Episodes

December 21, 2022

Sherman's March to the Sea

Sherman's March to the Sea (also known as the Savannah campaign or simply Sherman's March ) was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by William Tecumseh Sherman , major general of the Union Army . The campai...

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December 14, 2022

The Whiskey Rebellion

The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection ) was a violent tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington . The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed fede...

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December 7, 2022

Charles Eugène Bedaux (10 October 1886 – 18 February 1944) was a French -American millionaire who made his fortune developing and implementing the work measurement aspect of scientific management , notably the Bedaux System . Bedaux was friends with British royalty and Nazis alike, and...

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November 30, 2022

Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily . Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael , a tramp who died from eating rat poison , dressed him as an officer of the ...

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November 23, 2022

The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army ( TSA ) is a Protestant church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London , England. The organisation reports a worldwide membership of over 1.7 million, [3] comprising soldiers, officers and adherents collectively known as Salvationists. Its...

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November 16, 2022

An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative , non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language , an idiom's figurative meaning is different f...

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November 9, 2022

Famous Failed products

Sometimes, even with the very best marketing research and R&D departments that money can by, companies make bafflingly stupid decisions and bring terrible products to the market. This week, we explore a sampling. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to suppor...

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November 2, 2022

The August Coup

The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt , also known as the August Coup , [a] was a failed attempt by hardliners of the Soviet Union 's Communist Party to forcibly seize control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev , who was Soviet President and General Secretary of the Communist Par...

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October 26, 2022

Eve Online's Judgement Day

Eve Online (stylised EVE Online ) is a space-based , persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by CCP Games . Players of Eve Online can participate in a number of in-game professions and activities, including mining , piracy , ...

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October 19, 2022

The illegal drug trade or drug smuggling is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs . Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license , of many types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws . The think t...

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October 12, 2022

The Fall of Tenochtitlan

The Fall of Tenochtitlan , the capital of the Aztec Empire , was a decisive event in the Spanish conquest of the empire . It occurred in 1521 following extensive manipulation of local factions and exploitation of pre-existing political divisions by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés . He wa...

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October 5, 2022

The International Space Station

The International Space Station ( ISS ) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit . It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada...

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September 28, 2022

King Charles III

Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms . [fn 4] He acceded to the throne on 8 September 2022 upon the death of his mother , Elizabeth II . He was the longest-serving heir apparent in British histor...

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September 21, 2022

Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt [1] (22 May 1878 – 23 May 1960), commonly known as Rustam-e-Hind ( Hindi-Urdu for Rostam of Hindostan ) and by the ring name The Great Gama , [7] was a pehlwani wrestler and strongman in British Raj . In the early 20th century, he was an undefeat...

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September 14, 2022

The Lewis and Clark Expedition

The Lewis and Clark Expedition , also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition , was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase . The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under...

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September 7, 2022

Common Misconceptions, Part 2

A common misconception is a viewpoint or factoid that is often accepted as true but which is actually false. They generally arise from conventional wisdom (such as old wives' tales ), stereotypes , superstitions , fallacies , a misunderstanding of science, or the popularization of pseudosc...

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August 31, 2022

Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician . During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the greatest French writers of all time. Our theme song w...

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August 24, 2022

The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human . Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning, the remains were still broadly accepted for many years, and...

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August 17, 2022

The American Hippo Project

Frederick Russell Burnham DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa , and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rh...

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August 10, 2022

The Symbionese Liberation Army

The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was an American far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself a vanguard army. The SLA was considered by the FBI and American law enforcement as the first terrorist organization to rise from the American...

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August 3, 2022

Roman Beast Hunts

Among Ancient Romans , bestiarii (singular bestiarius ) were those who went into combat with beasts, or were exposed to them. It is conventional [1] to distinguish two categories of bestiarii : the first were those condemned to death via the beasts (see damnatio ad bestias ) and the ...

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July 27, 2022

William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878), often erroneously referred to as William "Marcy" Tweed (see below ), [1] and widely known as " Boss " Tweed , was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany Hall , the Democratic Party 's political m...

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July 20, 2022

Forbidden Places

This episode is about forbidden places, like Ilha da Queimada Grande , also known as Snake Island , an island off the coast of Brazil in the Atlantic Ocean . It is administered as part of the municipality of Itanhaém in the State of São Paulo . The island is small in size, only 43 hectares (1...

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July 13, 2022

Vincenzo Pipino

Vincenzo Pipino (born 22 July 1943), also known as Encio , is an Italian thief from Venice whose exploits earned him the nickname "the gentleman thief". He is the first person to successfully steal from the Doge's Palace , and has been responsible for some of the most sensational art thefts i...

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July 6, 2022

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin ( / ˈ p uː t ɪ n / ; Russian: Владимир Владимирович Путин ; [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] ( listen ) ; born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is the president of Russia , a position he has fill...

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June 29, 2022

Common Misconceptions

A common misconception is a viewpoint or factoid that is often accepted as true in current times. They often arise from conventional wisdom (such as old wives' tales ), stereotypes , a misunderstanding of science, or popularisation of pseudoscience . Some common misconceptions are also consi...

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June 22, 2022

Tobacco Whistle Blowers

Jeffrey Stephen Wigand ( / ˈ w aɪ ɡ æ n d / ; born December 17, 1942) is an American biochemist and whistleblower . He is a former vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Kentucky , who worked on the development of reduced-harm cigare...

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June 15, 2022

A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing burnable material, typically tobacco , that is rolled into thin paper for smoking . The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opposite end. Cigarette smoking is the most common method o...

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June 8, 2022

Frank William Dux ( / ˈ dj uː k s / ; born April 6, 1956) is a Canadian-American martial artist and fight choreographer . According to Dux, a ninjutsu expert named Senzo Tanaka trained him as a ninja when he was a teenager. He established his own school of ninjutsu called Dux Ryu ...

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June 1, 2022

Just Plane Stupid

On October 14, 2004, Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 ( ICAO : FLG3701, IATA : 9E3701, or Flagship 3701) crashed near Jefferson City , Missouri , United States, while flying from Little Rock National Airport in Little Rock , Arkansas , United States, to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International...

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May 25, 2022

Pankration ( / p æ n ˈ k r eɪ t i ɒ n , - ˈ k r eɪ ʃ ən / ; Greek : παγκράτιον ) was a sporting event introduced into the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC, which was an empty-hand submission sport with few rules. The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques, but a...

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May 18, 2022

The Bone Wars , also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush , [1] was a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil hunting and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope (of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel...

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May 11, 2022

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen ( German: [ˈmanfreːt fɔn ˈʁɪçthoːfn̩] ; 2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), known in English as Baron von Richthofen or the Red Baron , was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I . He is considered the ace-of-aces of the war, b...

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May 4, 2022

Pornhub is a Canadian-owned internet pornography website. It is one of several pornographic video-streaming websites owned by Mindgeek . [4] [5] As of June 2020, Pornhub is the 10th most trafficked website in the world and the third most-trafficked adult website after XVideos and XNXX...

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April 27, 2022

Animal Sexual Behavior

Animal sexual behaviour takes many different forms, including within the same species . Common mating or reproductively motivated systems include monogamy , polygyny , polyandry , polygamy and promiscuity . Other sexual behaviour may be reproductively motivated (e.g. sex apparently du...

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April 20, 2022

The Sash Weight Murder

Ruth Brown Snyder (March 27, 1895 – January 12, 1928) was an American murderer . Her execution in the electric chair at New York 's Sing Sing Prison in 1928 for the murder of her husband, Albert Snyder, was recorded in a well-publicized photograph.

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April 13, 2022

The Worst TV Shows

A number of television shows have been judged the worst by both critics and audiences alike. This week, we'll discuss several of them. 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 . B...

