The US is making the immigration of skilled workers more expensive; the UK is exploring ways to make it cheaper. It is tempting to conclude that one of them must be wrong. But which? President ...

Forrest Fenn never does things the regular way. Despite no formal training and little knowledge of art, he becomes a millionaire gallery owner. An outsider by nature, Fenn’s charm, audacity, ...

The children of North End, Boston, play in the shadow of an enormous steel tank of molasses. The thick, sticky sugar syrup is being used to make munitions for the First World War. When a worker ...

Was the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel – the story of a woodcutter’s children abandoned in the woods and left at the mercy of a witch – in fact, early true crime? A hit book – The Truth About ...

In the late 1930s, a Dutch civil servant, Jacobus Lentz, designed a near-unforgeable identity card. In 1940, the Dutch government rejected his proposal as too intrusive. Weeks later, Germany ...

Last week, Cautionary Tales told the tragic story of Derek Bentley, exploring Britain’s troubled relationship with capital punishment. Across the Atlantic, Revisionist History ...

It’s D-Day and the Allies are about to invade Nazi-occupied France. For the landings to succeed, American soldiers on Omaha Beach will have to break through some formidable coastal defences – Hitler’s ...

When the Financial Times uncovered the billion-dollar Wirecard fraud, it seemed like the story was over. But then the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Jan Marsalek, vanished – leaving behind clues ...

Writer Douglas Adams, best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, used science fiction and satire to warn us about potential dangers in our future, from artificial intelligence to social ...

Do you want more Cautionary Tales episodes in your life? Do you want behind the scenes stories and bonus conversations with me? Or do you want to support us in making the show? On behalf of the whole ...

Dore and Friedrich make an unconventional couple, united by their contempt for shoes, root vegetables and, above all, society. In 1929 they leave Germany and begin anew on the deserted Galapagos ...

This episode is released exclusively on Pushkin+. Episodes are released on the main feed each Friday. Robert Propst is more than an inventor: he is a visionary, an innovator dreaming up how to make ...