Documents That Changed the World

"Civis Romanus sum" - "I am a Roman citizen". Well, I'm not, but if I was, it would have been one of the most important phrases in my world. Citizenship confers rights, asks responsibilities, offers protection, and is easy to take for granted unless you haven't got it; and though we don't know why and have literally only fragmentary evidence of it, even a psychopath like Emperor Caracalla recognized its power while massively extending it and forever transforming his empire in the process

As the Nobel Prizes are announced, we revisit one of the greatest legacies, and worst-written wills of all times, though almost completely not what the author had in mind; wills, their history and how to (almost always) get the last word

A charred notebook, videos of the impossible, espionage, memorials, Helen Keller's letters, papers drifting down from a clear blue sky, flyers of the missing, DNA. In this special episode, we examine objects, records, documents of all kinds, and the people and institutions that collect and keep them, that help us remember a day and a time few could forget.

You read that right, imagine phalanxes of Canadians pouring (insert maple syrup joke here) over the US border to pre-empt a potential American invasion and the colorful character who might have turned neighbors into invaders

Mmmmm...cookies... Just be careful, these cookies can bite back. The story of the untold number of cookies lurking on your browsers, meant to make browsing easier and faster, which became a major threat to privacy on the Internet

Updated with new details: How do you read words that aren't there? The towering idea of the Declaration of Independence, the passage on slavery deleted before its adoption, and the hole that silence has left behind

Updated: You might know how the Constitution is amended, but do you know where it is? Chances are, what you think is wrong, and the serious and hilarious story of a crucial amendment tells us why the words matter but the location doesn't

The worst thing that ever happened to Henrietta Lacks - the cancer that killed her - is what has immortalized her, in a line of cellular tissue used in research, making her the savior of countless lives - even at the cost of her dignity

Einstein famously didn't say "God doesn't play dice with the universe". But what about cards? That periodic table you stared at in high school has a surprising origin story; once you hear it, you can't unsee it

Let me just jot down this little note - a few words tossed off in the margin of a book, and 3 1/2 centuries of mathematicians banging their heads against walls, ensure, dogged determination to achieve an indisputable outcome, whatever the reason