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History For Weirdos

History For Weirdos

By: Andrew & Stephanie
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 A deep dive into the strange obscure and relentlessly entertaining portions of human history. Married couple and armchair historians, Stephanie & Andrew, discuss the often overlooked parts of humanity. Whether the subject is an obscure event that has confused historians for centuries or a historical figure that doesn't get enough credit, we have you covered. New episodes available every other Monday!Andrew & Stephanie Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • Episode 161: The Kingfish vs. Oligarchs - Huey Long’s War for the Working Class

    Episode 161: The Kingfish vs. Oligarchs - Huey Long’s War for the Working Class
    Oct 6 2025
    He paved roads, blew up tolls, handed kids free textbooks, and told the oil barons to get lost. Huey “The Kingfish” Long wasn’t just a politician; he was a one-man jailbreak for Louisiana’s poor. In the middle of the Great Depression, he turned the state into a living New Deal before the New Deal: hospitals for the sick, bridges for the forgotten, and a promise bold enough to make millionaires sweat—“Every man a king.” Then he cranked the volume to eleven with Share Our Wealth, a coast-to-coast crusade that said, out loud, what the working class had been thinking for decades: cap the hoards at the top and give ordinary families a fair shot. But here’s the twist only history can write: the more he fought for the have-nots, the more Huey bulldozed anyone who stood in his way. He browbeat legislators, built a machine, and played constitutional hardball like a modern leader of the populares. To his followers, he was the first guy in a long time who actually delivered; to his enemies, he looked like an American Caesar rehearsing for the crown. We take you from Winnfield mud to Baton Rouge marble to a late-night gunshot inside the capitol he built—unpacking how a righteous war for the working class made Huey Long a hero to millions, a menace to the elite, and a cautionary tale about the price of power. - Get History For Weirdos merch ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! - Thank you for listening Weirdos! Show the podcast some love by rating & subscribing on whichever platform you use to listen to podcasts. Your support means so much to us. Let's stay in touch 👇 Email: historyforweirdos@gmail.com IG/Threads: @historyforweirdos Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyforweirdos.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Episode 160: The Beverly Hills Stabbing - Lana Turner, Johnny Stompanato & a Studio System on Trial

    Episode 160: The Beverly Hills Stabbing - Lana Turner, Johnny Stompanato & a Studio System on Trial
    Sep 22 2025
    In April 1958, Hollywood’s ice-queen glamour cracked. Lana Turner’s mob-linked boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, lay dead on her Beverly Hills bedroom floor, felled by a single knife wound, and her 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, stood trembling with the knife in her hand. In this week’s History For Weirdos, we peel back the silk curtains to find the rough edges: a movie star at the height of her fame, a small-time hood with big-time connections, and a city where the studio machine and the underworld sometimes shared the same phone book. We follow the story from red-carpet sheen to coroner’s inquest: the jealous rages and whispered threats, the shadow of L.A.’s mob fixers, the studio publicists working overtime, and the tabloid feeding frenzy that turned a family tragedy into national theater. Along the way, we examine what the official narrative claimed happened that night—and why some details still don’t sit neatly even decades later. Was this a clear-cut case of a teen protecting her mother, or a story shaped by power, image, and the peculiar alchemy of Old Hollywood? Expect glamour and grit in equal measure as we trace how a single moment on April 1958 ricocheted through a star’s career, a daughter’s life, and a city addicted to scandal. Buckle up, weirdos: this is Tinseltown at its most dazzling—and most dangerous. Get History For Weirdos merch ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! - Thank you for listening Weirdos! Show the podcast some love by rating & subscribing on whichever platform you use to listen to podcasts. Your support means so much to us. Let's stay in touch 👇 Email: historyforweirdos@gmail.com IG/Threads: @historyforweirdos Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyforweirdos.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Episode 159: Plato, Syracuse and the Tyrant

    Episode 159: Plato, Syracuse and the Tyrant
    Aug 25 2025
    A philosopher walks into a palace—no, really. This week on History For Weirdos, we follow Plato from the Academy to the armored court of Syracuse, where his friend (and insider) Dion bets that good ideas can tame bad power. Meet the Elder-and-Younger Dionysius tag team, a fortress-city built for paranoia, and a very risky plan to educate a ruler into a philosopher-king—shadowed the whole time by the (contested) Seventh Letter and its “this is how it went down” vibe. When ideals hit palace politics, bodies hit the floor. We track Dion’s return with mercenaries, the siege of Ortygia, and the assassination that blew up the reform—then zoom out to how the fiasco re-wired Plato’s own politics, from the starry-eyed Republic to the more legalistic, “second-best” Laws. Come for the philosopher-king experiment; stay for the receipts, the betrayals, and the uncomfortable lesson about teaching power to think. - Get History For Weirdos merch ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! - Thank you for listening Weirdos! Show the podcast some love by rating & subscribing on whichever platform you use to listen to podcasts. Your support means so much to us. Let's stay in touch 👇 Email: historyforweirdos@gmail.com IG/Threads: @historyforweirdos Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyforweirdos.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Sources for this week: Plutarch, Life of Dion Diodorus Siculus, Library 16 Plutarch, Life of Timoleon https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Eminent_Philosophers/Book_III https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/seventh_letter.html https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-pseudo-platonic-seventh-letter/ https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosopher-king https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-politics/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 27 mins
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