Marcus Tullius Cicero
In the final decades of the Roman Republic, power increasingly belonged to men who commanded armies.
Yet one man rose to the highest levels of Roman politics without conquering territory or leading legions. His weapons were words, law, and an extraordinary ability to persuade.
He exposed conspi…
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
For decades in the Deep South, bus passengers had to sit in the back of the bus and give up their seats to white passengers.
Despite making up the vast majority of riders, black passengers had no recourse. Any protest or refusal to surrender a seat meant swift arrest, heavy fines, and immediate jo…
The History of McDonald's
In 1940, two brothers opened a small restaurant near Route 66 in San Bernardino, California.
After meeting an aggressive milkshake-machine salesman, they established a business model that sparked a revolution.
What began as a more convenient way to get a quick hamburger soon became a masterclas…
Neanderthals
For hundreds of thousands of years, another kind of human lived across Europe and western Asia.
They hunted enormous animals, survived brutal Ice Age climates, made sophisticated tools, cared for the injured, and even left traces of themselves in the DNA of people living today.
For much of moder…
Questions and Answers: Volume 46
What do the element palladium, William Shakespeare, and this episode have in common?
Palladium is the 46th element on the periodic table.
Shakespeare was rumored to have secretly written the King James Bible at the age of 46. In Psalm 46, the 46th word from the beginning of the psalm is often c…
The World's Worst Predictions
Throughout history, experts, executives, scientists, and journalists have tried to predict what the future would look like.
Some of those predictions were insightful. Others were so spectacularly wrong that they became famous in their own right.
They dismissed revolutionary inventions, underesti…
The Monster Study
In 1939, researchers at a prominent American university began an experiment involving children at an orphanage in Iowa.
The children were divided into groups, subjected to very different forms of speech therapy, and in some cases told that something was wrong with the way they spoke.
The study wa…
Simón Bolívar
In the early 19th century, the Spanish Empire in the Americas began to fracture.
From the chaos emerged a wealthy young aristocrat with little formal military training, enormous ambition, and a vision that extended far beyond his own country's independence.
He would cross mountains, survive exile…
The Long Telegram (Encore)
On February 22, 1946, George F. Kennan, a career diplomat working in the American embassy in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word cable to the State Department in Washington.In it, he explained why the Soviet Union behaved as it did, outlining its unique combination of a communist ideology and historical Rus…
The History of Ben-Hur
In the late 19th century, one novel became one of America’s biggest literary sensations.
Its story was so ambitious that bringing it to the stage required technological innovations, live horses, and one of the most elaborate theatrical productions ever attempted.
Decades later, filmmakers took on…
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