All Episodes

Ep. 97: Thomas Alva Edison has always been portrayed as the greatest, most prolific by far American inventor. The man obtained over a thousand patents in his lifetime and is credited with inventing or improving upon devices that changed our world, our lives forever: the lightbulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, telegraphs, telephones, x-rays, and batteries. The list goes on. His contemporaries were blown away. Many viewed him as like a magician. That’s how far bey

Ep. 96: In July 1714, Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, lay on her death bed in Kensington Palace. Despite 18 pregnancies, she had no surviving children, no heir to inherit the throne. Sure, there were plenty of relatives with a bloodline suitable to succeed her, plenty of Stuarts. But all of them were Catholic. And a Catholic could not rule Great Britain, not according to an Act passed some 13 years earlier. No, a Catholic king would not do. And so despite 57 people

Ep. 95: In the 1950s a mysterious man appeared at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. He looked normal enough, just a regular looking mid-thirties white guy in a suit there on a business trip. But when he presented his passport to airport officials, they were puzzled. The passport was unlike any they had ever seen before. It listed the man as being from a nation called Taured, a nation they had never heard of, a nation they were pretty sure didn’t exist. When asked to point out Taured on

Ep. 94: Professor Dr. Johan Gaume, the head of Switzerland's Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory, sat before his television screen. But for such a decorated researcher and scientist, the film he was watching may surprise you. It was an animated children’s film. One you’ve definitely heard of. But he wasn’t watching it for fun. He was watching it for science. Dr. Gaume was watching Disney’s Frozen, an animated film about two sisters, one of whom has magical snow and ice power

Ep. 93: You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen, but do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph of course, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. The most famous reindeer of all. And yet, and yet, have you read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas?” Of course you have. It’s actually called “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” but we all call it “The Night Before Christmas,” it’s one of those. Published anonymously in a newspaper in

Ep. 92: On a muggy late summer morning in 1900, postmaster Captain William Tate seated himself at his simple cedar desk and unfurled a letter. The paper was slightly damp from the humidity emanating from the marshy swamps of Kitty Hawk woods that surrounded his home turned post office. Tate did his best to flatten the soggy paper enough to discern that it came from the Weather Bureau with a rather strange request. They were asking him to respond to a letter they received from

Eps. 90 & 91: Everyone loves an underdog story, when the people, the normal guys, you and me, rise up and take control from the despots, the gluttonous, oppressive overlords who have abused their power for far too long. It makes for a great story because it’s something for people to rally behind, justice, liberty, long overdue and finally won against all odds. This is why Americans are so passionate about the fourth of July, because we freaking did it right? Things were unfai

Ep. 89: It’s November 11, 1620, 41 men aboard a battered ship gather together as best they can. As the Mayflower bobs, travel weary, atop the rough, cold waters off Cape Cod, William Bradford clears his throat and begins to read. “In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith…” He goes on, reading roughly 200 words outli

Ep. 88:It’s the greatest adventure story ever told, Lewis and Clark’s daring pursuit to cross thousands of miles of rugged terrain, to explore the rest of the continent, to finally reach the Pacific Ocean, gaze out over its vast expanse, with their faithful guide by their side of course, Sacagawea. You know Sacagawea, she’s the most famous American woman of all time. I’m not kidding. She’s the only one with her face on a coin, with more statues than any other woman in America

Ep. 87: In May of 2021 members of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in Canada arrived on the grounds of the old Kamloops Residential School with ground penetrating radar. Soon, as expected, they made a grisly discovery: the bodies of over 200 children as young as 3 years old buried in unmarked graves. In June, people of the Cowessess First Nation discovered 751 children’s bodies at the site of the Marieval Indian Residential School and in July, the Penelakut Tribe found

