How an ugly puppet created television as we know it

In this bonus episode, Lasha talks about extra reporting she did for Towers of Silence on the current state of... more

Our pal Gillian Jacobs takes us through the history of poison control and the yucky face meant to warn children... more

How the loss of vultures in India has put an ancient burial tradition in crisis

Featuring the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and covering the second section of Part 4,... more

Dan Pashman embarks on an epic trip across Italy in search of lesser-known pasta dishes — and to learn about... more

Bright, flamboyant central African fashion

The history of the chambre de bonne, the tiny French apartment type that may be, finally, on the way out.

A 99pi guide to some of our favorite design features of Athens, Georgia.

How to accommodate autism in the built world

The garbage disposer and the dream of a garbage-free city

Featuring Blank Check co-host and The Atlantic movie critic David Sims covering the first section of Part 4, chapters 11-15

The constant and sometimes fraught back and forth between cartoons and toys, as exemplified by Transformers and the Teenage Mutant... more

Understanding the clunky Prop 65 warnings on products

A 99pi guide to some of our favorite design features of Santa Fe.

Since the mid-1970s, almost every jazz musician has owned a copy of the same book and originally it was a... more

It’s been said that history is written by the person at the typewriter. But who did the person who made... more

How much film and television shapes us as individuals and as a society, far beyond what we give it credit... more

Featuring New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie covering Part 3.

How White Castle invented fast food

The interblock parks of Sofia, Bulgaria that are caught between old failed communism and new hyper capitalism

There are memorials to lost fishermen, lost astronauts, even lost members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. What should a COVID pandemic memorial... more

A 99pi guide to some of our favorite design features of Chicago

The design evolution of the seemingly simple, but not all that simple, skateboard

Featuring author Robert Caro covering The Introduction, Part 1, and Part 2.

The fake villages and role players used to train US soldiers

Upside-down construction, the linguistics of filler, and a fire that has been burning...and will burn... for decades.

Mapping the long history of Slovenia onto the three "Santas' that visit each year

We have a year-end mix of short stories about a rogue architect, spooky kitchens, a hundred year old music streaming... more

The storied evolution of pocket calculation

Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan are starting The Power Broker book club that will run through all of 2024 as... more

The tradition of the Tomb of the Unknown goes back only about a century, but it has become one of... more

A band that was never meant to be recorded and a personal recorder that was never designed to capture music... more

A town's fight to be free from the noise and trauma of the Cincinnati Police Department's open-air gun range

How Reno became the go-to place to get a quick divorce and how divorce laws have changed over time

The hunt to cultivate the cure for malaria

Designing environments for people with dementia

Devo’s first record and the fight over the arresting image of a flashy, handsome golf legend on the cover.

The historic vote over which version of Elvis should be immortalized on a postage stamp

Over its more than 40 year journey from conception to completion, Boston’s Big Dig massive infrastructure project, which rerouted the... more

Two stories where the devil is in the details

The triumph and tragedy of the Sydney Opera House

Who were the real Luddites?

The story of how "Who Let The Dogs Out" ended up stuck in all of our brains. A story that... more

Solving the housing crisis and the office vacancy crisis with one obvious and elegant idea: office to housing conversion. If... more

The story of a voice training VHS tape that helped trans women at a time when other resources were hard... more

More about the trails as an object and an idea

We take the humble trail, what might be the original designed object, and deconstruct it

The decades-long campaign to get us to love our gas stoves

Andrew Leland takes us through the fascinating history of alternative reading technologies designed for blind people and discusses his fantastic... more

La Sombrita and the politics of shade

The ubiquity and cultural legacy of the shocking little Christian comics books called Chick Tracts

Proximity founder Ryan Coogler talks all about podcasts with Roman Mars

Composer Raymond Scott’s lifelong quest to build an automatic songwriting machine, and what it means for our own AI-addled, ChatGPT... more

Many consider Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's Frankfurt Kitchen to be nothing less than the first modern kitchen.

The pregones of Mexico City and the one call that stands out from the cacophony

How courtroom artists became the preferred way to document trials

The unlikely battle between the creator of the New York Public Library's children's reading room and Goodnight Moon

Slip coaches, the worlds shortest trains, private cars, torpedoes, and of course, Thomas.

