The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was a 1911–1914 expedition headed by Douglas Mawson that explored the largely uncharted Antarctic coast due south of Australia . Mawson had been inspired to lead his own venture by his experiences on Ernest Shackleton 's Nimrod expedition in 1907–1909. During its time in Antarctica, the expedition's sledging parties covered around 4,180 kilometres (2,600 mi) of unexplored territory, while its ship, SY Aurora , navigated 2,900 kilometres (1,800 mi) of unmappe...
Nov 17, 2021•49 min
The phantom time hypothesis is a historical conspiracy theory asserted by Heribert Illig. First published in 1991, it hypothesizes a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III , Pope Sylvester II , and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII , to fabricate the Anno Domini dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite history [1] to legitimize Otto's claim to the Holy Roman Empire . Illig believed that this was achieved through the al...
Nov 10, 2021•32 min
An urban legend or contemporary legend is a genre of folklore comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or family member, often with horrifying or humorous elements. These legends can be entertaining, but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects. They may also be confirmation of moral standards, or reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties. Our theme song was writt...
Nov 03, 2021•36 min
An urban legend or contemporary legend is a genre of folklore comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or family member, often with horrifying or humorous elements. These legends can be entertaining, but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects. They may also be confirmation of moral standards, or reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties. Our theme song was writt...
Oct 27, 2021•41 min
The Burke and Hare murders were a series of 16 killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh , Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here . Be sure to check our website for more details....
Oct 20, 2021•35 min
John Herbert Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster of the Great Depression . He led a group known as the " Dillinger Gang ", which was accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times but escaped twice. He was charged, but not convicted, of the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana , police officer who shot Dillinger in his bullet-proof vest during a shootout ; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide. Our them...
Oct 13, 2021•48 min
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1817 [a] – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer , abolitionist , orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland , he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York , becoming famous for his oratory [5] and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments ...
Oct 06, 2021•34 min
The Sound and the Fury is a novel by the American author William Faulkner . It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness . Published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not immediately successful. In 1931, however, when Faulkner's sixth novel, Sanctuary , was published—a sensationalist story, which Faulkner later said was written only for money— The Sound and the Fury also became commercially successful, and Faulkner began to receive cri...
Sep 29, 2021•47 min
Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific [1] [2] [3] [4] system of alternative medicine . It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann . Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur , or "like cures like". [5] Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution . In this proc...
Sep 22, 2021•46 min
James Orsen Bakker ( /ˈbeɪkər/ ; [1] born January 2, 1940) is an American televangelist and convicted fraudster . Between 1974 and 1987, Bakker hosted the television program The PTL Club with his then wife, Tammy Faye , and developed Heritage USA , a now-defunct Christian theme park in Fort Mill , South Carolina ....
Sep 15, 2021•38 min
The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein . Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed as a response to the incident to be the first Commissioner of Baseball , and given absolute control over the sport to restore its integrity. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna...
Sep 08, 2021•36 min
Atlas Shrugged is a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand . Rand's fourth and final novel, it was also her longest , and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing. [1] Atlas Shrugged includes elements of science fiction , mystery , and romance , and it contains Rand's most extensive statement of Objectivism in any of her works of fiction. The theme of Atlas Shrugged , as Rand described it, is "the role of man's mind in existence". The book explores a number of philosophical t...
Sep 01, 2021•54 min
Andrew Carter Thornton II (October 30, 1944 – September 11, 1985) was a former narcotics officer and lawyer who became the head member of "The Company", a drug smuggling ring in Kentucky . The son of Carter and Peggy Thornton of Threave Main Stud farm in southern Bourbon County, Kentucky , Thornton grew up living a privileged life in the Lexington, Kentucky , area and attended the prestigious private Sayre School and the Iroquois Polo Club along with other Lexington blue bloods. He later transfe...
Aug 25, 2021•44 min
This week, Cecil takes us through a series of some of history's most courageous, most loyal, and most memorable animals. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here . Be sure to check our website for more details.
Aug 18, 2021•38 min
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris on May 20–21. Lindbergh covered the 33+1⁄2-hour, 3,600-statute-mile (5,800 km) flight alone in a purpose-built, single-engine Ryan monoplane , the Spirit of St. Louis ...
Aug 11, 2021•36 min
Linda Laura Hazzard ( née Burfield; December 18, 1867 – June 24, 1938), nicknamed the "Starvation Doctor" [1] was an American quack , fraud , swindler and serial killer noted for her promotion of fasting as a treatment. She was imprisoned by the state of Washington for a number of deaths at a sanitarium she operated there in the early 20th century. Her treatments were responsible for at least 15 deaths. Born 1867 in Carver County, Minnesota , she died during a fast in 1938. Our theme song was wr...
