Documents That Changed the World

How to know when to believe a research study, drawing the line between real and spurious, and how a "random" line in a book defines the way we understand the world

Bishop James Ussher, the search for the beginning of the universe, and the date (and time) of Creation, making the most of the tools at hand

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

O say do you know...the story behind the Star-Spangled Banner? It took off fast, then slowly, and has stood the test of time while still, and always, becoming

The first scholarly journal, at the dawn of the Scientific Revolution, and helping to give birth to the way we write and think about scholarship and investigation...and now it's all changing again

It's just "a piece of paper," except it's not. The story of Catherine Elizabeth Benson Brewer, the first woman to receive a diploma, and how we recognize achievement, yesterday and today (written/researched/recorded by Kelsey Gibbons)

I have in my hand a list...of 57 Communists in the State Department. Or was it 205? Or 81? Or was there a list at all? How documents get their power, from us, even if they don't exist

One of the oldest works of literature we know, a hymn written by Enheduanna, perhaps the first known named author, in the Sumerian city of Ur, a plea for help that doesn't feel out of place 4300 years later

Why the Popes ruled Italy: one of the greatest gifts in history, as a result of one of the greatest forgery in history, the art of making a document lie, and figuring out what's real and what's not

The secret decoding of a secret message: how Britain found out that Germany wanted Mexico to attack America to keep them out of World War I, and the spectacular backfire that resulted (researched/produced by Jill Fenno)