The Growth Time Machine with Daniel Curtis

Could a map help answer the question: where did Jack the Ripper live? Dr. Kim Rossmo spent more than twenty years with the Vancouver Police Department, where he became Detective Inspector in charge of its Geographic Profiling Section. He now teaches at Texas State University. In this conversation, he explains how geographic profiling uses the locations of linked crimes to estimate where an offende...

Tom Lange, one of the lead LAPD detectives in the O.J. Simpson murder investigation, takes us inside the O.J. Simpson case—and describes speaking with O.J. Simpson by phone during the infamous Bronco chase. At the crime scene, Lange discusses the bloodied footwear impressions, five blood droplets along their path, and the knit cap and left glove found near the victims. He explains what those detai...

Bertrand Piccard helped achieve the first non-stop balloon flight around the world and the first global circumnavigation in a solar-powered aircraft without fuel. But behind those records is a deeply human story of uncertainty, failure, courage and purpose. In this conversation with Daniel Curtis, the explorer, psychiatrist and clean technology pioneer reflects on growing up in an extraordinary fa...

The world knows how George Floyd died. His aunt, Angela Harrelson, wants us to understand how he lived. On Monday, 25 May 2020, George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. His final moments were seen across the world. His death led to protests in cities and countries thousands of miles apart, and his name became known to millions. But before the headlines, the protests and the mura...

Lisa Swan was warned about Frank Calabrese Jr.’s family before their relationship had even really begun. She married him anyway. What followed was a life she could never have imagined. Lisa found herself caught inside the world surrounding Frank Calabrese Sr. and his family — a world of control, fear, drugs, prison, FBI investigations and secrets she says she knew nothing about at the time. She re...

Her 1947 murder became one of the most famous unsolved cases in American history. In the decades since, Elizabeth Short’s life has been buried beneath rumours, competing theories, dramatic “solutions” and a mythology that has often become more famous than the woman herself. In this episode of The Growth Time Machine, Daniel Curtis speaks with Larry Harnisch, a longtime journalist and former Los An...

Who was Jack the Ripper — and how much of what we think we know about the Whitechapel murders is actually supported by the evidence? In this in-depth conversation, I’m joined by historian, author and long-time Jack the Ripper researcher Richard Jones to examine the history behind one of the world’s most famous unsolved murder cases. Rather than beginning with a favourite suspect and working backwa...

What is the Voynich Manuscript — and why, more than 600 years after it was created, has nobody been able to decipher it? In this episode, I speak with Dr Lisa Fagin Davis, a medieval manuscript specialist and palaeographer who has spent years studying the Voynich Manuscript and has examined the original at Yale University on numerous occasions. The manuscript contains 232 pages, or 116 folios, fil...

Years before OceanGate’s Titan imploded during a dive to the Titanic, expedition leader Rob McCallum warned Stockton Rush that his experimental submersible was placing lives in danger. Rush rejected that warning, defending OceanGate’s approach as innovation and accusing critics of using safety to obstruct progress. In this extraordinary conversation, Rob reveals what he told Stockton Rush, why ind...

What is it about Whitechapel that still draws people back? For author Jamie Boyle, the answer goes far beyond the question of who Jack the Ripper was. It is in the streets of the East End, the lives of the people who lived there, and the traces of a community that has changed almost beyond recognition. In this conversation, Jamie and I explore the Whitechapel of 1888 and the place it has become. W...

In February 1959, nine hikers led by Igor Dyatlov died during an expedition in the northern Ural Mountains. Their tent, photographs, diaries and the records of the search have been examined for decades. Yet the question remains: what happened at Dyatlov Pass? In this detailed episode of The Growth Time Machine, Daniel Curtis welcomes Teddy (Teodora) Hadjiyska, creator of DyatlovPass.com and co-aut...

Jack Barsky lived one of the most extraordinary double lives of the Cold War. Recruited and trained by the KGB, he was sent into the United States under an identity taken from a child who had died years earlier. For a decade, he operated as a Soviet agent while building what appeared to be an ordinary American life — a career, relationships and a family — all while Moscow believed he was working f...

