Futility Closet

Here are four new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits! Solve along with us as we explore some strange situations using only yes-or-no questions. Puzzles 1 and 2 are from Kyle Hendrickson's 1998...

10 Aug 201532min

After taking part in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese fighter pilot Shigenori Nishikaichi crash-landed on the isolated Hawaiian island of Niihau. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'...

2 Aug 201538min

In 1933, violinist Jelly d'Aranyi declared that the spirit of Robert Schumann was urging her to find a concerto that he'd written shortly before his death in 1856. In this episode of the Futility Clos...

27 Jul 201530min

In 1972, Air Force navigator Gene Hambleton was shot down over enemy territory in Vietnam, and a ferocious offensive beat back every attempt to rescue him. In today's show we'll learn how his lifelong...

20 Jul 201531min

Edmond Rostand's hit play Cyrano de Bergerac met an unexpected obstacle in 1898 -- a Chicago real estate developer who claimed that it plagiarized his own play. In this week's podcast we'll review the...

13 Jul 201533min

In 1876 London was riveted by the dramatic poisoning of a young barrister and the sordid revelations that emerged about his household. In today's show we'll review the baffling case of Charles Bravo's...

6 Jul 201532min

In 1915 San Diego hired "rainmaker" Charles Hatfield to relieve a four-year drought. After he set to work with his 23 secret chemicals, the skies opened and torrential rains caused some of the most ex...

28 Jun 201532min

The discovery of the gruesome remains of a human body buried in a doctor's cellar shocked London in 1910. In this week's podcast we'll recount the dramatic use of the recently invented wireless telegr...

21 Jun 201529min