Ridiculous History

If you grew up in the United States, you've doubtlessly learned all sorts of stuff about Thomas Jefferson -- but did you know about his bizarre fascination with mastodons? It's a winding tale of nationalism, naturalism, and good old American rivalry with the French. And the guys aren't diving into this one alone: they're joined by returning guest and veteran podcaster, the legendary Lauren Vogelbaum, to learn more about the story i...

In today's episode, Ben, Noel, and Max want to begin by shouting out all new parents in the crowd (we hope you get some sleep)! These days, every expecting or new parent is endlessly inundated with advertisments for products, services, and treatments. And as the crew discovers in today's episode -- the past wasn't that different. In fact, a ton of this baby gear of yesteryear was patently ridiculous.

See omnystudio.com/listener for ...

For well over a century, schoolchildren across the United States learned the story of John Henry. According to the legend, John was a formerly enslaved man who found work with a railroad after the Civil War. Widely known as the best steel driver in the area, John wins a Phyrric victory against an automated steel driving machine -- he beats the machine, but dies as a result of exhaustion. The story has resurged in popularity as mode...

While often forgotten by the global West, the Ottoman Empire was an absolute superpower in its heyday. As the Empire expanded across three separate continents, they also practiced mass enslavement -- and used it to power their army. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the rise of the Empire's elite fighting force: the Jannisaries. Originally composed of kidnapped and enslaved children from conquered lands, over time the J...

Whether we’re talking yesterday’s newspaper, pamphlets from museums, or even old lottery tickets and straw wrappers, the world is chock full of things that were not meant to last. Today the guys join Alex Williams, the creator of the new podcast Ephemeral, to explore the strange, beautiful, disturbing and tragic stories of things that came and went, from the Collyer brothers to Pizzaria chips.

See omnystudio.com/listener...

Today a great many people in the United States take free toilets for granted. Yet, as Ben, Noel and Max discover in the first part of this two-part episode, there was a long -- and ridiculous -- road from the origin of public toilets to the free facilities we enjoy today. Tune in to learn how the United States decided to 'solve' a public health crisis by charging people to poop... and stay tuned to learn what happened next.

See omny...

Despite the misleading name, the U.S. "Civil War" was anything but. As North fought South, this short-lived, bloody conflict fundamentally shifted the course of the country. Yet if you go just a bit further west to Missouri, you'll encounter a story history largely forgot: amid the chaos, a tiny county in Missouri succesfully negotiated something very much like a peace treaty with a sovereign nation. In today's episode, Ben, Noel a...

For several decades, Saturday morning cartoons were a massive industry in the United States. Every weekend, millions of American children tuned in to watch their favorite shows... and, later, bug their parents for related toys. The studios made bank off this, yet it was only a matter of time before concerned citizens and government agencies started asking: Are these really shows, or just sneaky, 30-minute exercises in brainwashing?...

Picture this: It's late 1944, and you, like thousands of other people on the west coast of North America, have noticed bizarre, jellyfish-like objects floating through the sky. You call the local authorities, maybe even the Air Force, only to be ignored. You don't see anything about this in the papers or on the radio. You are in the midst of a real-world conspiracy of silence -- until, that is, the bombs begin to explode. Listen in...

In the economic boom of a post-World War II United States the sudden affordability of television fundamentally rocked the nation. From the 1950s on, millions of kids in America grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons... yet, as it turns out, these shows were often light on the writing -- and heavy on selling toys. In the first part of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max discover how Saturday morning cartoons became full-on, ...

Today, everyone knows the potential dangers of both illegal and legal drugs. Some are more popular and more widely-accepted than others (shoutout to coffee!), but across time and cultures, it's an open secret that pretty much every civilization was doing one drug or another. Sometimes for ritualistic purposes, sometimes for purported medicinal properties -- and, sometimes, just to party. In the first part of this continuing series,...