Thirty years after the Dunblane Primary School shooting, Mick North tells the deeply personal story of his five-year-old daughter Sophie North — and how unimaginable loss led him into a campaign that helped transform Britain’s gun laws. On 13 March 1996, Mick dropped Sophie off for what should have been an ordinary day at school. Hours later, he was among the parents waiting inside Dunblane Primar...

On the night of June 11, 1962, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin climbed out of their cells at Alcatraz and disappeared into San Francisco Bay. They were never seen again. More than six decades later, one question still refuses to go away: did they survive? In this episode of The Growth Time Machine, Daniel Curtis speaks with Jolene Babyak, Alcatraz historian and author, and someo...

Sir Nicholas Winton helped save 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War. His son, Nick Winton, grew up knowing almost nothing about it. In this episode of The Growth Time Machine, Daniel Curtis sits down with Nick for a deeply personal conversation about his father, one of the most remarkable rescue efforts of the twentieth century, and Nick’s own extraord...

Susan Bennett became the original voice of Siri—but nobody told her. For months, Susan sat in a recording studio reading thousands of strange words, phrases and sounds. She completed the job and moved on with her life, never imagining that those recordings would one day be heard on millions of iPhones around the world. Then someone contacted her and asked: “Isn’t that your voice?”Susan visited App...

Family Affair star Johnny Whitaker shares the extraordinary story of his journey from childhood fame through trauma and addiction—and how he reclaimed his life. Johnny became one of America’s best-known young actors as Jody Davis in the beloved television series Family Affair. In this deeply personal conversation, he reveals how he entered show business at just three years old, what it was really...

How was the Golden State Killer finally caught and prosecuted? Former Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert reveals the inside story of the DNA breakthrough that identified Joseph James DeAngelo after decades of investigation. Anne Marie Schubert played a pivotal role in the hunt for the man known as the Golden State Killer, East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker. In this co...

Who was Jack the Ripper—and how much of the story we know is actually myth? Jack the Ripper researcher and author Steven E. Blomer joins Daniel Curtis for a detailed investigation into the suspects, evidence and unanswered questions surrounding the Whitechapel murders. Steve examines whether Aaron Kosminski was the suspect identified by senior police officers, the case against Charles Lechmere, an...

Leonard Nimoy was loved around the world as Spock—but what was he like as a father? In this deeply personal conversation, Leonard’s son Adam Nimoy reveals what it was really like growing up alongside one of television’s most iconic characters. He recalls watching Star Trek being filmed, seeing his father become internationally famous and struggling with the painful distance between the man adored...

At just 15 years old, Kris Pedretti was attacked inside her family home by Joseph James DeAngelo—the man later identified as the Golden State Killer. Bound, blindfolded and repeatedly threatened with death, Kris became convinced she would not survive the night. But what followed was another kind of ordeal: she was instructed never to speak about what had happened. Even Kris and her sister remained...

What do we really know about Jesus? Leading historian Professor Helen Bond examines the historical Jesus, the evidence for his existence, the resurrection, the Gospels and the origins of Christianity. Why are historians confident that Jesus existed? What do the earliest sources actually tell us about his life and crucifixion? Is there historical evidence for the resurrection—and how did Jesus come...

Michael Hingson and his guide dog, Roselle, were on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center when the first plane struck on September 11, 2001.Eighteen floors below the impact, Michael and Roselle began the long descent through a building filled with smoke, confusion and fear. But this is not a simple story about a guide dog leading a man to safety. Michael and Roselle escaped t...

Angela Cartwright was just 11 years old when she was cast as Brigitta von Trapp in The Sound of Music, one of the most beloved films ever made. More than 60 years later, she joins Daniel Curtis for a warm, revealing conversation about her extraordinary life before, during and beyond The Sound of Music. Angela shares her personal memories of filming The Sound of Music in Salzburg, working with Dame...

What really happened to Jimmy Hoffa—and could his remains still be found? Investigative journalist Dan Moldea reveals how his 51-year investigation led him to a suspected burial site in New Jersey. Jimmy Hoffa, the former president of the powerful Teamsters union, disappeared from outside a restaurant near Detroit on 30 July 1975. His suspected murder remains one of America’s greatest unsolved mys...