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April 6, 2022

Popes Gone Wild

Sometimes Popes suck. Pretty much all the time, actually. But some Popes suck more, and that's what we're talking about this week. 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 su...

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March 30, 2022

The Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed / suspension bridge in New York City , spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn . Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridg...

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March 23, 2022

John "Mad Jack" Mytton

John "Mad Jack" Mytton (30 September 1796 – 29 March 1834) was a British eccentric and rake of the Regency period who was briefly a Tory Member of Parliament.

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March 16, 2022

Alice Roosevelt

Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and prominent socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and the only child he had with his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee . Longworth led an unconventional and controvers...

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March 9, 2022

People Who Have Gone Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel

Since 1850, more than 5,000 people have gone over Niagara Falls , either intentionally (as stunts or suicide attempts ) or accidentally. The first recorded person to survive going over the falls was school teacher Annie Edson Taylor , who in 1901 successfully completed the stunt inside an oak ba...

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March 2, 2022

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 [ O.S. January 6, 1706] [Note 1] – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. [1] Among the leading intellectuals ...

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February 23, 2022

The New England Vampire Panic

The New England vampire panic was the reaction to an outbreak of tuberculosis in the 19th century throughout Rhode Island , eastern Connecticut , southern Massachusetts , Vermont , and other areas of the New England states. [1] Consumption ( tuberculosis ) was thought to be caused by t...

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February 16, 2022

Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company . [3] [4] It became a highly successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its mass-produced version of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consoles , the Co...

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February 9, 2022

Exonerated Death Row Inmates

This list contains names of people who were found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row , and were later found to be wrongly convicted . Some people were exonerated posthumously. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a p...

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February 2, 2022

Insane Beauty Treatments

Insane Beauty Treatments are a thing that doesn't have a Wikipedia page. Sorry. Normally we just do a quick and easy copy/paste for this, but that only works when we stay inside the format of the show. So ... how are things with you? We never talk about you. Our theme song was written and perfo...

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January 26, 2022

The USS William D Porter

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...

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January 19, 2022

Nuclear Close Calls

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 b...

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January 12, 2022

The History of Condoms

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 device...

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January 5, 2022

The Cardiff Giant

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 b...

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December 29, 2021

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 perfor...

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December 22, 2021

Juan Pujols Garcia

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 Ge...

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December 15, 2021

The Great Diamond Hoax

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 , W...

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December 8, 2021

The Murder of John Lennon

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...

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December 1, 2021

The Narvaez Expedition

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 t...

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November 24, 2021

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 ...

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November 17, 2021

The Mawson Expedition

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 1907–19...

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November 10, 2021

Phantom Time Hypothesis

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 dat...

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November 3, 2021

Urban Legends Part 2

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...

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October 27, 2021

Urban Legends Part One

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...

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October 20, 2021

The Burke and Hare Murders

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 w...

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October 13, 2021

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 ...

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October 6, 2021

Frederick Douglass

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 i...

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September 29, 2021

The Sound and the Fury

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 s...

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September 22, 2021

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 peo...

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September 15, 2021

James Orsen Bakker ( / ˈ b eɪ k ər / ; [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 Christia...

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September 8, 2021

The Black Sox Scandal

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 Mo...

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September 1, 2021

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 contai...

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August 25, 2021

Pablo Esco-Bear

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 , Th...

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August 18, 2021

Famous Historical Animals

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...

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August 11, 2021

Charles Lindbergh

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 non...

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August 4, 2021

Starvation Heights

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 numbe...

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July 28, 2021

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 (f...

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July 21, 2021

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 in...

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July 14, 2021

Music Considered the Worst Ever

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...

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July 7, 2021

The US Invasion of Grenada

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 wit...

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June 30, 2021

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 P...

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June 23, 2021

The Assassination of RFK

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...

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June 16, 2021

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 His...

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June 9, 2021

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 su...

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June 2, 2021

The Texas City Disaster

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 b...

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May 26, 2021

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 ...

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May 19, 2021

The Free Town Project

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 ...

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May 12, 2021

The Zimmerman Telegram

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 ...

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May 5, 2021

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...

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April 28, 2021

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...

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April 21, 2021

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [a] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space , achieving a major milestone in the Space Race ; his capsule, Vostok 1 , completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an ...

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April 14, 2021

The Death of Superman

" The Death of Superman " is a crossover story event featured in DC Comics ' Superman -related publications. The crossover, which originated from editor Mike Carlin and writers Dan Jurgens , Roger Stern , Louise Simonson , Jerry Ordway , and Karl Kesel , began in December 1992 and lasted...

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April 7, 2021

The Blackest Black

Vantablack is a material developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the United Kingdom and is one of the darkest substances known, absorbing up to 99.965% of visible light (at 663 nm if the light is perpendicular to the material). [4] [5]

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March 31, 2021

Caligula ( / k ə ˈ l ɪ ɡ j ʊ l ə / ; 31 August 12 – 24 January 41 AD), formally known as Gaius ( Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), was the third Roman emperor , ruling from 37 to 41. The son of the popular Roman general Germanicus and Augustus 's granddaughter Agrippina the ...

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March 24, 2021

Tetris (Russian: Тетрис [ˈtɛtrʲɪs] ) is a tile-matching video game created by Russian software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies, most prominently during a dispute over the appropriation of the rights in the late 1980s. After a significant per...

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March 17, 2021

The Irish Holocaust

The Great Famine ( Irish : an Gorta Mór [anˠ ˈɡɔɾˠt̪ˠə ˈmˠoːɾˠ] ), also known as the Great Hunger , the Great Starvation , the Famine (mostly within Ireland) or the Irish Potato Famine (mostly outside Ireland), [1] [2] was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland fr...

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March 10, 2021

The Mandela Effect

In psychology , a false memory is a phenomenon where someone recalls something that did not happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened. Suggestibility , activation of associated information, the incorporation of misinformation, and source misattribution have been sug...

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March 3, 2021

Joseph Frank Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966), [1] known professionally as Buster Keaton , was an American actor, comedian, film director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer. [2] He is best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a co...

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February 24, 2021

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross , c. March 1822 [1] – March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery , Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, [2] using t...

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February 17, 2021

Presidents' Day Special

Washington's Birthday is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the third Monday of February in honor of George Washington , the first president of the United States , who was born on February 22, 1732. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971 moved this holiday to the third Mon...

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February 10, 2021

Cannabis ( / ˈ k æ n ə b ɪ s / ) [2] is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae . The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: Cannabis sativa , Cannabis indica , and Cannabis ruderalis ; C. ruderalis may be inc...

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February 3, 2021

Antwerp Diamond Heist [True Crime Special]

The Antwerp diamond heist , dubbed the "heist of the century", [1] was by far the largest diamond heist and one of the largest robberies in history. Thieves stole loose diamonds, gold, silver and other types of jewelry valued at more than $100 million. [2] [3] It took place in Antwerp , ...

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January 27, 2021

Burke Wills Expedition

The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills , with the objective of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south, to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north,...

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January 20, 2021

The Battle of the Golden Spurs

The Battle of the Golden Spurs ( Flemish : Guldensporenslag ; French : Bataille des éperons d'or ) was a military confrontation between the royal army of France and rebellious forces of the County of Flanders on 11 July 1302 during the Franco-Flemish War (1297–1305). It took place near t...

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January 13, 2021

Alien Abductions

Alien abduction , sometimes also called abduction phenomenon , alien abduction syndrome or UFO abduction , is a personally held belief in which the alleged "abductee" describes "subjectively real experiences" of being secretly kidnapped by non-human entities ( aliens ) and subjected to physica...

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January 6, 2021

Unusual Deaths: Medieval Edition

This episode picks up on Wikipedia's list of unusual deaths, starting with the Medieval period. --- 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 ...

