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Futility Closet

Mar 31, 2014

In 1926, a woman named Lillian Alling grew disenchanted with her life as a maid in New York City and resolved to return to her native Russia. She lacked the funds to sail east, so instead she walked west -- trekking 6,000 miles alone across the breadth of Canada and into Alaska. In this week's episode of the...


Mar 24, 2014

As skywatchers prepared for the return of Halley's comet in 1910, they heard some alarming scientific predictions: Poisonous gases in the comet's tail might "snuff out all life on the planet," "leaving the burnt and drenched Earth no other atmosphere than the nitrogen now present in the air." How should a responsible...


Mar 14, 2014

Will New Year's Day fall on a weekend in the year 2063? If calendar reformer Moses Cotsworth had succeeded, anyone in the world could have answered that question instantly -- any of us could name the day of the week on which any future date would fall, no matter how distant. In Episode 1 of the Futility Closet...