December 13, 2025 • 29 mins
Ben, Noel and Max return with this week's Classic episode! Monopoly is a pretty divisive game, and people tend to either love it or hate it. However, for hundreds of Allied POWs captured during World War II, Monopoly became more than a mere diversion -- it became, instead, their ticket to freedom. Join the guys as they explore the strange sequence of events that led the UK to turn Monopoly into a real-life escape kit.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow Ridiculous Historians. We are returning with this week's classic episode,
a board game that I think has fascinated all of
us for quite some time, the Landlords Game. The Landlords
Game was the original, non broken version. You're right, we are.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Talking about Monopoly, but not the history of the game itself,
though we'll get into a bit of that, but how
the physical board itself actually helped Allied POWs captured during
World War Two stage their great escape.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Beautiful Let's roll it. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:01):
If you were, like millions of other people throughout history
and around the world, then you have probably at least
once played some sort of game with your friends, whether
it's a game of dice, a game of cards, or
important for our purposes today, a board game. And today's
episode is about board games, but not in the way
(01:22):
you think. Welcome to Ridiculous History. My name is Ben,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm a fan of the old five finger file a
you know, where you take a blade and pop it
real quick between the gaps between your fingers.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Uh huh have you ever done that?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Only in video game form? It's an available game, and
I believe Red Dead Redemption.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I haven't found it yet in the new one, but
hopefully it exists. But yeah, that's a pretty scary game.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I've played that game in real life before and I
never went fast enough to actually cut myself.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Seriously, was that back when you spent time in that
prison camp in the pow camp?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, they called it church camp, but you know what,
I think six on one hands, half a dozen in
the other.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Not to derail the topic before we even get there,
but I just watched both documentaries about the Ill Fated
fire Festival. We talked about this, and that was sort
of like being in a pow camp. F y r E.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
The ill Fated, the ill fated festival that was most
closely associated with jaw Rules when it broke in the news.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And the main guy who was the perpetrator of the
whole hoax is a guy named Billy McFarlane I believe
is his last name. And yeah, he was a real
piece of work. But here's one thing they didn't have
at Firefest. They had these geodesic dome kind of FEMA
tents that were left over. They used that they had
advertised as luxury I believe villas, they had some really
(02:52):
sad looking cheese sandwiches, They had a lot of kind
of gross portapies. They didn't have was the game of Monopoly.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What they also didn't was our super producer, Casey Pegram.
So there they were without Monopoly and without Casey Pegram,
which I think is a grave injustice.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Possibly he could have solved the whole debacle.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Quite possibly. We are, by way of fantastic segues, exploring
the world of Monopoly, but again perhaps not in the
way that you have heard it explored before. For just
a quick look at the strange history of Monopoly. It
was originally invented as something called the Landlord's Game in
(03:34):
nineteen oh four by Elizabeth Maggie, and it was a
real estate and taxation game that was really meant to
inform people about the dangers of unbridled capitalism. And when
this game was more or less stolen from her, the
(03:54):
gameplay was modified so that it rewarded unbridled capitalism. And
nowadays Monopoly is a love it or hate it game
for a lot of people. I've never experienced a huge
falling out with friends, loved ones, relatives and so on
playing Monopoly, but that's because I don't play with cheaters,
(04:17):
and that seems to be one of the big accusations
against winners of Monopoly.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I just think that Monopoly is sort of the board
game equivalent of solitary confinement, and that it's really boring
and find it boring and takes a long time to finish.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, I mean, I could I could see that being
a criticism. It's not for everyone, but it's a tremendously
popular game, you know what I mean, Like even even
people who aren't big fans of it have played it before.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Absolutely, it's very true. Do you think people still play
it now? Like?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah? Fun really absolutely, And they've made a huge business
similar to Trivial Pursuit, they have made a huge business
in selling themed Monopoly boards.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's true, but at least with the Trivial Pursuit branded versions,
they're like questions related to that topic. With Monopoly, it's
just like a different looking board and instead of a shoe,
you've got like a stranger of things, baseball bat or something, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, or a demo gorgan.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
The thing that I always found interesting about Monopoly is
that it is a pale shadow of the board game life,
which is I think much more intriguing. But either way
you look at it, Monopoly is here to stay. It's
a very popular game and during World War Two it
(05:37):
was widely played. It was just as popular in the
United Kingdom as it was in the US. In fact,
there was a manufacturer of Monopoly in the United Kingdom
called Waddington John Wattington Limited, and they had purchased a
license to create this just across the pond, which will
(05:58):
be important later. But no, where are we going with this?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Oh man, We're going so many places. Yeah, it's true.