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December 30, 2020

The Etruscan civilization ( / ɪ ˈ t r ʌ s k ən / ) of ancient Italy covered a territory , at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany , western Umbria , and northern Lazio , [2] [3] as well as parts of what are now the Po Valley , Emilia-Romagna , south-eastern...

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December 23, 2020

Christmas Fails

Lapland New Forest was a Christmas -themed park near Ringwood , Hampshire , UK . [1] The park had been advertised as being a "winter wonderland" with a variety of exciting family events such as a Christmas market and a "magical tunnel of light", but the majority of the promised attractions...

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December 16, 2020

The Boston Massacre and Tea Party

The Boston Massacre was a confrontation on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston . The event was heavily publicized by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams . [2] [3] [4] British troops had be...

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December 9, 2020

James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge ; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician [3] [4] [5] and scientific skeptic [6] [7] [8] who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. [9] He was the co-founder of ...

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December 2, 2020

Maximillian I of Mexico

Maximilian I ( Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph Maria , Spanish : Fernando Maximiliano José María de Habsburgo-Lorena ; 6 July 1832 – 19 June 1867) was an Austrian archduke who reigned as the only Emperor of the Second Mexican Empire from 10 April 1864 until his execution on 19 June 1867. A ...

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November 25, 2020

The Jamestown Colony

The Jamestown [a] settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about 2.5 mi (4 km) southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg . [1] It was established by the Vi...

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November 18, 2020

The Atari Video Game Burial

The Atari video game burial was a mass burial of unsold video game cartridges , consoles, and computers in a New Mexico landfill site, undertaken by American video game and home computer company Atari, Inc. in 1983. Up until 2014, the goods buried were rumored to be unsold copies of ...

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November 11, 2020

Gregor MacGregor

General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique"...

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November 4, 2020

Lucia Cole was an imaginary persona that tricked a number of online publications into releasing stories about her upcoming album and celebrity collaborations.

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October 28, 2020

The Spiderman of Denver [True Crime Special]

Theodore Edward Coneys (November 10, 1882 – May 16, 1967), known by the nickname "Denver Spiderman" , an American drifter who committed a murder in 1941 and subsequently occupied the attic of the victim's home for nine months. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosni...

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October 21, 2020

Times Beach is a ghost town in St. Louis County , Missouri , United States, 17 miles (27 km) southwest of St. Louis and 2 miles (3 km) east of Eureka . Once home to more than two thousand people, the town was completely evacuated early in 1983 due to TCDD —also known as dioxin —contamina...

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October 14, 2020

The Battle of Hastings

The Battle of Hastings [a] was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy , and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson , beginning the Norman conquest of England . It took place approximately 7 miles (11 kilometres) north...

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October 7, 2020

The Battle of Stamford Bridge

The Battle of Stamford Bridge ( Old English : Gefeoht æt Stanfordbrycge ) took place at the village of Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire , in England on 25 September 1066, between an English army under King Harold Godwinson and an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Hardrada ...

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September 30, 2020

Hawaiian Rodeo Cowboys

The Hawaiian cowboy, the paniolo , is also a direct descendant of the vaquero of California and Mexico. Experts in Hawaiian etymology believe "Paniolo" is a Hawaiianized pronunciation of español. (The Hawaiian language has no /s/ sound, and all syllables and words must end in a vowel.) P...

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September 23, 2020

The Year Without a Summer

The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer (also the Poverty Year and Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death ) [1] because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.72–1.3 °F). [2] Summer temperatures in Europe were the c...

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September 16, 2020

Uri Geller ( / ˈ ʊ r i ˈ ɡ ɛ l ər / ; [1] Hebrew : אורי גלר ‎; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British [2] illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic . He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other i...

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September 9, 2020

Margaret Lovatt

Margaret Howe Lovatt (born Margaret C. Howe, in 1942) is a volunteer naturalist from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands . In the 1960s, she took part in a NASA -funded research project in which she attempted to teach a dolphin named Peter to understand and mimic human speech. As a child, she w...

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September 2, 2020

This episode contains is a list of cryptids, which are animals presumed by followers of the cryptozoology pseudoscientific subculture to exist on the basis of anecdotal or other evidence considered insufficient by mainstream science . While biologists regularly identify new species fol...

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August 26, 2020

The Amityville Horror

The Amityville Horror is a book by American author Jay Anson , published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is claimed to be based on the paranormal experiences of the Lutz family, but has led to controversy and lawsuits over it...

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August 19, 2020

Prison Breaks [True Crime Special]

Prison breaks are a thing where you're in prison and you don't want to be there anymore so you leave. But not when you're allowed to. Sorry... there was no Wikipedia article to copy and paste from and I panicked. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to...

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August 12, 2020

The Burr-Hamilton Duel

The Burr–Hamilton duel was a duel fought at Weehawken, New Jersey , between Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton , the former Secretary of the Treasury. It occurred early in the morning of July 11, 1804 [1] and was the culmination of a long and bitter rivalry between the two ...

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August 5, 2020

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. [1] The term refers to U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 194...

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July 29, 2020

The Ku Klux Klan ( / ˌ k uː k l ʌ k s ˈ k l æ n , ˌ k j uː -/ ), [a] commonly called the KKK or the Klan , is an American white supremacist hate group whose primary targets are African Americans , as well as Jews , immigrants , leftists , homosexuals , a...

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July 22, 2020

Fyre Festival was a fraudulent luxury music festival founded by Billy McFarland , CEO of Fyre Media Inc, and rapper Ja Rule . It was created with the intent of promoting the company's Fyre app for booking music talent. The festival was scheduled to take place on April 28–30 and May 5–7, 2017,...

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July 15, 2020

The Hitler Diaries

The Hitler Diaries ( German : Hitler-Tagebücher ) were a series of sixty volumes of journals purportedly written by Adolf Hitler , but forged by Konrad Kujau between 1981 and 1983. The diaries were purchased in 1983 for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks (£2.33 million or $3.7 million) by the West ...

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July 8, 2020

Anton Szandor LaVey [3] (born Howard Stanton Levey ; April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997) was an American author, musician, and occultist . [4] He was the founder of the Church of Satan and the religion of LaVeyan Satanism . He authored several books, including The Satanic Bible , T...

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July 1, 2020

Youree Dell Harris (August 12, 1962 – July 26, 2016) was an American television personality best known as Miss Cleo , a spokeswoman for a psychic pay-per-call service called Psychic Readers Network from 1997 to 2003. [1] [2] Harris used various aliases, including Cleomili Harris and Your...

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June 24, 2020

Napoleon's Invasion of Russia

The French invasion of Russia , known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 ( Russian : Отечественная война 1812 года , romanized : Otechestvennaya voyna 1812 goda ) and in France as the Russian campaign ( French : Campagne de Russie ), began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon 's Grande A...

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June 17, 2020

Hedy Lamarr ( / ˈ h eɪ d i / ), born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (November 9, 1914 [a] – January 19, 2000), was an Austrian-American actress, inventor, and film producer. She was part of 30 films in an acting career spanning 28 years, and co-invented an early version of frequency-hop...

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June 10, 2020

Franz Anton Mesmer ( / ˈ m ɛ z m ər / ; [1] German: [ˈmɛsmɐ] ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German doctor with an interest in astronomy . He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called " a...

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June 3, 2020

Steven Frederic Seagal ( / s ɪ ˈ ɡ ɑː l / ; born April 10, 1952) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, martial artist, and musician who holds American, Serbian, and Russian citizenship. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show...

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May 27, 2020

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin ( / r æ ˈ s p j uː t ɪ n / ; [1] Russian: Григорий Ефимович Распутин [ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲɪj jɪˈfʲiməvʲɪtɕ rɐˈsputʲɪn] ; 21 January [ O.S. 9 January] 1869 – 30 December [ O.S. 17 December] 1916) was a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriend...

