True StoriesTrue story

133 Days Adrift

In 1942, a young ship's steward named Poon Lim found himself alone on a tiny raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He would stay there for more than four months.

4 min readAges 12+1940s
True StoriesTrue story

The Race to Nome

In the winter of 1925, a deadly illness broke out in a small town in Alaska, cut off by snow and ice. The medicine that could stop it was nearly a thousand kilometres away. Only dogs could bring it.

4 min readAges 8+1920s
True StoriesTrue story

Trapped in the Ice

In 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance was crushed by Antarctic ice. Twenty-eight men were stranded at the bottom of the world. Every one of them came home.

4 min readAges 10+1910s
True StoriesTrue story

The 33 Under the Desert

In August 2010, a mine collapsed in Chile's Atacama Desert, trapping 33 men 700 metres underground. For seventeen days, nobody knew if they were alive.

4 min readAges 10+2010s
True StoriesTrue story

Thirteen in the Cave

In June 2018, twelve boys from a Thai football team and their coach were trapped by floodwater deep inside a cave. The world came together to bring them out.

3 min readAges 10+2010s
True StoriesTrue story

Landing on the River

In January 2009, a passenger jet lost both engines minutes after take-off from New York. The pilots had about three and a half minutes to decide what to do.

3 min readAges 10+2000s
True StoriesTrue story

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

On Christmas Eve 1971, a plane broke apart over the Amazon rainforest. Seventeen-year-old Juliane Koepcke fell three kilometres, still strapped to her seat, and survived.

4 min readAges 12+1970s
True StoriesTrue story

The Town That Opened Its Doors

On 11 September 2001, dozens of airliners were ordered out of the sky and sent to a small town in Newfoundland. For several days its people looked after thousands of stranded strangers as if they were family.

3 min readAges 10+2000s