• Roy Beebe and His Incredible "Cosmic Ray" Machine!: The 1940s Health Scam Guru Who Shook Up Long Beach
    Nov 21 2023

    Each day in the late 1940s, thousands of sick people visited the residential Long Beach home of Roy Beebe, a self-styled "scientist" whose homemade "cosmic ray" machine was said to cure all of mankind's ills.
    Beebe's "cosmic ray" laboratory and its growing army of true believers made national news as a normally quiet Long Beach neighborhood was overrun with thousands of desperate patients seeking treatment from the mysterious machine.
    Was it all a scam? Join us, won't you?

    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
  • The Spruce Goose! Howard Hughes in Long Beach 1947
    Oct 31 2023

    With a wingspan as wide as a football field, the Spruce Goose was the largest plane ever built. The craft—designed by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes and made out of wood—was intended for use in WWII, but the plane wasn't finished until after the war was already over. Under intense pressure from the government to show results, and still recovering from a major crash of his own, Hughes took the Spruce Goose out for its one and only test flight in Long Beach harbor in November 1947. Join us, won't you?

    Show More Show Less
    42 mins
  • Minerva's Mailbag! 1920s Letters from Young Women in Long Beach
    Oct 3 2023

    In 1923, the Long Beach Press began an advice column—Minerva's Mailbag, later changed to Tell It to Mary—geared toward the young women of Long Beach.
    What problems were vexing the teen girls and emerging adult women of Long Beach? Join us for an absolutely terrif discussion about flappers, dating, petting, loneliness, and upturned gender norms in a hotsy-totsy, yet topsy-turvy, time of rapid change in Long Beach.

    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
  • The Babbitt Murders of 1924! Part Two
    Sep 19 2023

    It's money, murder, and madness in old timey Long Beach as our case goes to trial! Join us for the final installment of this tale of greed, guns, drugs, ice cream, oil scams, Charlie Chaplin, and Ponzi schemes among the upper class in Long Beach's golden age!

    Show More Show Less
    54 mins
  • The Babbitt Murders of 1924! Part One
    Sep 5 2023

    Did a prominent Long Beach businessman get away with killing his wife and his business partner? Probably! Join us for a tale of greed, guns, drugs, ice cream, and con games as we deep-dive into a case of murder most foul among the elite business class in Long Beach's golden age!

    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
  • Elvis in Long Beach 1956!
    Aug 22 2023

    In June 1956, just days after his infamous hip-thrusting performance on the Milton Berle Show, young rocker Elvis Presley came to Long Beach to play the Municipal Auditorium and a near-riot broke out. What did Long Beach teens and grown-ups think of Elvis and this new dangerous thing called rock and roll?

    Show More Show Less
    39 mins
  • Tiger Girl Murder! Part Two
    Mar 13 2021

    On July 12, 1922, two young women spent the day in a Long Beach speakeasy, drinking and commiserating about their unfaithful husbands. That evening, on a remote road in Los Angeles, one of those women would beat a romantic rival to death with a hammer. The brutal murder case became one of Southern California's very first trials of the century, with the accused becoming the object of almost cult-like fascination in the public.

    Show More Show Less
    30 mins
  • Tiger Girl Murder! Part One
    Mar 10 2021

    On July 12, 1922, two young women spent the day in a Long Beach speakeasy, drinking and commiserating about their unfaithful husbands. That evening, on a remote road in Los Angeles, one of those women would beat a romantic rival to death with a hammer. The brutal murder case became one of Southern California's very first trials of the century, with the accused becoming the object of almost cult-like fascination in the public.

    Show More Show Less
    28 mins