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May 20, 2020

A spite house is a building constructed or substantially modified to irritate neighbors or any party with land stakes . Because long-term occupation is not the primary purpose of these houses, they frequently sport strange and impractical structures. Our theme song was written and...

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May 13, 2020

Unlucky Lottery Winners

A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Lotteries are outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments; the ...

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May 6, 2020

This week's episode contains a series of short, uplifting stories to help get you through your state's stay at home orders. Or worse, your state's lack of them. --- 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 ...

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April 29, 2020

The Bay of Pigs invasion ( Spanish : invasión de bahía de Cochinos ; sometimes called invasión de playa Girón or batalla de Girón , after the Playa Girón ) was a failed landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro 's Cuban Revol...

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April 22, 2020

Craziest Sports

Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which, [1] through casual or organized participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectato...

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April 15, 2020

The Spanish Flu

The Spanish flu , also known as the 1918 flu pandemic , was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic . Lasting from January 1918 to December 1920, it infected 500 million people – about a quarter of the world's population at the time. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 milli...

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April 8, 2020

Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist , political activist , trade unionist , one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the ...

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April 1, 2020

The Etruscan civilization ( / ɪ ˈ t r ʌ s k ən / ) was a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany , western Umbria , northern Lazio , [1] [2] with offshoots also to the north in the Po Valley , in the current Emilia-Romagna , south-eastern...

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March 25, 2020

The Hubble Space Telescope

he Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble ) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope but it is one of the largest and most versatile, well known both as a vital research tool and...

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March 18, 2020

1904 Olympic Marathon

The men's marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis took place on August 30 of that year, over a distance of 24.85 miles (39.99 km). [2] Thirty-two athletes representing four nations competed, but only 14 managed to finish the race, [3] which proved to be a bizarre affair due to...

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March 11, 2020

2019 Pornhub Year in Review

Pornhub is a pornographic video sharing and pornography website. [6] [7] It was launched in Montreal , in 2007. [8] Pornhub also has offices and servers in San Francisco , Houston , New Orleans and London . -- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’...

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March 4, 2020

The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal ( Spanish : Canal de Panamá ) is an artificial 82 km (51 mi) waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean . The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit for maritime trade. Canal locks are at each end to lift ships up ...

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February 26, 2020

Lizzie Borden [True Crime Special]

Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was an American woman who was the main suspect in the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River , Massachusetts . Borden was tried and acquitted of the murders. --- Our theme song was written and performed by...

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February 19, 2020

D. B. Cooper, the Parachute Pirate [True Crime Special]

Dan Cooper is the pseudonym of an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the northwest United States , in the airspace between Portland , Oregon, and Seattle , Washington, on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 24, 1971. [1] [2] The man purchased his airline tick...

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February 12, 2020

Peter Bartholomew, and the Magic Spear of the First Crusade

Peter Bartholomew (died 20 April 1099) was a soldier and mystic from France who was part of the First Crusade as part of the army of Raymond of Saint-Gilles . Peter was initially a servant to William, Lord of Cunhlat.

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February 5, 2020

Jenkem is an inhalant and hallucinogen created from fermented human waste . [1] In the mid-1990s, it was reported to be a popular street drug among Zambian street children. They would reportedly put the feces and urine in a jar or a bucket and seal it with a balloon or lid respectivel...

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January 29, 2020

Walter Freeman, and the Lobotomy

Walter Jackson Freeman II (November 14, 1895 – May 31, 1972) was an American physician who specialized in lobotomy . [1]

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January 22, 2020

Selfie Related Deaths

This episode is about is a list of serious injuries and deaths in which one or more subjects of a selfie were killed or injured, either before, during or after having taken a photo of themselves, with the accident at least in part attributed to the taking of the photo.

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January 15, 2020

Uranus (from the Latin name Ūranus for the Greek god Οὐρανός ) is the seventh planet from the Sun . It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System . Uranus is similar in composition to Neptune , and both have bulk chemical compositions whic...

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January 8, 2020

Killer Petey, the scariest man in Brazil. And on instagram. [True Crime Special]

Pedro Rodrigues Filho (born July 17, 1954 in Santa Rita do Sapucaí , Minas Gerais ), also known as Pedrinho Matador (Killer Petey) , is a Brazilian serial killer who pursued and killed other criminals. His victims included 47 people who were murdered inside the very jails he was imprisoned...

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January 1, 2020

The Spanish Inquisition

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición ), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition ( Inquisición española ), was established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile . It was intended t...

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December 25, 2019

Christmas Observances

The observance of Christmas around the world varies by country. The day of Christmas, and in some cases the day before and the day after , are recognized by many national governments and cultures worldwide, including in areas where Christianity is a minority religion. In some non-Chris...

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December 18, 2019

Castration (also known as orchiectomy ) is any action, surgical , chemical , or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles : the male gonad . Surgical castration is bilateral orchidectomy (excision of both testes), and chemical castration uses pharmaceutical drugs to ...

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December 11, 2019

Jimmy Hoffa [True Crime Special]

James Riddle Hoffa (born February 14, 1913; disappeared July 30, 1975, later declared dead July 30, 1982) was an American labor union leader who served as the President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) union from 1957 until 1971. Our theme song was written and perf...

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December 4, 2019

John McAfee [True Crime Special]

John David McAfee ( / ˈ m æ k ə f iː / MAK-ə-fee ; [1] [2] born September 18, 1945) is a British-American computer programmer and businessman. He founded the software company McAfee Associates in 1987 and ran it until 1994, when he resigned from the company. McAfee Associate...

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November 27, 2019

The Death of Princess Diana

In the early hours of 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died in hospital after being injured in a car crash in a road tunnel in Paris , France. Her partner, Dodi Fayed , and their driver, Henri Paul , were pronounced dead at the scene. Their bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones , survived seri...

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November 20, 2019

William Penn Patrick, Multi-Level Marketing Pioneer

William Penn Patrick (March 31, 1930 – June 9, 1973) was an American entrepreneur and businessman. He was the owner of Holiday Magic , Leadership Dynamics , and Mind Dynamics . Patrick was a proponent of the sour grapes philosophy, and has been widely quoted as stating: "Those who condemn ...

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November 13, 2019

Common Scams and Cons

This list of confidence tricks and scams should not be considered complete, but covers the most common examples. Confidence tricks and scams are difficult to classify, because they change often and often contain elements of more than one type. Throughout this list, the perpetrator of the confid...

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November 6, 2019

The USS Indianapolis

USS Indianapolis (CL/CA-35) was a Portland -class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy , named for the city of Indianapolis, Indiana . Launched in 1931, the vessel served as the flagship for the commander of Scouting Force 1 for eight years, then as flagship for Admiral Raymon...

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October 30, 2019

Franklin Delano Roosevelt ( / ˈ r oʊ z ə v əl t / , [1] /- v ɛ l t / ; [2] January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), often referred to by the initials FDR , was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until h...

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October 23, 2019

The Battle of the Crater

he Battle of the Crater was a battle of the American Civil War , part of the Siege of Petersburg . It took place on July 30, 1864, between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia , commanded by General Robert E. Lee , and the Union Army of the Potomac , commanded by Maj. Gen. Geor...

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October 16, 2019

Coney Island is a residential and commercial neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern part of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City . The neighborhood is bounded by Sea Gate to its west, Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the sou...

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October 9, 2019

Failed Publicity Stunts

On this week's episode, we discuss several failed publicity stunts, like the one in "Crush, Texas." Crush, Texas was a temporary "city" established as the site of a one-day publicity stunt in the U.S. state of Texas in 1896. William George Crush, general passenger agent of the Missouri–Kan...

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October 2, 2019

Enron [True Crime Special]

Enron Corporation was an American energy , commodities , and services company based in Houston , Texas . It was founded in 1985 as a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth , both relatively small regional companies. Before its bankruptcy on December 3, 2001, Enron employed app...

