Red Herring

In 2017, Wayne Hsiung and a crew of animal rights activists from Direct Action Everywhere broke into a Utah pig farm run by Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork distributors in the world. They were there to capture video of what they say were thousands of mistreated and abus ...  Show more

For much of history, tree canopies were pretty much completely ignored by science. It was as if researchers said collectively, "It's just going to be empty up there, and we've got our hands full studying the trees down here! So why bother?" But then around the mid-1980s, a few ec ...  Show more

In 1740, the Royal Navy ship The Wager set sail for the Pacific to take part in the War of Jenkins' Ear. The unfortunate ship was separated from the fleet and, after pulverising storms and outbreaks of scurvy, ended up sinking near a small island off the coast of Chil ...

May 3, 1995. The Hunley has been missing for over 100 years. This Civil War submarine and all eight of her crew disappeared after completing the first successful submarine attack ever. When a team of divers finally locates the wreck in the mid ‘90s, it seems the mystery has been ...  Show more

The night after Christmas, 1980, was the last time Airman First Class John Burroughs would ever lead a normal life. He was on patrol at an American-operated Woodbridge Air Force base in southern England. Woodbridge and nearby Bentwaters - called the Twin Bases were rumored to pos ...  Show more

On this episode of Our American Stories, Jeremy Saucier of the Strong Museum of Play shares the long, and surprising, history of pinball--from its origins in French parlor games, to its prohibition, and then to its emergence as the immersive and popular game that it is today; The ...  Show more