All Episodes

Ep. 13: Genghis Khan, the man, the myth, the legend was undoubtedly a fierce and ruthless warrior. The New York Times called him “the original bad boy of history” and tales of his conquests have inspired shock and awe for much of the last millennium. During his reign as Khan of the vast Mongol empire, as many as 40 million people were killed. That’s roughly 11 percent of the world population at the time. He showed no mercy to his enemies, wiping them out by the millions, some

Ep. 12: Abolitionist Olaudah Equiano was captured from his home in Africa as an 11 year old boy while his parents were out working one day. He was stuffed below decks of a slave ship, shackled together lying down with hundreds of other captives in what Equiano referred to as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable.” By the late 17th century, Great Britain dominated the slave trade and wealthy plantation owners in the American colonies were lining their pockets, thanks to the

Ep. 11: Kings, and queens, monarchs and emperors often rise to the throne by birthright alone. There’s no campaigning, no election, no popular vote, no competition whatsoever. They are simply born with the right to rule. They just happened to be the first son of a first son of a first son in a family that was once deemed “royal” for whatever reason and it stuck. Does this make them the best candidate to rule an entire country? An empire? Well, no. Many of them were crowned as

Ep. 10: Towering 450 feet above the Egyptian desert lies the Great Pyramid of Giza, its rugged, crumbling facade a mere ruin of its former glory. It was once clad in blinding white limestone, fit so tightly together the seams were invisible. A capstone of pure gold crowned the top, reflecting the sun’s light for miles like a beacon of triumph for a flourishing civilization. The textbooks teach us that the Great Pyramid was built around 4,500 years ago as a tomb for the pharao

Ep. 9: Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. He developed machinery that allowed us to harness the alternating current which is still our main form of electricity to this day. He invented the Tesla coil which is still used in countless modern electronics plus fluorescent light bulbs, neon light, and spark plugs, you know, like, what starts your car. He’s responsible for major breakthroughs and advancements in electric lighting, x-rays, drones, rad

Ep. 8: It’s a summer day in Strasbourg, France. The year is 1518. A woman named Frau Troffea steps into the city square and starts to dance. There’s no music and yet she twists and turns for hours while onlookers watch, confused. Occasionally, she collapses from exhaustion only to get back up and resume her frenzied dancing soon after. This goes on day after day and soon some 400 others have joined her, many of them dancing themselves to death. The “Dancing Plague of 1518” is

Ep. 7: In 1911 Shipbuilder magazine featured an ocean liner under construction in Belfast, Ireland. It was called Titanic and it was the largest moveable object ever built. With new state of the art technology, the magazine claimed Titanic was “practically unsinkable,” a reputation that stuck… until April of 1912 when the RMS Titanic began its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York harbor. Four days later, the ship lay at the bottom of the North Atlantic, its mas

Ep. 6: “Downton Abbey” is a popular period drama set in Edwardian England that details the life of the Crawley family, their motley crew of servants and of course Dame Maggie Smith playing the ever witty and sharp tongued granny. Love her. But Downton, with its iconic Gothic facade, is a real place. It’s actually called Highclere Castle and, did you know the real story of its inhabitants is truly stranger than fiction? Let’s fix that. 

Ep. 5: “Murder is murder whether committed by the villain skulking in the dark or by uniformed men stepping to the strains of martial music. Murder is murder and somebody must answer.” Those are the words of John G Burnett, a translator for the US Army during the forced removal of indigenous Americans that took place between 1830 and 1850. During this “displacement,” tens of thousands of indigenous people lost their lives along what’s commonly referred to as the “Trail of Tea

Ep. 4: In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I’m sure you’re familiar with the singsong mnemonic meant for remembering the year Christopher Columbus stumbled upon islands in the Caribbean. This set off a chain reaction of European exploration that transformed two continents. But did you know Viking explorers actually reached North America 500 years before Columbus? Let’s fix that. 

Ep. 3: Computer science is a field completely dominated by men. Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on. But on that list, pretty high up on that list is Ada Lovelace. Although the world overlooked her contributions for an entire century, did you know the very first computer programmer was actually a woman? Let’s fix that. 

Ep. 2: He was said to embody the devil himself - extraordinarily tall with a wild black beard and hair tied up with lit fuses. His eyes, like embers, burned with a demonic glow and even the fiercest of men cowered at the sight of his flag. History paints Blackbeard as one of the most feared pirates of the seven seas, but did you know there’s no evidence that he actually killed anyone? Let’s fix that. 

Ep. 1: Roughly 5 stories beneath the streets of Paris you’ll find the bones of over 6 million people stacked in neat rows and arranged in grotesquely intricate designs. The Paris Catacombs attract over 500,000 visitors each year, but do you know why such a shockingly morbid site exists? Let’s fix that.