Pivotal

All Stories

Every Crossroads. Your Call.

50 interactive decision stories across 8 categories.

PoliticsAdvanced

The Emancipation Gambit

A president losing a war makes the most controversial decision in American history -- by reframing it.

Abraham Lincoln·3 min·Premium
MilitaryAdvanced

Thirteen Ships

A disgraced admiral is dragged from prison with 13 ships to face 333. His king expects him to die. He has other plans.

Admiral Yi Sun-sin·3 min·Premium
BusinessIntermediate

The Sound of a Bet

Every engineer at Sony says this product will fail. The chairman is betting his reputation on it anyway.

Akio Morita·3 min
ScienceAdvanced

Breaking Enigma

A mathematician says he can build a machine to defeat a machine. The military thinks he's wasting time.

Alan Turing·3 min·Premium
PoliticsAdvanced

The Immigrant's Gambit

A new nation is drowning in debt. An orphaned immigrant has a radical plan to save it.

Alexander Hamilton·3 min·Premium
PoliticsAdvanced

The Flight to Jerusalem

An Arab president is about to board a plane to the enemy's capital. His own generals think he's committing treason.

Anwar Sadat·3 min·Premium
HistoryIntermediate

The Silence Symphony

The worst thing that can happen to a musician is happening. He writes a suicide note -- then makes a different choice.

Ludwig van Beethoven·3 min·Premium
SportsIntermediate

The Moneyball Revolution

A baseball GM with the lowest budget is about to bet everything on a spreadsheet.

Billy Beane·3 min·Premium
BusinessIntermediate

The Cereal Box Pivot

Two broke founders bet their startup's survival on breakfast cereal and a presidential election.

Brian Chesky·3 min·Premium
UnderdogBeginner

208 Seconds

Both engines are dead. You're at 2,800 feet over Manhattan. You have 208 seconds to find somewhere to land an Airbus with 155 people on board.

Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger·3 min·Premium
UnderdogIntermediate

Six Thousand Lives

A Japanese diplomat in Lithuania defies his government. Each visa he writes is an act of career suicide -- and a life saved.

Chiune Sugihara·3 min
MilitaryIntermediate

The Dunkirk Gamble

400,000 soldiers are trapped. The generals say rescue is impossible. You have 48 hours.

Winston Churchill·4 min
HistoryIntermediate

The Queen's Gambit

Egypt's last pharaoh has one meeting to save a 3,000-year-old civilization. She bets everything on a carpet.

Cleopatra VII·3 min·Premium
MilitaryAdvanced

The D-Day Decision

The fate of World War II comes down to one general, one weather forecast, and 24 hours.

Dwight Eisenhower·3 min·Premium
SportsIntermediate

The Edge of Space

A man in a spacesuit stands on a platform 24 miles above Earth. His visor is fogging. Mission control says abort. 8 million people are watching live.

Felix Baumgartner·3 min·Premium
HistoryIntermediate

The Scutari Paradox

A nurse realizes soldiers aren't dying from war -- they're dying from filth. Nobody believes her.

Florence Nightingale·3 min·Premium
CreativeIntermediate

20 Minutes to Immortality

A 'washed-up' rock band gets the shortest slot at the biggest concert in history. What happens next rewrites the rules of live music.

Freddie Mercury·3 min·Premium
PoliticsIntermediate

A Handful of Salt

The British Empire controls everything. A 60-year-old lawyer decides the fight starts with salt.

Mahatma Gandhi·3 min
CreativeIntermediate

The Manuscript in the Pawnshop

A broke journalist has spent 18 months locked in a room writing a novel nobody asked for. His family is surviving on credit. The last chapter is done.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez·3 min
HistoryIntermediate

The Khan's Gambit

A nomadic herder unites warring tribes and faces the choice that will determine whether he builds an empire or dies in the steppe.

Genghis Khan·3 min
MilitaryAdvanced

The Oath Keeper

An outnumbered general must choose how to strike at the most powerful empire on earth.

Hannibal Barca·3 min·Premium
CreativeIntermediate

The $200 Million Bet

A director is $100M over budget on a movie about a sinking ship. Hollywood is already writing his epitaph.

James Cameron·3 min·Premium
CreativeBeginner

The Thirteenth Publisher

A single mother on welfare has a manuscript nobody wants. Twelve publishers have said no.

J.K. Rowling·3 min
HistoryIntermediate

Crossing the Rubicon

A general must choose between obedience and treason -- with the fate of a republic hanging on one river.

Julius Caesar·3 min
SportsIntermediate

175 Not Out

India is 17 for 5. The captain walks to the crease knowing that if he fails, a billion dreams go home with him.

