99% Invisible

On the night of February 27th, 2010, a magnitude of 8.8 earthquake hit Constitución, Chile and it was the second biggest that the world had...

On September 11, 1973, a military junta violently took control of Chile, which was led at the time by President Salvador Allende. Allende...

Reporter Whitney Jones argues that R.E.M.’s Out of Time is the most politically significant album in the history of the United States....

Who decides that the color this season is “mint green” or that denim jackets are “back?” Of course, there’s top-down fashion, where couture...

Large portions of San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Seattle, Hong Kong and Marseilles were built on top of human made land. What is now...

Infrastructure makes modern civilization possible. Roads, power grids, sewage systems and water networks all underpin society as we know...

In many ways, the built world was not designed for you. It was designed for the average person. Standardized tests, building codes,...

Founded by architect Walter Gropius in 1919, the Bauhaus school in Germany would go on to shape modern architecture, art, and design for...

The largest body of water in California was formed by a mistake. In 1905, the California Development Company accidentally flooded a huge...

In 1996, President Bill Clinton and the Congress undertook a reform effort to redesign the welfare system from one that many believed...

The US military buys a lot of foam ear plugs. Visit any base and you’ll find them under the bleachers at the firing range, in the bottoms...

In 1943, the Army Corps of Engineers began construction on a scale model that could test flooding in all 1.25 million square miles of the...

In the late 1950s, the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research embarked on a mission to study the personalities of particularly...

Benches in parks, train stations, bus shelters and other public places are meant to offer seating, but only for a limited duration. Many...

It started with a place called the Stonewall Inn. Gay bars had been raided by police for decades. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender...

In 1968, an Italian industrialist and a Scottish scientist started a club to address what they considered to be humankind’s greatest...

In 1968, the police department in Menlo Park, California hired a new police chief. His name was Victor Cizanckas and his main goal was to...

September 3rd, 1967, also known as H-Day, is etched in the collective memory of Sweden. That morning, millions of Swedes switched from...

Around 2005, a Seattle neighborhood called Ballard started to see unprecedented growth. Condominiums and apartment buildings were sprouting...

Sub Pop Records has signed some of the most famous and influential indie bands of the last 30 years, including Nirvana, Sleater-Kinney, The...