The massive consequence of parking minimums

Seven small inventions that changed the world in a big way

The scourge of bad closed captioning

The strange design history and modern resurgence of pinball

Best-selling author John Green and Roman Mars answer questions and give dubious advice

From scratchers to the Powerball, the lottery is the most popular form of gambling in the United States, even though... more

Today the Netherlands has a reputation as a kind of bicycling paradise, but that was far from inevitable

The “panopticon” might be the best known prison concept in the world. It’s become the metaphor for the surveillance... more

The rise, fall, and unexpected second life of the crosscut saw is also the story of how America created the... more

Two stories about the transformative power of silence from our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz

Friction, tribology, and the complex art and science of lubrication

When online worlds end

The surprisingly long history of trying to use robots to call balls and strikes in baseball

The importance of humor and art in protesting (and ousting!) oppressive regimes

When LA punks were looking for a place to play in the late 1970s, Chinatown welcomed the unruly scene. But... more

On Aug. 1, 1942, the nation’s recording studios went silent. Musicians were fed up with the new technologies threatening their... more

In the 20th century, Iowa high school girls basketball was HUGE but it was not the game we know today

How an ultra-marathon called The Comrades became a national obsession in South Africa and a model for inclusion during some... more

The shifting symbolism of Brazil's iconic yellow soccer jersey

We’re kicking off the new year at 99pi with a fresh installment of mini-stories, including: what lies at the intersection... more

A Balikbayan box is a huge cardboard box (often weighing over 100 pounds) that Filipinos living all over the world... more

It's Mini-Story Season! You’ll hear about a very, very long escalator! Beavers dropping from the sky!  We’ll hear from Janet,... more

If you’ve ever flipped through the radio dial — not satellite, not podcasts, but good old-fashioned AM and FM radio... more

The epic tale of the Hollywood celebrity mountain lion known as P-22

There is a subset of real life superheroes who are more focused on things like picking up trash and taking... more

The incredible story of the black men who became America's first paramedics

Roman and Kurt are back with another series of railroad tales. All aboard!

Avery Trufelman's Articles of Interest is back!

Jody Rosen joins us to talk about the evolution of the bicycle, how it became a cultural phenomenon in the... more

Reporter/producer Gillian Jacobs (Community, Winning Time) takes us on a stroll on the Walk of Fame, a 1.3 mile monument... more

The history and significance and of the much maligned vuvuzela

Jamaica is famous around the world for its music, including genres like ska, dub, and reggae. It’s tempting to think... more

The jackalope is a mythical mascot of the American West – inspiring an absolute river of trinkets and songs and... more

On this special feature episode, President Bill Clinton interviews 99% Invisible host and creator Roman Mars.

How did we get to a point where "search" is failing us?

North Korea's state-run design studio has long been a prolific maker of statues around the world, particularly in Africa

The infrastructure, zoning, and cultural factors that make the hit Japanese TV program Old Enough, where toddlers go on errands... more

There's a particular one-kilohertz tone that is universally understood to be covering up inappropriate words on radio and TV. But... more

We're sharing the latest episode of Roman's other show What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law, your guide to... more

For the love of peat

In the final episode of our vernacular spectacular anniversary series, 99pi producers and friends of the show will be sharing... more

The utilitarian and "ugly" architecture that is beautiful to us

We often tell stories about how people shape the built world, but on this milestone 500th episode, we're telling stories... more

The history of taking plants that grow naturally in one place, and moving them halfway around the world to an... more

The Octagonal House fad and self-improvement in the 1800s

The story of a long, skinny island east of Russia's mainland and the ethnic Koreans who have had no choice... more

Wild Rice has long played an important role in Ojibwe cultures, but last year, it took on a new role:... more

No teenager in America in the 1980s could avoid the gravitational pull of the mall, not even author Alexandra Lange.... more

Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. At least, that's what we were taught in school. But when historians go... more

Priceless cultural artifacts have been plundered and sold for hundreds of years. You can find these relics in museums and... more

The educational toys that changed the world

What zoning out middle-sized housing options does to a city

Some of the most ambitious, fascinating, and downright crazy trains that the world has ever seen.

