Sir Walter Scott: The Novelist Who Invented Scotland
The romantic image of Scotland, the tartans, the rugged Highland clans, the misty drama, is largely the invention of one 19th-century author so influential that Mark Twain blamed his books for the Ame...
23 Jun 21min
Alexander Borodin: The Chemist Who Won a Tony Award
Imagine winning a Tony Award for a hit Broadway musical, except you have been dead for nearly 70 years and were never even a full-time composer. Your day job was pioneering organic chemistry, and you ...
23 Jun 19min
Mickey Mantle: The Broken Man Behind the Perfect Card
In 2022, a near-perfect 1952 Topps card sold for 12.6 million dollars. But the man pictured on that flawless cardboard was a walking paradox: a Hall of Fame talent who achieved nearly everything on a ...
23 Jun 19min
Andrew Dice Clay: From Lifetime Ban to Oscar Stage
Picture a performer handed a lifetime MTV ban for reciting nursery rhymes, boycotted by SNL cast members, and crowned with a Worst Actor Razzie. Now picture that same man decades later walking an Osca...
23 Jun 19min
Willie Mays: The Calculating Genius Behind the Say Hey Kid
The greatest center fielder in baseball history started his major league career going hitless in his first 12 at-bats, sitting in his manager's office in tears, begging to be sent back to the minors. ...
23 Jun 23min
Harold Lloyd: Dangling From a Clock With Half a Hand
The most famous death-defying stunt in silent film history shows a man in round glasses dangling from a skyscraper clock. Now imagine doing it while missing half your dominant hand, concealed beneath ...
23 Jun 20min
A.A. Milne: How Winnie the Pooh Destroyed Its Creator
The man who built the most innocent sanctuary in children's literature, the Hundred Acre Wood, ended up trapped by it. That same little yellow bear fractured his family and led to a permanent, heartbr...
23 Jun 18min
Lorne Michaels: The Architect Who Built American Comedy
In 1976, a stiff young producer looked into the camera and offered the Beatles a grand total of 3,000 dollars to reunite on his show. The audacity was staggering, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney, w...
23 Jun 18min
