USS William D. Porter (DD-579) , a Fletcher -class destroyer , was a ship of the United States Navy named for Commodore William D. Porter (1808–1864). William D. Porter was laid down on 7 May 1942 at Orange , Texas , United States , by the Consolidated Steel Corporation ; launched on 27 September 1942, sponsored by Miss Mary Elizabeth Reeder; and commissioned on 6 July 1943, Lieutenant Commander Wilfred A. Walter in command. [2] The ship is predominantly remembered today for the string of extrem...
Jan 26, 2022•38 min
A nuclear close call is an incident that could have led to at least one unintended nuclear detonation or explosion. These incidents typically involve a perceived imminent threat to a nuclear-armed country which could lead to retaliatory strikes against the perceived aggressor. The damage caused by international nuclear exchange is not necessarily limited to the participating countries, as the hypothesized rapid climate change associated with even small-scale regional nuclear war could threaten f...
Jan 19, 2022•48 min
Whether condoms were used in ancient civilizations is debated by archaeologists and historians. [101] : 11 In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, pregnancy prevention was generally seen as a woman's responsibility, and the only well documented contraception methods were female-controlled devices. [101] : 17, 23 In Asia before the 15th century, some use of glans condoms (devices covering only the head of the penis) is recorded. Condoms seem to have been used for contraception, and to have been known...
Jan 12, 2022•42 min
The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous hoaxes in American history. It was a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) purported " petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York . Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P. T. Barnum are still being displayed. The original is currently on display at The Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, New York . Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to sup...
Jan 05, 2022•35 min
A patron saint , patroness saint , patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism , Anglicanism , or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person. 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....
Dec 29, 2021•42 min
Juan Pujol Garcia MBE (14 February 1912 – 10 October 1988), also known as Joan Pujol Garcia , was a Spanish spy who acted as a double agent loyal to Great Britain against Nazi Germany during World War II , when he relocated to Britain to carry out fictitious spying activities for the Germans. He was given the codename Garbo by the British; their German counterparts codenamed him Alaric and referred to his non-existent spy network as "Arabal". Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosn...
Dec 22, 2021•39 min
The diamond hoax of 1872 was a swindle in which a pair of prospectors sold a false American diamond deposit to prominent businessmen in San Francisco and New York City . It also triggered a brief diamond prospecting craze in the western United States , in Arizona , New Mexico , Utah , Wyoming , and Colorado . 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 mor...
Dec 15, 2021•36 min
On the evening of 8 December 1980, English musician John Lennon , formerly of the Beatles , was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of The Dakota , his residence in New York City . His killer was Mark David Chapman , an American Beatles fan who was incensed by Lennon's lavish lifestyle and his 1966 comment that the Beatles were " more popular than Jesus ". Chapman said he was inspired by the fictional character Holden Caulfield from J. D. Salinger 's novel The Catcher in the Rye , a "phony-k...
Dec 08, 2021•36 min
The Narváez expedition was a Spanish journey of exploration and colonization started in 1527 that intended to establish colonial settlements and garrisons in Florida . [1] The expedition was initially led by Pánfilo de Narváez , who died in 1528. Many more people died as the expedition traveled west along the explored Gulf Coast of the present-day United States and into the American Southwest . Only four of the expedition's original members survived, reaching Mexico City in 1536. These survivors...
Dec 01, 2021•43 min
Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator ( Greek : Μιθραδάτης ; [2] 135–63 BC) was ruler of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic 's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an effective, ambitious and ruthless ruler who sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the Mithridatic Wars ) to break Roman dominion over Asia and the Hellenic world. [3] He has...
Nov 24, 2021•38 min
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 pro...
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...
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
