Beanie Babies: The Plush Toy That Broke the Internet
How did a deliberately understuffed $5 plush toy become the world's first internet sensation, account for 10% of all eBay sales, and send counterfeit smugglers to federal prison? The Beanie Babies cra...
30 Jun 18min
The Dam Busters: Physics, Courage and a Bouncing Bomb
Picture a four-engine bomber skimming below treetop level at highway speeds in the dead of night, navigating along a forest fire break. This is Operation Chastise, the legendary Dam Busters raid, and ...
30 Jun 20min
Dallol: The Boiling Acid Pools That Fooled Scientists
Imagine a landscape of boiling neon green and purple pools that looks like an alien world teeming with bizarre life. Now imagine that the entire breathtaking scene is a cosmic trick, a place so beauti...
30 Jun 22min
Mata Hari: The Myth of History's Most Famous Spy
She faced a firing squad at dawn, refused a blindfold, and blew her executioners a kiss. For over a century, Mata Hari has been the ultimate femme fatale, the seductress spy blamed for sending 50,000 ...
30 Jun 21min
The Plague of Justinian: How a Bacterium Broke an Empire
In 542 AD the most powerful man in the world lies covered in black tumors inside his palace in Constantinople while 10,000 people die outside every single day. Emperor Justinian survives, but his drea...
30 Jun 19min
The Hollow Nickel and the Soviet Spy Behind the Mask
In 1953, a Brooklyn newsboy fumbles his change and a nickel breaks open on the sidewalk, revealing a microphotograph of secret numbers inside. For four years the FBI is baffled by a single coin, and t...
30 Jun 24min
BTK: The Boy Scout Leader Who Was a Serial Killer
Imagine your city is terrorized by a serial killer, so you hire a security company to install an alarm. Now imagine the polite, rule-following man wiring your house is the exact monster you are trying...
30 Jun 25min
Hubble: The Flawed Mirror That Almost Blinded a Telescope
Imagine spending decades and billions of dollars building the most flawless lens ever conceived, putting it on, and finding everything blurry because someone put the decimal point in the wrong place. ...
30 Jun 21min
