Damn Interesting

An attempt to secure the future of the site, with an unfortunate quantity of moist metaphors. https://dam.mn/fund

Damn Interesting Podcast: Chile's audacious 1970s-era plan to network and automate the country's entire economy, hindered by political upheaval and CIA maneuvering. Long-time listeners might recognize this story, we did a version of it years ago. The original narrator for this piece joined forces with one of our competitors, and together they have been aggressively poaching our catalog to make videos. So we've decided to start removing his name and voice from our podcast.

A would-be priest's audacious plan to win his money back from the bookmakers

The largest and strangest riot in New York City’s history.

Against the odds, a tiny Icelandic town speaks of a local Black ancestor. Geneticists and historians combine forces to uncover the man’s eventful life.

The tangled history of humanity’s search for the solar system’s uncharted planets.

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 lives.

In 1970s Bali, a sudden rice crisis prompted an unexpectedly far-reaching scientific discovery

In 1933, British WWI vet Maurice Wilson hatched an unorthodox plan to reach the still-untouched summit of Everest.

A great pitcher’s great temptation.

In 1924 a bankrupt businessman in Portugal launched an audacious international scheme to become one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Robert Rogers, a man obsessed with trespassing, sets his sights on Mount St. Helens in the spring of 1980

The true story of a runaway Nazi, a determined sleuth, and a chase around the world.

In 1958, one heavily modified airplane flew out of Las Vegas with a single objective: Don’t land.

From the depths of poverty, Du Yuesheng rose through Shanghai’s underworld to become one of the most influential, and overlooked, figures in modern China.

In Nazi-occupied Paris, “Dr. Eugène” offered Jews an alternative to deportation, slavery, and death camps. But the escape network was not what it seemed.

A true story of castaways on a lost and hostile scrap of land, all thanks to some meddlesome Frenchmen and terrible luck.

Nikolai Vavilov dedicated his life to improving Soviet agriculture and eradicating famine, but his allegiance to science would ultimately lead to his downfall.

How a booming oil town aimed to become a western metropolis through one of the most ill-conceived boxing matches of all time.

How a female engineer defied all norms to save England in the Second World War.

The true story of the 18th century's greatest femme fatale, and the most unfortunate of her victims.

When an ancient, unexpected imprint is discovered in a stone quarry, scientists endeavor to explain its mysterious origin.

The Spy of Night and Fog by Damn Interesting

French mathematician Évariste Galois lived a full life. When he wasn't trying to overthrow the government, he was reinventing algebra.

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.

The 18th century misadventures of HMS Wager and her reluctant crew

The little known story of an age-old scam

The secret runaway success of Kenneth Gandar-Dower’s racing cheetahs.

The most expensive, bizarre, and obscure work ever created by Dr. Seuss.

Working almost single-handedly, visionary Argentine filmmaker Quirino Cristiani created full-length animated films between 1917 and 1931. He has since been all but forgotten.

In 1981, an international group of doctors identified the devastating disease behind a perplexing outbreak of paralysis in northern Mozambique.

Amanda Theodosia Jones was a 19th-century poet, entrepreneur, and inventor who found inspiration in some unlikely places.

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

In the 1950s, an anonymous terrorist planted a pipe bomb in a New York City public space. Then another. And another.

Britain’s practice of transporting convicts to American colonies was a fearsome punishment, but not for the chronic criminal James Dalton.

The story of a tragic hotel fire of Rube Goldberg proportions.

As a civilian, the beloved American Civil War general and two-term president failed at every attempt to make money. Except for one.

A 300-year-old hunt for the unsung hero of Salzburg.

He made a name for himself organizing the world’s most important economic conference, only to have it tarnished by an outrageous accusation.

During WWII, 36 American conscientious objectors volunteered as subjects in a brutal science experiment to measure the body's response to starvation.

A remote bay in Alaska is home to an odd and occasionally catastrophic geology. In 1958, a handful of people experienced this firsthand.

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.

A 1930s effort to reach the Earth's northernmost point via antiquated submarine.

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.

The tumultuous true story of the life of a fast food icon.

The story of the Beale Ciphers; a set of three encrypted notes from the nineteenth century purportedly describing the location of hidden treasure. Only one has been deciphered.

On the ancient Japanese Buddhist practice of self-mummification.

Faxes From The Far Side by Damn Interesting

When women in a poorly administered Oregon town hacked an election in order to repair the town's problems.

A happy-tenth-birthday-to-us retrospective.