Wattington was the licensee of the Product's almost like a
franchise deal right where they were allowed to manufacture and
distribute this game in the UK after it had seen
a lot of success in the US. But Wattington, this
company was also very well known for their ability to
(06:22):
print things on silk. And that doesn't seem like a
big deal for our story today, but it turns out
it might be the biggest deal and the thing that
gave Uncle Sam and his minions of espionage the idea
to pull off this amazing caper. I guess we can say.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I think caper is a great word or scheme caper
is a little more fun. Yes, the story really kicks
into gear with a guy named Christopher William Clayton Hutton,
known as Kluddy to his friends, which I think is
just a terrible nickname, not great, not superior. And you know,
Christopher Clayton Hutton or Kluddy is an intelligence officer at
(07:06):
m I nine, and he got this job through a
very strange series of events or an offhands comment when
he applied to work as an intelligence officer in nineteen
thirty nine for the UK War Office. He says in
a quote later, my passport to the whole curious business
(07:27):
has been a casual reference to my thwarted efforts to
get the better of Harry Houdini, the world's greatest escapologist.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That's right, because he his whole deal and the reason
that he was attractive to I six was that he
was kind of a clever guy who was very fascinated
by things like up close magic and little tricks that
might be involved in doing some illusions. And he was
able to apply that to those kind of James Bondy
(07:55):
type gadgets that you that we all know and love,
like you know, a pen that's also an explosive device
or something like that, right.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
A tiny telescope that looks like a cigarette holder, or
compasses on the backs of buttons, boots with hollow heels
that held knives, maps, compasses, and files. But the thing was,
you're right, only it was a brilliant, brilliant man. But
as ingenious as his inventions were, it seemed that the
(08:24):
Germans as they called them, always eventually figured them out,
all of them, that is, except for one. You see,
he came to Waddington Limited and said, hey, you all
manufacture a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Check.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I understand that you print on silk, double check. And
I am of the understanding that you also print a
board game called Monopoly triple check. He probably pronounced it correct.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
These are some important boxes. And add these three boxes
up together you get a way to x this plot
that was gestating in this guy's mind. Because here's the thing.
The reason that it was a big deal to print
on silk is because they could be used to have
maps printed on them, maps that wouldn't deteriorate in the
rain or get torn to shreds if you stepped on them,
(09:17):
or make a noise when you try to clandestinely unfold them.
Maybe in a pow camp or surrounded by enemy troops.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Absolutely, absolutely, you see, this is something that fascinated me
when he's studying up for this episode. Silk maps were
already around because of those advantages that we just named,
silk maps had already been proven superior to the paper
stuff that could disintegrate, tear, make noise, give away your position.
(09:47):
And because Waddington's made silk maps and Monopoly, Kluddy knew
he was onto something. There was one other important ingredient
of wartime reality that that solidified his decision. He knew
that board games were allowed into pow camps, largely because
of the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And also because Germany at this point in the war
had such a bad rep for adhering to the Geneva
Conventions in the way they treated prisoner of war that
they were willing to allow these humanitarian air drops into
their camps, which included things like snacks and you know,
things to pass the time. I think books, but board
(10:32):
games were also okay, and they would also think of
it as a win for them because they figured if
their prisoners were busy occupying themselves playing an interminable board game,
that took ages and ages and ages to finish. Clearly,
I'm not a fan of the game, yeah, but I
mean it would do. It serve its purpose right and
they would probably be thrilled to have the opportunity to
do something like that to pass the time. But there's
(10:54):
the thing. A board game is in a big box
with layers, with stacks of stuff in it. This is
a pretty amazing opportunity for our mister Cluddy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Absolutely, so what they eventually decided to do, Waddington's, we
should note, was initially not one hundred percent on board
with this. So Klutty and the UK government pitched it
to them hard and they said, look, we are We're
(11:27):
going to have this covered stem to stern. We are
not just going to smuggle maps in these monopoly games.
We are also going to include real money hidden with
the monopoly money. We're going to include French, Italian and
German notes just under the actual monopoly cash. What else
(11:49):
did they include?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
They included hidden in little indentations that were cut in
the board itself, because back in those days the boards
were a good bit thicker than they are now, so
they were able to pre label because you know, the
whole label with all the pieces park place and all that.
Just a big old sticker that goes on a piece
of foldable cardboard. They were able to cut these very
shallow indentations that could hold things like files or those
(12:13):
those little compasses you mentioned earlier, the very small ones.
The smaller the better because they wouldn't want it to
be a red flag to any officers, any German guards
handling it, who might think this is way too heavy
for a board game. Right.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
You'll also read other accounts that say playing pieces were
actually the escape items like a compass and a file
were disguised as playing pieces.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
That's interesting because when I picture the whole cutting out
of the indentations into the board thing, it kind of
reminds me of stuff like how you might hide something
in prison by cutting the pages out of the middle
of a book or a bible or something like that
and having like a file or a shift or something
hidden inside. And it's interesting too because this actually was
classified until I want to say, the nineteen eighties, and
(12:57):
the soldiers were structed to destroy these boards. And the
thing is too they had to use their own intuition
to figure out these things are even in there. Which
is the thing that blew me away, because apparently there
was a little red dot on the board that made
that was sort of a clue. I guess that this
is a special board, but it wouldn't have been seen
(13:18):
as anything out of the ordinary other than like a
printing error maybe for the folks that were distributing the boards, say, okay,
the German soldiers, But it takes a lot for you
to think, oh my gosh, this board game surely hides
these secret items.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I don't know, man, you spend a lot of time, yeah,
looking at the same board. So maybe the staff of
the pow Kip just checks it and they shake it
a little bit, but they don't really care because it's
a monopoly game. But then there are a couple points
that I want to hit before they get lost. So
this this board, if you're familiar with Monopoly, does look
(13:55):
very similar. Most importantly, though, the map. You may different
things about the pieces versus things being stuffed in the board,
but the map itself was always hidden within the board,
and I nine covered their tracks very well here. They
invented fake cover organizations to quote unquote donate these parcels
(14:19):
to the camps. So this removed culpability from the Red
Cross because they can't knowingly distribute escape kits, right, So
instead they're not getting stuff from the UK Government. They're
getting stuff from organizations with names like the Licensed Victuallers
Sports Association, the Ladies Knitting Circle, the Jigsaw Puzzle Club
(14:40):
and the Prisoner's Leisure Hour Fund. So as far as
the people actually supplying the kits know, these are legiti
monopoly boards. As far as the Germans know, these are
legitimate monopoly boards, and they just had to wait. It
was a leap of faith to wait for one of
those POW's to say, hey, this piece doesn't look quite normal.
