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Podcast · Stories
99% Invisible
by Roman Mars · English · Stories
Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we've just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture. From award winning producer Roman Mars. Learn more at 99percentinvisible.org.
- New episodes
- Several times a week
- Typical length
- 37 min
- Latest
- 6 Oct 2026
- Language
- English
Latest episode
Earlier episodes 29 most recent
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2 Oct 2026 · 53 min
100 Objects #20: AA Sobriety Chip
Imbued in the Alcoholics Anonymous sobriety chip is a hidden history of America’s relationship to gender, religion, and morality.
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29 Sep 2026 · 32 min
Tootle of a Devilish Song
How a Swiss mountain call crossed the Atlantic and helped define the sound of country music.
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25 Sep 2026 · 39 min
100 Objects #19: Western Electric 500 Series
Former MythBuster Adam Savage joins Roman Mars to explore the history of the 500 Series Telephone and what we lost when we eventually decided to leave it behind.
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22 Sep 2026 · 33 min
The Rocky Statue
How a movie prop became one of Philadelphia’s most beloved monuments, and sparked a decades-long fight over where it belonged.
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18 Sep 2026 · 35 min
100 Objects #18: Hair Relaxer
How a single product—the hair relaxer—became a mirror for all of America's contradictions.
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15 Sep 2026 · 37 min
Doves Type
A legendary typeface, a spectacular friendship breakup, and one extremely committed act of revenge.
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11 Sep 2026 · 41 min
100 Objects #17: M43 Field Jacket
How should the military outfit its soldiers to make them as safe and effective as possible?
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8 Sep 2026 · 38 min
Kobuk the Destroyer
Every product has to be tested somehow, and sometimes that means finding increasingly creative ways to break it.
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4 Sep 2026 · 47 min
100 Objects #16: Wheel of Fortune Dalmatian
How the ceramic Dalmatian became the mascot for one of America's most popular game shows.
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1 Sep 2026 · 43 min
1-800-PODCAST
This week, two stories about the strange power of the 1-800 number.
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28 Aug 2026 · 38 min
100 Objects #15: Bundy Clock
How the time clock not only ignited a revolution in workplace efficiency and surveillance, but transformed our relationship to time itself.
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25 Aug 2026 · 28 min
Spolia
Spolia, from a Liverpool neighborhood to ancient Rome.
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21 Aug 2026 · 42 min
100 Objects #14: Basketball Sleeve
Producer and reporter Ramtin Arablouei has a simple question: Why are so many NBA players wearing a compression sleeve on their arm?
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18 Aug 2026 · 45 min
The Bone Wars
Two rival paleontologists turn a hunt for dinosaur bones into an all-out scientific war.
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14 Aug 2026 · 49 min
100 Objects #13: The Sand Letters
Comedian Elliott Kalan joins Roman Mars to tell the story of how a politician who owed so much to a corrupt government system became the one to dismantle it, thanks to one woman: Julia Isabella Sand.
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11 Aug 2026 · 32 min
Bamboo Is Innocent
A devastating fire put one of Hong Kong's oldest building traditions on trial, but the real story runs much deeper.
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7 Aug 2026 · 38 min
100 Objects #12: "Negro Cloth"
Roman Mars and historian Seth Rockman trace the strange life of so-called "Negro cloth" — a textile category defined by nothing but who it was worn by.
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4 Aug 2026 · 32 min
The Borrowed Nature of Biomimicry
Behind every perfect nature-inspired design is a far more complicated story.
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31 Jul 2026 · 28 min
100 Objects #11: Brannock Device
In 1925, the world saw the birth of what just might be the greatest gadget in American History: the Brannock Device.
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28 Jul 2026 · 33 min
The Finnish Baby Box
A simple cardboard box helped transform Finland into one of the best places in the world to raise a child.
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24 Jul 2026 · 36 min
100 Objects #10: Nunchaku
In the early 1970s, Bruce Lee made nunchaku (nunchucks) cool, but the nunchucks craze coincided with something much bigger: the birth of a radical new Asian American identity.
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21 Jul 2026 · 45 min
The Original 100 Objects
Neil MacGregor reflects on creating the landmark series that changed how people think about history. Then, revisit the Rosetta Stone, the artifact that unlocked ancient Egypt.
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17 Jul 2026 · 34 min
100 Objects #9: Missing Children Milk Carton
In 1982, a twelve-year-old paperboy, Johnny Gosch, vanished from a quiet Iowa street and sparked an unlikely campaign: the faces of missing children printed on milk cartons by the billions.
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14 Jul 2026 · 42 min
If Mosquito Hawks Can Fly
A Louisiana man born into slavery designs an airship with hopes to take flight. Those plans are interrupted, but maybe not forever.
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10 Jul 2026 · 36 min
100 Objects #8: Billy Possum
The teddy bear was a huge hit, and sparked an idea…maybe every president from then on should have their own viral stuffed animal.
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7 Jul 2026 · 26 min
The Score
We keep score of everything these days. But what happens when the numbers start changing what we actually care about?
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3 Jul 2026 · 37 min
100 Objects #7: The Otis Pamphlet
Journalist Jack Hitt returns to tell the wild, tragic story of America’s forgotten proto-founding father and his inflammatory 1764 pamphlet.
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30 Jun 2026 · 32 min
Transatlantic Fiber-Optic Expialidocious
Before the internet went global, one undersea gamble made it possible.
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26 Jun 2026 · 40 min
100 Objects #6: "Sharpened Screwdriver"
How was a household tool reimagined as a deadly weapon…that never actually existed?
About 99% Invisible
Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we've just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture. From award winning producer Roman Mars. Learn more at 99percentinvisible.org.
99% Invisible is a English stories podcast from Roman Mars. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
- Publisher
- Roman Mars
- Language
- English
- Category
- Stories
- New episodes
- Several times a week
- Typical length
- 37 min
- Latest episode
- 6 Oct 2026
- Feed
- RSS — paste into any podcast app
- Apple Podcasts
- podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id394775318
- Website
- siriusxm.com
- Rights
- Copyright © 2025 Roman Mars. All rights reserved.
More English stories 6
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