005-Mailing People, Alien Shorthand, and Benjamin Franklin
Henry Brown found a unique way to escape slavery: He mailed himself to Pennsylvania. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll accompany Brown on his perilous 1849 journey from Richm...
14 Apr 201432min
004-Mystery Airships, Marauding Lions, and Nancy Drew
In 1896 a strange wave of airship sightings swept Northern California; the reports of strange lights in the sky created a sensation that would briefly engulf the rest of the country. In this week's ep...
7 Apr 201435min
003-Extreme Pedestrians, Kangaroo Stew, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In 1926, a woman named Lillian Alling grew disenchanted with her life as a maid in New York City and resolved to return to her native Russia. She lacked the funds to sail east, so instead she walked w...
31 Mar 201434min
002-Mass Hysteria, Airborne Sheepdogs and Mark Twain's Brother
As skywatchers prepared for the return of Halley's comet in 1910, they heard some alarming scientific predictions: Poisonous gases in the comet's tail might "snuff out all life on the planet," "leavin...
24 Mar 201428min
001-Calendar Reform, Doll Mansions, and Hitchcock's Vertigo
Will New Year's Day fall on a weekend in the year 2063? If calendar reformer Moses Cotsworth had succeeded, anyone in the world could have answered that question instantly -- any of us could name the ...
14 Mar 201430min