Aug 04, 2021•30 min
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is an animated television series produced by Hasbro as part of the My Little Pony toy franchise, which is tied in with the 2010 relaunch of dolls and play sets and original programming for the American children's cable channel Discovery Family (formerly Hub Network). Lauren Faust was selected as the creative developer and executive producer for the show based on her previous animation experience with other animated shows such as Cartoon Network 's The Powerpuf...
Jul 28, 2021•35 min
Fordlândia is a district and adjacent area of 14,268 square kilometres (5,509 sq mi) in the city of Aveiro , in the Brazilian state of Pará . It is located on the east banks of the Tapajós river roughly 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of the city of Santarém . It was established by American industrialist Henry Ford in the Amazon Rainforest in 1928 as a prefabricated industrial town intended to be inhabited by 10,000 people to secure a source of cultivated rubber for the automobile manufacturing op...
Jul 21, 2021•37 min
This list consists of albums or songs that have been considered the worst music ever made by various combinations of music critics, television broadcasters (such as MTV and VH1), radio stations, composers, and public polls. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here . Be sure to check our website for more details....
Jul 14, 2021•54 min
The United States invasion of Grenada began at dawn on 25 October 1983. The U.S. and a coalition of six Caribbean nations invaded the island nation of Grenada , 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela . Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury by the U.S. military, it resulted in military occupation within a few days. [9] It was triggered by the strife within the People's Revolutionary Government which resulted in the house arrest and execution of the previous leader and second Prime Minister of Grenada Ma...
Jul 07, 2021•38 min
James Arthur Hogue (born October 22, 1959) is an American impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan . Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here . Be sure to check our website for more details....
Jun 30, 2021•50 min
Kennedy scored major victories when he won both the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his supporters shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in a ballroom at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles . [287] Leaving the ballroom, he went through the hotel kitchen after being told it was a shortcut to a press room. [288] He did this despite being advised by his bodyguard—former FBI agent Bill Barry—to avoid the kitchen. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Kennedy turned to his ...
Jun 23, 2021•42 min
Carl Ethan Akeley (May 19, 1864 – November 17, 1926) was a pioneering American taxidermist , sculptor, biologist , conservationist , inventor, and nature photographer, noted for his contributions to American museums , most notably to the Milwaukee Public Museum , Field Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History . He is considered the father of modern taxidermy . [1] He was the founder of the AMNH Exhibitions Lab , the interdisciplinary department that fuses scientific r...
Jun 16, 2021•36 min
Unusual foods are foods that some people would consider unusual. Sorry... sometimes the title does all the heavy lifting. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here . Be sure to check our website for more details.
Jun 09, 2021•46 min
The 1947 Texas City disaster was an industrial accident that occurred on April 16, 1947, in the Port of Texas City , Texas, at Galveston Bay . It was the deadliest industrial accident in United States history and one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions . A mid-morning fire started on board the French-registered vessel SS Grandcamp (docked in the port) and detonated her cargo of about 2,300 tons (about 2,100 metric tons ) of ammonium nitrate . [1] This started a chain reaction of fires an...
Jun 02, 2021•38 min
Robert Philip Hanssen (born April 18, 1944) is an American former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) double agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1976 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history." [3] Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence , a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado . Our theme song ...
May 26, 2021•41 min
The Free Town Project was a project that sought to move to a very small town and advocate for legal changes there. Two towns were involved: Grafton, New Hampshire and Mentone, Texas . It was active in Grafton from 2004 to sometime in 2016. [58] Grafton's appeal as a favorable destination was due to its absence of zoning laws and a very low property tax rate. [59] Additionally, John Babiarz lived there already, and had an unsuccessful run for Governor of New Hampshire under the Libertarian Party ...
May 19, 2021•52 min
The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note or Zimmerman Cable) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. Mexico would recover Texas , Arizona , and New Mexico . The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence . Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per e...
May 12, 2021•36 min
The Suez Canal ( Arabic : قَنَاةُ السُّوَيْسِ, Qanātu s-Suways ) is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt , connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. In 1858, Ferdinand de Lesseps formed the Suez Canal Company for the express purpose of building the canal . Construction of the canal lasted from 1859 to 1869 and took place under the regional authority of the Ottoman Empire . The canal officially opened on 17 November 1869. It of...
May 05, 2021•33 min
Louis Jay Pearlman (June 19, 1954 – August 19, 2016) was an American record producer . He was the creator of successful 1990s boy bands such as Backstreet Boys and NSYNC . In 2006, he was accused of running one of the largest and longest-running Ponzi schemes in US history, leaving more than $300 million in debts. After being apprehended, he pled guilty to conspiracy , money laundering , and making false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding. In 2008, Pearlman was convicted and sentenced to ...
Apr 28, 2021•45 min