(15:06):
Let me turn it over. Oh there's a compass, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, that's true, and not to mention like that. The
stacks of money, I believe were fake money on top,
fake money on bottom, real money in between. So that
might have been the first thing they gave it away,
right if they're like, think about it, if you're going
to play a nice game of monopoly, you pull out
the fake money and you say, what, what's this and
then there's you know, real money, and that maybe would
make them investigate further.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You think, yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's
quite likely. And it's strange because at first, you know,
your first question is why is this not a film?
Right because it seems like one heck of a story.
But the second question is how much of this is
exaggerated because Monopoly is a cultural icon. The answer is
(15:52):
really not much.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
No, not much. And just to throw in one last point,
Parker Brothers themselves, the creators of the game didn't know
this was going on. This all had to be done
very secretly, and it's not like they would like let
them know. Hey, by the way, is it okay if
we use your beloved board game to rescue some of
our troops? But you know, and again it was not
known for decades because it was classified, and we don't
(16:16):
have any examples of what these might have looked like
because they were all destroyed. Because what if a German
guard had discovered one, the whole jig would be up
for all of the camps. Here's the thing, too, Ben,
they knew which camps they were air dropping these on,
and they had customized packages for each particular spot right right.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
This may have been declassified relatively recently, but it was
kind of an open secret. Way before two thousand and seven.
You could find a nineteen eighty five ap Press article
about this. But again, we don't know what the kits
look like. Because people could describe them, right POW's who
(16:57):
used these to escape, People can recount their appearance, but
as you said, they had to be destroyed. There's a
fantastic article on this in The Atlantic, How Monopoly games
helped ally POW's escape during World War Two by Megan Garber.
And you know, for someone who is severely anti monopoly like,
(17:18):
it seems no offense, you might be noal. This maybe
is redemptive. Does this make you feel a little bit
better about the game?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well? Sure, I think the game has its its positive qualities,
and this certainly is one of them. I just personally
don't enjoy playing it. It's one of those games where
I like the idea of it more than the actual
practice of playing the game. I'm really into a game
called Pandemic, which is a game that you play cooperatively
with people, and I think that's a lot of fun.
Sometimes the adversarial nature of a game isn't isn't for me?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
You know, there are also games such as there's a
great HP Lovecraft game called something like Call of Cthulhu
I can remember. Yeah, and you cooperate with other players
to prevent the coming of the eldritch gods.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah yeah, and Pandemic is very similar that you're preventing
some sort of global outbreak that could annihilate civilization. So
it's all you know, it's all for a good cause. Also,
there's something about monopoly that kind of rubs me the
wrong way, because, like you said at the top of
the show, it used to be much more about, you know,
highlighting the evils and potential negative things that can result
from capitalism run amuck, and now it's just much more about, like, hey,
(18:24):
let's run am uck with some capitalism.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Now that we live in a world of late stage capitalism. Yep, oh,
excuse me, gig economy. Sheesh. Well, we would be remiss
if we did not ask super producer Casey Pegram are
you a monopolist? Casey?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I like it because the experience of playing it is terrible.
I just kind of feel like it's good propaganda for,
you know, a different way of life.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
So sort of like in the way you might watch
a Mystery Science Theater three thousand movie you enjoy the
awfulness of it just for its own sake.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, because I mean it's true to life. True to
life's too, it's too terribly true to life. Casey on
the case, folks. Yeah, I think that's such a great point.
One thing that I was thinking about during the course
of research into today's episode was the fact that going
to jail in monopoly is just part of business and
(19:18):
does not impede your financial or social success in any shape,
fashion or form, sort of like how paying multimillion dollar
fines is just the cost of business for a lot
of banks. I don't want to get too oriented towards
the corporatocracy or politics, but that's just the case. Monopoly
predicted it, but they predicted it in a terribly misleading way.
(19:43):
So I'm glad it did something good and helped some
portion of over thirty five thousand Allied POWs escape from
German prison gamps.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, and they don't have exact numbers of how many
people many POWs escape using these monopoly kits, but everyone
involved is pretty confident that they were effective on some level.
And here's the thing I just found been to in
this great article from ABC News where they say that
airmen before being deployed on missions that might have been
(20:15):
going out on maneuvers at this stage in the war,
were told if they were captured to look for escape
kits in Monopoly games. Oh cool, So I was thinking
more of the folks that have been there, maybe a
little longer term, right.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which lets us know that this
had been in a production for some time, you know
what I mean, and it worked. Also quoted that ABC
article is Victor Watson, who was a former chairman of
Waddington's until nineteen ninety three, and in his estimation, again
(20:48):
this might be a bit biased because he did work
for the company, he says that Waddington's reckoned around ten
thousand POWs successfully used the Monopoly map, which is inspiring,
you know, and I love that you raised the point
that we're never going to know the actual number of
(21:09):
people who were who were for sure saved or able
to escape with this. We should also mention that this
was not the first involvement. Uncle Pennybags that's the name
of that cartoon character, the capitalist.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
They yeah, we'll just call them Monopoly gay.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah. Well, his real name is rich Uncle Penny Bags.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Rich Uncle Penny Bags.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It's back when a penny before inflation.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Carried a lot more away and meant something.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Back when a penny meant something. After World War Two,
Monopoly found itself in the middle of another international conflict,
this one more ideology related, because you see Cuba, the
USSR and other communist countries outlawed the game because it
advocated capitalism. You know what I mean. There's not a
(22:00):
communist version of Monopoly yet. I'd someone check on that.
