Van Meegeren's Vermeers
Arrested in 1945 for selling a Vermeer masterpiece to high-ranking Nazi Herman Goring, dutch painter Han van Meegeren had an innovative and shocking defense: he was guilty not of collaboration but of ...
2 Feb 46min
The Piltdown Man
In December 1912, Arthur Smith Woodward, a paleontologist at the British Museum, presented something extraordinary to the Geographical Society: a "missing link" fossil, a species he named "Dawson's Da...
19 Jan 42min
I, Libertine
Midcentury New Yorkers who couldn't sleep found a friend in Jean Shepherd, the iconoclastic radio personality whose middle of the night monologues made him a cult comedy figure and leader of the under...
5 Jan 48min
The Mechanical Turk
During the 18th century, as the industrial revolution picks up.... steam, people are dazzled by expertly constructed mechanical marvels: automatons. But Wolfgang von Kempelen brings something to the r...
22 Des 20251h 24min
Lonelygirl15
When YouTube was barely a year old, the the site's users were gripped by the slowly unfolding tale of Bree, the sheltered, beautiful 16 year old girl whose parents kept her locked in her bedroom with...
8 Des 20251h 2min
Mumler Spirit Photography
It's the Civil War, and the nation is in deep mourning. William Mumler of Boston has something to help: "spirit photographs" of you and a deceased loved one. Is it a scam, or is technology now capable...
24 Nov 20251h 5min
Report from Iron Mountain
At the height of the Cold War, a "leaked Top Secret Memo" from inside the government proposed a controversial and radical idea: the worst thing that could happen to humanity was worldwide ... peace. S...
10 Nov 202548min
The Impostress Rabbit
The court anatomist returned the King George I with astonishing news: a woman named Mary Toft has been giving birth.... to rabbits. Sources: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/05/an-extraord...
27 Okt 202539min
