The Black Swallow of Death: Eugene Bullard's Astonishing Life
In 1950s New York, an older Black man quietly operated an elevator at Rockefeller Center. His passengers had no idea they were riding with a decorated war hero, a former spy, a Paris jazz-club owner, ...
30 Jun 21min
Eric the Eel: The Olympic Swimmer the World Got Wrong
On September 19, 2000, a lone swimmer thrashed through the water at the Sydney Olympics, so exhausted that spectators feared he might sink before reaching the wall. The world laughed and called him Er...
30 Jun 19min
Operation Vegetarian: Britain's Secret Anthrax Cattle Plot
Picture 13 former soap-makers using syringes to inject one of the deadliest pathogens on Earth into five million bite-sized cattle snacks. It sounds like dark satire, but it was a real, meticulously p...
30 Jun 18min
Saint on a Pillar: How Simeon Stylites Ruled From the Sky
In fifth-century Syria, a man climbed a 50-foot pillar and stood on a platform barely a square meter wide for decades, exposed to scorching summers and freezing winters. He went up there to escape the...
30 Jun 17min
Heaven's Gate: Inside the Cult That Chased a Comet
In March 1997, investigators entered a California mansion to find 39 people lying peacefully in matching black clothes and brand-new Nike sneakers, each covered by a square purple shroud, each carryin...
30 Jun 21min
Cleopatra Selene: The Daughter Who Outlived an Empire
Paraded through Rome in golden chains so heavy a 10-year-old could barely walk, the daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony became an unexpected object of public pity. But Cleopatra Selene II refused to...
30 Jun 16min
The Kakapo: Saving the Flightless Parrot From Extinction
Imagine an animal so perfectly adapted to its world that when the rules changed, the very traits that kept it alive started getting it killed. Meet the kakapo, a giant, nocturnal, flightless parrot fr...
30 Jun 21min
How Blockbuster Destroyed Itself: A Corporate Murder Mystery
In 2004, Blockbuster had over 9,000 stores, opened a new location every single day, and was the cultural epicenter of the weekend. Today exactly one franchise store survives, in Bend, Oregon. The popu...
30 Jun 25min
