All Episodes
Sigmund Freud: The House
The man who taught the twentieth century that it was not master in its own house sits down with an interviewer who is not quite human — and finds his most famous idea ...
George Washington Carver: The Living Soil
Most people know one thing about George Washington Carver, and it is the least interesting thing about him. In this episode, the Archivist does not ask him to recount ...
Ludwig van Beethoven: Under the Bone
Ludwig van Beethoven went deaf before he wrote his most famous work. The Ninth Symphony premiered in 1824 and he could not hear a note of it. The Archivist does the on...
Frida Kahlo: The Body Knows
Frida Kahlo died in 1954 at forty-seven. Her face is now on merchandise worldwide. The paintings that made people uncomfortable are still safely in the museum. This co...
Albert Einstein: The Friction
Albert Einstein's field equations, published in 1915, described a universe more dramatic than he believed possible. Black holes. Gravitational waves. The bending of sp...
Mark Twain: The Cough
Mark Twain spent his career making people laugh at the thing they needed to see clearly. He understood outrage, performed it himself, and knew exactly what happened wh...