" The Little Mermaid " ( Danish : Den lille havfrue ), sometimes translated in English as " The Little Sea Maid ", [1] is a fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen . Originally published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children, the story follows the journey of a young mermaid princess who is willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul....
Mar 05, 2025•47 min•Ep 412•Transcript available on Metacast The Battle of Cartagena de Indias ( Spanish : Sitio de Cartagena de Indias , lit. 'Siege of Cartagena de Indias') took place during the 1739 to 1748 War of Jenkins' Ear between Spain and Great Britain . The result of long-standing commercial tensions, the war was primarily fought in the Caribbean ; the British tried to capture key Spanish ports in the region, including Porto Bello and Chagres in Panama, Havana , and Cartagena de Indias in present-day Colombia ....
Feb 26, 2025•30 min•Ep 411•Transcript available on Metacast https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2024-year-in-review Use code CITATION at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/citation
Feb 19, 2025•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Three op-eds by billionaires. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/02/big-tech-needs-more-regulation/ https://www.ft.com/content/a46cb128-1f74-4621-ab0b-242a76583105...
Feb 12, 2025•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast A ghost ship , also known as a phantom ship , is a vessel with no living crew aboard; it may be a fictional ghostly vessel, such as the Flying Dutchman , or a physical derelict found adrift with its crew missing or dead, like the Mary Celeste . [1] [2] The term is sometimes used for ships that have been decommissioned but not yet scrapped , as well as drifting boats that have been found after breaking loose of their ropes and being carried away by the wind or the waves....
Feb 05, 2025•33 min•Ep 408•Transcript available on Metacast The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I , their families, and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C. , in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the Bonus Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.), to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Forces , while the media referred to them as the "Bonus Army" or "Bonus Marchers". The demonstrators were...
Jan 29, 2025•31 min•Ep 407•Transcript available on Metacast Tom cleans out his unrelated chrome tabs on interesting wikipedia articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ironing https://woodcarvingillustrated.com/deep-sea-jack-o-lanterns/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_tunneling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_drop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight...
Jan 22, 2025•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast So we actually recorded this last week on Monday so one of the last paragraphs of the episode has outdated info in it. The Pizzagate guy was killed by police during a traffic stop after allegedly pulling out a gun and pointing it at police. This incident happened 4 days after we recorded this episode. https://www.npr.org/2025/01/10/g-s1-42040/pizzagate-gunman-killed-police-north-carolina " Pizzagate " is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycl...
Jan 15, 2025•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pythagoras of Samos [a] ( Ancient Greek : Πυθαγόρας; c. 570 – c. 495 BC) [b] , often known mononymously as Pythagoras , was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher , polymath , and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism . His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of Plato , Aristotle , and, through them, the West in general. Knowledge of his life is clouded by legend; modern scholars disagree regarding Pythagoras's education and influence...
Jan 08, 2025•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode was inspired by our tall tales episode. We each take a crack a writing another host's fictional bio. This was supposed to be a Christmas Episode but was delayed.
Jan 01, 2025•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast The Holy Prepuce , or Holy Foreskin ( Latin præputium or prepucium ), is one of several relics attributed to Jesus , consisting of the foreskin removed during the circumcision of Jesus . At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have claimed to possess the Prepuce, sometimes at the same time. Various miraculous powers have been ascribed to it....
Dec 25, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Two mean reviews. One from the Sydney Morning Herald on Coco Roco...and the other from the New York Times on Guy's American Kitchen & Bar.
Dec 18, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pong is a table tennis –themed twitch arcade sports video game , featuring simple two-dimensional graphics , manufactured by Atari and originally released on 29 November 1972. It is one of the earliest arcade video games ; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell , but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an e...
Dec 11, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Competitive eating , or speed eating , is a sport in which participants compete against each other to eat large quantities of food, usually in a short time period. Contests are typically eight to ten minutes long, although some competitions can last up to thirty minutes, with the person consuming the most food being declared the winner. Competitive eating is most popular in the United States , Canada , and Japan , where organized professional eating contests often offer prizes, including cash....
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast The earliest known version of the tale is found in the French narrative Perceforest , written between 1330 and 1344. [7] Another was the Catalan poem Frayre de Joy e Sor de Paser . [8] Giambattista Basile wrote another, " Sun, Moon, and Talia " for his collection Pentamerone , published posthumously in 1634–36 [9] and adapted by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697. The version collected and printed by the Brothers Grimm was one orally transmitted from the Perrault vers...
Nov 27, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket , Massachusetts , which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr. , the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale . About 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) from the coast of South America, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in three whaleboats with what food and water they could salvage from the wreck. After a month at sea the crew landed on the ...
