Ridiculous History

Let's say you're a love-struck NASA intern -- your professional career holds a lot of promise, but your family life back home is in shambles... and you fall in love with a fellow intern. How can you impress your new paramour? Forget flowers, chocolates and all those other silly earth-bound romantic gestures: this is the story of Thad Roberts. From his account, he was carried away by mad love, which led him and a few collaborators -...

Is it legal to own a moon rock? Well... that depends. If it's a piece of the moon that made it to Earth naturally, then all good. If, however, it's a sample retrieved on purpose by NASA's Apollo program, you can get in some serious trouble for trying to snag it. In part one of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore what happens when powerful private collectors try to get their hands on forbidden moon rocks.

See omnystudio.c...

On March 3rd, 1876, residents of Bath County, Kentucky were startled to see what appeared to be chunks and flakes of meat falling from the clear, cloudless sky. The rain, which only lasted a few minutes, captured national attention. People across the country proposed various theories explaining the deluge. In today's Classic episode, the guys believe they've finally solved the mystery.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informa...

This episode is brought to you by our favorite cohost: coffee. These days, if you stroll into any convenience store across the planet, you're going to run into a selection of energy drinks -- whether we're talking Red Bull, NOS, Monster, or our favorite pal, the humble cup of joe, one thing's for certain: people love this stuff... even if it's not particularly healthy. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max discover the strange orig...

While the legendary Japanese raccoon dog -- or tanuki -- may look like a raccoon, it's a very different beast. However, these days Japan is home to actual raccoons: they're considered an invasive species, wreaking havoc across the country as they destroy temples, consume crops, and threaten indigenous wildlife. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max discover how these dastardly raccoons made it all the way over the Pacific to become...

With 600,000 words and 3 million quotations, the Oxford English Dictionary is a massive tome. Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but the first edition wasn't published until 1884. Compiling the dictionary was a Herculean task, and James Murray, the editor of the dictionary, put out a call for assistance. This early crowdsourcing strategy worked surprisingly well. Murray was particularly impressed by his most prolific and consist...

Did you know England's first newspaper was fake? Or that King Arthur is more or less completely made up? The deeper we look into human history, the more we see that civilization is utterly riddled with bizarre hoaxes -- some of which are laughable, and some of which are downright dangerous. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max welcome the legendary Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan to learn more about some of history's greatest hoaxe...

Imagine you are beyond wealthy. You no longer dream of the average "rich people" flexes -- you've got all the diamonds, all the mansions, all the ordinary baubles of the elite. How can you distinguish yourself? What can you buy when you can buy literally anything? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the astonishing, ridiculous origin story of Czarist Russia's peak luxury item; an egg you can't eat, nor wear -- a toy and a...

Human civilization is far from perfect. Still, it's pretty cool humanity overall agreed on how to measure time (for now). In today's follow-up to an earlier exploration of the Gregorian calendar, Ben, Noel and Max admire the many alternative, non-Gregorian calendars with their own ancient provenance, all of which exist in the modern day. Or modern night? Spoiler, a ton of these are based on the passage of the moon.

See omnystudio.co...

As local fantasy sports initiatives grew into larger, more organized pursuits, technology improved as well. Access to online statistics made it much easier for casual sports fans to enter the realm of fantasy playing -- and also, arguably, made it easier to gamble on sports as well. In the second part of this week's two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the modern age of fantasy sports (and whether or not Ben will finally make...

Lenny Bruce is a legend in the history of stand-up comedy, and while his use of explicit language thrilled audience members, it didn't win him any friends in law enforcement. In fact, Bruce was arrested multiple times for his use of 'obscenities', sparking a larger, continuing debate about the nature of free speech. Join the guys as they learn more about the early days of stand-up and the Lenny Bruce controversy with this week's sp...

A necropolis in what is now Northern Italy holds a strange and, at first glance, terrifying corpse. A Lombard man, aged somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, lost his right arm in a brutal accident. Normally this sort of wound would be a death sentence, but in this case the guy didn't just survive -- he created a prosthetic limb from a sword and officially became Knife Hand (a title we gave him because we think it sounds cool). Li...

The Dark Knight. The Caped Crusader. The terror of all criminals and ne'er-do-wells in Gotham... that's right, folks: today's episode is all about Batman. As Ben and Noel discover in today's episode, this superhero's origin story is a surprising tale of beef, ego, conflict and controversy: for decades, two men claimed to have created Batman... and one of them may have been (mostly) lying.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...