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September 25, 2019

List of Unusual Deaths (The Greeks)

There is no way to summarize this episode. --- 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.

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September 18, 2019

The Voyager Program

The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two robotic probes , Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 , to study the outer Solar System . [1] The probes were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable alignment of Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus and Neptune . Althoug...

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September 11, 2019

There are many conspiracy theories that attribute the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda [1] including that there was advance knowledge of the attacks among high-level government officials. Gov...

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September 4, 2019

Vlad the Impaler

Vlad III Dracula , known as Vlad the Impaler ( Romanian : Vlad Țepeș , Bulgarian : Влад Цепеш , pronunciation: [ ˈ v l a d ˈ ts e p e ʃ ] ) or Vlad Dracula ( / ˈ d r æ k j ə l ə / ( Romanian : Vlad Drăculea , pronunciation: [ ˈ d r ə k u l e...

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August 28, 2019

The Bhopal Disaster [True Crime Special]

The Bhopal disaster , also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy , was a gas leak incident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal , Madhya Pradesh, India. It is considered to be the world's worst industrial disaster . [1] ...

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August 21, 2019

Washington Irving Bishop

Washington Irving Bishop , also known as Wellington (4 March 1855 – 13 May 1889) was an American stage mentalist . He started his career as an assistant under the muscle reader J. Randall Brown , but was most well known for his performance of the blindfold drive . [1]

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August 14, 2019

Old West Gunfights

Gunslinger / ˈ ɡ ʌ n s l ɪ ŋ ər / and gunfighter are words used historically to refer to men in the American Old West who had gained a reputation of being dangerous with a gun and had participated in gunfights and shootouts. Gunman was a more common term used for these individ...

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August 7, 2019

El Chapo [True Crime Special]

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera ( / ˈ ɡ ʊ z m æ n / ; [6] Spanish: [xoaˈkin aɾtʃiˈβaldo ɣusˈman loˈeɾa] ; born 4 April 1957), [7] known as " El Chapo " ("Shorty", pronounced [el ˈtʃapo] ) because of his 168 cm (5 ft 6 in) stature, is a Mexican drug lord and former leader...

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July 31, 2019

The Oneida Community

The Oneida Community was a perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York . The community believed that Jesus had already returned in AD 70, making it possible for them to bring about Jesus's millennial kingdom themselves, and be free ...

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July 24, 2019

The Trolley Problem

The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics . The general form of the problem is this: You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up (or otherwise incapacitated) people lying on the tracks. You are standing next to a lever that controls a switch . If you pull the lever,...

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July 17, 2019

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley ( / ˈ æ l eɪ s t ər ˈ k r oʊ l i / ; born Edward Alexander Crowley ; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist , ceremonial magician , poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema , identifying himself as the...

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July 10, 2019

Andree's Arctic Balloon Expedition

Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 was an effort to reach the North Pole in which all three expedition members perished. S. A. Andrée , the first Swedish balloonist , proposed a voyage by hydrogen balloon from Svalbard to either Russia or Canada, which was to pass, with luck, straig...

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July 3, 2019

Mary Toft, the Lady that Gave Birth to Rabbits

Mary Toft (née Denyer ; c. 1701–1763), also spelled Tofts , was an English woman from Godalming , Surrey, who in 1726 became the subject of considerable controversy when she tricked doctors into believing that she had given birth to rabbits . Our theme song was written and performed by...

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June 26, 2019

The Mountain Meadows Massacre

The Mountain Meadows massacre was a series of attacks on the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah . The attacks began on September 7 and culminated on September 11, 1857, resulting in the mass slaughter of most in the emigrant party by members of the Uta...

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June 19, 2019

Project MKUltra , also called the CIA mind control program , is the code name given to a program of experiments on human subjects that were designed and undertaken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency —and which were, at times, illegal. [1] [2] [3] Experiments on humans were...

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June 12, 2019

The Finland Conspiracy

The Finland conspiracy states that Finland is not a real country. Not only is it not a real country but there is actually no landmass there at all, and the space between Sweden and Russia is actually empty ocean. (Source: Reddit. So you know it's legit.) Our theme song was written and perfor...

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June 5, 2019

The demon core was a 6.2-kilogram (14 lb) subcritical mass of plutonium measuring 89 millimetres (3.5 in) in diameter, which was involved in two criticality accidents , on August 21, 1945 and May 21, 1946. The core was intended for use in a third World War II nuclear bomb, but remained in us...

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May 29, 2019

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard ( / ˈ h ʌ b ər d / HUB-ərd ; [1] March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy stories, and the founder of the Church of Scientology . In 1950, Hubbard authored Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Heal...

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May 22, 2019

The Scopes Monkey Trial

The Scopes Trial , formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial , was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes , was accused of violating Tennessee 's Butler Act , whi...

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May 15, 2019

Topsy the Elephant

Topsy (circa 1875 – January 4, 1903) was a female Asian elephant put to death at a Coney Island , New York , amusement park by electrocution in January 1903. 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 fi...

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May 8, 2019

Ching Shih [1] :65 ( Chinese : 鄭氏 ; literally: 'widow of Zheng') (born Shih Yang ( Chinese : 石陽 ; 1775–1844), a.k.a. Cheng I Sao ( Chinese : 鄭一嫂 ), was a Chinese pirate leader who terrorized the China Seas during the Jiaqing Emperor period of the Qing dynasty in...

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May 1, 2019

Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable [B1] :19 survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe , and for that injury's reported effects o...

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April 24, 2019

The Boy Convicted of Conspiring to Murder Himself [True Crime Special]

When a 14-year-old British boy was savagely stabbed, no one could have imagined the bizarre chat-room fantasy world that lay behind the attack. A story of a near-fatal Internet attraction. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/02/bachrach200502 --- Our theme song was written and performed b...

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April 17, 2019

The Ludlow Massacre

The Ludlow Massacre emanated from a labor conflict: the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel and Iron Company guards attacked a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado , on April 20, 1914, with the National Guard using machine guns to fire into the...

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April 10, 2019

William Chaloner and Victor Lustig

William Chaloner (1650 – 22 March 1699) [1] [2] was a serial counterfeit coiner and confidence trickster , who was imprisoned in Newgate Prison several times and eventually proven guilty of high treason by Sir Isaac Newton , Master of the Royal Mint . He was hanged on the gallows...

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April 3, 2019

Dr. Chuck Tingle is a pseudonymous author of gay niche erotica. [1] [2] [3] He self-publishes his works through Amazon.com , primarily as ebooks , but also as paperbacks and audiobooks (narrated by Sam Rand). [4] [5] [6] [7] Tingle began his career by writing dinosa...

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March 27, 2019

Salish Sea Human Foot Discoveries

Since August 20, 2007, at least 20 detached human feet have been found on the coasts of the Salish Sea in British Columbia , Canada, and Washington , US. The first discovery, on August 20, 2007, was on Jedediah Island in British Columbia. Feet have been discovered on the coasts of islands in...

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March 20, 2019

David Koresh [True Crime Special]

David Koresh ( / k ə ˈ r ɛ ʃ / ; born Vernon Wayne Howell ; August 17, 1959 – April 19, 1993) was the American [2] [3] leader of the Branch Davidians sect, [4] believing himself to be its final prophet . Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you...

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March 13, 2019

Bottles of Beer

A beer bottle is a bottle designed as a container for beer . Such designs vary greatly in size and shape, but the glass commonly is brown or green to reduce spoilage from light, especially ultraviolet . Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support ...

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March 6, 2019

History of the Toilet

A toilet [n 1] is a piece of hardware used for the collection or disposal of human urine and feces . In other words: "Toilets are sanitation facilities at the user interface that allow the safe and convenient urination and defecation ". [1] Toilets can be with or without flushing wat...

