Listen Now

Nikolai Vavilov dedicated his life to improving Soviet agriculture and eradicating famine, but his allegiance to science would ultimately lead to his downfall.

How a booming oil town aimed to become a western metropolis through one of the most ill-conceived boxing matches of all time.

How a female engineer defied all norms to save England in the Second World War.

The true story of the 18th century's greatest femme fatale, and the most unfortunate of her victims.

When an ancient, unexpected imprint is discovered in a stone quarry, scientists endeavor to explain its mysterious origin.

-052- The Spy Of Night And Fog by Damn Interesting

French mathematician Évariste Galois lived a full life. When he wasn't trying to overthrow the government, he was reinventing algebra.

One of Poland’s most beloved and honored World War II veterans was not Polish at all: he was a 500-pound brown bear named Wojtek.

The 18th century misadventures of HMS Wager and her reluctant crew

The little known story of an age-old scam

The secret runaway success of Kenneth Gandar-Dower’s racing cheetahs.

The most expensive, bizarre, and obscure work ever created by Dr. Seuss.

Working almost single-handedly, visionary Argentine filmmaker Quirino Cristiani created full-length animated films between 1917 and 1931. He has since been all but forgotten.

In 1981, an international group of doctors identified the devastating disease behind a perplexing outbreak of paralysis in northern Mozambique.

Amanda Theodosia Jones was a 19th-century poet, entrepreneur, and inventor who found inspiration in some unlikely places.

The opening of a canal in 1848 led to the birth of modern financial derivatives, and the early demise of some of the men who traded them

In the 1950s, an anonymous terrorist planted a pipe bomb in a New York City public space. Then another. And another.

Britain’s practice of transporting convicts to American colonies was a fearsome punishment, but not for the chronic criminal James Dalton.

The story of a tragic hotel fire of Rube Goldberg proportions.

As a civilian, the beloved American Civil War general and two-term president failed at every attempt to make money. Except for one.