For this final episode of the Futility Closet podcast we have eight new lateral thinking puzzles — play along... more

One of the most remarkable pilots of World War II never fired a shot or dropped a bomb. With... more

In 1891, a mysterious figure appeared on the streets of London, dispensing pills to poor young women who then... more

In 1856, a mysterious man appeared on the roads of Connecticut and New York, dressed in leather, speaking to... more

In 1616, British officer Nathaniel Courthope was sent to a tiny island in the East Indies to contest a... more

In 1904, adventure novelist H. Rider Haggard awoke from a dream with the conviction that his daughter's dog was... more

In 1945, a U.S. Army transport plane crashed in New Guinea, leaving three survivors marooned in the island's mountainous... more

In 1917, a New Jersey company began hiring young women to paint luminous marks on the faces of watches... more

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 is remembered for its destructive intensity and terrible death toll. But the scale... more

The modern strawberry has a surprisingly dramatic story, involving a French spy in Chile, a perilous ocean voyage, and... more