Ep. 86: In the Black Hills region of South Dakota stands a massive American monument, the faces of four US presidents blasted into the side of a mountain. George Washington represents the birth of the nation. Thomas Jefferson represents its growth. Theodore Roosevelt development and Abraham Lincoln preservation. Mount Rushmore National Memorial hosts more than 2 million visitors each year who gaze upon the stoic stone faces of our forefathers and feel… proud. Proud of what we

Ep. 85: There is a movie so infamous that it’s gone down in history as one of the greatest horror films of all time. After its release in 1973, The Exorcist won two academy awards and quickly became the highest grossing horror film for over 40 years, surpassed only recently by the 2017 remake of It. The Exorcist horrified viewers in the best possible way. Some even fainted or vomited while viewing the film, the graphic nature of the visuals was so shocking at the time. Childr

Ep. 84: It’s January of 1692 and there’s something very wrong with 9 year old Betty Parris. Her father, the Reverend Samuel Parris, rushes to her bedside. Betty screams. Her body writhes under the blankets, twisting and contorting into grotesque shapes. She grunts, she moans, she snorts, and shrieks. She grabs a candle from the bedside table and hurls it across the room uttering a shrill scream as if defending herself from some invisible apparition. Soon, Betty’s 11 year old

Ep. 83: I love a good ghost story, who doesn’t? But whenever I hear a ghost story or read one or watch paranormal investigators hunting for ghosts on tv or whatever, I’m usually left with a single burning question. Okay, you got a weird cold sensation, you saw a white spectral figure, a face in the mirror, your EMF meter was buzzing, something went bump in the night, that’s all very interesting but what I really want to know is, who was it? Who did you see? Who’s ghost? Right

Ep. 82: It’s very late, two, possibly three in the morning. The incessant rain taps at the window panes, dripping from the eaves, flooding the garden below. It’s been raining like this for days. Mary Shelley lies awake in bed, staring at the ceiling of their rented Swiss villa, listening to the rain. She pictures Byron at dinner hours before, dressed ostentatiously in a red velvet waistcoat “Have you thought of a story?” he had singled her out again. “Not yet,” she had mutter

Eps. 80 & 81: There’s a singsong school phrase likely ingrained in your memory, a core memory. It goes a little something like this. In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Yeah, It’s time. This man has been mentioned in too many History Fix episodes to count, mentioned more than any other single historical figure, from Vikings to Rum to Cannibalism. He’s all over History Fix. This man sent out more shockwaves than possibly anyone, changed our whole ex

Ep. 79: Before Henry VIII, before Louis XVI, there was a dynasty in Italy so corrupt, so scandalous, gluttonous, hedonistic, that the others don’t even compare. But this was not a royal family. These were not kings, they were popes, cardinals, bishops. These were holy men, men of the church. Men whose unholy actions may very well have helped spark the dissatisfaction that led to the protestant reformation. These men were part of the house of Borgia, one of the most infamous f

Ep. 78: Today’s history has dramatically affected every single human on the planet since homo sapiens first emerged around 300,000 years ago. And yet, for almost all of that 300,000 years we know very, very little about it. Childbirth is like laundry. If you listened to the laundry episode you’d see the connection. It’s a burden carried almost exclusively by women throughout time. In fact, until around the 18th century, men, in western cultures at least, even medical professi

Ep. 77: Tomorrow, September 2nd is Labor Day in the United States. It’s kind of a boring holiday, to be honest, I mean you get a day off work if you’re a government employee or whatever but it’s not the most interesting topic for a podcast. The history of Labor Day… eh. So I did some digging to find a juicy story for you this week that relates to Labor Day and I came upon the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that happened in New York City in 1911. Now, I had heard of this eve

Ep. 76: Stepping into the Michael C. Rockefeller wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, your eyes are immediately drawn to a line of figures dominating the far wall. These are intricately carved wooden statues, spindly, lace-like in their detail. They are shaped like men standing one on top of the other, feet on shoulders or sometimes heads, one, two, three, four men tall. They’re eye-catching. They’re impressive. You’d likely stroll over to read the accompa