If there is, please let me know whether there's some
sort of anti monopoly or communist monopoly. And Casey, by
the way, I see that you just sent us something
called Monopoly for Millennials. Yes, this is a true thing.
(22:20):
I remember hearing about this a while back when it
broke fairly recently. It was Monopoly's crass attempt to advertise
the millennial generation.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Right, They might have air dropped some of these on Firefest.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
There we go, a nice way to call back. So
what is this, Casey, It is a updated version of
Monopoly for millennials. And just looking at the box cover art,
I love the slogan forget real estate. You can't afford
it anyway. So that's just that lovely, lovely late capitalist Dustopia.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
We've all enjoyed Casey on a tragic case there, But.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I love it because it's got pictures of like bike
lanes and it's like a vegan only restaurant, green kind
of ecological messages. And mister Pennybags has kind of like
some reflective sunglasses on, looks like he has an iPod
earbud in his ear. So they're really hitting the millennial
cliches pretty heavily.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
There more of a douchebag than a penny bag.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah. Community chess cards say things like your free web
streaming trial expires, pay the bank forty dollars. Tokens include
an emoji.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And a hashtag. Oh this is great, this is terrible.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, it's funny because it seems like they're trolling, but
I mean it is a real thing you can buy
in stores.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Apparently what rough board games slouches toward beth Lehem to
be bored.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, and especially again, I'm fresh off watching both of
these Firefest documentaries, so I have a pretty bad taste
in my mouth and a bit of a self loathing
for millennial. I'm technically a zennial. I think I'm on
the cusp. I think both you and I Casey, here
a little bit on the cusp.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, we're cuspers.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
We're cuspers.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
It's rated in two different ways. The one way would
be to rate it on a generational chronological divide. But
another way, some sociologists for you this would be to
rate it on a digital divide or access to information.
You know, so people who were born before the days
(24:22):
of dial up modem, right, are clearly not millennial. I
don't know. I think we're I think we're all actually cuspers.
What we what we should be wondering about if we
were Hasbro, is what sort of board game the generation
after millennials would like to play? Hint, it's not on
a board.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
That's true. He also knows. It's funny how there's like
app versions of most old board games. Yeah, and they're
very similar or just a little quicker to play. Like
you mentioned the Game of Life at the top of
the show, and I used to have an app version
of that because the mechanics of the Game of Life
are a little cumbersome, and with the app it kind
of does all that for you. So it's a the
lazy game of Life.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I don't know, it's weird. I've tried doing you know
you guys know me a huge fan of crosswords, and
I've tried doing them online, but there's something about the
physical pen and paper. Also, yeah, I do them in pen.
But whatever I chose my battle. Oh, we should mention
as we're wrapping up here that Uncle Sam and the Yanks,
(25:20):
that's us, so we can say Yankees and not be pejorative.
We totally copied this idea a little later. After the
Japanese attack Pro Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
Hutton was tasked with training his American like the American
version of him, a guy named Captain rob Lee Winfrey,
(25:42):
in the art of concealing escape tools in this innocuous
looking stuff, and he came up with ideas that took
off kind of dovetailed on Hutton's and eventually his part
of the Intelligence Services Military Intelligence Services Escape in Evasion Setiction,
or miss X, started sending out Monopoly boards that were
(26:04):
also loaded with escape tools. The one thing different they
did is that Winfrey would send his employees into toy
stores and department stores to buy civilian monopoly games, and
then they would take the games back to their secret layer,
and that's when they would kick them up, so they
(26:25):
didn't have I guess nobody trusted Parker Brothers at that time,
you know what I mean, because they ever asked Parker
Brothers to manufacture bespokeer custom ones. They just reverse engineered them.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
That's nuts that there would be that much logistical planning
that would go in some of that. Did you talk
about the glue for example?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Oh, lay it honest.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, they had to reverse engineer the exact glue that
Parker Brothers used in order to make the you know,
the decal lay correctly. So there was a whole lot
of little things they had to kind of like troubleshoot
and figure out how to make so that it wouldn't
throw up any red flags.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Okay, I've got to catch up because just for a second,
when you said the decal lay correctly, I for some
reason I had a brain fart and I thought you
said decla like it was some sort of very specific
Parker Brothers correctly ladies. Yeah, you're you're right though, and
(27:21):
by golly by gosh, by gum, it worked because when
the war ended in September nineteen forty five, there was
only one escape kit that the German forces had not
discovered and it was Monopoly. As you said, Noel, everything
was destroyed. We know this really happened. It was officially
revealed in nineteen eighty five, right, but the American news
(27:46):
of the game wasn't revealed until nineteen ninety and according
to various sources, at least at least seven hundred and
forty something airmen escaped with aids created by Kluddy and
Robie Winfrey. Which you know, it sounds like a great,
(28:06):
a great gig if you can get it. If there's
a wartime thing, then you get drafted. Can you imagine,
fellas if someone said, Okay, your job is to make
top secret board game Escape Kits, I would be in.
I would be one million percent in.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I would do and I think it's a real testament
to British engineering and ingenuity.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Agreed, And with that ends our tail, but not our show.
Tune in for our next episode, which will be a
surprising romp through the origin story of one of the
world's most famous rhinos.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I'm very much looking forward to that. In the meantime,
we'd love to thank our super producer, Casey Pegram Alex Williams,
who composed our theme.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Our research associate Gabe of course you fellow Ridiculous Historians,
for listening. And Noel, thank you for thank you for
exploring this story with me.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Ben, thank you for being a friend.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I wish we could. We don't have the rights to
play the Golden Girls.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You just have to use your imagination or go watch
it on Hulu's got right now, I can play.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
It on, can you really?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yes, that's very cool.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Well I was ely on my priorities order, right man.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Well you got to and you guys should have your
priorities in order to listen to the next episode Ridiculous History.
