#244 - Electricity in American Life
From 1876, when the first effective dynamo/generator that produced a steady current of electricity was invented, Americans reacted to this new phenomenon of electricity in many different ways. Profess...
30 Jan 201846min
*Flashback Friday* #90 - Mini-Myth: George Washington Crossing the Delaware
The painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze is one of the most iconic images in the American cultural consciousness. But how accurate a depiction is it? By standing up in ...
26 Jan 20182min
#243 - Man Crush Monday: Varian Fry
Varian Fry started life as a journalist. He spent the early years of World War II, however, rescuing Jews from occupied Europe, and agitating against immigration restrictions against refugees. Working...
22 Jan 20187min
*Flashback Friday* #96 - Mini-Myth: Rasputin's Death
Gregor Rasputin (1869-1916) is one of the most fascinating people in modern history. Who was he? Religious visionary? Mystic healer? Charlatan? Spiritual con man? Political snake? All of the above? Th...
19 Jan 20186min
#242 - The Pizza Effect
The "pizza effect" helps explain why assumptions about the history and development of certain cultural practices and traditions are among the strongest historical myths out there, how they are self-re...
16 Jan 201819min
*Flashback Friday* #27 - Mini-Myth: Great Train Robbery
"The Great Train Robbery" (1903) was not the first feature film, despite what you learned in film studies class, Buzzkillers (or from some tiresome, drunken film-studies major at a boring film-studies...
5 Jan 20182min
*Flashback Friday* #79 - Mini-Myth: New Year's Eve/ Day
How did New Year's Day end up in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere (and the middle of summer in the southern hemisphere)? Wouldn't a day in spring be more fitting? Find out how people ce...
29 Dec 20174min
*Flashback Friday* #77 - Mini-Myth: Santa Claus
Who was Santa Claus, Buzzkillers? The jolly old man from Miracle on 34th Street? The round-bellied man wearing a red costume, driving a sleigh pulled by 8 tiny reindeer? Was there a Rudolph involved? ...
22 Dec 20173min
