Topic

Politics & Power

A collection of 20 issues

The $100 Trillion IOU: A Post-Mortem on Zimbabwe's Dollar

In 2008, Zimbabwe's monthly inflation hit an estimated 79.6 billion percent, forcing its central bank to issue a $100 trillion banknote. This is the story of how a nation's currency became a global punchline and a stark warning about broken economic trust.

Business & Economics History Politics & Power

Drugged and Watched: The Secret History of the CIA's Sex Experiments

In a paranoid Cold War gambit, the CIA established secret brothels to drug unsuspecting American men with LSD. Behind one-way mirrors, agents watched the effects, creating one of the most disturbing chapters in the history of domestic espionage.

History Politics & Power Law, Crime & Justice

The Pentagon's Time Traveler: A Career Bookended by Decades

One man holds the strange distinction of running the Pentagon in two different centuries, first as its youngest-ever secretary and then, a generation later, as its oldest. His career, bookended by the Cold War and the War on Terror, charts a unique course through American power.

Biography & Personal Stories Politics & Power History

The Cold War's Unlikeliest Weapon Was a Paint Splatter

To combat the rigid propaganda of Soviet art, the CIA secretly turned American abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock into cultural weapons, funding traveling exhibitions to showcase a vision of freedom the artists themselves never knew they were promoting.

Art, Culture & Design History Politics & Power

One Match, No Rights: The Fire That Forged the Third Reich

A fire ravaged Germany's parliament in 1933. Within hours, the Nazi party used the blaze as a pretext to suspend civil liberties, arresting political opponents and laying the legal groundwork for a dictatorship. The question of who lit the match became terrifyingly irrelevant.

History Politics & Power Law, Crime & Justice

The Unidentified Truth: The Pentagon's Mission to Solve Its UFO Problem

The Pentagon has a UFO office, but its real mission isn't chasing aliens. Established in 2022, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is a data-driven agency built to replace decades of secrecy with systematic analysis of national security threats.

Military Technology & Strategy Politics & Power Mysteries & Unsolved Cases

Biological Black Ops: The High-Stakes Mission to Secure Putin's DNA

On foreign trips, a special detail from Vladimir Putin's security service has a unique mission: collecting his bodily waste. The extreme protocol is designed to thwart bio-espionage, preventing foreign agencies from analyzing his DNA for secrets about his health.

Politics & Power Oddities & Curiosities Science & Nature

The Tyrant and the Tape Measure: How Bad Math and British Mockery Made Napoleon Short

The caricature of a tiny, furious Napoleon is one of history's most successful smear campaigns. The truth of his average height was lost to a translation error between French and British inches, a mistake eagerly exploited by propagandists to cut their greatest foe down to size.

History Politics & Power Myth, Folklore & Legends

The Devil in the Bread: Mass Hysteria in Pont-Saint-Esprit and the CIA's Shadow

In 1951, a French village descended into madness, officially blamed on 'cursed bread' tainted with a psychedelic fungus. Decades later, declassified documents suggest a more sinister cause: a secret CIA experiment testing LSD on an unsuspecting population.

Mysteries & Unsolved Cases History Politics & Power

Loading more posts...