We'll see then,
Fellow Ridiculous Historians. We are returning with this week's classic episode,
a board game that I think has fascinated all of
us for quite some time, the Landlords Game. The Landlords
Game was the original, non broken version. You're right, we are.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Talking about Monopoly, but not the history of the game itself,
though we'll get into a bit of that, but how
the physical board itself actually helped Allied POWs captured during
World War Two stage their great escape.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Beautiful Let's roll it. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:01):
If you were, like millions of other people throughout history
and around the world, then you have probably at least
once played some sort of game with your friends, whether
it's a game of dice, a game of cards, or
important for our purposes today, a board game. And today's
episode is about board games, but not in the way
(01:22):
you think. Welcome to Ridiculous History. My name is Ben,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm a fan of the old five finger file a
you know, where you take a blade and pop it
real quick between the gaps between your fingers.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Uh huh have you ever done that?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Only in video game form? It's an available game, and
I believe Red Dead Redemption.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I haven't found it yet in the new one, but
hopefully it exists. But yeah, that's a pretty scary game.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I've played that game in real life before and I
never went fast enough to actually cut myself.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Seriously, was that back when you spent time in that
prison camp in the pow camp?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, they called it church camp, but you know what,
I think six on one hands, half a dozen in
the other.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Not to derail the topic before we even get there,
but I just watched both documentaries about the Ill Fated
fire Festival. We talked about this, and that was sort
of like being in a pow camp. F y r E.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
The ill Fated, the ill fated festival that was most
closely associated with jaw Rules when it broke in the news.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And the main guy who was the perpetrator of the
whole hoax is a guy named Billy McFarlane I believe
is his last name. And yeah, he was a real
piece of work. But here's one thing they didn't have
at Firefest. They had these geodesic dome kind of FEMA
tents that were left over. They used that they had
advertised as luxury I believe villas, they had some really
(02:52):
sad looking cheese sandwiches, They had a lot of kind
of gross portapies. They didn't have was the game of Monopoly.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What they also didn't was our super producer, Casey Pegram.
So there they were without Monopoly and without Casey Pegram,
which I think is a grave injustice.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Possibly he could have solved the whole debacle.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Quite possibly. We are, by way of fantastic segues, exploring
the world of Monopoly, but again perhaps not in the
way that you have heard it explored before. For just
a quick look at the strange history of Monopoly. It
was originally invented as something called the Landlord's Game in
(03:34):
nineteen oh four by Elizabeth Maggie, and it was a
real estate and taxation game that was really meant to
inform people about the dangers of unbridled capitalism. And when
this game was more or less stolen from her, the
(03:54):
gameplay was modified so that it rewarded unbridled capitalism. And
nowadays Monopoly is a love it or hate it game
for a lot of people. I've never experienced a huge
falling out with friends, loved ones, relatives and so on
playing Monopoly, but that's because I don't play with cheaters,
(04:17):
and that seems to be one of the big accusations
against winners of Monopoly.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I just think that Monopoly is sort of the board
game equivalent of solitary confinement, and that it's really boring
and find it boring and takes a long time to finish.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, I mean, I could I could see that being
a criticism. It's not for everyone, but it's a tremendously
popular game, you know what I mean, Like even even
people who aren't big fans of it have played it before.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Absolutely, it's very true. Do you think people still play
it now? Like?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah? Fun really absolutely, And they've made a huge business
similar to Trivial Pursuit, they have made a huge business
in selling themed Monopoly boards.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's true, but at least with the Trivial Pursuit branded versions,
they're like questions related to that topic. With Monopoly, it's
just like a different looking board and instead of a shoe,
you've got like a stranger of things, baseball bat or something, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, or a demo gorgan.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
The thing that I always found interesting about Monopoly is
that it is a pale shadow of the board game life,
which is I think much more intriguing. But either way
you look at it, Monopoly is here to stay. It's
a very popular game and during World War Two it
(05:37):
was widely played. It was just as popular in the
United Kingdom as it was in the US. In fact,
there was a manufacturer of Monopoly in the United Kingdom
called Waddington John Wattington Limited, and they had purchased a
license to create this just across the pond, which will
(05:58):
be important later. But no, where are we going with this?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Oh man, We're going so many places. Yeah, it's true.
Wattington was the licensee of the Product's almost like a
franchise deal right where they were allowed to manufacture and
distribute this game in the UK after it had seen
a lot of success in the US. But Wattington, this
company was also very well known for their ability to
(06:22):
print things on silk. And that doesn't seem like a
big deal for our story today, but it turns out
it might be the biggest deal and the thing that
gave Uncle Sam and his minions of espionage the idea
to pull off this amazing caper. I guess we can say.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I think caper is a great word or scheme caper
is a little more fun. Yes, the story really kicks
into gear with a guy named Christopher William Clayton Hutton,
known as Kluddy to his friends, which I think is
just a terrible nickname, not great, not superior. And you know,
Christopher Clayton Hutton or Kluddy is an intelligence officer at
(07:06):
m I nine, and he got this job through a
very strange series of events or an offhands comment when
he applied to work as an intelligence officer in nineteen
thirty nine for the UK War Office. He says in
a quote later, my passport to the whole curious business
(07:27):
has been a casual reference to my thwarted efforts to
get the better of Harry Houdini, the world's greatest escapologist.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That's right, because he his whole deal and the reason
that he was attractive to I six was that he
was kind of a clever guy who was very fascinated
by things like up close magic and little tricks that
might be involved in doing some illusions. And he was
able to apply that to those kind of James Bondy
(07:55):
type gadgets that you that we all know and love,
like you know, a pen that's also an explosive device
or something like that, right.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
A tiny telescope that looks like a cigarette holder, or
compasses on the backs of buttons, boots with hollow heels
that held knives, maps, compasses, and files. But the thing was,
you're right, only it was a brilliant, brilliant man. But
as ingenious as his inventions were, it seemed that the
(08:24):
Germans as they called them, always eventually figured them out,
all of them, that is, except for one. You see,
he came to Waddington Limited and said, hey, you all
manufacture a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Check.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I understand that you print on silk, double check. And
I am of the understanding that you also print a
board game called Monopoly triple check. He probably pronounced it correct.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
These are some important boxes. And add these three boxes
up together you get a way to x this plot
that was gestating in this guy's mind. Because here's the thing.
