Cautionary Conversation: In the 1920s, a conman convinced America that goat testicles were the secret to male virility. Tim Harford and Dr Kate Lister (Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society) dive into the bizarre and grisly tale of "Doctor" John Brinkley. This snake oil salesman mobilised the power of radio marketing to build an empire on goat gland transplants and other quack "cures". And Brinkley might have got away with it, were it not for his nemesis: the tenacious Dr. Morris Fishbein.

Find Betwixt the Sheets here: https://podfollow.com/betwixt-the-sheets-the-history-of-sex-scandal-society

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

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Winston Trew has just been arrested for mugging. It's 1972 and the crime has recently made its way to Britain from the United States. Dangerous thugs, replicating their American counterparts, have made the city of London their hunting ground - so Winston's eventual conviction is a win for the police, and for the press.

The problem is, 22-year-old Winston is completely innocent.

Do you have a question for Tim Harford and Rachel Botsman about trust? Please send it in to tales@pushkin.fm.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the bleak Russian winter of 1959, nine experienced hikers led by Igor Dyatlov set out on an expedition. None of them made it back alive.

When their campsite was finally discovered, it told a chilling story: their tent was slashed open, bodies scattered across the snow. The hikers' injuries were as baffling as they were gruesome. One had had his head stoved in. Bits of bone had been driven into his brain. Others were missing their eyes and their tongues.

Had the hikers angered the local Mansi tribespeople? Had they witnessed a secret military experiment? Or had something even more strange and sinister unfolded on Dead Mountain?

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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Two airplanes have just collided on the runway at Tenerife Airport. While no one on the Amsterdam-bound KLM plane survives the resulting fireball, 71 Pan-Am passengers and crew make it off their plane. But could it have been more? Why did so many Pan-Am passengers die, even though they weren’t injured by the initial collision and their plane was still on the ground?

For a full list of sources see the show notes at timharford.com.

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“Evacuate the airport, we’ve planted bombs,” a terrorist tells the telephone operator at the airport in Gran Canaria, in 1977. By the end of that day, 583 people will have lost their lives – but not to a bomb explosion.

The planes are diverted to the neighboring island of Tenerife. Loaded with passengers, they’re forced to sit on the hot tarmac for hours. Meanwhile, the flight crews rely on air traffic control to keep them updated.

Two Boeing 747s are waiting for thick fog to lift so that they can begin the journey home; they're anxious to receive clearance to take off. One of them has just taken on a hefty 15,000 gallons of fuel. What unfolds next is the most deadly aviation accident in history.
For a full list of sources see the show notes at timharford.com.

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Cautionary Tales returns with new episodes on January 10th.

Lizzie J. Magie (played by Helena Bonham Carter) should be celebrated as the inventor of what would become Monopoly. But, even though she had a patent, her role in creating the smash hit board game was cynically ignored.

Discrimination has marred the careers of many inventors and excluded others from the innovation economy entirely. Could crediting forgotten figures such as Lizzie Magie help change that?

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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When James Dallas Egbert III was reported missing from his college dorm in 1979, one of America's most flamboyant private detectives was summoned to solve the case. "Dallas" faced the same problems as many teenagers, but P.I. William Dear stoked fears that he might have fallen under the evil spell of a mysterious and sinister game: Dungeons & Dragons...

Tim Harford returns with brand new episodes of Cautionary Tales on January 10th. In the meantime, Merry Christmas from the Cautionary Tales team!

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Off the coast of an Italian island, an enormous cruise ship - seventeen floors high, three soccer pitches long - is tilting noticeably to one side. The local mayor is horrified: there are thousands of people on board the Costa Concordia, and it's only a matter of time before the ship capsizes altogether. How did a routine trip go so terribly wrong? And why is the captain nowhere to be found?

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.