Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious Minds

Was your living room once a “death room”? And did old American houses in the Northeast really have special doors for carrying out coffins?

They’re the kind of stories that make a haunted walking tour memorable. But behind those wonderfully creepy explanations lies a stranger – and surprisingly human – history.

Actually kicks off spooky season with “The Room Where Death Used to Live,” explor...

Why does the number thirteen make so many people uneasy...and when did Friday the 13th become a miniature horror holiday?

In this week's episode, we untangle centuries of superstition, folklore and extremely effective marketing to uncover how thirteen acquired its sinister reputation. From the Last Supper and a suspiciously tidy Norse legend to an anti-superstition club serving coffin-shaped lobster sala...

You probably think you know this movie. You've seen it. You can quote it. You maybe watched it more times than you can count as a kid. But the funny part about Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is that, when it was originally released...it was supposed to be marketing for a candy bar that never took off. The movie itself, too, was a flop - and the author that created the story it's based on hated it.

Everyone knows the rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. But nearly every part of it is wrong.

In 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered inside their Fall River home, and Andrew’s daughter Lizzie quickly became the prime suspect. The case against her included contradictory testimony, an attempted poison purchase, a mysteriously burned dress, and a possible ...

For years, Tania Head was regarded as one of the most remarkable survivors of September 11. She claimed she had escaped from the 78th floor of the South Tower, been rescued by the heroic “Man in the Red Bandana,” and lost her fiancé in the North Tower.

Her story made her a leader of the World Trade Center survivor community and a trusted guide at Ground Zero.

But Tania Head had ...

Remember when the hole in the ozone layer seemed like an impending global catastrophe...and then everyone simply stopped talking about it?

In this episode, we look at how humans damaged the planet’s protective UV shield, the remarkable international agreement that helped repair it, and where the ozone layer stands today.

Along the way, we’ll uncover McDonald’s surprising ...

In February 1993, twelve-year-old Jennifer Odom disappeared during the 600-foot walk from her school bus stop to her home in rural Pasco County, Florida. Her body was discovered days later, but the search for her killer would continue for more than three decades.

In this episode, we examine Jennifer’s case, the haunting clues investigators refused to abandon, and the advances in fore...

Robert Todd Lincoln is remembered for one of history’s strangest coincidences: his eerie connection to the assassinations of three American presidents: his father, Abraham Lincoln; James A. Garfield; and William McKinley.

But the familiar version of the story isn’t entirely true.

In this episode of Actually..., we separate documented history from the legend, trace Robert’s...

In Christmas 1983, one toy turned otherwise reasonable parents into a nationwide army of determined shoppers. Cabbage Patch Kids were oddly named, a little funny-looking, and almost impossible to find in stores. And yet, somehow, every child in America seemed to want one desperately.

In this episode of Actually, we revisit the Great Cabbage Patch Craze of 1983, explore the forgotten folk artist whose handmade "Doll Babies" helped i...

Three years before Dallas, a 73-year-old retired postal worker sat in a dynamite-rigged Buick, waiting for President-elect Kennedy's car to pass by in Palm Beach — and came closer to changing American history than almost anyone remembers.

Richard Pavlick had driven over a th...

For more than sixty years, a giant red Macy’s shopping bag wrapped around the corner of the company’s Herald Square flagship. But when it came down in July 2026, it revealed something most people never knew was there: a separate five-story building that Macy’s has never owned.

In this episode of Actually..., we uncover the story of New York’s “Million Dollar C...

In November 2017, Emily Wilson published something unprecedented in more than four hundred years of English literature: the first complete English translation of Homer’s Odyssey by a woman. But the real story isn’t simply who translated it - it’s how.

In the very first line, one deceptively simple phrase: “A complicated man,” rather than the more familiar &ldq...

In 1971, a "real diary" from an anonymous, drug-addicted teenage girl hit bookshelves — and terrified a generation. Except the girl never existed. "Go Ask Alice" was invented by Beatrice Sparks, a struggling writer with no real diary, no credentials, and no shortage of ambition. This week on Actually..., we trace how Sparks turned a fabricated hoax into a publishing empire, exploited a grieving mother's trust to fictionalize ...

In 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a plane, collected $200,000 in ransom, and vanished into a storm over the Pacific Northwest — parachute, cash, and all. Nine years later, an eight-year-old boy digging in the sand along the Columbia River found $5,800 of it, badly deteriorated but still rubber-banded together. It's the only physical trace ever recovered — and it raises more questions than it answers. ...

In 1966, the CIA spent five years and roughly $20 million (in today's money) turning a house cat into a surveillance device — implanting a microphone in its ear canal, a transmitter at the base of its skull, a battery in its abdomen, and threading an antenna wire down its spine and out through its tail. The mission to eavesdrop on Soviet agents outside their embassy in Washington, D.C. lasted less than 30 seconds before it en...