Bonus episode: Roman Mars on Blank Check with Griffin and David talking about The Quick and The Dead (Sam Raimi,... more

Data is the lifeblood of public health, and has been since the beginning of the field. We take a look... more

The evolution of the "international" section of the grocery store and how some products stay there forever and some break... more

We visit the site of one of the most infamous lost expeditions and the home of all the lost luggage.

Every year in the spring, small towns throughout New England host their annual town meeting. Town meetings take place in... more

While urban parks are safe havens for birds, parks are often surrounded by condos and hotels and office buildings with... more

So why don't we have mouth Roombas? Is the universe full of chickens? What scientific advances are happening? What was... more

In February 2021, Texas suffered an intense winter storm and the state power grid had a catastrophic failure that lasted... more

Natalie de Blois contributed to some of the most iconic Modernist works created for corporate America, all while raising four... more

We are two decades into the 21st century, yet when it comes to life online, large segments of America are... more

How eminent domain was used to enforce segregation in a suburb in St. Louis and beyond

The Columbia Journalism School recently announced the 16 winners of the 2022 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, including According to... more

There's a small neighborhood within Shenzhen, China that is known for mass-producing copies of the most celebrated works of Western... more

How an airport in a small town on the west coast of Ireland changed the world economy

People have been going back and forth about what makes a healthy and productive office since there have been offices.... more

The most high stakes game of roshambo ever, plus a SF Muni bus driver breaks down the runaway bus fight... more

Origin story and symbolism are two of the most important ingredients of any superhero universe. But what happens when both... more

This is the third and final episode of this batch of mini-stories and the 14th volume overall and it’s a... more

We're kicking off the new year at 99pi with a fresh installment of mini-stories, including: a strange collision of mundane... more

It's that time of year again! When 99pi producers and friends of the show join Roman to tell shorter stories,... more

Slovenia has just over 2 million people and is visited by, not one, not two, but three different "santas" every... more

How a team of community leaders used cold, sharp strategy, flipping the logic of Jim Crow housing segregation on its... more

In much of the western world, alphabetical order is simply a default we take for granted. It’s often the one... more

The French bulldog is now the second most popular breed in America. Their cute features, portable size, and physical features... more

How lifting weights became a core component to home fitness

Even if we think of the camera as a neutral technology, it is not. In the vast spectrum of human... more

Born in 1872, American architect and engineer Julia Morgan designed hundreds of buildings over her prolific career, famous for her... more

At a glance, the border between the United States and Canada would seem to be at the friendlier end of... more

Margarine is yellow, like butter, but it hasn't always been. At times and in places, it has been a bland... more

Rioters carried many familiar flags during the January 6th insurrection at the United States Capitol -- Confederate, MAGA, as well... more

When Sears sold mail order houses that you assembled yourself

When it comes to English spelling and pronunciation, there is plenty of rhyme and very little reason. But what is... more

The weirdness of Presidential libraries

The great Jacob Goldstein, author of Money: The True Story of a Made Up Thing, stops by to tell us... more

Axolotls are nature’s great regenerators. They are able to grow back not just their tails, but also legs, arms, even... more

How the science of color made us modern

What does water mean to you? In this feature, author Bonnie Tsui (Why We Swim), actress Joy Bryant, submarine pilot... more

When Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt were promoting The 99% Invisible City in late 2020, one question came up over and over... more

Officially titled The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food, it was often known simply as “Kniga” (translated: "book") because it... more

Britt Young, the author of the article "I have one of the most advanced prosthetic arms in the world —... more

Hanko are the carved stamp seals that people in Japan often use in place of signatures. Hanko seals are made... more

Throughout its reign, the British Empire stole a lot of stuff. Today those objects are housed in genteel institutions across... more

Every year, fights break out on airplanes. Jim Salzman and Michael Heller are law professors and the authors of a... more

In the United Kingdom, the freedom to walk through private land is known as “the right to roam.” The movement... more

The Red, Black, and Green flag was invented to unite Black people all over the world living under racial repression.

