After two turbulent decades in the ice trade, Frederic Tudor had finally made it. Expanding into the American South had paid off, with cities like New Orleans delivering steady profit. But Tudor’s insatiable appetite for risk kept pushing him to bet everything – again and again – even as losses mounted and disaster loomed.As he entered his 50s, Tudor seemed ... Show More
Jan 2026
Conquering Polio | Beyond the Microscope | 2
By the late 1940s, the National Institute of Infantile Paralysis had raised millions of dollars to pay for patient care and laboratory research. But polio cases were reaching record levels, and scientists were no closer to a cure. Frustrated by the slow progress, Basil O’Connor r ... Show More
39m 35s
Jan 2026
Conquering Polio | The Cutter Fiasco | 3
In April 1954, a group of first graders lined up in the gymnasium of an elementary school in McLean, Virginia for the start of the Salk polio vaccine trials. In an era before widespread federal government involvement in public health, the National Institute of Infantile Paralysis ... Show More
36m 8s
Jan 2026
Conquering Polio | There Is No Patent | 4
In the early 1950s, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin were in a race to develop a vaccine against polio. While Salk’s killed-virus vaccine was the first to be distributed, Sabin continued working to perfect his own approach. In the end, Sabin’s oral polio vaccine—made from a weakened l ... Show More
36m 17s