All Episodes

Ep. 35: It’s 1947 and getting late. Frances Gerety glances at the clock, then shuffles the ads she’s just finished designing back into a folder marked N.W. Ayer and Son, Philadelphia - the advertising agency where she works. She gets ready for bed then lays down to rest for a few short hours before another busy day. She has a meeting in the morning with the marketing team, a meeting about - ugh. Frances sits up in bed, bringing her palm to her forehead. She was supposed to co

Ep. 34: In 1949, 13 year old Pamela Smedley boarded a ship with 27 other girls from a Catholic orphanage in Britain. The nuns told them they were going on a day trip. The girls were excited, happy to be out in the world, on an adventure. According to Pamela, quote “We thought it would be like going to Scarborough for the day because we were so innocent and naive.” But they weren’t going to Scarborough. They were going to Australia, for good. Four extremely difficult decades w

Ep. 33: Halloween is weird y’all. I mean, I love it, don’t get me wrong, but it is weird. The costumes, carving faces into pumpkins and putting candles in them, trick or treating - walking around to stranger’s houses at night, costumed stranger’s houses asking for candy, putting the candy into a bucket shaped like a pumpkin with a face. It’s bizarre, really. What a bizarre holiday. And it’s spooky too, right? It’s scary. I feel like it’s scarier than ever - monsters and demon

Ep. 32: Burial has always been a sacred thing, undertaken with utmost reverence and respect for the dead. Graveyards and cemeteries, while yes often creepy, are peaceful, quiet places. The wind rustles the leaves of a tree, a dove coos mournfully, a tearful widow silently places flowers on her late husband’s grave. We typically think of graves as final resting places for the dead - the end of their stories here on Earth. But did you know, that wasn’t always the case? 200 year

Ep. 31: “Skeleton of a Giant Found,” “Reported Discovery of a Huge Skeleton,” “Monstrous Skulls and Bones,” “A Race of Indian Giants,” “Giant Skeleton Unearthed at Buzzards Bay,” “Skeleton Found of a Man Over 9 Feet High With An Enormous Skull,” “New Mexico Discovery: 12 Foot Giant Found,” These are newspaper headlines and they’re not from the National Enquirer or any other disreputable tabloid like that, they’re all from the New York Times. These are just a few examples of h

Ep. 30: Picture a vampire. Yeah, you’re picturing Dracula. That’s Dracula. I mean unless you’re a Twilight fan, then maybe you’re picturing Robert Pattinson’s fine self. But no, chances are you’re picturing the title character from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” about a vampire named Count Dracula who moves from Transylvania to England in search of new victims of his undead curse. This character, who basically invented the genre of vampires in fiction, was loosely based o

Ep. 29: Think of a witch. You’re likely picturing an old woman, gnarled and stooped with a hooked nose and stringy unkempt hair. Maybe she’s wearing a black robe, a pointy hat. Maybe she’s flying on a broomstick. Does she have a black cat? A cauldron where she mixes up deadly potions? An ancient book of spells she uses to curse people? This witch you’re picturing is evil. She cavorts with the devil and uses black magic to hurt people. She’s no hero. She’s a villian. Now ask y

Eps. 27 & 28: Squinting into the sun, John White spots a tree-lined stretch of land across the muddy, brackish sound water. “There,” he says to the men rowing, pointing to a small, sandy stretch of beach emerging from the gently swaying salt marsh. They pull the row boat ashore and stagger out on wobbly, sea-worn legs. Cautiously, they make their way into the treeline and towards the site of the settlement White helped to build two years ago. He looks around. This island is f

Ep. 26: She could play the piano by ear at the age of 3 and was accepted into the prestigious Julliard school of music at age 8. By 19 she was headlining at Café Society, the first racially integrated club in New York City. She went on to become a successful Hollywood film star, fierce Civil Rights activist, and the first Black woman to host her own television show. She counted Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and Dizzy Gillespie as close friends, dominating the jazz scene as a

Ep. 25: “Okay, Houston we’ve had a problem here. This is Houston, say it again please. Uh, Houston we’ve had a problem.” That 7 seconds of audio has been immortalized throughout time, history, and culture. Even if that was your first time hearing the original audio, you’ve definitely heard the quote “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” That’s astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of NASA’s Apollo 13 mission to the moon in 1970. But did you know the context of that quote? What the actual

