467 - The Pinkerton Detective Agency

This week, Josh Earl tells us the wild and troubling story of Melvil Dewey, the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 2:39 (though ...

24 Sep 20251h 23min

This week we look at the tragic and fascinating life of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley and explore how the novel she started writing as an 18 year old, changed popular culture forever.Content warnin...

17 Sep 20252h 46min

In 19th Century London, a bizarre figure terrorised the streets, lashing out with metal claws and blowing fire in people's faces before leaping over tall fences. Described variously as a bull, a bear,...

10 Sep 20251h 36min

“Tenerife is an example of the 'Swiss Cheese' Model: dozens of individual events, each of them incredibly unlikely in their own right, aligning against all odds to create the final outcome.” This is a...

3 Sep 20252h 11min

Early in the morning of the 26th of August 1980, employees at Harvey's Wagon Wheel Resort and Casino discovered a mysterious metallic box. With the mysterious package was a note, explaining is was a b...

27 Aug 20252h 46min

In 1975, for the first and only time in Australia's history, a Prime Minister was sacked. Gough Whitlam was dismissed after months of political manoeuvring and backstabbing, culminating in what is sti...

20 Aug 20252h 46min

In 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson was one of the most famous women in America. She was an evangelist and healer who attracted huge crowds, and her popularily was growing by the day. And then one day, sh...

13 Aug 20251h 48min

This week our friend Marcel Blanch-de Wilt drops by to tell us about the history of the Alien Franchise all the way from humble beginnings to a multi-decade, multi-million dollar cinematic machine. On...

6 Aug 20252h 37min