The Underdog Files

History

Rejected, Broke, and Laughed Out of the Room: How Thurgood Marshall's Worst Years Made Him Unstoppable

Before Thurgood Marshall argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court, he was a man who couldn't afford to keep the lights on. Twice he stumbled. Twice he got back up. And each time he did, he got a little harder to knock down.

Mar 13, 2026

Technology

Five People You've Never Heard Of Who Built the Device You're Reading This On

The mythology of Silicon Valley loves a garage and a dropout. But the real foundation of the tech industry was poured by a stranger cast of characters — refugees, immigrants, and overlooked engineers who had no safety net and no script to follow. Here are five of them.

Mar 13, 2026

Science

She Spent a Decade Cleaning Up After Other People's Dreams Before She Got to Chase Her Own

Katherine Johnson could calculate the curvature of the Earth in her head before most people knew her name. But before she sent John Glenn into orbit, she spent years in jobs that had nothing to do with numbers — and everything to do with survival. The decade the history books skip over is the one that made her extraordinary.

Mar 13, 2026