Futility Closet

When Ewart Grogan was denied permission to marry his sweetheart, he set out to walk the length of Africa to prove himself worthy of her. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll fin...

8 Feb 201530min

In 1897, Swedish patent engineer S.A. Andrée set out in a quixotic bid to reach the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon, departing from Norway with two companions and hoping to drift over the top of the ...

1 Feb 201532min

As a young man, Benjamin Franklin drew up a "plan for attaining moral perfection" based on a list of 13 virtues. Half a century later he credited the plan for much of his success in life. In this epis...

25 Jan 201534min

(Image: Wikimedia Commons) In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell how Spanish authorities found an ingenious way to use orphans to bring the smallpox vaccine to the American colonie...

19 Jan 201533min

The American bomber Lady Be Good left North Africa for a bombing run over Italy in 1943. It wasn't seen again until 15 years later, when explorers discovered its broken remains deep in the Libyan dese...

12 Jan 201531min

In 1872 the British merchant ship Mary Celeste was discovered drifting and apparently abandoned 600 miles off the coast of Portugal. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review this cl...

5 Jan 201538min

Here are eight new lateral thinking puzzles that you can try on your friends and family over the holidays -- see who can make sense of these odd scenarios using only yes-or-no questions. Please consid...

22 Dec 201430min

In 1768, Catherine the Great ordered her subjects to move a 3-million-pound granite boulder intact into Saint Petersburg to serve as the pedestal for a statue of Peter the Great. In this episode of th...

14 Dec 201430min