Good Luck Flags and the search for the perfect flag for Antarctica

After Producer Katie Mingle's mom wrote a romance novel, Katie set out to understand the romance genre and its classic... more

This week we talk to author Chelsea Wald about her book Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the... more

This series of time-centric stories challenges what you know (or think you know) about the way time works around the... more

Today, Berlin is one of the premier destinations for techno music fans. People come from all over the world to... more

As the number of cargo ships has increased, so has a problem: workers stuck on ships that have been completely... more

If you live in an American city and you don’t personally use a wheelchair, it's easy to overlook the small... more

What the presence of a Levittown in Puerto Rico tells us about the promises of the American Dream in Puerto... more

The illustrated interpretation of dinosaur morphology and behavior has had a big impact on how the public views dinosaurs and... more

Since the mid-1970s, almost every jazz musician has owned a copy of the same book and originally it was a... more

More than 100,000 people die every year from snake bites. Part of the reason people are dying is because they're... more

Intervening to try to mitigate the negative effects of the human interventions of the past

Back in the early 1990s, movie theaters weren't that great. The auditoriums were cramped and narrow, and the screen was... more

When Idaho put a slogan on their license plates in 1928 it started a trend across all states and this... more

A story of data visualization and coercion that centers on a person not particularly well known for either one of... more

A tale of bats and bridges and how the built environment and the natural environment don’t need to be at... more

The 12 bronze zodiac heads that are at the center of a fight over the repatriation of Chinese cultural heritage

A new podcast series from the 99% Invisible team! The real story of how Fred Hampton became The Chairman, as... more

There's a huge amount of subterranean space that we're not aware of around us all the time. For those of... more

Teaser for the new podcast from Proximity Media and 99pi

The fight between historic preservation and allowing a city to evolve to house the working class and native population

In the Twin Cities there are vast networks of climate-controlled pedestrian bridges that reach over the streets and connect adjacent... more

Overheating, Lenin or Bust, Music Games

Sea Sheep, Space Pens, Ice Forests, Circular Design

Movie novelizations, Central Park lampposts, Swiss defensive design, and ABBA

Roman talks to Jesse Thorn

If homelessness is the problem, housing is the solution. But it’s not always that simple.

The secrets of the list that determines who gets what kind of assistance

Sam Tsemberis radically rethinks how to solve homelessness

Katie spends a day in the 211 call center

Tulicia reaches out for help

Introductory chapter to According to Need

Trailer for the new 99% Invisible limited series According to Need

Emily Anthes looks at all of the ways our indoor spaces impact our health, and observes that there is so... more

Sean Exploder is a podcast where Sean Real takes apart her songs, and piece by piece, tells the story of... more

If you’ve ever flown on a plane, you’ve been directed to study the safety briefing card in your seatback pocket.

Enron collapsed nearly 20 years ago, but chances are something you use today was affected by emails sent by 150... more

The catastrophic and dramatic fall of a bunch of cities that no longer exist

Taking a walk with our friends at Pop Up Magazine

Designing for the Next Billion Users

The Houston Astros and the long storied history of sign stealing in baseball

Protecting and restoring an extremely important but historically maligned ecosystem

Roman and Kurt describe Oakland as it is

The unlikely battle between the creator of the New York Public Library's children's reading room and Goodnight Moon

An address is something many people take for granted today, but they are in fact a fairly recent invention that... more

Icons and symbols and signage are all around us, and nowhere more so than on the open road.

Many transgender, non-binary, and intersex people risk stress and sometimes physical danger when entering bathrooms that are segregated by sex.... more

The no-brand that changed the way we eat, shop, and ironically, think about branding

How the Post Office created America

How cars transformed American freedom

Old taggers meet their anti-tagging arch-nemesis, and how they have turned out after all these years

A monument built by a fascist that was meant to honor people who died in the Spanish Civil War, but... more

The story of a small island nation, a fight for independence, a fight for dependence...and a flag. Plus, we're announcing... more

Marcia Chatelain on how McDonald's replaced the state in Black America

The forgotten story of the first paramedics in the US, a team of pioneering EMTs from Pittsburgh's largely Black Hill... more

