99% Invisible

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On his deathbed, President Chester Arthur ordered that all of his personal and professional papers be burned. Three barrels of documents went...

A devastating fire put one of Hong Kong's oldest building traditions on trial, but the real story runs much deeper.

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In 1821, two Rhode Island brothers went looking for buyers for their woolen fabric, and stumbled into a lucrative, captive market: Southern slave plantations. Roman Mars and historian Seth Rockman trace the strange life of so-called "Negro cloth" — a textile category defined by nothing but who it was worn by. Along the way, they uncover how enslaved people shaped the very clo...

Behind every perfect nature-inspired design is a far more complicated story.

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In 1925, the world saw the birth of what just might be the greatest gadget in American History: the Brannock Device. The metal contraption transformed the way we measure feet forever, and more than a century after its invention…it has barely changed. Roman Mars and journalist Paul Lukas trace the life of the Brannock Device, from its role outfitting WWII sailors to its surpri...