In November 1979, Flight 901 departs New Zealand on a sightseeing journey over Antarctica, heading directly towards a volcano. When the plane vanishes, investigators are left with a mystery: how ...

One of the most famous experiments in social psychology took place in the early 1950s. Solomon Asch, a professor at Swarthmore College, gathered together groups of young men for what he told them ...

If the 21st century has produced a more prescient book, I’ve not seen it. I’m thinking of The Moral Consequences of Economic ...

Do you want more Cautionary Tales episodes in your life? Do you want behind the scenes stories and bonus conversations with me? Or do you want to support us in making the show? On behalf of the whole ...

Panic has erupted in the cockpit of AirFrance Flight 447. The pilots are convinced they’ve lost control of the plane. It’s lurching violently. Then, it begins plummeting from the sky at breakneck ...

Was the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel – the story of a woodcutter’s children abandoned in the woods and left at the mercy of a witch – in fact, early true crime? A hit book – The Truth About Hansel ...

Just before Christmas 1953, the bosses of America’s leading tobacco companies met John Hill, the founder and chief executive of one of America’s leading public relations firms, Hill & Knowlton.

“Thanks to Tim Harford’s characteristic wit and magnetic storytelling, you may not realize you’re getting an advanced course in how to understand the kinds of statistics we’re all faced with every day ...

Thomas Midgley’s inventions caused his own death, hastened the deaths of millions of people around the world, and very nearly extinguished all life on land. Midgley and his employers didn’t set out to ...

It could cure almost any ‘female ailment’ – even cancer – said the adverts. But Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was, in fact, just a concoction of herbs and alcohol of no proven medicinal merit.