During the Holocaust, Josef Mengele discarded every medical ethic to perform horrific human experiments at Auschwitz, including non-consensual vivisections, limb transplants, and agonizing surgeries conducted without anesthesia. Japan had its own program that is less known but equally brutal. In occupied China, the Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731 operated a vast complex where thousands were subjected to biological warfare tests and lethal physiological experiments to further military research.

During the occupation of Japan after WWII, the US had an important decision to make. Should they hold those responsible for atrocities during the war accountable or should they take the information to advance the national interest? There was extremely valuable data on bioweapons and survival techniques in the face of extreme cold or low oxygen that could save the lives of thousands of soldiers.

Here's what happened. The researchers who worked at Unit 731 were given immunity in exchange for their research data. Most of these scientists lived peacefully after WWII, with a few of them having to go through a 1949 Soviet Trial, which was deemed by the West as communist propaganda. They basically traded their knowledge for freedom and avoided prosecution, like the German scientists who came to America as part of Operation Paperclip.

​Most of the horrors on Unit 731 had been hearsays and rumors until recently with the passing of the Freedom of Information Act. Today’s guest is Jenny Chan, and she’s published the book “Unit 731 Cover-up: The Operation Paperclip of the East.” This book is based on documents found in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Russian archival documents, and translations of the Khabarovsk Trial to paint a complete picture of the cover-up of the atrocious act of Unit 731. We look at the war crimes themselves, what happened to the scientists, and the question of whether war crimes should ever be covered up in the name of national interest.

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Since the era of Joseph Stalin, Moscow’s rulers have sent Russian athletes into the Summer and Winter Olympics with one command: you must win. These competitors operated under a "win-at-all-costs" doctrine most notably through the use of "shamateurism." By giving elite hockey stars nominal titles as military officers or factory workers, the USSR bypassed amateur requirements to field seasoned professionals against genuine Western students—a disparity that defined the Cold War sporting era.

But the deception went deeper than employment records; it extended into the very biology of the athletes, particularly in high-strength disciplines like weightlifting and powerlifting. Athletes such as Vasily Alekseyev, the super-heavyweight lifter who set 80 world records and weighed 360 pounds, were often the face of a system later revealed to be fueled by state-mandated anabolic steroids

Today’s guest is Bruce Berglund, author of “The Moscow Playbook: How Russia Used, Abused, and Transformed Sports in the Hunt for Gold.” We look at the intersection of Russian sports and geopolitical power, from the dominant Soviet teams of past Olympics to recent doping scandals and international sanctions. With new research from Olympic archives, records of the Soviet bloc and current Russian media, Berglund shows how Moscow’s leaders have defied the rules of the game for decades as the world’s governing bodies turned a blind eye.

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Daniel Boone is considered one of the United States' first folk heroes for his exploration beyond the thirteen colonies into Kentucky. His exploits are rightfully legendary. He famously rescued his daughter and two other captives from Shawnee raiders by tracking them down on foot for three days. He survived a grueling ten-day siege at Boonesborough after escaping captivity by the Shawnee. Despite the frontier conflicts of the era between Indians and white settlers, he was so respected by his adversaries that he was formally adopted as the son of Chief Blackfish, cementing his status as a hero of the wilderness.

He was the founder of Fort Boonesborough, a settler colony in Kentucky. The settlement itself was a large hollow rectangle measuring approximately 260 by 180 feet, with twenty-six one-story cabins whose outer log walls formed part of the defensive perimeter. To defend against Shawnee and British attacks, Fort Boonesborough featured thick log walls and two-story corner blockhouses that provided vantage points for shooting down at attackers. During the Great Siege of 1778, the settlers used diverse tactics such as digging counter-tunnels to stop an enemy mine and dressing women in men's clothing to trick the Shawnee into overestimating their military strength.

Today’s guest is Nancy O’Malley, author of “Kentucky Frontier to Commonwealth: Historical Archaeology at Daniel Boone's and Hugh McGary's Stations.” She provides insight into Kentucky colonial life through research into station site remnants. We also discuss another settlement called McGary's Station—abandoned soon after the end of the Revolutionary War— and bears the markers of settlers who endured more primitive conditions.

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