Podcast Episodes

The Bosphorus boat spotter tracking Russian military trucks

Yörük Işık is a ship spotter who logs all the boats that pass through the narrow Bosphorus Strait near his home in Istanbul, Turkey.

In October 2015, he noticed something unusual - Russian military t…

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago

The mystery of Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis during World War Two.

Once Soviet troops reached Budapest, Wallenberg reported to Soviet officials on 17 January …

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago

The invention of the hotel key card

In the 1970s, Norwegian Tor Sornes invented the hotel key card. He wanted to improve security in hotels after he heard the news that one of his favourite singers, Connie Francis, was attacked in her …

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago

Charlie Hebdo attack

On 7 January 2015, 12 people were shot dead at the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris, the capital of France.

The two gunmen had targeted Charlie Hebdo because it had published cartoons of the P…

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago

Marie Kondo

In 2011, Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo’s first book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was published.

Overnight she went from tidying other people’s homes to being known around the world for…

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago

Creating Alexa

The smart speaker Alexa is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, but did you know its voice was created by two people in Poland back in 2000?

Lukasz Osowski and Michal Kas…

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago

Klaus Fuchs: Oppenheimer’s atomic spy

German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs played a key role in the development of the first atomic bomb during World War Two.

The project, known as the Manhattan Project, was led by scientist J Robert Oppenhe…

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago

Robert Ripley and the ‘Believe It or Not’ empire

In December 1918, sports writer and cartoonist Robert Ripley was struggling to find some content for his column in the New York Globe.

So he compiled and illustrated some of the quirkiest sports facts…

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago

Indian Ocean tsunami - Aceh

An earthquake off the coast of Indonesia on 26 December 2004, triggered a tsunami which cost the lives of an estimated 230,000 people around the Indian Ocean. It was one of the largest earthquakes ev…

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago

Indian Ocean tsunami - Tamil Nadu

On 26 December 2004, an earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia sparking a tsunami which swept away entire communities around the Indian Ocean. In India, Choodamani and Karibeeran Paramesvaran’s…

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago