The Bizarre Origin of the Oxford English Dictionary
With 600,000 words and 3 million quotations, the Oxford English Dictionary is a massive tome. Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but the first edition wasn't published until 1884. Compiling the dic...
8 Nov 201843min
How Conman Victor Lustig Sold The Eiffel Tower (Twice)
Born Robert Miller, the man who would later become known as Count Victor Lustig traveled across Europe and the US bilking hundreds of people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had many, many ...
6 Nov 20181h
George Carlin Gets Quoted in the Supreme Court: Ridiculous Stand-up Stories with Wayne Federman
In the second part of this two-part series, special guest Wayne Federman explores the strange, curse-word-riddled stand-up bit that resulted in George Carlin setting a legal precedent with the Supreme...
2 Nov 201824min
The People vs. Lenny Bruce: Ridiculous Stand-up Stories with Wayne Federman
Lenny Bruce is a legend in the history of stand-up comedy, and while his use of explicit language thrilled audience members, it didn't win him any friends in law enforcement. In fact, Bruce was arrest...
31 Okt 201831min
The Life and Times of Ol' Knife Hand
A necropolis in what is now Northern Italy holds a strange and, at first glance, terrifying corpse. A Lombard man, aged somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, lost his right arm in a brutal accident. ...
23 Okt 201827min
The Ridiculous Story of the World’s First (Documented) Serial Killer
Locusta of Gaul, also known as Lucusta The Poisoner, was one of the most infamous criminals of ancient times. Alternately sponsored and betrayed by the noble class, she committed crimes with impunity ...
18 Okt 201834min
Back When the Rich Ate Corpses
Nowadays it's safe to say that cannibalism isn't a widely-accepted practice, but not so long ago it was considered the bleeding edge (get it?) in medicine throughout Western Europe. Join Ben and Noel ...
16 Okt 201834min
The Mummies of Guanajuato
When the city of Guanajuato instituted a grave tax, they included some harsh penalties for those who couldn't pay -- if you went more than three years without paying the tax on your loved one's restin...
11 Okt 201828min