The reason that it was a big deal to print
on silk is because they could be used to have
maps printed on them, maps that wouldn't deteriorate in the
rain or get torn to shreds if you stepped on them,
(09:17):
or make a noise when you try to clandestinely unfold them.
Maybe in a pow camp or surrounded by enemy troops.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Absolutely, absolutely, you see, this is something that fascinated me
when he's studying up for this episode. Silk maps were
already around because of those advantages that we just named,
silk maps had already been proven superior to the paper
stuff that could disintegrate, tear, make noise, give away your position.
(09:47):
And because Waddington's made silk maps and Monopoly, Kluddy knew
he was onto something. There was one other important ingredient
of wartime reality that that solidified his decision. He knew
that board games were allowed into pow camps, largely because
of the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And also because Germany at this point in the war
had such a bad rep for adhering to the Geneva
Conventions in the way they treated prisoner of war that
they were willing to allow these humanitarian air drops into
their camps, which included things like snacks and you know,
things to pass the time. I think books, but board
(10:32):
games were also okay, and they would also think of
it as a win for them because they figured if
their prisoners were busy occupying themselves playing an interminable board game,
that took ages and ages and ages to finish. Clearly,
I'm not a fan of the game, yeah, but I
mean it would do. It serve its purpose right and
they would probably be thrilled to have the opportunity to
do something like that to pass the time. But there's
(10:54):
the thing. A board game is in a big box
with layers, with stacks of stuff in it. This is
a pretty amazing opportunity for our mister Cluddy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Absolutely, so what they eventually decided to do, Waddington's, we
should note, was initially not one hundred percent on board
with this. So Klutty and the UK government pitched it
to them hard and they said, look, we are We're
(11:27):
going to have this covered stem to stern. We are
not just going to smuggle maps in these monopoly games.
We are also going to include real money hidden with
the monopoly money. We're going to include French, Italian and
German notes just under the actual monopoly cash. What else
(11:49):
did they include?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
They included hidden in little indentations that were cut in
the board itself, because back in those days the boards
were a good bit thicker than they are now, so
they were able to pre label because you know, the
whole label with all the pieces park place and all that.
Just a big old sticker that goes on a piece
of foldable cardboard. They were able to cut these very
shallow indentations that could hold things like files or those
(12:13):
those little compasses you mentioned earlier, the very small ones.
The smaller the better because they wouldn't want it to
be a red flag to any officers, any German guards
handling it, who might think this is way too heavy
for a board game. Right.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
You'll also read other accounts that say playing pieces were
actually the escape items like a compass and a file
were disguised as playing pieces.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
That's interesting because when I picture the whole cutting out
of the indentations into the board thing, it kind of
reminds me of stuff like how you might hide something
in prison by cutting the pages out of the middle
of a book or a bible or something like that
and having like a file or a shift or something
hidden inside. And it's interesting too because this actually was
classified until I want to say, the nineteen eighties, and
(12:57):
the soldiers were structed to destroy these boards. And the
thing is too they had to use their own intuition
to figure out these things are even in there. Which
is the thing that blew me away, because apparently there
was a little red dot on the board that made
that was sort of a clue. I guess that this
is a special board, but it wouldn't have been seen
(13:18):
as anything out of the ordinary other than like a
printing error maybe for the folks that were distributing the boards, say, okay,
the German soldiers, But it takes a lot for you
to think, oh my gosh, this board game surely hides
these secret items.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I don't know, man, you spend a lot of time, yeah,
looking at the same board. So maybe the staff of
the pow Kip just checks it and they shake it
a little bit, but they don't really care because it's
a monopoly game. But then there are a couple points
that I want to hit before they get lost. So
this this board, if you're familiar with Monopoly, does look
(13:55):
very similar. Most importantly, though, the map. You may different
things about the pieces versus things being stuffed in the board,
but the map itself was always hidden within the board,
and I nine covered their tracks very well here. They
invented fake cover organizations to quote unquote donate these parcels
(14:19):
to the camps. So this removed culpability from the Red
Cross because they can't knowingly distribute escape kits, right, So
instead they're not getting stuff from the UK Government. They're
getting stuff from organizations with names like the Licensed Victuallers
Sports Association, the Ladies Knitting Circle, the Jigsaw Puzzle Club
(14:40):
and the Prisoner's Leisure Hour Fund. So as far as
the people actually supplying the kits know, these are legiti
monopoly boards. As far as the Germans know, these are
legitimate monopoly boards, and they just had to wait. It
was a leap of faith to wait for one of
those POW's to say, hey, this piece doesn't look quite normal.
