Very Special Episodes
On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say, “this should be a movie.” Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
Episodes
Martha's Vineyard once was a place you could gossip with neighbors, shop for supplies, or play a cutthroat game of cards — all without saying a word. That's because it had a thriving Deaf community. Residents, Deaf and hearing alike, communicated with a unique version of sign language that predates ASL. But it's mostly forgotten today.
Today we dig into Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) and the folks who are working to keep ...
Right now thousands of people are on a mathematical treasure hunt from the comfort of their home offices. Our own Zaron Burnett is one of them. Here's how you can join him — and compete for $50,000.
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On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English
Written by Lucas Reilly
Produce...
In the 1870s, Palisade, NV was the meanest little town west of the Mississippi. Every week, newspapers announced another gunpowder-fueled cowboy showdown. Palisade put the wild in the “Wild West.”
But there was a lot more to the story that didn’t make the papers.
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Very Special Episodes is a podcast with a simple premise: we tell one incredible story each week. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
In the summer of 2016, the entire world was going crazy for a new mobile game. All these years later, it’s easy to forget the wildest part about Pokémon GO: the whole thing began as an April Fools’ joke.
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story each week. Episodes usually go up on Wednesdays. We made an exception for April Fools' Day.
A Superman fan in Illinois is horrified to discover his entire stockpile of memorabilia has gone missing. As police search for the thief, the collecting community delivers their own brand of justice.
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast with a simple premise: we tell one incredible story each week. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English
Written by Jake...
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the main event. The greatest botany rivalry in history! It's Vavilov vs. Lysenko for the fate of the Soviet Union.
In the 1920s and '30s, Nikolai Vavilov was a big deal. He was studying seed genetics and learning how to prevent famines. Everyone wanted to work with him. Including a young kid named Trofim Lysenko.
Lysenko studied with Vavilov. They were friends. But years later, Lysenko turned o...
Very Special Episodes is a new podcast hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
In 2011, after many delays, one of the most anticipated musicals in theater history finally opened on Broadway. The show was Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. The powerhouse creative team included an up-and-coming playwright, a MacArthur Genius, and Bono. But its downfall would be l...
The biggest Nancy Drew mystery isn’t hidden in the plots of the books. It’s right there on the cover. If “Carolyn Keene” is a pseudonym, who really wrote the series? For 50 years, two women laid claim to that title. And in 1980, with help from an amateur detective, the truth came out in court.
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story each week. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednes...
With help from "Leap Day Lady" Raenell Dawn, Dana Schwartz makes the case for making Leap Day a national holiday.
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story each week. We're back with a full episode next Wednesday.
Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English
Written by Dave Roos
Produced by Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design by Josh Thane
Research and Fact-Checking by Au...
In today's Episode, Dana, Zaron and Jason tackle a 130-year-old mystery. Although American schoolchildren still recite The Pledge every morning in nearly every classroom, we still aren't sure who actually wrote it. And all these years later, the long-accepted story is showing some cracks.
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story each week. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
...After a middle-aged manual laborer goes back to school to turn his life around, he’s reborn as a college football standout. But as midlife crises go, this one is going to hurt.
(Portions of today's episode were recorded on Radio Row in Las Vegas before Super Bowl 58.)
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story each week. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
When a teenage astronomy fan is gifted a piece of the moon by NASA, he’s inadvertently pulled into the seedy underground moonrock trade. But don’t worry. With help from H. Ross Perot, NASA secret agents are on the case.
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story every week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say, “this should be a mov...
On the last day of filming in Nova Scotia, someone poisoned the cast and crew of James Cameron’s Titanic with PCP. Bedlam ensued on a tight-knit set. Everyone became a suspect. Almost three decades later, we unravel a ‘90s Hollywood mystery.
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Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story every week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say,...
Welcome to Very Special Episodes, an anthology of outrageous stories pulled from history and pop culture. Each immersive tale feels like a movie. Very Special Episodes will have you telling your friends and co-workers, "I just heard the craziest story on a podcast."
Follow Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett and Jason English down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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