Damn Interesting
Episodes
There Once Was a Man Called Curley
06 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A would-be priest's audacious plan to win his money back from the bookmakers
Much Ado About Adenoids
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The largest and strangest riot in New York City’s history.
A Trail Gone Cold
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Against the odds, a tiny Icelandic town speaks of a local Black ancestor. Geneticists and historians combine forces to uncover the man’s eventful li...
Journey To The Invisible Planet
13 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The tangled history of humanity’s search for the solar system’s uncharted planets.
From Where The Sun Now Stands
21 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When the U.S. Army came for their land in 1877, the Nez Perce tribe complied. But tensions boiled over, and Chief Joseph led as they ran for their liv...
The Ancient Order Of Bali
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1970s Bali, a sudden rice crisis prompted an unexpectedly far-reaching scientific discovery
Lofty Ambitions
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1933, British WWI vet Maurice Wilson hatched an unorthodox plan to reach the still-untouched summit of Everest.
The Rube's Dilemma
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A great pitcher’s great temptation.
Devouring The Heart Of Portugal
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1924 a bankrupt businessman in Portugal launched an audacious international scheme to become one of the wealthiest men in the world.
The Mount St. Helens Trespasser
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Rogers, a man obsessed with trespassing, sets his sights on Mount St. Helens in the spring of 1980
Hunting For Kobyla
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The true story of a runaway Nazi, a determined sleuth, and a chase around the world.
The Unceasing Cessna Hacienda
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1958, one heavily modified airplane flew out of Las Vegas with a single objective: Don’t land.
The Kingpin of Shanghai
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From the depths of poverty, Du Yuesheng rose through Shanghai’s underworld to become one of the most influential, and overlooked, figures in modern ...
The Traveler And His Baggage
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Nazi-occupied Paris, “Dr. Eugène” offered Jews an alternative to deportation, slavery, and death camps. But the escape network was not what it...
Fifteen Years Forsaken
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A true story of castaways on a lost and hostile scrap of land, all thanks to some meddlesome Frenchmen and terrible luck.
A Blight On Soviet Science
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nikolai Vavilov dedicated his life to improving Soviet agriculture and eradicating famine, but his allegiance to science would ultimately lead to his ...
Pugilism On The Plains
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How a booming oil town aimed to become a western metropolis through one of the most ill-conceived boxing matches of all time.
How Miss Shilling's Orifice Helped Win the War
08 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How a female engineer defied all norms to save England in the Second World War.
Dupes and Duplicity
04 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The true story of the 18th century's greatest femme fatale, and the most unfortunate of her victims.
Chronicles of Charnia
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When an ancient, unexpected imprint is discovered in a stone quarry, scientists endeavor to explain its mysterious origin.
The Spy of Night and Fog
05 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Spy of Night and Fog by Damn Interesting
Radical Solutions
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
French mathematician Évariste Galois lived a full life. When he wasn't trying to overthrow the government, he was reinventing algebra.
Private Wojteks Right To Bear Arms
11 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Dead Reckoning
10 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The 18th century misadventures of HMS Wager and her reluctant crew
The Eponymous Mr. Ponzi
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The little known story of an age-old scam
The Most Modern Of Modern Sports
14 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The secret runaway success of Kenneth Gandar-Dower’s racing cheetahs.
A Debaculous Fiasco
04 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The most expensive, bizarre, and obscure work ever created by Dr. Seuss.
Drawing The Shorter Straw
29 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Working almost single-handedly, visionary Argentine filmmaker Quirino Cristiani created full-length animated films between 1917 and 1931. He has since...
The Curse Of Konzo
01 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1981, an international group of doctors identified the devastating disease behind a perplexing outbreak of paralysis in northern Mozambique.
A Jarring Revelation
29 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Amanda Theodosia Jones was a 19th-century poet, entrepreneur, and inventor who found inspiration in some unlikely places.
Death By Derivatives
20 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
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
Ghoulish Acts & Dastardly Deeds
29 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1950s, an anonymous terrorist planted a pipe bomb in a New York City public space. Then another. And another.
No Country For Ye Olde Men
17 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Britain’s practice of transporting convicts to American colonies was a fearsome punishment, but not for the chronic criminal James Dalton.
Fire And Dice
12 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The story of a tragic hotel fire of Rube Goldberg proportions.
The Reconstruction of Ulysses S. Grant
11 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As a civilian, the beloved American Civil War general and two-term president failed at every attempt to make money. Except for one.
The Greatest Baroque Composer Never Known
06 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A 300-year-old hunt for the unsung hero of Salzburg.
Foreign Exchanges
28 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
He made a name for himself organizing the world’s most important economic conference, only to have it tarnished by an outrageous accusation.
Starving For Answers
30 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
During WWII, 36 American conscientious objectors volunteered as subjects in a brutal science experiment to measure the body's response to starvation.
Ten Minutes In Lituya Bay
26 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A remote bay in Alaska is home to an odd and occasionally catastrophic geology. In 1958, a handful of people experienced this firsthand.
The King's Letters
06 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The 15th-century scholar who upset the Korean aristocracy by creating a native script for the Korean language, and thus wean it off Chinese characters...
