An Old Timey Podcast

As a second lieutenant in the Japanese Army, Hiroo Onoda took his job seriously. He’d been ordered to lead guerilla warfare missions on Lubang Island in the Philippines. He was told to never surrender...

3 Sep 20251h 22min

In the finale of our series on The Donner Party, rescue groups head off for Truckee Lake and Alder Creek, hoping to save as many survivors as they could. For many members of The Donner Party, the resc...

27 Aug 20251h 56min

By the winter of 1846, the Donner Party found themselves in the exact scenario they’d been dreading. They were trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, pummeled by snowstorms. Their food supply dwindle...

20 Aug 20251h 30min

By the time they realized what they’d done, it was too late. Hastings Cutoff turned out to not be much of a cutoff at all. In fact, it was more time consuming and taxing than the regular California Tr...

13 Aug 20251h 25min

The Donner Party was at a crossroads. They’d made good progress on their journey to California, but they were still about a week behind schedule. Lansford Hasting’s new shortcut appealed to the worrie...

6 Aug 20251h 13min

This episode kicks off our coverage of an infamous American tragedy – the Donner Party. In the mid-1800’s, a group that would later be known as the Donner Party set out West in search of a better lif...

30 Jul 20251h 14min

To this day, the Bath School Disaster of 1927 remains the deadliest mass murder in a school in American history, yet it isn’t often discussed. In this episode, Norm covers May 18, 1927, when school ...

23 Jul 20251h 33min

It was unspeakable. Unthinkable. In 1927, a school board member set off a series of explosions that killed 38 children, 6 adults, and injured at least 58 others. That act of domestic terrorism became ...

16 Jul 20251h 41min