Five times, an unlucky man or woman was thrown into the sky at immense altitude to plunge toward the earth with no parachute. And five times, the impossible happened. This episode recounts the tales of those who beat the longest of odds to cheat certain death.

When a band of oddball characters take a road trip holiday to Switzerland, they expect to party away the summer. However, the most miserable summer weather on record forces them indoors and into an intellectual game that will inadvertently impact the world. This episode tells the story of how some of the most seminal horror ever written came to be.

A rural region of 18th century France is under attack from a beast that seems like no creature on earth. As the deaths mount, the citizens of Gevaudan look to their king for help. However, when the efforts of the powerful fail, who will rise to save them? This episode tells the hard to believe but well-documented story of the Beast of Gevaudan.

During the darkest hours of World War II in Poland, a Polish countess risks her life time and again to stand against the Nazis who run a nearby extermination camp, freeing thousands of prisoners and feeding thousands more in the process – right under the nose of the Final Solution. However, she hides a deep secret that will doom her immediately should it be found out by those she faces daily. The story of the remarkable Countess Janina Sucholdolska.

The sieging of walled cities by invading armies is a dismal tale as old as history. However, one siege stands out from them all – as if it had been scripted by Hollywood screenwriters for its surreal origin, bizarre dramatics, and jaw-dropping ending. This episode tells the hard-to-believe story of the 1683 Siege of Vienna.

Though he is considered the greatest and most influential English language writer of all time, William Shakespeare’s authorship of the plays that bear his name has been doubted for at least two centuries. How did these theories arise? Is there any credence to them? Well, the iron simplicity of the answers might surprise you.

Faced with certain death from the guns and bayonets of attacking French troops, a young woman supplying water to Spanish soldiers should have joined the defenders in fleeing the battle. However, her immense courage would not allow retreat; her deep patriotism would not abide surrender. So she stayed, and a legend was born. This episode tells the astounding story of Augustina of Aragon.

When a mass death event strikes a remote region of Africa in 1986, the initial facts are so freakishly weird that even those most skeptical of anything supernatural pause to reconsider with the question, “What in the world just happened here?” As scientists doggedly unravel the truth, the baffling story becomes no less troubling. This episode tells the story of the nearly forgotten mystery of the Nyos disaster.