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February 27, 2019

My Immortal is a Harry Potter fan fiction serially published on FanFiction.Net between 2006 and 2007. Known for its incomprehensible narrative and constant digressions, the story centers on a 17-year-old female vampire called Ebony, a non-canonical character, and her relationships with ...

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February 20, 2019

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), more commonly known as Ida B. Wells , was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement . She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored P...

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February 13, 2019

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova ( Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒaːkomo dʒiˈrɔːlamo kazaˈnɔːva; - kasa-] ; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice . [1] [2] His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie ( Story of My Life ), is regarded as one o...

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February 6, 2019

Le Pétomane ( / l ə ˈ p ɛ t ə m eɪ n / , French pronunciation: [ləpetɔˈman] ) was the stage name of the French flatulist (professional farter) and entertainer Joseph Pujol (June 1, 1857 – 1945). He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles , which ...

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January 30, 2019

The Entertainment Software Rating Board

The Entertainment Software Rating Board ( ESRB ) is an American self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games . The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association (formerly the Interactive Digital Software Association), in...

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January 23, 2019

Rodney King [True Crime Special]

Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) was a construction worker turned writer and activist after surviving an act of police brutality by the Los Angeles Police Department . On March 3, 1991, King was violently beaten by LAPD officers during his arrest for fleeing and evading on Cal...

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January 16, 2019

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. During the nineteenth century, alcoholism , family violence, and saloon-based political corruption prompted prohibitioni...

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January 9, 2019

Carrie Amelia Nation (forename sometimes spelled Carry ; [1] November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911) was an American woman who was a radical member of the temperance movement , which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition . She is remembered for attacking alcohol-serving establishments ...

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January 2, 2019

The Gregorian Calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used civil calendar in the world. [1] [2] [Note 1] It is named after Pope Gregory XIII , who introduced it in October 1582. The calendar spaces leap years to make the average year 365.2425 days long, approximating the 365.2422 day tropical ...

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December 26, 2018

Sigmund Freud ( / f r ɔɪ d / FROYD ; [3] German: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt] ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud ; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis , a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a p...

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December 19, 2018

Stede Bonnet (1688 [1] – 10 December 1718) [2] [3] was an early eighteenth-century Barbadian pirate , sometimes called "The Gentleman Pirate" [4] because he was a moderately wealthy land-owner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the...

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December 12, 2018

The Valdivia Earthquake

The 1960 Valdivia earthquake (Spanish: Terremoto de Valdivia ) or Great Chilean earthquake ( Gran terremoto de Chile ) of 22 May is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. Various studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale . It occurred in the afternoon (19:11 GMT ...

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December 5, 2018

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency ( ARPA ), the agency was created in Feb...

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November 28, 2018

Lake Peigneur (locally pronounced [pæ̃j̃æ̹ɾ] ) is a saline [A] lake in the US state of Louisiana , 1.2 miles (1.9 km) north of Delcambre and 9.1 miles (14.6 km) west of New Iberia , near the northernmost tip of Vermilion Bay . With a maximum depth of 200 feet (61 m), it is the deepest lak...

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November 21, 2018

Sex robots or sexbots are hypothetical anthropomorphic robot sex dolls . [1] As of 2018, although elaborately instrumented sex dolls have been created by a number of inventors, no fully functioning [ vague ] sex robots exist. There is controversy as to whether developing them would ...

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November 14, 2018

1980 Damascus Titan Missile Explosion

The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also known as the Damascus accident [1] ) was a 1980 U.S. Broken Arrow incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The incident occurred on September 18–19, 1980, at Missile Complex 374-7 in rural Arkansas when a U.S. Ai...

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November 7, 2018

The Electoral College

The United States Electoral College is a body of electors established by the United States Constitution , constituted every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the United States . The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, and an absolute maj...

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October 31, 2018

The Dyatlov Pass Incident

The Dyatlov Pass incident ( Russian : Ги́бель тургру́ппы Дя́тлова ) refers to the unsolved deaths of nine ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union (now Russia ) between 1 February and 2 February 1959. The experienced trekking group, who were all from the Ural Polytec...

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October 24, 2018

Robert Smalls (April 5, 1839 – February 23, 1915) was an enslaved African American who escaped to freedom and became a ship's pilot, sea captain, and politician. He freed himself, his crew and their families from slavery during the American Civil War by commandeering a Confederate transport s...

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October 17, 2018

David Vaughan Icke ( / aɪ k / ; born 29 April 1952) is an English writer and public speaker. A former footballer [1] and sports broadcaster, Icke has been known since the 1990s as a professional conspiracy theorist . [2] [3] He is the author of over 20 books and numerous DVDs, an...

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October 10, 2018

Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 [3] – January 8, 1880), known as Emperor Norton , was a citizen of San Francisco , California who proclaimed himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States" in 1859. He later assumed the secondary title of "Protector of Mexico". [4] Norton was born...

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October 3, 2018

The Nazino affair

The Nazino affair ( Russian : Назинская трагедия , translit. Nazinskaya Tragediya ) was the mass deportation of 6,000 people to Nazino Island in the Soviet Union in May 1933. The deportees, mostly political prisoners and petty criminals , were forcibly sent to the small, isolat...

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September 26, 2018

Julie d'Aubigny (1670/1673–1707), better known as Mademoiselle Maupin or La Maupin , was a 17th-century swordswoman and opera singer. Her tumultuous career and flamboyant life were the subject of gossip and colourful stories in her own time, and inspired numerous portrayals afterwards. Théo...

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September 19, 2018

The Luddites were a radical group of English textile workers and weavers in the 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a "fraudulent and deceitful manner" to get around standard labour practices. [1] Luddites feared...

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September 12, 2018

History of Sexology

Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality , including human sexual interests, behaviors and functions. [1] The term sexology does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sexuality, such as political science or social criticism . [2] [3] Our theme song was...

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September 5, 2018

Gloria Ramirez (January 11, 1963 – February 19, 1994) [1] was an American woman dubbed "the Toxic Lady" by the media when several hospital workers became ill after exposure to her body and blood. She had been admitted to the emergency department while suffering from late-stage cervical canc...

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August 29, 2018

Utsuro-bune ( うつろ舟 'hollow ship' ), also Utsuro-fune, and Urobune , refers to an unknown object that allegedly washed ashore in 1803 in Hitachi province on the eastern coast of Japan .When defining Utsuro-bune, the bune part means "boat" while Utsuro means empty, or hollow. Accounts of th...

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August 22, 2018

The Everleigh Club

The Everleigh Club was a high-class brothel which operated in Chicago, Illinois from February 1900 until October 1911. [1] It was owned and operated by Ada and Minna Everleigh . [1] Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a...

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August 15, 2018

The Great Chicago Fire

The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to Tuesday, October 10, 1871. The fire killed up to 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km 2 ) of Chicago , Illinois , and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. [2] Our theme song was ...

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August 8, 2018

A vibrator is a sex toy that is used on the body to produce pleasurable erotic stimulation . Most 2010-era vibrators contain an electric-powered device which pulsates or throbs, which is used to stimulate erogenous zones such as the clitoris , the vulva or vagina , penis , scrotum or ...

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August 1, 2018

The Darien Scheme

The Darien scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darién in the late 1690s. The aim was for the colony to have an overland route that connected the Pac...

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July 25, 2018

The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle , also known as the Devil's Triangle , is a loosely-defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean , where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Most reputable sources dismiss the idea that there is an...

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July 18, 2018

Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), also known as Typhoid Mary , was an Irish-American cook. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever . She was presumed to have infected 51 people, thr...

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July 11, 2018

Tsar Bomba ( Russian : Царь-бо́мба , tr. Tsar'-bómba , IPA: [t͡sarʲ ˈbombə] , lit. Tsar Ivan bomb/King of Bombs ;) was the Western nickname for the Soviet RDS-220 hydrogen bomb ( code name Ivan [3] or Vanya ), the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created. Its t...

