David Ogilvy once worked for the man who created the Gallup Poll

David Ogilvy’s brother helped get him into the advertising business

Ogilvy sent a copy of his stove sales manual, "The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker" (which Fortune magazine later called "probably the best sales manual ever written”) to his brother, who was working at London ad agency Mather & Crowther at the time.

How George Gallup changed political polling forever

Straw polls had been used in the 19th century, but it wasn't until George Gallup's use of random sampling in 1936 that the art became a science.

Warren Buffett once referred to David Ogilvy as a genius

Buffett also owned stock in Ogilvy & Mather, David Ogilvy's advertising agency. This podcast episode dives into an overview of one of Ogilvy's best-selling books, "Confessions of an Advertising Man," which he wrote in part to grow his agency business.

Ogilvy & Mather rebranded to just ‘Ogilvy’ in 2018

This was far from the first brand evolution the agency itself has gone through in its more than century-long history. The agency now known as “Ogilvy” started as a London advertising agency founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather. By 1964, it became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City agency that was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy.

David Ogilvy died at his chateau in France in 1999

Ogilvy purchased Chateau de Touffou in 1973 and would go on to host hundreds of Ogilvy & Mather staffers there over the years. Some say that Ogilvy was eager to take his agency public in part so he would have more money to purchase the chateau.

David Ogilvy resigned the Rolls-Royce account after dissatisfaction with its cars

Ogilvy said that he only advertised products he believed in and would personally use. Despite his famous copywriting for Rolls-Royce (“at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”), he resigned the account when he lost confidence in the brand’s newer cars’ quality.

Ogilvy won the Shell account with a last-minute flight from New York to London

When Shell was searching for a new ad agency, David Ogilvy filled out the pitch questionnaire himself, planning to hand-deliver it to Shell’s President in New York. When he found out that the president was in London, Ogilvy hopped on a flight. This newsletter edition tells the full story of how Ogilvy’s grit and determination won Ogilvy & Mather the coveted Shell account.

In one of Ogilvy’s most well-known ads, he put an eyepatch on the ad’s star for ‘story appeal’

A 1951 campaign for men’s clothing brand Hathaway’s shirts featuring a distinguished man … wearing an eyepatch. Ogilvy has said he added it for “story appeal,” the idea that an ad should make viewers want to know the full story. The campaign ran for more than a decade. Ogilvy explains story appeal and more of his creative principles in this video.

With no textbooks or antibiotics, this WWI surgeon pioneered facial reconstruction

New Zealand surgeon Dr. Harold Gillies made extraordinary advances in the field of reconstructive surgery during World War I and after. This 36-minute NPR podcast interviews historian Lindsey Fitzharris, author of Gillie's biography, The Facemaker, charting how the good doctor reconstructed the faces of numerous soldiers in an age before antibiotics and plastic surgery as we know it today.

In 1957, a vice president at JPMorgan became an outspoken evangelist for psychedelic mushrooms

R. Gordon Wasson wrote "Seeking the Magic Mushroom" for Life magazine in 1957. It was a groundbreaking piece of journalism that introduced mainstream society to psychedelic mushrooms. He retired from JPMorgan in 1963 and continued researching and writing about psychedelic experiences for the rest of his life.

Writer Gay Talese has unorthodox practices for researching his stories

Since Talese began working at the New York Times in the 1950s, he has woven eccentric details into his stories about the people he covers. His immersive journalistic methods, such as living in a nudist colony, sparked controversy, but also helped him uncover aspects of people's lives.

How Guinness World Records has pivoted to a publicity business

Now that Guinness World Records gets paid to host record-breaking events, is there a conflict of interest? Here's a look at the worldwide record keeping business's pivot toward publicity.

In 2018, roughly 13% of Yale University graduates became consultants

Consulting is a popular career path for today’s top college students. A student newspaper article dives into a Yale University student’s brief love affair with the consulting industry, starting with a depiction of the interview process.

Advertising-related activity may have supported roughly one in five American jobs as of 2024

That’s according to a study commissioned by The Advertising Coalition, conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence, which also found that the advertising industry powered more than 20% of total US economic output at the time.

Why did Britian's intelligence agency hire Mussolini?

This article explains how and why Benito Mussolini worked for MI5, the British intelligence agency. Before Mussolini ever rose to power as a fascist dictator, he was a journalist who was willing to advocate for Italy to join the allies in World War...

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

David Bowie tried to hire Norman Rockwell for the cover of 'Young Americans'

The Thin White Duke thought the iconic artist, known for his classic Americana, would be the perfect artist for his campy 1975 album, “Young Americans.” Bowie called the Rockwell residence and made the request, but was told that Rockwell would need around six months to complete the painting, which Bowie felt was too long.

A popular tag in World War II announced 'Kilroy was here'

The graffito appeared seemingly everywhere throughout the 1940s and followed a similar pattern: A man with an oversized nose peering over a ledge, with the phrase written below it. Scholars believe it was an American form of similar tags that appeared in Australia and England, making "Kilroy" a meme long before the word had entered the lexicon.

William Eggleston was one of the first non-commercial photographers working in color

When he began exhibiting his work in the '70s, most color photography was limited to advertising. Eggleston's "democratic" stills of working-class Americana were filled weith vibrant color and would go on to influence generations of photographers and filmmakers.

Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram Studio featured his earliest innovations in animation

Before he founded his iconic film company, Walt Disney was a young animator in Kansas City, Missouri. After scoring a contract to create animated newsreels for local movie theaters, Disney formed Laugh-O-Gram Studio, where he created innovative animated shorts that set the path for his later work.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Revelations about quiz show ‘Dotto’ led to a larger scandal across the industry

The show, which aired on both CBS and NBC in slightly different iterations in 1958, followed a fairly standard question-and-answer format, with correct answers slowly revealing an image that contestants needed to solve. Despite its popularity, the show was canceled after it was revealed that one contestant had been provided with answers to the questions. That revelation led to similar scandals with four more shows over the next few months.

Many private schools follow Dewey's experiential learning model

John Dewey is perhaps the biggest figure in American education. He is known for emphasizing active, experiential learning and founding one of the country’s most renowned private schools: the Experimental School, which would later become the Laboratory Schools in Chicago.

Interviews from the Manhattan Project

This is an archive of interviews with people who worked on and were impacted by the Manhattan Project, the World War II-era effort that resulted in the atomic bomb. Listen to the "father of the atomic bomb," Julius Robert Oppenheimer, describe his daily routine during the project, which he reports officially started Dec. 6, 1941. This archive also includes interviews with survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Salvador Dalí designed the Chupa Chups lollipop logo

The ubiquitous lollipop design actually comes from the mind of Salvador Dalí. Dalí had no problem creating commercial work for the right price and agreed to create the eye-catching logo. Dalí's skill for attracting attention explains why the logo is placed on top rather than the side.

Grace Hopper graduated first in her class of 800 officer candidates

As a volunteer in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service program, Hopper was able to fulfill roles beyond the nursing and clerical responsibilities normally available to women in the military. However, once World War II concluded and the emergency status was lifted, the Navy declined her request for a regular commission.

Pulitzer left $2M to Columbia to establish the Pulitzer Prize

The man who transformed the New York World into the largest newspaper in America in the late 1800s left his home country of Hungary in 1864 to fight in the US Civil War. When he died in 1911, Pulitzer left $2M to Columbia University to found its journalism school and establish the Pulitzer Prize.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.