Shame and Fish: The Embarrassing and Tragic Story of François Vatel
In this episode, Ben and Noel dive into the story of François Vatel, a majordomo who was tasked with organizing an extravagant royal banquet in 1671. With 2,000 attendees expected, among them many hig...
20 Aug 201934min
Creature Feature: Go Home Nature, You're Drunk
Join the guys as they make a return appearance on Creature Feature, the podcast that takes a critter’s eye view to explore how animal behavior parallels the behavior of humans. In this episode, Katie ...
15 Aug 20191h 32min
Hunting Fireflies for Fun (and Profit)
From the 1960s well into the 1990s, thousands of children in the United States were actually paid to hunt fireflies. Join the guys as they explore the strange story of Sigma and firefly hunting — and ...
14 Aug 201937min
The Listener Mail Extravaganza
The guys often end the show by asking you and your fellow listeners for your own takes on everything from strange town names, crackpot military experiments and more. In today’s episode, Ben and Noel e...
9 Aug 201934min
That Time Ancient Monks Waged War Over A Copyright
The first modern copyright law was the Statute of St. Anne, passed in Great Britain in 1710. However, copyright disputes themselves are much older -- and in at least once case, an argument over copyri...
6 Aug 201926min
Ye Xian: The Story of China's Cinderella
We've all heard the story of Cinderella -- it's one of the world's most popular fairy tales! However, this story exists in multiple versions across the world. Join the guys as they explore the ancient...
1 Aug 201927min
The Portuguese Bank Note Crisis: How One Lucky Forger Almost Destroyed A Nation's Economy
Artur Virgilio Alves dos Reis had a gift. He wasn't the smartest kid growing up, nor was he the most athletic -- he was, however, one of Europe's most talented forgers. After a string of various cons,...
30 Jul 201934min
Cow Shoe Camouflage: How Prohibition-era Moonshiners Outsmarted the Feds
During the Prohibition Era, moonshiners and federal agents continually tried to outsmart one another — and one of the moonshiners’ most creative inventions? The bizarre footwear known as Cow Shoes. L...
25 Jul 201930min
