, discovered a legless man on the shore of St. Mary's Bay. He spoke no English and could not tell them who he was or where he had come from. In this wee...

11 Apr 201630min

Here are five new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits and stump your friends -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions. Please consider be...

4 Apr 201636min

In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll take a tour through some oddities and unanswered questions from our research, including whether a spider saved Frederick the Great's life, a...

28 Mar 201633min

Seemingly safe in northern New England, the residents of St. Albans, Vermont, were astonished in October 1864 when a group of Confederate soldiers appeared in their midst, terrorizing residents, robbi...

21 Mar 201632min

Early one morning in 1912, the residents of Villisca, Iowa, discovered a horrible scene: An entire family had been brutally murdered in their sleep. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podca...

14 Mar 201631min

On June 23, 1858, the Catholic Church removed 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara from his family in Bologna. The reason they gave was surprising: The Mortaras were Jewish, and Edgardo had been secretly baptiz...

7 Mar 201632min

In 1862, slave Robert Smalls was working as a pilot aboard a Confederate transport ship in Charleston, S.C., when he seized a unique chance to escape. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet pod...

29 Feb 201630min

A quarter million Frenchmen vanished in World War I, leaving their families no clue whether they were still alive. During these anxious years, a lone man appeared on a Lyon railway platform without me...

22 Feb 201633min