All across the country, protestors have been challenging old monuments, including the ones of Juan de Oñate in NM, which... more

In the US, mascots are used to pump up crowds at sporting events, or for traumatizing generations of children at... more

How Instagram and architecture interact and feed back on each other

The symbolism and weight of the white wedding dress

Diamonds represent value, in all its multiple meanings: values, as in ethics, and value as in actual price. But what... more

Formal menswear can be traced back to American Revolution, classical statuary, and one particular bloke bopping around downtown London way... more

Perfume can be a key to a whole olfactory world

Brands hold immense sway over both consumers and the American legal system. Few know this as well as Dapper Dan.

In the wake of World War II, the government of France commissioned its most prominent designers to create a collection... more

Researchers who are using this bizarre, tragic moment to learn something new about the world

Stories inspired by two people from the world of architecture and design we've lost due to COVID

Why the culture behind epidemic masks developed so differently in China and the doctor who started it all

Katie Mingle reports on how COVID-19 is affecting the unhoused and what people are doing to protect everyone

With the current shortage of toilet paper, we look at how it went from being a rarity to an essential... more

Roman talks with Jody Avirgan about his new show on Raditopia

A city shaken and a voice that held it together

On this shelter-in-place edition of 99pi, Roman walks around his house and tells stories about the history and design of... more

Three stories of maps shaping the real world

The massive interconnected network of technologies that span decades that come together to predict the weather

The trials and triumphs of America’s long haul truckers

The long and strange history of fraktur and its somewhat ironic designation as the "Nazi font"

The decade-long quest to find out Who Let The Dogs Out

A very old transit technology may be the key to making our cities better for everyone

Deep within the National Museum of American History’s vaults is a battered Atari case containing what’s known as “the worst... more

Vantablack was created by the tech industry for the tech industry, but this strange dark material would also go on... more

Shade is not evenly distributed in our cities and it's a matter of life and death

Part 2 of our annual mini-stories extravaganza, volume 8

Our annual mini-stories extravaganza, volume 7

A Smart, Erudite Podcast

What happens when computers master human language?

Incubator baby shows were a huge hit in early 20th century amusement parks and they were the main source of... more

Lester Gaba and his companion Cynthia were the talk of the town, but Cynthia wasn't a person, she was a... more

Tim Harford takes us through all of the poor design choices leading into the infamous La La Land/Moonlight debacle, and... more

The stories behind graphic symbols you see every day

It is hard to pick a pepper, for both humans and robots

A little-known bit of world history about a rag tag group of sailors stranded at the center of a war.

To help celebrate its 60th anniversary, the Guggenheim Museum teamed up with 99% Invisible to offer visitors a guided audio... more

The little rule in soccer that fundamentally changed the game

Kirkbrides and the architecture of madness

All the ways people try to change their community that isn’t through city planning or some kind of official process.

Learning the US Constitution through Trump tweets

Counting the dead cars in Bethel, AK

This is the UPDATED story of a curvy, kidney-shaped swimming pool born in Northern Europe that had a huge ripple... more

Design can completely change whether a five minute wait feels reasonable or completely unbearable

The meteoric rise and fall of the custom ringtone

The walls in Northern Ireland meant to separate the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods

Using a massive scale model of the city of San Francisco built in the 1930s to tell the story of... more

Artificial beehives had a huge impact on US agriculture

The Buddha of Oakland

Men are often the default subjects of design, which can have a huge impact on big and critical aspects of... more

Vivian Le is on a mission that requires equal parts science, philosophy, and daring, in search of something that’s been... more

Sand is the most important solid substance in the world...and we're running out

How blind people experience literature and the long history of designing a tactile language that sometimes suffered from trying to... more

In Singapore, where land is scarce, it’s not unlikely for apartment buildings to be built on top of land that... more

John Green rates different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale

The Raptors are in the NBA finals and their 90s uniforms are more popular than ever

Restaurants trying to cut back on the number of employees are using new technology to order and prepare food, but... more

Mexico City is in a water crisis. Despite rains and floods, it is running out of drinking water and the... more