(15:06):
Let me turn it over. Oh there's a compass, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, that's true, and not to mention like that. The
stacks of money, I believe were fake money on top,
fake money on bottom, real money in between. So that
might have been the first thing they gave it away,
right if they're like, think about it, if you're going
to play a nice game of monopoly, you pull out
the fake money and you say, what, what's this and
then there's you know, real money, and that maybe would
make them investigate further.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You think, yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's
quite likely. And it's strange because at first, you know,
your first question is why is this not a film?
Right because it seems like one heck of a story.
But the second question is how much of this is
exaggerated because Monopoly is a cultural icon. The answer is
(15:52):
really not much.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
No, not much. And just to throw in one last point,
Parker Brothers themselves, the creators of the game didn't know
this was going on. This all had to be done
very secretly, and it's not like they would like let
them know. Hey, by the way, is it okay if
we use your beloved board game to rescue some of
our troops? But you know, and again it was not
known for decades because it was classified, and we don't
(16:16):
have any examples of what these might have looked like
because they were all destroyed. Because what if a German
guard had discovered one, the whole jig would be up
for all of the camps. Here's the thing, too, Ben,
they knew which camps they were air dropping these on,
and they had customized packages for each particular spot right right.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
This may have been declassified relatively recently, but it was
kind of an open secret. Way before two thousand and seven.
You could find a nineteen eighty five ap Press article
about this. But again, we don't know what the kits
look like. Because people could describe them, right POW's who
(16:57):
used these to escape, People can recount their appearance, but
as you said, they had to be destroyed. There's a
fantastic article on this in The Atlantic, How Monopoly games
helped ally POW's escape during World War Two by Megan Garber.
And you know, for someone who is severely anti monopoly like,
(17:18):
it seems no offense, you might be noal. This maybe
is redemptive. Does this make you feel a little bit
better about the game?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well? Sure, I think the game has its its positive qualities,
and this certainly is one of them. I just personally
don't enjoy playing it. It's one of those games where
I like the idea of it more than the actual
practice of playing the game. I'm really into a game
called Pandemic, which is a game that you play cooperatively
with people, and I think that's a lot of fun.
Sometimes the adversarial nature of a game isn't isn't for me?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
You know, there are also games such as there's a
great HP Lovecraft game called something like Call of Cthulhu
I can remember. Yeah, and you cooperate with other players
to prevent the coming of the eldritch gods.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah yeah, and Pandemic is very similar that you're preventing
some sort of global outbreak that could annihilate civilization. So
it's all you know, it's all for a good cause. Also,
there's something about monopoly that kind of rubs me the
wrong way, because, like you said at the top of
the show, it used to be much more about, you know,
highlighting the evils and potential negative things that can result
from capitalism run amuck, and now it's just much more about, like, hey,
(18:24):
let's run am uck with some capitalism.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Now that we live in a world of late stage capitalism. Yep, oh,
excuse me, gig economy. Sheesh. Well, we would be remiss
if we did not ask super producer Casey Pegram are
you a monopolist? Casey?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I like it because the experience of playing it is terrible.
I just kind of feel like it's good propaganda for,
you know, a different way of life.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
So sort of like in the way you might watch
a Mystery Science Theater three thousand movie you enjoy the
awfulness of it just for its own sake.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, because I mean it's true to life. True to
life's too, it's too terribly true to life. Casey on
the case, folks. Yeah, I think that's such a great point.
One thing that I was thinking about during the course
of research into today's episode was the fact that going
to jail in monopoly is just part of business and
(19:18):
does not impede your financial or social success in any shape,
fashion or form, sort of like how paying multimillion dollar
fines is just the cost of business for a lot
of banks. I don't want to get too oriented towards
the corporatocracy or politics, but that's just the case. Monopoly
predicted it, but they predicted it in a terribly misleading way.
(19:43):
So I'm glad it did something good and helped some
portion of over thirty five thousand Allied POWs escape from
German prison gamps.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, and they don't have exact numbers of how many
people many POWs escape using these monopoly kits, but everyone
involved is pretty confident that they were effective on some level.
And here's the thing I just found been to in
this great article from ABC News where they say that
airmen before being deployed on missions that might have been
(20:15):
going out on maneuvers at this stage in the war,
were told if they were captured to look for escape
kits in Monopoly games. Oh cool, So I was thinking
more of the folks that have been there, maybe a
little longer term, right.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which lets us know that this
had been in a production for some time, you know
what I mean, and it worked. Also quoted that ABC
article is Victor Watson, who was a former chairman of
Waddington's until nineteen ninety three, and in his estimation, again
(20:48):
this might be a bit biased because he did work
for the company, he says that Waddington's reckoned around ten
thousand POWs successfully used the Monopoly map, which is inspiring,
you know, and I love that you raised the point
that we're never going to know the actual number of
(21:09):
people who were who were for sure saved or able
to escape with this. We should also mention that this
was not the first involvement. Uncle Pennybags that's the name
of that cartoon character, the capitalist.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
They yeah, we'll just call them Monopoly gay.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah. Well, his real name is rich Uncle Penny Bags.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Rich Uncle Penny Bags.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It's back when a penny before inflation.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Carried a lot more away and meant something.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Back when a penny meant something. After World War Two,
Monopoly found itself in the middle of another international conflict,
this one more ideology related, because you see Cuba, the
USSR and other communist countries outlawed the game because it
advocated capitalism. You know what I mean. There's not a
(22:00):
communist version of Monopoly yet. I'd someone check on that.
If there is, please let me know whether there's some
sort of anti monopoly or communist monopoly. And Casey, by
the way, I see that you just sent us something
called Monopoly for Millennials. Yes, this is a true thing.
