Podcasts

The Society For The Prevention Of Useless Giving Tried To Get Americans Out Of All That Holiday Shopping

A little over a century ago, a group of women, plus one former US president, declared they were through with the overly commercial side of Christmas.

How An Amendment James Madison Wrote In The 1790s Got Added To The US Constitution In The 1990s

Everybody knows the government can move slowly, but not usually THIS slowly.

“O Holy Night” May Have Been The First Christmas Song Played On The Radio

On Christmas Eve 1906, it’s said that radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden used his technology to more or less invent holiday broadcasting.

Jakob Mierscheid, The Imaginary Member Of Germany’s Real Parliament

You don’t have to be a real elected official to have a real effect on politics.

To Make A Cold War Documentary, NBC Funded An Escape Tunnel Under The Berlin Wall

NBC's documentary "The Tunnel" came at a pivotal moment in the Cold War.

How Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” Became A Song For Every Christmas

It's the release date of a Christmas classic... even if it took a couple decades to become a standard.

This Robot Could Plant Baby Trees To Reforest An Area After A Forest Fire

This year brought us some pretty awful wildfires. A project in Portugal called Trovador asks if robots could take on some of the post-wildfire work for us.

It’s Bat Week on Cool Weird Awesome

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about winged mammals.

Train Cars, A Trip To The Beach And Telegraphs Helped Inspire The Bar Code

A lot of people are out shopping today, so we'll look at the history of the unsung hero of all that fast and furious commerce.

Thanksgiving Without Cranberries? For Many Americans In 1959, It Happened

Cranberry sauce is a classic Thanksgiving side dish, but not in 1959, thanks to what History.com has called the Great Cranberry Scare.
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John Thompson Lost His Arms In A Farm Accident, Got Himself Help And Got The Arms Back

On this day in 1992, John Thompson of North Dakota lost his arms in a farm accident. He then got himself emergency care in time so that he got his arms back.

When The “Kenneth, What Is The Frequency” Guy Attacked Dan Rather And Inspired An R.E.M. Song

In 1986 a guy mugged one of the most famous people in TV news, all the while shouting “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” And that's only the beginning of the story.

The Really (Expletive) Complicated History Of Swearing On TV

Today in 1965, a landmark moment in the history of televised profanity: an f-bomb live on the BBC! We'll look back at some choice moments where people used choice words on the air.

Emma Schols Saved Her Six Kids From A Burning House

Today in 2019, a woman in Sweden rose to an unthinkable occasion: she rescued all six of her children, including three under 5 years old, while their house burned down.

Don Calhoun, The Fan Who Hit The Chicago Bulls’ “Million Dollar Shot”

Lots of teams have fans try really difficult challenges to win big prizes. Nearly all of them come up short, but today in 1993, a guy in Chicago stepped onto the Bulls' home court for a million dollar shot… and made it.