Very Special Episodes

In 1973, NASA gifted a piece of the moon to a teenage astronomy fan, inadvertently pulling him into the seedy underground moonrock trade. Hello VSE friends! We published a new episode on Monday, so we...

7 Maj 202546min

Happy Cinco de Mayo! To celebrate, Zaron Burnett is here with a mini-episode about the frozen treat that is quietly and quickly taking over the world. * Hosted by Zaron Burnett, Dana Schwartz, and Ja...

5 Maj 202515min

When two of the most influential figures in film become the personal hostages of Kim Jong Il, they have two objectives: to elevate North Korean cinema on the world stage, and to plot their daring esca...

30 Apr 20251h 7min

Velvalee Dickinson ran a doll shop on Madison Avenue that catered to wealthy collectors. But in one of the strangest espionage cases of World War II, Dickinson's clients had no idea she was using corr...

23 Apr 202549min

On a cold day in 1973, a crowd gathered on a farm for one of history's strangest funerals. It was an elite group, including the Governor of Michigan, bank presidents, and local dignitaries. Even Walte...

16 Apr 202531min

When he published The Great Gatsby 100 years ago this week, F. Scott Fitzgerald thought he'd written the Great American Novel. But it was a commercial flop. The year Fitzgerald died, he received a roy...

9 Apr 202550min

Gene Fleming and his pet goose Andy made headlines around the world. They brought out the best in the people of Hastings, Nebraska. But amid all this attention, Andy also brought out the worst. And th...

2 Apr 202537min

On August 26, 1965, LBJ issued a surprise executive order eliminating marriage as grounds for deferment from the Vietnam draft. The announcement set off a panic across the country. The problem was, ne...

26 Mars 202547min