Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
Cold War Kids
Episode 121
During the 1961 Berlin Crisis—one of the various moments in the cold war in which we came frighteningly close to engaging in actual war with the Sovi…
12 years ago
Skyjacking
Episode 120
The term “hijacking” goes back to prohibition days, when gangsters would rob moonshine trucks saying, “Hold your hands high, Jack!” However, in the e…
12 years ago
Feet of Engineering
Episode 119
As a fashion object and symbol, the high heel shoe is weighted with meaning. It’s also weighted with the wearer’s entire body weight. The stiletto mi…
12 years, 1 month ago
Song Exploder
Episode 118
99% Invisible presents Song Exploder. A song is a product of design. It’s difficult to create an original melody, but that’s only the blueprint. Ever…
12 years, 1 month ago
Clean Trains
Episode 117
In just about every movie set in New York City in the 1970s and 80s there’s an establishing shot with a graffiti-covered subway. For city officials, …
12 years, 1 month ago
Breaking the Bank
Episode 116
When I go into a bank, especially if I have to stand in line waiting to make a deposit, my mind wanders. And one of the first place it wanders to is:…
12 years, 1 month ago
Cow Tunnels
Episode 115
The westernmost part of Manhattan, between 34th and 39th street, is pretty industrial. There’s a bus depot, a ferry terminal, and a steady stream of …
12 years, 1 month ago
Ten Thousand Years
Episode 114
In 1990, the federal government invited a group of geologists, linguists, astrophysicists, architects, artists, and writers to the New Mexico desert,…
12 years, 2 months ago
Monumental Dilemma
Episode 113
About ten miles north of Concord, New Hampshire, off of interstate 93 there’s a little island with a great, big monument on it. The monument depicts …
12 years, 2 months ago
Young Ruin
Episode 112
If you’ve wandered around Machu Picchu, or Stonehenge, or the Colosseum, or even snuck into that abandoned house on the edge of town, you know the po…
12 years, 2 months ago