Kapil Dev·3 min·Premium
CreativeBeginner

The Quit That Wasn't

A failed comedy writer quits Saturday Night Live in a rage on Friday night. Then he shows up Monday like nothing happened. Nobody says a word.

Larry David·3 min·Premium
PoliticsAdvanced

A Country Nobody Wanted

A tiny island with no resources just got expelled from its own federation. Its prime minister is about to make a choice that defies every rule of development.

Lee Kuan Yew·3 min·Premium
PoliticsBeginner

The Bus Ride Home

An 11-year-old in a war zone is asked to do something every adult is too afraid to try.

Malala Yousafzai·3 min
ScienceIntermediate

The Invisible Element

A scientist in a converted shed is about to rewrite the periodic table.

Marie Curie·3 min·Premium
HistoryIntermediate

The 15-Year-Old Who Rebuilt a Nation

Western warships are in the harbor. A teenage emperor must decide whether Japan will be conquered or reinvented.

Emperor Meiji·3 min·Premium
SportsBeginner

Cut from Varsity

A 15-year-old gets rejected from his high school basketball team. What he does next changes sports forever.

Michael Jordan·3 min
SportsIntermediate

The Rumble in the Jungle

An aging underdog faces the most devastating puncher alive. His strategy shocks the world.

Muhammad Ali·3 min·Premium
SportsBeginner

The Score That Broke the Scoreboard

A 14-year-old gymnast from communist Romania is about to do something the scoreboard literally cannot display.

Nadia Comaneci·3 min
HistoryIntermediate

The 27-Year Gamble

After nearly three decades in prison, a leader chooses between revenge and reconciliation.

Nelson Mandela·3 min
ScienceIntermediate

The Body Electric

Edison is electrocuting animals on stage to prove your invention is deadly. You have one shot to prove him wrong -- using yourself as the conductor.

Nikola Tesla·3 min·Premium
CreativeBeginner

The Mississippi Underdog

A news anchor just got demoted for being 'too emotional.' Her bosses think it's a punishment.

Oprah Winfrey·3 min·Premium
CreativeIntermediate

The Delete Key

Someone accidentally erased 2 years of Toy Story 2. The backups were broken. Then a mom on maternity leave saved Pixar.

Pixar Animation Studios·3 min·Premium
HistoryIntermediate

The Queen Who Refused to Kneel

Portuguese slave traders control the coast. A queen with no army and no allies is about to build a 40-year resistance from nothing.

Queen Nzinga·3 min
BusinessIntermediate

The Netflix Pivot

A CEO just killed his company's stock price by 77%. Now he has to decide what comes next.

Reed Hastings·3 min·Premium
UnderdogBeginner

The $5,000 Bet

A fax machine salesperson with $5,000 and zero connections bets everything on an idea everyone laughs at.

Sara Blakely·3 min
SportsIntermediate

The Comeback

A tennis champion falls to #139. Everyone writes her off. She has other plans.

Serena Williams·3 min
UnderdogAdvanced

800 Miles of Impossible

Your ship is crushed. Your crew is stranded. The nearest help is across the deadliest ocean on Earth. Nobody knows you're alive.

Ernest Shackleton·3 min·Premium
ScienceIntermediate

The Letter from Madras

A self-taught clerk from India sends his impossible theorems to Cambridge. If the wrong professor opens the envelope, mathematics loses a century.

Srinivasa Ramanujan·3 min·Premium
BusinessIntermediate

The $100M Exile

A visionary gets kicked out of his own company. What happens next changes everything.

Steve Jobs·3 min
UnderdogAdvanced

The Impossible Dive

12 boys and their coach are trapped 2.5 miles inside a flooded cave. The plan to save them sounds absolutely insane. It works.

Tham Luang Rescue Team·3 min·Premium
MilitaryIntermediate

The History Teacher's Siege

A former schoolteacher turned general faces France's strongest fortress. His decision will end European colonialism in Southeast Asia.

Vo Nguyen Giap·3 min
BusinessIntermediate

The Kingdom Gamble

A film mogul wants to build something no one has ever seen. Every banker and board member says no.

Walt Disney·3 min·Premium
UnderdogIntermediate

The Woman Who Planted Trees

The government calls her a madwoman. The police have beaten her unconscious. She keeps planting.

Wangari Maathai·3 min·Premium
ScienceIntermediate

12 Seconds at Kitty Hawk

Two bicycle mechanics with $1,000 attempt what the Smithsonian's $50,000 project couldn't do.

Wilbur and Orville Wright·3 min
HistoryIntermediate

The Treasure Fleet

A formerly enslaved eunuch commands the largest fleet the world has ever seen. His next choice will reshape Indian Ocean trade for a century.

Zheng He·3 min
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