Clarence Darrow: The Disgraced Lawyer Who Redefined Justice
In 1911, America's greatest labor lawyer was caught in a bribery sting on a Los Angeles street corner, his investigator handing $4,000 to a juror in broad daylight. His career should have been over. I...
23 Jun 22min
Cole Porter: The Hidden Agony Behind the Glamour
Picture a man in a wheelchair high in the Waldorf Towers, his legs crushed, enduring constant pain after dozens of surgeries. From that chair he composed some of the most joyful, glamorous music of th...
23 Jun 18min
Brancusi vs. United States: When Art Went on Trial
In 1926, customs officers looked at a gleaming bronze sculpture and declared it an industrial machine part, slapping it with a heavy commercial tax. By refusing to see a bird in that polished metal, t...
23 Jun 19min
D.L. Hughley: From Bloods Member to Truth-Telling Pundit
In June 2020, a comedian collapsed mid-bit on a Nashville stage, slurring and losing consciousness. It turned out to be COVID-19, but the man who fell was no ordinary comic. He was D.L. Hughley, a for...
23 Jun 18min
D.W. Griffith: The Cinema Genius Who Birthed a Tragedy
Imagine inventing the printing press, then using your first major demonstration to print a piece of destructive propaganda. That is the paradox of D.W. Griffith, the man who invented the visual langua...
23 Jun 21min
Daniel Ellsberg: The Insider Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers
In August 1969, a Harvard-trained nuclear war planner with the highest security clearances sat weeping on the tile floor of a deserted college men's room for over an hour. That emotional breakdown spa...
23 Jun 22min
Daniel Webster: Constitutional Titan, Compromised Soul
In October 1852, one of America's most powerful men lay dying of cirrhosis in a Massachusetts estate. With his final strength he uttered three defiant words: 'I still live.' A fitting exit for a man w...
23 Jun 21min
Dave Attell: The Greatest Club Comic's Best-Kept Secret
What does it take for the New York Times to call you 'our greatest club comic'? Not stadium tours or Hollywood fame, but the raw reverence of other comedians quietly standing in the back of a dimly li...
23 Jun 15min
