By saving bananas and training pigs, these historical innovators improved their lives, made millions, and prevented nuclear catastrophe.

THE MAGAZINE
These five facts are ones for the books … even if they were technically left out of the books.
When the Soviet Union wanted to outrun the U.S., it turned to a secret weapon: rocket boots.
Gesture researchers have spent the past 40 years uncovering how movements (like a cupped hand rotating in space or a finger tracing a path through the air) are intimately tied to speech.
Your sparkling wine doesn’t have to come from France to be authentic. Here are six products that can really only be produced in one place on the globe.
From high-fives to air quotes, these smooth moves had to start somewhere.
Your local grocery store is a psychological minefield, where even the bananas are ripe with mystery.
A bizarre medieval manuscript written in a language no one can read has baffled the world’s best cryptologists, stumped the most powerful code-breaking computers, and been written off as a masterful hoax. Can the hive mind finally unlock the secrets of th
They're scary smart, and they keep themselves busy in amazing ways.