Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchErnest Rutherford: The Farmer's Son Who Discovered the Atomic Nucleus
Episode 13220
Ernest Rutherford compared one of his discoveries to firing an artillery shell at tissue paper and watching it bounce back. This episode follows the …
4 days, 22 hours ago
Rudolf Diesel: The Engine Genius and His Mysterious Disappearance at Sea
Episode 13219
On September 30, 1913, Rudolf Diesel's cabin aboard the steamship SS Dresden was found empty, his bed unslept in, his nightshirt laid out, and his po…
4 days, 22 hours ago
Kublai Khan: How Genghis Khan's Grandson Came to Rule a Unified China
Episode 13218
In 1224, Genghis Khan smeared fat from a fresh kill on the finger of his nine-year-old grandson and told the crowd to heed the boy's wisdom. That boy…
4 days, 22 hours ago
Alfred Nobel: The Merchant of Death Who Created the Nobel Prizes
Episode 13217
In 1888, Alfred Nobel opened a newspaper to find his own obituary under the headline "The merchant of death is dead." The mistake, made when his brot…
4 days, 22 hours ago
Archimedes of Syracuse: The Genius Behind Eureka, Levers and War Machines
Episode 13216
As Roman soldiers stormed Syracuse, a 75-year-old Archimedes reportedly told one of them not to disturb his circles drawn in the dust, and was killed…
4 days, 22 hours ago
Benjamin Franklin: The Restless Reinventions of a Founding Father
Episode 13215
Benjamin Franklin ran away from his Boston apprenticeship as a teenager, spent much of his marriage an ocean away from his wife, and once froze a the…
4 days, 22 hours ago
Tupac Amaru II: The Andean Rebellion That Shook the Spanish Empire
Episode 13214
In 1781, Spanish authorities tied José Gabriel Condorcanqui to four horses in Cusco's plaza, but the horses failed to tear him apart. Known as Tupac …
4 days, 22 hours ago
Alexander von Humboldt: The Forgotten Explorer Who Invented Nature
Episode 13213
In 1869, around 25,000 people gathered in Central Park to celebrate the 100th birthday of Alexander von Humboldt, yet today most Americans don't know…
4 days, 22 hours ago
J. Robert Oppenheimer: From Insecure Student to Father of the Atomic Bomb
Episode 13212
Before he built the world's first nuclear weapon, J. Robert Oppenheimer was a clumsy, depressed student at Cambridge, rumored to have laced an apple …
4 days, 22 hours ago
John Logie Baird: The Eccentric Inventor Who Built Early Television
Episode 13211
In the early 1920s, a ragged inventor walked into the Daily Express claiming he could transmit vision through the air, and the news editor hid, calli…
4 days, 22 hours ago