(22:20):
I remember hearing about this a while back when it
broke fairly recently. It was Monopoly's crass attempt to advertise
the millennial generation.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Right, They might have air dropped some of these on Firefest.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
There we go, a nice way to call back. So
what is this, Casey, It is a updated version of
Monopoly for millennials. And just looking at the box cover art,
I love the slogan forget real estate. You can't afford
it anyway. So that's just that lovely, lovely late capitalist Dustopia.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
We've all enjoyed Casey on a tragic case there, But.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I love it because it's got pictures of like bike
lanes and it's like a vegan only restaurant, green kind
of ecological messages. And mister Pennybags has kind of like
some reflective sunglasses on, looks like he has an iPod
earbud in his ear. So they're really hitting the millennial
cliches pretty heavily.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
There more of a douchebag than a penny bag.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah. Community chess cards say things like your free web
streaming trial expires, pay the bank forty dollars. Tokens include
an emoji.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And a hashtag. Oh this is great, this is terrible.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, it's funny because it seems like they're trolling, but
I mean it is a real thing you can buy
in stores.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Apparently what rough board games slouches toward beth Lehem to
be bored.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, and especially again, I'm fresh off watching both of
these Firefest documentaries, so I have a pretty bad taste
in my mouth and a bit of a self loathing
for millennial. I'm technically a zennial. I think I'm on
the cusp. I think both you and I Casey, here
a little bit on the cusp.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, we're cuspers.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
We're cuspers.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
It's rated in two different ways. The one way would
be to rate it on a generational chronological divide. But
another way, some sociologists for you this would be to
rate it on a digital divide or access to information.
You know, so people who were born before the days
(24:22):
of dial up modem, right, are clearly not millennial. I
don't know. I think we're I think we're all actually cuspers.
What we what we should be wondering about if we
were Hasbro, is what sort of board game the generation
after millennials would like to play? Hint, it's not on
a board.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
That's true. He also knows. It's funny how there's like
app versions of most old board games. Yeah, and they're
very similar or just a little quicker to play. Like
you mentioned the Game of Life at the top of
the show, and I used to have an app version
of that because the mechanics of the Game of Life
are a little cumbersome, and with the app it kind
of does all that for you. So it's a the
lazy game of Life.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I don't know, it's weird. I've tried doing you know
you guys know me a huge fan of crosswords, and
I've tried doing them online, but there's something about the
physical pen and paper. Also, yeah, I do them in pen.
But whatever I chose my battle. Oh, we should mention
as we're wrapping up here that Uncle Sam and the Yanks,
(25:20):
that's us, so we can say Yankees and not be pejorative.
We totally copied this idea a little later. After the
Japanese attack Pro Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
Hutton was tasked with training his American like the American
version of him, a guy named Captain rob Lee Winfrey,
(25:42):
in the art of concealing escape tools in this innocuous
looking stuff, and he came up with ideas that took
off kind of dovetailed on Hutton's and eventually his part
of the Intelligence Services Military Intelligence Services Escape in Evasion Setiction,
or miss X, started sending out Monopoly boards that were
(26:04):
also loaded with escape tools. The one thing different they
did is that Winfrey would send his employees into toy
stores and department stores to buy civilian monopoly games, and
then they would take the games back to their secret layer,
and that's when they would kick them up, so they
(26:25):
didn't have I guess nobody trusted Parker Brothers at that time,
you know what I mean, because they ever asked Parker
Brothers to manufacture bespokeer custom ones. They just reverse engineered them.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
That's nuts that there would be that much logistical planning
that would go in some of that. Did you talk
about the glue for example?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Oh, lay it honest.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, they had to reverse engineer the exact glue that
Parker Brothers used in order to make the you know,
the decal lay correctly. So there was a whole lot
of little things they had to kind of like troubleshoot
and figure out how to make so that it wouldn't
throw up any red flags.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Okay, I've got to catch up because just for a second,
when you said the decal lay correctly, I for some
reason I had a brain fart and I thought you
said decla like it was some sort of very specific
Parker Brothers correctly ladies. Yeah, you're you're right though, and
(27:21):
by golly by gosh, by gum, it worked because when
the war ended in September nineteen forty five, there was
only one escape kit that the German forces had not
discovered and it was Monopoly. As you said, Noel, everything
was destroyed. We know this really happened. It was officially
revealed in nineteen eighty five, right, but the American news
(27:46):
of the game wasn't revealed until nineteen ninety and according
to various sources, at least at least seven hundred and
forty something airmen escaped with aids created by Kluddy and
Robie Winfrey. Which you know, it sounds like a great,
(28:06):
a great gig if you can get it. If there's
a wartime thing, then you get drafted. Can you imagine,
fellas if someone said, Okay, your job is to make
top secret board game Escape Kits, I would be in.
I would be one million percent in.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I would do and I think it's a real testament
to British engineering and ingenuity.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Agreed, And with that ends our tail, but not our show.
Tune in for our next episode, which will be a
surprising romp through the origin story of one of the
world's most famous rhinos.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I'm very much looking forward to that. In the meantime,
we'd love to thank our super producer, Casey Pegram Alex Williams,
who composed our theme.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Our research associate Gabe of course you fellow Ridiculous Historians,
for listening. And Noel, thank you for thank you for
exploring this story with me.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Ben, thank you for being a friend.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I wish we could. We don't have the rights to
play the Golden Girls.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You just have to use your imagination or go watch
it on Hulu's got right now, I can play.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
It on, can you really?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yes, that's very cool.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Well I was ely on my priorities order, right man.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Well you got to and you guys should have your
priorities in order to listen to the next episode Ridiculous History.
We'll see then,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.