Abraham Lincoln contemplated suicide more than once in his life, he knew suffering and yet he is perhaps histories' greatest leader through a period of time where the nation also wept, the American Civil War.

Howard Hughes was one of the most financially successful businessmen of all time, an engineer, a record setting pilot, film producer and philanthropist, his obsessive compulsive disorder drove his ability to stunningly innovate but ultimately it caused great suffering.

Marilyn Monroe had a traumatic upbringing, yet marketed herself into one of the worlds most famous actresses. Despite her many successes she longed to feel truly loved but never found her love adequately requited.

Joe McCarthy was a U.S. republican senator from Wisconsin who from the late 1940's through much of the 1950s championed the idea that there was rampant communist subversion in various institutions and individuals in the United States, an attack campaign which came to be known as McCarthyism. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At one point Joe McCarthy was amongst the most powerful and dangerous of people, what specifically within his character, personality and earlier life experiences enabled him to rise from poor farm boy to senator to demagogue?

Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi party, dictator in Germany from 1933-1945, initiator of world war II, perpetrator of the Holocaust and widely considered one of the most evil leaders in all of history.

Harry Houdini, a name synonymous with magic. The innovator of escapism, known the world over, the secrets to his performances remain unknown to this day. How did a poor jewish immigrant from Budapest virtually invent the art of self liberation? What drove Houdini as an inventor, performer and debunker of spiritualism?