Mobilis In Mobili
13 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A 1930s effort to reach the Earth's northernmost point via antiquated submarine.
Into The Bewilderness
11 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Waterton was a pioneer of conservation. He was also extremely nutty, in ways that suggest he may have over-identified with his animal subjects...
Colonels Of Truth
13 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The tumultuous true story of the life of a fast food icon.
89, 263, 201, 500, 337, 480
14 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the Beale Ciphers; a set of three encrypted notes from the nineteenth century purportedly describing the location of hidden treasure. Onl...
The Japanese Art of Self Preservation
28 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On the ancient Japanese Buddhist practice of self-mummification.
Faxes From The Far Side
21 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Faxes From The Far Side by Damn Interesting
The Petticoat Rebellion Of 1916
10 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
When women in a poorly administered Oregon town hacked an election in order to repair the town's problems.
The First Ten Years
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A happy-tenth-birthday-to-us retrospective.
Up In The Air
02 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As night fell over the East German town of Pössneck on the evening of 14 September 1979, most of the town's citizens were busy getting ready for bed....
The Zero Armed Bandit
14 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
"I don’t think it belongs here." Such was the assessment of Bob Vinson, the graveyard shift supervisor at Harvey's Wagon Wheel Casino in Lake Tahoe,...
The American Gustation Crisis Of 1985
18 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
(This is a podcastification of an older article to observe the 30th anniversary of the events discussed herein). In April 1985, it is rumored that a ...
The Derelict
11 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Under ordinary circumstances, the final evening of a cruise aboard the luxury turbo-electric ocean liner SS Morro Castle was a splendid event. Hundred...
Surface Tension
02 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Low-pressure weather systems are a familiar feature of the winter climate in the northern Atlantic. While they often drive wind, rain, and other unple...
Welcome To The Jungle
06 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1744, a young geographer living in Spanish-colonial Peru with his wife and children decided the time had come to move the family back to his native...
The Clockmaker
28 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It was the middle of a cool September night in Munich, Germany. The year was 1939. In an otherwise unoccupied auditorium, a man knelt on hands and kne...
White Death
04 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In April of 1938, representatives from the USSR approached the Finnish government and expressed a concern that Nazi Germany could attempt to invade Ru...
Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Spuds of War
09 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Staple though it is today, the lowly potato had a hard time reaching its preeminent status in Western cuisine. Perhaps its lengthy purgatory has somet...
Absolute Zero is 0K
19 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Near the heart of Scotland lies a large morass known as Dullatur Bog. Water seeps from these moistened acres and coalesces into the headwaters of a ri...
It Came From Beneath The Sea
03 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Alarming events were in store for Sicily at the beginning of the summer of 1831. On 28 June, small earthquakes rocked the western end of the island, a...
The Supernatural Bunnymother Of Surrey
09 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The men from London arrived just in time to see Mary Toft give birth to her fifteenth rabbit. It was the winter of 1726, and Nathaniel St. André and...
Three Thrown Over the Cuckoo's Nest
21 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sometime in the 1940s an improbable encounter occurred at a mental institution in Maryland. Two women, each of whom was institutionalized for believin...
The Remains of Doctor Bass
29 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Under normal circumstances, one would expect a wandering throng of students to demonstrate animated displeasure upon encountering a human corpse in th...
The City Under Ice
26 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Camp Century: A "nuclear city" under the Greenland ice sheet that was not entirely what it seemed.
Otokichi's Long Trip Home
08 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
While most of the major powers of western Europe spent the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries racing around the world carving out empires for themselves, ...
The Conductor
12 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Roy Sullivan. A different kind of Damn Interesting episode.
Andrée and the Aeronauts' Voyage to the Top of the World
24 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
On the 11th of July 1897, the world breathlessly awaited word from the small Norwegian island of Danskøya in the Arctic Sea. Three gallant Swedish sc...
The Mole Rat Prophecies
24 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The naked mole rat, Heterocephalus glaber, is fleshy, furless, buck-toothed and brazenly ugly. Yet what these small East African rodents lack in terms...
The Smoldering Ruins of Centralia
16 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
There is a small town in Pennsylvania called Ashland where Route 61's northbound traffic is temporarily branched onto a short detour. Exactly what the...
The Spy Who Loved Nothing
18 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The meeting had not gone well, the man gloomily reflected as he was driven out of East Berlin. His head was still heavy after a few too many snifters ...
The Isle of Doctor Seaborg
27 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It was the summer of 1936 when Ernest Lawrence, the inventor of the atom-smashing cyclotron, received a visit from Emilio Segrè, a scientific colleag...
The Arizona Dragonslayer
06 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A simple telegram plunged America into the Great War. The Zimmermann telegram, intercepted by American intelligence in April 1917, revealed Germany’...
The Science of Mental Fitness
11 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a testament to the strength and versatility of the human brain that anyone with at least half of one tends to assume that their senses give the...
Nineteen Seventy Three
17 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
On 12 November 1971, in the presidential palace in the Republic of Chile, President Salvador Allende and a British theorist named Stafford Beer engage...