Whitey Morgan: Outlaw Country Forged in Flint, Michigan
Outlaw country music is supposed to come from the dusty plains of Texas or the neon honky-tonks of Tennessee. Whitey Morgan forged it instead in Flint, Michigan, turning rust-belt, blue-collar grit in...
11 Jun 17min
Amanda Shires: From a Pawn Shop Fiddle to The Highwomen
A ten-year-old girl wanders a dusty pawn shop in Mineral Wells, Texas, and begs her dad for a cheap, unremarkable fiddle. That impulse buy launched Amanda Shires, the fiddle prodigy and singer-songwri...
11 Jun 20min
Johannes Kepler: The Mystic Who Found the Math Behind the Planets
In this episode of pplpod, we explore the life of Johannes Kepler, the brilliant and deeply unusual thinker who helped move astronomy from ancient geometry into modern physics. The episode begins with...
10 Jun 21min
Anaximander: The First Thinker to Let the Earth Float Free
In this episode of pplpod, we explore Anaximander of Miletus, the ancient Greek thinker who made one of the boldest leaps in the history of human thought: the idea that Earth does not rest on anything...
10 Jun 23min
Victor Lustig: The Con Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower
In this episode of pplpod, we explore the unbelievable life of Victor Lustig, one of the most notorious con artists of the early twentieth century and the man famous for selling the Eiffel Tower. The ...
10 Jun 26min
Hagia Sophia: The Building That Empires Keep Rewriting
In this episode of pplpod, we explore the Hagia Sophia, one of the most important buildings in world history and a structure that has lived many lives: church, cathedral, mosque, museum, and mosque ag...
10 Jun 20min
Pascal’s Wager: The Cosmic Bet You Cannot Refuse
In this episode of pplpod, we explore Pascal’s Wager, the famous philosophical argument that treats belief in God as the ultimate decision under uncertainty. The episode begins with Blaise Pascal, the...
10 Jun 19min
Omar Khayyam: The Mathematician Time Remembered as a Poet
In this episode of pplpod, we explore the strange double legacy of Omar Khayyam, the 11th-century Persian polymath remembered around the world for poetry, wine, and the famous line “the moving finger ...
10 Jun 21min