Ep. 24: Chief Powatan stands shrouded in flickering shade amongst the forests of coastal Virginia, his arm raised, wooden club poised to strike the man who lay cowering beneath him. This man, with his pale skin and fair hair, is one of them. The ones trying to claim their ancestral lands. The ones who steal their precious food and burn their villages to the ground. This man must die. Suddenly, a streak of golden skin, a flash of black hair, and his beloved Pocahontas now lies

Ep. 23: It’s 1719, Daniel Defoe flips through the freshly printed pages of his latest novel. It took him just six months to write but he has a good feeling about this one. He runs his finger along the title page, “The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” printed in bold black ink. He feels good about this story, a story that landed on his lap, really. And his hunch would prove correct. The new novel would sell through 4 editions before the end of the yea

Ep. 22: "When we gazed upon all this splendor at once, we scarcely knew what to think, and we doubted whether all that we beheld was real. A series of large towns stretched themselves along the banks of the lake, out of which still larger ones rose magnificently above the waters. Innumerable crowds of canoes were plying everywhere around us; at regular distances we continually passed over new bridges, and before us lay the great city of Mexico in all its splendor." Those are

Ep. 21: The decade of the 1920s is often referred to as the “Roaring Twenties.” You can probably picture it now: jazz trumpets blare while women in shiny dresses dance the Charleston with their beaus and sip fancy martinis. It’s fast, it’s loud, it’s fun, it’s one big party, like New Years Eve every night. Night clubs, cocktails, rock and roll, all of these cultural staples evolved out of the roaring twenties. But take the alcohol away and, I’m not sure they would have roare

Eps. 19 & 20: Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Henry VIII went down in history, not so much for what he accomplished as king of England but for one tantalizing fact - he had six wives. Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Katherine Parr - these six women are often defined by their association with Henry VIII, she was wife number 2, she was number 5, she was number 6, their very humanity reduced to a number.

Ep. 18: The year is 79 AD. A bustling Roman port city sits nestled at the base of a mountain. Ships bob in the harbor, their nets heavy with fish and crabs to sell at the markets. Already the vendors have gathered, offering fresh pomegranates, pots of honey, spiced wine. In the forum a group huddles excitedly around a sign, recently erected, announcing the date of the next gladiator battle. Children run by, chasing a cat, giggling. They duck into an alley past a man who has j

Ep. 17: Musket fire, soldiers yelling, chaos. It’s the summer of 1782 and Robert Shurtleff lies groaning on the ground, clutching a gash in his forehead. He’s been shot at least twice. He can feel a musket ball lodged in his thigh, another in his shoulder. The skirmish is over but that brings no relief to Shurtleff. A fellow infantryman rushes over in search of survivors. “Hospital,” he says. “No,” Shurtleff growls, “let me die.” But the soldier grabs Shurtleff and tosses him

Ep. 16: It’s April 1986. Alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden start going off unexpectedly, warning of high levels of radiation. Operators are confused. The power plant is fully operational. Nothing is amiss. The radiation detectors shouldn’t be going off. Soon, other nuclear power plants in Scandinavia start reporting the same thing. Their alarms are going off too. A dangerous amount of radiation is spreading throughout northern Europe, but where is it coming

Ep. 15: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or so they say. But, honestly that’s just not true. For all of known history beauty has been defined by society, not the beholder, and the standards have been set unattainably high. Pale and plump, tan and thin, long hair, now short hair, curly hair, straight hair, big hair, no hair, thick eyebrows, thin eyebrows, thick again, thin again, short, now tall, black teeth, no white teeth. Ever changing, swinging like a pendulum, back

Ep. 14: The lost city of Atlantis was said to be an ideal, utopian society, flourishing under the noble leadership of 10 princes who swore an oath to the gods to never let greed, arrogance, or hate interrupt the peace of their righteous civilization. It was technologically advanced beyond our comprehension even today, a prosperous maritime trading post, an inspiring world leader. That is, until human nature - ego - got in the way as it so often does. Atlantis quickly fell fro