99% Invisible

Former MythBuster Adam Savage joins Roman Mars to explore the history of the 500 Series Telephone and what we lost when we eventually decided to leave it behind.

How a movie prop became one of Philadelphia’s most beloved monuments, and sparked a decades-long fight over where it belonged.

How a single product—the hair relaxer—became a mirror for all of America's contradictions.

A legendary typeface, a spectacular friendship breakup, and one extremely committed act of revenge.

How should the military outfit its soldiers to make them as safe and effective as possible?

Every product has to be tested somehow, and sometimes that means finding increasingly creative ways to break it.

How the ceramic Dalmatian became the mascot for one of America's most popular game shows.

This week, two stories about the strange power of the 1-800 number.

How the time clock not only ignited a revolution in workplace efficiency and surveillance, but transformed our relationship to time itself.

Spolia, from a Liverpool neighborhood to ancient Rome.

Producer and reporter Ramtin Arablouei has a simple question: Why are so many NBA players wearing a compression sleeve on their arm?

Two rival paleontologists turn a hunt for dinosaur bones into an all-out scientific war.

Comedian Elliott Kalan joins Roman Mars to tell the story of how a politician who owed so much to a corrupt government system became the one to dismantle it, thanks to one woman: Julia Isabella Sand.

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

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.

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

In 1925, the world saw the birth of what just might be the greatest gadget in American History: the Brannock Device.

A simple cardboard box helped transform Finland into one of the best places in the world to raise a child.

In the early 1970s, Bruce Lee made nunchaku (nunchucks) cool, but the nunchucks craze coincided with something much bigger: the birth of a radical new Asian American identity.

Neil MacGregor reflects on creating the landmark series that changed how people think about history. Then, revisit the Rosetta Stone, the artifact that unlocked ancient Egypt.