How Did We Survive?

In 1957, a German pharmaceutical company released what they claimed was the safest sleeping pill ever made—so safe that pregnant women were told it was the perfect cure for morning sickness. Within five years, thalidomide had caused one of the worst pharmaceutical disasters in history, leaving thousands of children born with severe limb deformities and forcing a complete overhaul of drug safety regulations worldwide.

For decades, two 'wonder materials' were in nearly every home, school, and workplace in America. Lead pipes delivered our water while asbestos insulated our walls—and both industries spent fortunes convincing us they were perfectly safe. Discover how these toxic titans competed for dominance in construction while leaving a body count that spans centuries.

Your great-great-grandmother's wallpaper could literally kill her in her sleep. From arsenic-laced fabrics to mercury-soaked hats, we're counting down seven shockingly toxic products that Victorians kept in every room of their homes. Spoiler: that beautiful green dress wasn't just a fashion statement—it was a death sentence.

In the 1940s and 50s, one doctor drove across America in a van he called his 'lobotomobile,' hammering an ice pick through patients' eye sockets to scramble their brain tissue. Dr. Walter Freeman promised to cure everything from depression to headaches in just 10 minutes, and became a celebrity for it. Thousands of people—including Rosemary Kennedy—were left permanently damaged before anyone stopped him.

Before the FDA, America's most trusted pharmaceutical companies were locked in a marketing war—pushing cocaine and heroin as miracle cures for everything from teething pain to depression. We explore how these two drugs went from doctor-recommended household staples to controlled substances, and the thousands of accidental addicts created along the way.

From arsenic-laced candy to lead-contaminated canned goods, our ancestors unknowingly poisoned themselves at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Today we're counting down five everyday foods that were actually toxic time bombs—and somehow humanity lived to tell the tale. Spoiler alert: you'll never look at vintage cookbooks the same way again.

In the 1920s, painting watch dials with glowing radium was considered a glamorous job for young women—until their bones began to crumble and their jaws fell off. We explore the horrifying true story of the Radium Girls, whose suffering and legal battle changed workplace safety forever, and ask: how did any of them survive long enough to fight back?

How did we survive?!

How did we survive?!

How Did We Survive? best of episode!