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July 4, 2018

History of Cocaine

Cocaine , also known as coke , is a strong stimulant mostly used as a recreational drug . [10] It is commonly snorted , inhaled as smoke, or dissolved and injected into a vein . [9] Mental effects may include loss of contact with reality , an intense feeling of happiness , or agitat...

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June 27, 2018

Principality of Sealand

The Principality of Sealand , more commonly known as Sealand , is a micronation that claims Roughs Tower , an offshore platform located in the North Sea approximately 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) off the coast of Suffolk , England, as its territory. Roughs Tower is a disused Maunsell Sea Fort , ...

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June 20, 2018

Tulsa Race Riot

The Tulsa race riot , sometimes referred to as the Tulsa massacre , [2] [3] [4] [5] Tulsa pogrom , [6] [7] [8] or Tulsa race riot of 1921 , took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when a white mob attacked residents and businesses of the African-American community of ...

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June 13, 2018

Phantly Roy Bean, Jr. (c. 1825 – March 16, 1903) was an eccentric U.S. saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas , who called himself "The Law West of the Pecos ". According to legend, Judge Roy Bean held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande on a desolate stret...

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June 6, 2018

The Hatfield-McCoy Feud

The Hatfield–McCoy feud or the Hatfield–McCoy war as some papers at the time called it, involved two rural families of the West Virginia – Kentucky area along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River in the years 1863–1891. The Hatfields of West Virginia were led by William Anderson "Devil An...

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May 30, 2018

"Lord" Timothy Dexter

Timothy Dexter (January 22, 1747 – October 23, 1806) was an American businessman noted for his writing and eccentricity . --- To see us live in Chicago on August 11th, click here . --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per...

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May 23, 2018

The Sacred Band of Thebes

The Sacred Band of Thebes ( Ancient Greek : Ἱερὸς Λόχος , Hieròs Lókhos ) was a troop of select soldiers, consisting of 150 pairs of male lovers which formed the elite force of the Theban army in the 4th century BC. Its predominance began with its crucial role in the Battle of Leuc...

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May 16, 2018

Inventors Killed by their own Inventions

This episode is a list of inventors whose deaths were in some manner caused by or related to a product, process, procedure, or other innovation that they invented or designed. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode bas...

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May 9, 2018

Hirō "Hiroo" Onoda ( 小野田寛郎 Onoda Hirō , 19 March 1922 – 16 January 2014) was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who fought in World War II and was a Japanese holdout who did not surrender in August 1945. After the war ended Onoda spent 29 years holding out in the Philippin...

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May 2, 2018

Fecal Microbiota Transplant

Fecal microbiota transplant ( FMT ), also known as a stool transplant , [1] is the process of transplantation of fecal bacteria from a healthy individual into a recipient. FMT involves restoration of the colonic microflora by introducing healthy bacterial flora through infusion of stool, e....

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April 25, 2018

A code duello is a set of rules for a one-on-one combat, or duel . Codes duello regulate dueling and thus help prevent vendettas between families and other social factions. They ensure that non-violent means of reaching agreement be exhausted and that harm be reduced, both by limiting the te...

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April 18, 2018

A tulip, known as "the Viceroy" ( viseroij ), displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalog Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen . Its bulb was offered for sale between 3,000 and 4,200 guilders (florins) depending on size ( aase ). A skilled craftsworker at the time earned about 300 guilders a ye...

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April 11, 2018

The Great Stink

The Great Stink was an event in central London in July and August 1858 during which the hot weather exacerbated the smell of untreated human waste and industrial effluent that was present on the banks of the River Thames . The problem had been mounting for some years, with an ageing and inad...

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April 4, 2018

Carl Tanzler [True Crime Special]

Carl Tanzler Tanzler in 1942 Born February 8, 1877 Dresden , German Empire Died July 3, 1952 (aged 75) Pasco County, Florida , U.S. Occupation radiology technician Spouse(s) Doris Tanzler Children Ayesha Tanzler, Clarista Ta...

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March 28, 2018

Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona . It has been owned by the University of Arizona since 2011. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its pla...

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March 21, 2018

In this week's episode, Heath decides to pull an audible and not use a Wikipedia article at all, so that I have to improvise the description box. So... how about them basketballs, huh? Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode b...

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March 14, 2018

Roy Cleveland Sullivan (February 7, 1912 – September 28, 1983) was a United States park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia . Between 1942 and 1977, Sullivan was hit by lightning on seven different occasions and survived all of them. For this reason, he gained a nickname "Human ...

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March 7, 2018

The Voyage of the James Caird

The voyage of the James Caird was a small-boat journey from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean, a distance of 800 miles (1,300 km). Undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions, it aimed to obtain rescue for the main ...

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February 28, 2018

The Endurance Expedition

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914–17), also known as the Endurance Expedition , is considered the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration . Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton , the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarcti...

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February 21, 2018

Enrique of Malacca

Enrique of Malacca ( Spanish : Enrique de Malaca ; Portuguese : Henrique de Malaca ), was a native of the Malay Archipelago who became a slave of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the 16th century. Italian historian Antonio Pigafetta , who wrote the most comprehensi...

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February 14, 2018

Heaven's Gate was an American UFO religious millenarian cult based in San Diego , California , founded in 1974 and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985) until their deaths. [1] On March 26, 1997, police discovered the bodies of 39 members of the group, ...

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February 7, 2018

Erik Jan Hanussen

Erik Jan Hanussen , born Hermann Steinschneider (2 June 1889, in Vienna – 25 March 1933, in Berlin ), was an Austrian Jewish publicist, charlatan and clairvoyant performer. Acclaimed in his lifetime as a hypnotist , mentalist , occultist , and astrologer , Hanussen was active in We...

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January 31, 2018

Charles Ponzi , (born Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi ; March 3, 1882 – January 18, 1949), was an Italian swindler and con artist in the U.S. and Canada. His aliases include Charles Ponci , Carlo , and Charles P. Bianchi . [1] Born and raised in Italy, he became known in t...

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January 24, 2018

The Challenger Disaster

On January 28, 1986, the NASA shuttle orbiter mission STS-51-L and the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-99) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, which consisted of five NASA astronauts and two payload specialists . The spacecraft disin...

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January 17, 2018

The Ryugyong Hotel

The Ryugyong Hotel ( Chosŏn'gŭl : 류경려관 ; sometimes anglicised as Ryu-Gyong Hotel or Yu-Kyung Hotel ) [4] is an unfinished (although topped-out ) 105-story, 330 metres (1,080 ft)-tall pyramid -shaped skyscraper in Pyongyang , North Korea . Its name ("capital of willows ") is also o...

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January 10, 2018

Salem Witch Trials

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging . Five others (including...

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January 3, 2018

The Hatpin Peril

A hatpin is a decorative and functional pin for holding a hat to the head, usually by the hair. In Western culture , hatpins are almost solely used by women and are often worn in a pair. They are typically around 20 cm in length, with the pinhead being the most decorated part. Hatpins were...

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December 27, 2017

Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion or the Taiping Civil War was a massive rebellion or civil war in China fought between the established Manchu -led Qing dynasty and the Christian millenarian movement of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom between 1850 to 1864. Our theme song was written and perf...

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December 20, 2017

The Eggnog Riot

The Eggnog Riot , sometimes known as the Grog Mutiny , was a riot that took place at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York , on 24–25 December 1826. It was caused by a drunken Christmas Day party in the North Barracks of the academy. Two days prior to the incident, a l...

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December 13, 2017

Episode 35: The Battle of the Alamo

The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution . Following a 13-day siege , Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar (modern-day San Antonio , ...

