In 1897, a Swedish engineer set out to reach the North Pole ... by balloon. With two companions, a crate of champagne, and the faith of a nation, he rose into the Arctic fog — and vanished. Decades later, their frozen journals and undeveloped film emerged from the ice, revealing the haunting truth behind one of exploration’s great mysteries.

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On the Very Special Episodes podcast, Dana Schwartz tells one incredible story each week. Follow her down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday. New episodes starting February 4th!

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The Florentine Diamond was one of the crown jewels (sorry) of the Habsburgs—a 137-carat diamond that had come from the court of the Duke of Tuscany. But after World War I, when the Austrian Empire collapsed, the royal family fled to Switzerland, taking the diamond with them. From there, it disappeared. Or did it?

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Antoine Lavoisier was a French chemist, who gave us the name for oxygen and other terminology that we still use today. But he was also a wealthy man who collected taxes and served the Ancien régime, and when the revolution came, the elements were ripe for explosion.

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Natasia Minkin was the mistress of one of the cruelest men in tsarist Russia. She apparently tried to give him a run for his money.

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In the 17th century, aristocratic France was set on high alert—women were procuring poisons and using it for nefarious, murderous means. It was a scandal that mortified the nobility, quite literally. And it all seemed to come back to one woman, known as La Voisin.

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The glamorous Mitford sisters—six daughters of a Baron—have captivated the public imagination for decades. One became a duchess, one a famous novelist, one retired into a life of privacy, two become fascists, and one became a communist. Jessica "Decca" Mitford is a character larger than life, and the subject of the new book, TROUBLEMAKER, from Carla Kaplan.

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Though she was born in Ireland with no Spanish blood, the self-named "Lola Montez" captivated Europe with her charm and sexuality, eventually entangling King Ludwig I in a scandal that would lead to the end of his reign.

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While sailing from France to the New World, Marguerite de La Rocque and her lover were punished, marooned on an island where they would be tormented by natural forces and, according to some stories, demons.

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