Documents That Changed the World

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

Road trip! Let's just pack up and go - but where should we go, stay, eat? Easy decisions for some, perilous for others, until a mailman lent his name to a little book that made the journey a whole lot safer, less humiliating and more enjoyable to generations of travelers setting out on the open road to a better future

A compendium of fastests and highests and mosts in a book that nobody needs but millions have enjoyed - documenting the boundaries of human capability; just don't call it trivial, and please, stop eating the bicycles. Golden plover for the win! (or not) (researched by Brooks Scheibler)

Edison invented the movie camera, right? Nope - and therein lies a Hollywood story that doesn't take place anywhere near Hollywood, with guest appearances by Greer Garson, Spencer Tracy, Jack the Ripper, and Louis Le Prince, the real inventor, and his real life mystery (researched/written by Ellianna Thayne)

Just enter the portal and fame and fortune await, right? Maybe, though nothing is guaranteed - one of many misconceptions about a tool that does its job and makes things work, no wormholes required

Who's got your number? Hopefully nobody who isn't supposed to - the origins of the number we (almost) all live by, why and how it's become so necessary, and what happens when you die - or somebody thinks you have

How can you know what you can't read? A writing system without a key, suspended knots and strings we can't interpret, leaving entire peoples also in suspense to understand their past and stories (researched/written by Diego Licea)

"How dare you treat me like this?" The cry of untold millions of consumers with a grievance to air, or type, or phone in - or bake into clay tablets, in the faint but eternal hope of being heard (researched/written by Ellianna Thayne)

How is a galaxy a document? How could it change the world? Well, look out there, as far as we can see, and even farther - and then look inside, and maybe you'll find out.

I love you, a bushel and a peck - or maybe an acre, or fathom, or hundredweight, or any of the thousands of measurements we have created, which somebody has to establish and standardize, like the meter, one way or the other

The road map and guide book to the afterlife, all spelled out to ensure a successful and surprisingly personalized journey

According to Emily Post...etiquette is meant to make people feel comfortable and at ease, and the more who know the better - and it's not about the forks

Human rights and how they came to be recognized, agreed upon and most importantly recorded and declared, for all of us to share

Papers, signatures, seals, ceremonies, rules that produce documents to let hundreds speak for millions in having their say in the most important decision they make

The best known example of an attempt to help the future to understand the present when it's the past, even 5000 years on

The extraordinary ordinariness of articles of impeachment, then and now, and the lessons to be learned, over and over again

Whoever thought finding the law could be a challenge? Not if it's on a 7 ft tall stela for all to see - now, as then, finding the law can be almost as complicated as finding justice

What's the most popular television show in the world that you may never have heard of? Founding documents, politics, dancing apes, and the shared cultural moments that are the Eurovision Song Contest