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December 6, 2017

The most accurate measurement of the size of a human penis can be derived from several readings at different times since there is natural minor variability in size depending upon arousal level, time of day, room temperature, frequency of sexual activity, and reliability of measurement. When compa...

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November 29, 2017

The Dreadnought Hoax

The Dreadnought hoax was a practical joke pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship , the battleship HMS Dreadnought , to a fake delegation of Abyssinian royals. The hoax drew attention in Britain to the emergence of the Bloom...

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November 22, 2017

Ned Kelly [True Crime Special]

Edward "Ned" Kelly (December 1854 [a] – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger , outlaw, gang leader and convicted police murderer. Recognised as the last and most famous of the bushrangers, he is best-known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout with the p...

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November 15, 2017

Action Park is an amusement park located in Vernon, New Jersey , United States, on the grounds of the Mountain Creek ski resort. The park consists primarily of water-based attractions and originally opened to the public in 1978 under the ownership of Great American Recreation, who also owned...

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November 8, 2017

Boudica's Rebellion

Boudica or Boudicca ( / ˈ b uː d ɪ k ə / , Latinised as Boadicea or Boudicea / b oʊ d ɪ ˈ s iː ə / , and known in Welsh as Buddug [ˈbɨ̞ðɨ̞ɡ] ) [1] [2] was a queen of the British Celtic Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces ...

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November 1, 2017

Cold War Programs

The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc (the United States , its NATO allies and others). Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common...

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October 25, 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrare Tarrare (c. 1772 – 1798), sometimes spelled Tarare, was a French showman and soldier, noted for his unusual eating habits. Able to eat vast amounts of meat, he was constantly hungry; his parents could not provide for him, and he was turned out of the fa...

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October 18, 2017

John R. Brinkley

John Romulus Brinkley (later John Richard Brinkley ; July 8, 1885 – May 26, 1942) was an American who fraudulently claimed to be a medical doctor (he had no legitimate medical education and bought his medical degree from a " diploma mill ") who became known as the "goat-gland doctor" after he ...

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October 11, 2017

Elizabeth Cochran Seaman [1] (May 5, 1864 [2] – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly , was an American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, in emulation of Jules Verne 's fictional character Phileas Fogg , and a...

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October 4, 2017

The Cobra Effect

The cobra effect occurs when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse, [1] [2] as a type of unintended consequence . The term is used to illustrate the causes of incorrect stimulation in economy and politics. [2] --- Our theme song was written and performed b...

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September 27, 2017

The Oak Island Mystery

The Oak Island mystery refers to various stories of buried treasure and unexplained objects on Oak Island , Nova Scotia , Canada. --- 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 ...

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September 20, 2017

Marie Skłodowska Curie ( / ˈ k j ʊr i , k j ʊ ˈ r iː / ; [2] French: [kyʁi] ; Polish: [kʲiˈri] ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska ; [ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska] ) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conduc...

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September 13, 2017

PS General Slocum / SS Eastland

The PS General Slocum was a passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn , New York , in 1891. During her service history, she was involved in a number of mishaps, including multiple groundings and collisions. On June 15, 1904, the General Slocum caught fire and sank in the East River of New...

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September 6, 2017

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy , or simply Lost Cause , is a literary and intellectual movement [1] that describes the Confederate cause as a heroic one against great odds despite its defeat. The beliefs endorse the virtues of the antebellum South , viewing the American Civil War as an...

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August 30, 2017

Tycho Brahe ( / ˌ t aɪ k oʊ ˈ b r ɑː h i , ˈ b r ɑː , ˈ b r ɑː ə / , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe ( Danish: [ˈtyːə ˈʌdəsn̩ ˈbʁɑː] [n 1] ); 14 December 1546 – 24 October 1601) was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary...

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August 23, 2017

Eugenics ( / j uː ˈ dʒ ɛ n ɪ k s / ; from Greek εὐγενής eugenes "well-born" from εὖ eu , "good, well" and γένος genos , "race, stock, kin") [2] [3] is a set of beliefs and practices that aims at improving the genetic quality of a group of individuals. [4] [5] The e...

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August 16, 2017

The Cadaver Synod

The Cadaver Synod (also called the Cadaver Trial ; Latin : Synodus Horrenda ) is the name commonly given to the posthumous ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus , held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January 897. [1] The trial was conducted by Pope Stephen VI (some...

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August 9, 2017

The Battle of Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt ( / ˈ æ ʒ ɪ n k ʊ r / ; in French, Azincourt French pronunciation: [azɛ̃kuʁ] ) was a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War . [a] The battle took place on Friday, 25 October 1415 ( Saint Crispin's Day ) in the County of Saint-Pol , Artois ...

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August 2, 2017

The Great Molasses Flood

The Great Molasses Flood , also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster or the Great Boston Molasses Flood , occurred on January 15, 1919 in the North End neighborhood of Boston , Massachusetts . A large molasses storage tank burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an est...

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July 26, 2017

New Coke was the unofficial name for the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in April 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink , Coca-Cola (also called Coke ). New Coke originally had no separate name of its own but was simply known as "th...

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July 19, 2017

The Donner Party

The Donner Party , or Donner-Reed Party , was a group of American pioneers led by George Donner and James F. Reed who set out for California in a wagon train in May 1846. They were delayed by a series of mishaps and mistakes, and spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevad...

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July 12, 2017

Chung Ling Soo was the stage name of the American magician William Ellsworth Robinson (April 2, 1861 – March 24, 1918), who is mostly remembered today for his death after a bullet catch trick went wrong.

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July 5, 2017

Ghost hunting is a fringe pseudoscience wherein its adherents visit and investigate locations that are reported to be haunted by ghosts . Typically, a ghost hunting team will attempt to collect evidence that they see as supportive of paranormal activity. Ghost hunters often use a variety...

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June 28, 2017

John Harvey Kellogg

John Harvey Kellogg , M.D. (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan , who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition , enemas , and exercise . Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism for healt...

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June 21, 2017

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment ( SPE ) was an attempt to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison guards . It was conducted at Stanford University on August 14–20, 1971, by a research group led by psychology professor ...

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June 14, 2017

J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972), better known as J. Edgar Hoover , was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. He was appointed as the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation — the FBI's predecessor — in 1924 and was ins...

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June 7, 2017

Centralia is a borough and near- ghost town in Columbia County , Pennsylvania , United States . Its population has dwindled from more than 1,000 residents in 1980 to only 10 in 2010 [5] —a result of the coal mine fire which has been burning beneath the borough since 1962. Centralia, whi...

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May 31, 2017

Watergate [True Crime Special]

Watergate was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s, following a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972 and President Richard Nixon ’s administration ’s ...

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May 24, 2017

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837 and was the founder of the Democratic Party . Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson served in Congress and gained fame as a...

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May 17, 2017

The Goiânia accident

The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, at Goiânia , in the Brazilian state of Goiás , after an old radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in...

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May 17, 2017

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Only four episodes in and we've worked "ass" in to the title twice. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria , heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg , occurred on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo when they were shot dead ...

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May 17, 2017

Kim Jong-un born 8 January 1984 or 5 July 1984) [3] is the Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly referred to as North Korea . Kim is the second child of Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) and his consort ...

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May 17, 2017

Near Death Experience

A near-death experience ( NDE ) is a personal experience associated with death or impending death . Such experiences may encompass a variety of sensations including detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and t...

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May 17, 2017

The Chernobyl Disaster

The Chernobyl disaster , also referred to as the Chernobyl accident , was a catastrophic nuclear accident . It occurred on 26 April 1986 in the No.4 light water graphite moderated reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat , in what was then part of the Ukrainian Soviet...

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May 15, 2017

Promo for First Episode

This is a promo for our first episode. Expect all of the first five episodes to drop on Wednesday, May 17, 2017.

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