Rogue History

Juan Pujol García was a nobody. A failed chicken farmer, he bought his way out of service during the Spanish Civil War. But when Hitler came to power, he couldn’t just sit by and watch. He devised a daring plan: to stop the Nazis, he would get close to them. As a double agent, he could feed Nazi intelligence to the Allies. This is the bizarre true story of the spy who altered the course of WWII.

The details of Walter Loving’s complicated double life remained classified for over 60 years. Born to formerly enslaved parents, he became a famous band conductor and an advocate for Black Americans. When the U.S. military grew paranoid that Black Americans were colluding with German spies, they recruited Loving to infiltrate his own community and de-radicalize leaders. So whose side was he on?

Spy balloons once marked a great leap forward in the art of intelligence gathering. No longer were soldiers safe from enemy reconnaissance on the ground. They could now be watched from the air! From the French Revolution to the Civil War, balloons loomed over battlefields. Join us in a time when an oddball inventor sent President Lincoln a decisive telegraph — from 500 feet above the ground.