The Real Cyrano

In 1897, a Swedish engineer set out to reach the North Pole ... by balloon. With two companions, a crate of champagne, and the faith of a nation, he rose into the Arctic fog — and vanished. Decades later, their frozen journals and undeveloped film emerged from the ice, revealing ...  Show more

The Florentine Diamond was one of the crown jewels (sorry) of the Habsburgs—a 137-carat diamond that had come from the court of the Duke of Tuscany. But after World War I, when the Austrian Empire collapsed, the royal family fled to Switzerland, taking the diamond with them. From ...  Show more

Where was Mary Queen of Scots - Elizabeth I’s most famous rival - born, and who were her parents? What was the nature of the turbulent politically and religiously divided world she was born into? How did she become a queen at only one week old, and betrothed to a French Prince at ...  Show more

Ever since the 1870s, rumours have swirled around Queen Victoria and her Highland servant John Brown. Were the pair in love? Could they have got married? And might they even have had a secret child? Historian Fern Riddell investigates these claims in her book Victoria's Secret, a ...  Show more

Following the death of her husband, the King of France, was the glamorous Mary welcomed back to Scotland, her kingdom since infancy, with open arms or deep suspicion? Did she handle the precarious situation in which she found herself well, or recklessly? Did the majority of Scott ...  Show more

Margaret talks with Ed Zitron about the origins of one of her all-time favorite games.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.