Episodes

  • Lost Bones

    Lost Bones
    Jul 30 2025
    Composer George Frederic Handel is buried with two skulls. You'll never believe why (hint: it has to do with phrenology). Meanwhile Thomas Paine's bones went missing thanks to an overly enthusiastic fan.
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    32 mins
  • Mountains To Climb

    Mountains To Climb
    Jun 30 2025
    Henriette D'angeville was the first woman to climb Mount Blanc in the Alps, despite everyone advising her not to try it. Decades later, Julia Archibald Holmes (a friend of John Brown's) became the first woman to summit Pike's Peak, a feat that Pike himself never did.
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    31 mins
  • Electric Kids

    Electric Kids
    May 30 2025
    Philo Farnsworth loved electricity so much he came up with a way to invent television - as a 14 year old! Centuries beforehand Stephen Gray, a British scientist, learned more about electricity than anyone before him - and he used children to show how it worked!
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    34 mins
  • Good Things to Eat

    Good Things to Eat
    Apr 29 2025
    This episode will make you hungry! Rufus Estes and Chin Foin both left a big mark on food, both lived in Chicago at the same time, and both had their food featured in important cookbooks in 1911.
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    35 mins
  • One Year, Two Hoaxes

    One Year, Two Hoaxes
    Mar 29 2025
    The year 1917 gave us both the birth of the Cottingly Fairies and the silly fake history known as the Bathtub Hoax.
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    34 mins
  • Moving Stuff Around - Hi Jolly and Elisha Otis

    Moving Stuff Around - Hi Jolly and Elisha Otis
    Feb 27 2025
    A man named Hadji Ali, but known as Hi Jolly, was an important figure with the US Army's short lived Camel Corps, and his legend lives on today. Around the same time a man named Elisha Otis changed the world with the elevator brake. It was safe and carried people higher and higher!
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    32 mins
  • Banneker's Clock and Pearse's Plane

    Banneker's Clock and Pearse's Plane
    Jan 29 2025
    Two guys who grew up on farms. Both were tinkerers. Benjamin Banneker, a free Black American created the first striking clock built in America. Richard Pearse, from New Zealand, was a pioneer in flight. Was he a first? we don't know for sure. But he was pretty interesting!
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    33 mins
  • Oceans to Cross with Tori Murden-McClure

    Oceans to Cross with Tori Murden-McClure
    Dec 29 2024
    Episode 101 tells the story of Tori Murden-McClure's solo row across the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to her story, hear her speak with Mick on the 25th anniversary of her successful solo crossing. Learn more about Tori in her book, "A Pearl in the Storm," or from the Audible recording of Dawn Landes's musical, Row: https://www.amazon.com/Row/dp/B091QB7SMS Or hear Dawn's album of the same name, based on Tori's story here: https://dawnlandesofficial.bandcamp.com/album/row
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    52 mins