Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath: Two Paths of Life

January 1969, two great quarterbacks faced each other from opposite sidelines in Super Bowl III. Both Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath were raised in the ...

Pride and the 1986 Challenger Disaster

On January 28, 1986, NASA was planning to launch the space shuttle Challenger from Kennedy Space Center—a mission that included a schoolteacher ...

Americans Display Extreme Over-confidence

[Americans] have tremendous faith in themselves. In 1950, the Gallup organization asked high school seniors, "Are you a very important person?" ...

True Love? There's Not an App for That.

There's an app for everything, it seems—including dating. For anyone in the dating world who wishes for an electronic matchmaker that eliminates ...

Pilots' Pride Led to Tragic Plane Crash

In his book, Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival, Laurence Gonzales tells the story of United Airlines Flight 232 that crashed in Iowa on July ...

Our Reluctance to Say 'I Don't Know'

In their book Think Like a Freak, economists Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner state, "It has long been said that the three hardest words to say in ...

Former New York Mayor Says He's 'Earned' Heaven

During an interview before his 50th college reunion, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg confessed that his mortality has started dawning on ...

Doctor Learns How to Be a Patient

Skye Jethani writes in “Dreaded Exam”:

When I was 18, my father, a doctor, learned what it was like to be on the receiving end of medical care. ...

John Ortberg Learns about His Limits

John Ortberg writes:

We were with friends at an open-air street fair when we spotted a mechanical bull that tries to buck people off. They guy operating ...

Ancient King Obsessed with Becoming 'Unpoisonable'

One of the greatest fears for kings in the ancient world was death by poison. Most kings made slaves pre-taste the wine to test it for deadly toxins. ...