People

Forgers, impostors, inventors and other unlikely lives.

5 rabbit holes

• New
  Forgers & art crimeThe forger who painted the missing picturesWolfgang Beltracchi didn't copy famous paintings. He painted the ones that were missing: lost Max Ernsts, unknown Campendonks, each with an invented collection behind it. One sold for $7 million. A single tube of white paint brought it all down.4 stages · 57 min
• New
  Forgers & art crimeThe forger who fooled GöringA bitter, overlooked Dutch painter fakes Vermeers so well that museums celebrate them. Then Hermann Göring buys one, and the only way to escape a treason charge is to prove you're a fraud.4 stages · 56 min
• New
  ImpostorsThe great impostorFerdinand Waldo Demara was a monk, a teacher, a prison official and, in 1951, a surgeon on a Canadian warship off Korea, operating on wounded soldiers. He had no medical degree. He had borrowed someone else’s name.2 stages · 31 min
• New
  InventorsThe film star who invented frequency hoppingHedy Lamarr was called the most beautiful woman in the world. With the composer George Antheil, she designed a system to stop radio-guided torpedoes from being jammed. The US Navy shelved it. Decades later, the idea was everywhere.3 stages · 19 min
• New
  Con artistsThe man who sold the Eiffel TowerParis, 1925. A well-dressed “government official” invites five scrap dealers to bid on the Eiffel Tower, which is about to be torn down. One of them pays. Then the official vanishes, and comes back to try it again.3 stages · 50 min