Useless Information Podcast
Podcasting since 2008! - It really is all true! Quirky, bizarre, and unusual stories from the Flip Side of History.
Episodes
May 16, 2022 • 47 min
In 1915, American industrialist Henry Ford announced that he was willing to use his entire fortune to bring an end to World War I. So, he chartered a ship to take many of the prominent peace activists of the day to Europe and convene a peace conference to mediate an end to the European War. So, hop aboard the Peace Ship!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
April 28, 2022 • 20 min
Arbor Day is 150 years old! Learn the origins of the day, plus how one small upstate New York town continues the annual celebration.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
April 13, 2022 • 26 min
In this episode: A woman dumps her fiancé at the altar to marry the minister, a jealous husband who used rattlesnakes to keep men away from his wife, the unlikely suspects in a case of truck tire sabotage, and much more! Retrosponsor: Kraft Mayonnaise
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
March 31, 2022 • 20 min
It’s hard to believe, but when the first words were spoken on radio, it was dismissed as a novelty. It seems as if everyone thought that Morse code was the future. Nearly everyone except for Reginald Fessenden.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
March 15, 2022 • 28 min
In 1953, paperboy Jimmy Bozart was counting his newspaper subscription money. He dropped the coins and one nickel split open, revealing a piece of microfilm. This led to the arrest of a high-ranking Soviet spy.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
February 28, 2022 • 24 min
In this episode: A live baby is auctioned off, a carnival knife thrower accidentally hits his human target, a West Virginian dog warden with an unusual approach to keeping thieves out of the pound, and much more!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
February 15, 2022 • 34 min
In 1936, superstar Eddie Cantor asked his radio listeners to write an essay describing how the United States could avoid war. The prize was a full college scholarship. With no set rules, something was certain to go wrong. And something did go very wrong.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
January 31, 2022 • 24 min
In this episode: A man falls out of a window and is saved by a flagpole, seven tonsillectomies done in an assembly line fashion, the last cigarette commercial on US network television, a baby born in a well, and much more! Retrosponsor: Dr. Caldwell’s Syrup Pepsin
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
January 13, 2022 • 38 min
Edna Kirby spent more than a decade in Hollywood appearing in silent movies for Paramount Studios. While she never became a movie star, Edna drew large crowds in nearly every town that she visited. That’s because Edna Kirby lived in a glass house.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
January 3, 2022 • 46 min
In this episode, my wife Mary Jane joins me to review the classic movie "Sunset Boulevard." Directed by Billy Wilder, this movie tells the story of a struggling screenwriter who gets into a dangerous relationship with a faded Hollywood actress who dreams of a big comeback.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
December 15, 2021 • 41 min
Christmas episode! A reindeer that bit a boy’s finger, a lawsuit over the world’s largest Christmas stocking, an absent-minded Santa Claus, a Santa caught with his pants down, the first Christmas film ever made, and much more! Retrosponsor: Dole Pineapple Juice and Gems
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
November 30, 2021 • 31 min
Tom McGee wanted nothing more for Christmas than to be able to spend time caring for his hogs. The only catch was that he needed to commit a crime and hope that a judge would sentence him to time on one of Georgia’s infamous chain gangs. A true story that took place in Atlanta from 1928 through 1930.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
November 16, 2021 • 39 min
In this episode: A proud father who kidnapped his newborn daughter, a mother jailed for cooking a woodpecker, Einstein gives a student incorrect math advice, a snake that joined a woman in the bathtub, a filmstrip projector demonstrated for the first time, and much more! Retrosponsor: Log Cabin Syrup.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
October 28, 2021 • 33 min
A New Jersey man was caught in a Catch-22 situation. As long as he remained on death row, he could live. If he attempted to get off of death row by challenging his sentence in court, he would likely die. Can you guess which option he chose? A true story that began in 1908.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
October 15, 2021 • 36 min
In this episode: The day corsets were arrested, a lingerie auction at the University of Nebraska, US Customs bans Alice Cooper’s panties, a woman hurt in a freak accident, a fish who milked a cow, woman entertains friends while husband robs their homes, a box of cookies that started a fire, a man who accidentally robbed a bank, & the highest-paid act at Woodstock. Retrosponsor: Sears advertisement for School’s Out by Alice Coop...
Share
Mark as Played
September 29, 2021 • 33 min
In 1911, Mrs. Minerva Miller and two friends went to The Paterson Show in Paterson, NJ to watch a movie. A standard ticket cost 5 cents, but Mrs. Miller was told that she would have to pay 25 cents because she was black. Minerva Miller decided to challenge the theater's racist policy.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
September 15, 2021 • 27 min
A 72-year-old woman who married a 20-year-old man, a 16-year-old girl arrested for cursing, a woman who had some run-ins with modern appliances, speaking English deforms the mouth, a husband who refused to buy his wife false teeth, a "Dammed Missouri" book that disappeared in a flood, and more! Retrosponsor: Rinso
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
August 30, 2021 • 32 min
In 1941, 5-year-old Pamela Hollingworth disappeared into the dense forest of New Hampshire's White Mountains. In what became the largest search and rescue effort in New England to that date, more than 1,500 men spent more than a week looking for her. Was she murdered, kidnapped, or something else? Find out what really happened to Pamela Hollingworth.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
August 16, 2021 • 27 min
Retrocast #2: Boy runs away because he can·t master Latin, a mother who loaned her son to a stranger, a man who survived a Nazi firing squad, cows killed by lightning, man's leg broken three times, truth in business inboxes, 200 hog call records stolen, a helicopter melon thief, and more!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
July 30, 2021 • 31 min
In 1932, Redondo Beach school superintendent Elliott B. Thomas mysteriously disappeared and his office was ransacked. Was he kidnapped? Could he have been killed? Or was something else going on? Also, learn about a new chemical element called Administratium.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Share
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
It’s a lighthearted nightmare in here, weirdos! Morbid is a true crime, creepy history and all things spooky podcast hosted by an autopsy technician and a hairstylist. Join us for a heavy dose of research with a dash of comedy thrown in for flavor.
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.
Hosted by Laura Beil (Dr. Death, Bad Batch), Sympathy Pains is a six-part series from Neon Hum Media and iHeartRadio. For 20 years, Sarah Delashmit told people around her that she had cancer, muscular dystrophy, and other illnesses. She used a wheelchair and posted selfies from a hospital bed. She told friends and coworkers she was trapped in abusive relationships, or that she was the mother of children who had died. It was all a con. Sympathy was both her great need and her powerful weapon. But unlike most scams, she didn’t want people’s money. She was after something far more valuable.