In 1925, Victor Lustig convinced a Paris scrap-metal dealer that the French government was selling the Eiffel Tower.

His secret was a mixture of official papers, careful acting, and victims too embarrassed to report him.

He later returned to Paris and tried to sell it again.

• Victor Lustig reads that Paris may dismantle the rusting Eiffel Tower
• Born in Bohemia, Lustig learns languages, gambles and develops his skill at deception
• On Atlantic liners, he persuades wealthy passengers to invest in imaginary projects
• In America, he sells a fake money-printing box containing hidden real banknotes
• A Texas sheriff confronts Lustig, then receives counterfeit money as compensation
• Lustig uses forged ministry letters to invite scrap metal dealers to his hotel
• André Poisson buys the Eiffel Tower and pays Lustig a bribe
• Poisson stays silent from shame, so Lustig returns to attempt the scam again
• Lustig tricks Al Capone into paying him for returning an untouched investment
• Police arrest Lustig for counterfeiting; after escaping, he is recaptured and imprisoned

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Registration closes at 23:59 on Sunday, 27th September.

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Nuclear power was meant to disappear in much of Europe, but Germany, Belgium and Italy are changing their minds.

Rising energy demand, climate concerns and artificial intelligence are making old reactors and new designs attractive again.

• Germany’s Chancellor admits closing nuclear plants was a serious strategic mistake
• Belgium cancels its nuclear shutdown law and plans longer reactor use
• Italy approves plans to return to nuclear power after decades of bans
• Energy security and climate needs make nuclear support grow across political groups
• Wind and solar need nuclear’s steady electricity when weather conditions change
• AI data centres increase electricity demand and face long waits for grid connections
• Technology companies fund reactors, including Microsoft restarting a Three Mile Island reactor
• High construction costs delay projects, while governments support financing and smaller reactors
• Finland prepares deep underground nuclear waste storage, designed to last 100,000 years
• Fusion investment grows, promising low-carbon power without a possible reactor meltdown

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✨ The Speaking Challenge - Starts 28th September - https://dripl.ink/1l2uE

Registration closes at 23:59 on Sunday, 27th September.

--

In 1961, psychologist Stanley Milgram tested how far ordinary Americans would go when an authority figure told them to hurt someone.

His disturbing experiment revealed the power of obedience and raised frightening questions about how easily good people can do terrible things.

• Adolf Eichmann's trial and the banality of evil
• Stanley Milgram studies obedience to authority at Yale
• Volunteers deceived with teacher and learner roles
• Shock machine with rising volts and scripted learner reactions
• Experimenter prompts encourage teachers to continue
• Sixty-five per cent gave the maximum 450-volt shock
• Variations test authority setting proximity and peer dissent
• Factors include authority distance and gradual escalation
• Ethical debates and belief in real shocks
• 2009 replication and the agentic state concept

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✨ The Speaking Challenge - Starts 28th September - https://dripl.ink/1l2uE

Registration closes at 23:59 on Sunday, 27th September.

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Charles Dickens made the Victorian workhouse famous, but the reality behind Oliver Twist was even worse than fiction.

This episode tells how workhouses treated Britain’s poorest people, and how pensions and the welfare state finally replaced them.

• Oliver Twist and the image of hunger in workhouses
• Early poor relief and rising costs during the Industrial Revolution
• 1832 Royal Commission and 1834 Act creating national workhouses
• The harsh idea of less eligibility as a warning
• Who ended up in workhouses: the elderly, sick children, and women
• Small meals, family separation, and hard work like treadmills
• Andover scandal: starving people and an abusive, drunken master
• Charlie Chaplin's childhood in the workhouse
• Reforms pensions: National Insurance and 1948 changes
• Ongoing debates about welfare and supporting vulnerable people

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Registration closes at 23:59 on Sunday, 27th September.

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He wears a red hat, carries a stick, and laughs as he beats almost everyone he meets.

This episode tells the odd, violent story of Punch and Judy, the puppet show that began in Italy and became a British seaside symbol.

It looks at how Mr Punch survived for over 300 years, and why many now question whether he still belongs on the beach.

• The swazzle and Mr Punch's strange squeaky voice
• Italian street theatre origins and Pulcinella
• Arrival in London in 1662 with Samuel Pepys
• From marionettes to glove puppets and slapstick action
• The 1828 book and forgery doubts
• Judy, the baby, the policeman, the crocodile and the devil
• Violent plot and the "That's the way to do it!" catchphrase
• Rise at the seaside with Victorian railways
• Mr Punch and the humour magazine Punch
• Modern decline, criticism, attempts to modernise, and an uncertain future

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Registration closes at 23:59 on Sunday, 27th September.

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In 1788, King George III began speaking without pause, talking to trees, and frightening his court.

He is often remembered as the “Mad King” who lost America, but his life was far more complex and tragic.

This episode looks at the devoted farmer-king, his mysterious illness, and what doctors now believe was really wrong with him.

• George III beyond the mad king stereotype
• Early life and becoming a British not German king
• Farmer George habits and love of family and science
• Seven Years War victory and heavy debts for Britain
• Missteps leading to American Revolution and independence
• His limited power as a constitutional monarch
• Onset of illness in 1788 and disturbing behaviour
• Brutal treatments by Francis Willis and their harm
• French Revolution pressure and long wars with Napoleon
• Later decline, Regency, and death at Windsor Castle

Full interactive transcript, subtitles and key vocabulary available on the website: https://www.leonardoenglish.com/podcasts/george-iii

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✨ The Speaking Challenge - Starts 28th September - https://dripl.ink/1l2uE

Registration closes at 23:59 on Sunday, 27th September.

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A million years ago, in a cave in South Africa, our ancestors did something no other animal has ever done: they controlled fire.

Fire cooked our food, shrank our guts, grew our brains, and gave us the deep sleep and fireside stories that made us human.

This is the story of our species' oldest technology, and how the same flames that built the modern world may now threaten it.

• Wonderwerk Cave evidence of controlled fire by Homo erectus
• Early humans managed fire for warmth, light and safety
• Cooking increased calories, shrinking guts and growing brains
• Chimps prefer cooked food but cannot make fire
• Fire enabled deep sleep on the ground, improving memory
• Night fires fostered storytelling, language, imagination and community bonds
• Fire shaped domestic roles and early pair bonding theories
• Humans learnt to make fire by striking and friction
• From wood to coal and oil, powering industrial transformation
• Environmental costs from burning fossil fuels

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Registration closes at 23:59 on Sunday, 27th September.

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In 1881, a 30-second gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona made Wyatt Earp a legend of the Wild West.

Earp was a gambler, a lawman, a fugitive, and later a showman who told his own legend for cash.

So who fired first at the OK Corral, and how did Hollywood turn a frontier opportunist into a symbol of American justice?

• The gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone
• Background on the Wild West and fast-growing frontier towns
• Wyatt Earp was hunter, driver, gambler, brothel keeper
• The Cowboys held power and feuded with the Earps
• Conflicting accounts of who fired first and surrender attempts
• Trial cleared the Earps but the town stayed divided
• Attacks on Virgil and Morgan, then Wyatt Earp took revenge
• Earp fled Arizona, wandered West running saloons and gambling
• Boxing scandal damaged his name across the country
• Hollywood and a book remade him as a hero

Full interactive transcript, subtitles and key vocabulary available on the website: https://www.leonardoenglish.com/podcasts/wyatt-earp

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Keywords: Learn English, vocabulary, lessons, idioms, aprende inglés, idiomas, aprender inglês, apprendre l'anglais, imparare l’inglese, ingilizce öğren,英語を習う, تعلم الإنجليزية