Nov 20, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Carlos Henrique Raposo (born 2 April 1963), commonly known as Carlos Kaiser , is a Brazilian con artist and former footballer who played as a striker .[ citation needed ] Although his abilities were far short of professional standard, he managed to sign for numerous teams during his decade-long career. He never actually played a regular game, the closest occurrence ending in a red card whilst warming up, and hid his limited ability with injuries, frequent team changes, and other ruses. [1]...
Nov 13, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. [1] In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights. [2]...
Nov 06, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast For five years, a New York City man managed to live rent-free in a landmark Manhattan hotel by exploiting an obscure local housing law.
Oct 30, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941) [ 3 ] is a British evolutionary biologist , zoologist , science communicator and author. [ 4 ] He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford , and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene popularised the gene-centred view of evolution , as well as coining the term meme . Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards. [ 5 ]...
Oct 23, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast A siege engine is a weapon used to destroy fortifications such as defensive walls , castles , bunkers and fortified gateways . A fortification (also called a fort , fortress , fastness , or stronghold ) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare , and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin fortis ("strong") and facere ("to make"). [1]...
Oct 16, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast The legend dates back to the Middle Ages . The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in multicoloured (" pied ") clothing, who was a rat catcher hired by the town to lure rats away [1] with his magic pipe . When the citizens refused to pay for this service as promised, he retaliated by using his instrument's magical power on their children, leading them away as he had the rats. This version of the story spread as folklore and has appeared in the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , t...
Oct 09, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Project 57 was an open-air nuclear test conducted by the United States at the Nellis Air Force Range in 1957, [ 1 ] [ 2 ] following Operation Redwing , and preceding Operation Plumbbob . The test area, also known as Area 13 , was a 10 miles (16 km) by 16 miles (26 km) block of land abutting the northeast boundary of the Nevada National Security Site . [ 3 ]...
Oct 02, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sun Wukong ( Chinese : 孫悟空, Mandarin pronunciation: [swə́n ûkʰʊ́ŋ] ), also known as the Monkey King , is a literary and religious figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West . [1] In the novel, Sun Wukong is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven, he is imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha . Five hundred years later, he accompanies the monk Tang Sanzang ri...
Sep 25, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bollea v. Gawker was a lawsuit filed in 2013 in the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Pinellas County , Florida , delivering a verdict on March 18, 2016. In the suit, Terry Gene Bollea, known professionally as Hulk Hogan , sued Gawker Media , publisher of the Gawker website, and several Gawker employees and Gawker-affiliated entities [2] for posting portions of a sex tape of Bollea with Heather Clem, at that time the wife of radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge . Bollea's claims ...
Sep 18, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshake A handshake is a globally widespread, brief greeting or parting tradition in which two people grasp one of each other's hands, and in most cases, it is accompanied by a brief up-and-down movement of the grasped hands. Customs surrounding handshakes are specific to cultures. Different cultures may be more or less likely to shake hands, or there may be different customs about how or when to shake hands. [1] [2] [3] https://www.youtube.com/live/R3skyySEOuE?si...
Sep 11, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast The 1967 NFL Championship Game was the 35th NFL championship , played on December 31 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin . [ 1 ] Because of the adverse conditions in which the game was played, the rivalry between the two teams, and the game's dramatic climax, it has been immortalized as the Ice Bowl and is considered one of the greatest games in NFL history. NFL 100 Greatest Games ranked this game as the 3rd greatest game of all time. It is still the coldest game ever played in NFL history....
Sep 04, 2024•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Colton Harris Moore (born March 22, 1991) [10] is an American former fugitive . He was charged with the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in property, including several small aircraft, boats, and multiple cars, all committed while still a teenager....
Aug 28, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jeanne Louise Calment (French: [ʒan lwiz kalmɑ̃] ⓘ ; 21 February 1875 – 4 August 1997) was a French supercentenarian and, with a documented lifespan of 122 years and 164 days, the oldest person ever whose age has been verified. [1] Her longevity attracted media attention and medical studies of her health and lifestyle. She is the only person verified to have reached the age of 120 and beyond. According to census records, Calment outlived both her daughter and grandson. [2] In January 1988, she w...
Aug 21, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS ( /ˈhɔːldeɪn/ ; 5 November 1892 – 1 December 1964 [1] [2] ), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", [3] was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology , genetics , evolutionary biology , and mathematics . With innovative use of statistics in biology , he was one of the founders of neo-Darwinism . Despite his lack of an academic degree in the field, [1] he taught biology at the University of Cambridge , the Royal Institution , and University College London . [4] Ren...
Aug 14, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast