Don't Look Now

Ever wondered where your glass of foamy beer got its start?  Turns out beer has been around just about as long or longer than written record.  It seems that once humans had figured out how to grow grains they also started figuring out how to ferment them.  Take a listen this week and learn about the history of beer.

The Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaira, better known as Sisi, became the Empress of Austria in 1854 when she married Emperor Franz Jospeh the First.  She was not raised to be a public figure and never quite fit in as Empress.  While she was famed for being beautiful and intelligent, she generally hid from public view and had a controversial reign before being assassinated in 1898.  However, after her reign she has become somewhat of a feminist icon and has enjoyed continued fame and popularity, including a Netflix series about her in the last few years.  Take a listen and learn a bit about the history and background of Sisi.

This week's podcast revolves around a couple of mental health issues and the story surrounding them.  The first is the Pellagratic Delirium or Pellagrous Encephalopathy.  This condition is due to lack of Niacin (vitamin B3) and became a widespread problem in the Venetian Empire after the introduction of corn meal to the diet of the poor population.  This outbreak resulted in the creation of multiple psychiatric hospitals that treated tens of thousands of people.  The second issue is Munchausen syndrome.  While many people have heard of this form of mental illness that results in someone deceiving others by pretending to be sick.  What you might not know is where the name came from.  Take a listen and see what you find out!

This week's subject is King Tut.  While the discovery of his tomb and the legend of the related curse has made his name well known around the world, who was he really?  Learn a bit about what we know about the man (or more accurately boy) behind the name and myth.

While we have discussed Napoleon in the past on this podcast, today we talk about his younger sister Pauline.  Famous for her beauty and scandalous affairs, she is the only sibling to visit him in exile on Elba.  While she only lived to be 44 she certainly lived life to its fullest.  Take a listen and learn all about Paula Maria Bonaparte Leclerc Borghese

This week's podcast is dedicated to the search for the Yeti, not the top end drink cooler, but the Cryptid that is rumored to roam the Himalayas eating yaks and sometimes people.  The Yeti has attracted the attention of some very famous mountaineers including Sir Edmund Hillary who spent a decent chuck of the late 50's searching for the creature and claimed to have found its prints on his legendary first summiting of Mt. Everest. Is the Yeti real or just a local legend passed down for thousands of years based on something that once was?  Take a listen and see what you think.

Mary Anning was a pioneer in the field of paleontology, working in the early 19th Century, she discovered many famous dinosaurs and marine reptiles such as Ichthyosaurus. Her contributions were often overlooked due to her gender and social status, which let to her being ineligible to join the Geological Society of London or often receive no credit for her contributions.  Among other things she is considered to be the subject of the well known tongue twister "she sells sea shells by the sea shore".  Take a listen an learn all about her unique story.

Today's podcast is about one of America's favorite conspiracy theories, The Roswell Incident.  In 1947, debris was recovered from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico that was recovered by personnel from the nearby Army Air Field.  The stuff of conspiracy began when the Army announced it had picked up a "flying disc" before retracting the statement the next day. The debris was then claimed to be that of a weather balloon although it was later reveled to be from a balloon made to monitor Soviet nuclear tests.  The discrepancy in the report let to the incident eventually being linked to recovery of an extra terrestrial space ship or even alien remains. However, these theories didn't crop up until well after the event in the 1970s.  Take a listen this week and see what you think.  

The Pack Horse Library Project was part of the WPA's attempt to relieve rural poverty in Kentucky.  Since many people in Appalachian Kentucky didn't have access to books, the "book ladies" of the Pack Horse library brought books to them in remote areas via packhorses.  The librarians would haul hundreds of books into the back country via horseback, serving rural communities and promoting literacy and education in communities that didn't have any books.  Women would ride routes that covered over 100 miles as then rotated through communities, sharing books and homemade "instructive literature". At the end of the WPA funding in 1943 the communities were again cut off from library access until the advent of the bookmobile in the 1950s.

While there might be some debate about what is indeed the world's oldest profession, what might be the world's oldest medical profession is that of the midwife.  Women have most likely been helping other women give birth since before modern humans were a thing.  Take a listen this week and learn about the history of the midwife... from revered helper, to outcast witch, and back again over the millennia, midwives have been a key part of brining new humans into the world for as long as there have been humans. 

This week we discuss the invention of the graham cracker... the tasty snack that is used for making smores, pie crusts, and other fun snacks.  However, its history is not what you might expect.  The original graham cracker was invented by the reverend Sylvester Graham in the late 1800s.  He was a proponent of avoiding lustful thought by eating the blandest food possible and made a completely dull tasteless cracker using unsifted flour and no salt or sugar.  It wasn't until much later that the cracker got an update and became the tasty treat it is today.

This week we look at one of the most ubiquitous things in modern dieting... calorie counting.  When did we first start paying attention to the caloric content of food and worrying about how much energy we were taking in vs. burning off?  The popularization of counting calories for weight loss and management was popularized by Lulu Hunt Peters, a doctor who had been the head of the pathology lab at Los Angeles County General Hospital and who was the first person to look at the calorie as something to pay attention to when trying to lose weight as opposed to simply a way to look at nutritive value of food.  Peters successfully used watching calorie intake to lose a substantial amount of weight and then became a very popular figure in the burgeoning weight loss industry writing "Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories" in 1918 which became a best seller.

Hello all!  This week we discuss humanitarian and urban missionary Margaret Prior and her founding of the American Female Moral Reform Society, a progressive group originally created to help the plight of poor women stuck in sex work in pre-Civil War New York City.  Prior worked tirelessly to help fellow women, believe in a hand out and a hand up. The society tackled the issues in a frank and forthright way, noting that there would be no sex work if men weren't purchasing it and if women were to be shamed for doing it then men should be shamed for buying it.  

Ever wondered why a worthless item being sold as a miracle cure is referred to as Snake Oil?  Like just about everything else in Modern America is dates back to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.  Clark Stanley sold snake oil to relieve aches and pains.  The amazing thing is that Snake Oil really can help with these issues, unfortunately Snake Oil is something the Snake Oil salesman wasn't actually selling.  His concoction was full of things like turpentine mineral oil, defrauding people and resulting in Snake Oil becoming the common term for a patent medicine con.  Take a listen to his story this week and a few other choice con artists from the past who sold everything from psychic visions to the Eiffel Tower (twice).

This week's topic, coinciding with St. Patrick's Day, is Grace O'Malley.  O'Malley controlled a large portion of County Mayo in the late 1500s and was known as a pirate queen.  She famously met on equal terms with Queen Elizabeth I, and received her protection from Richard Bingham, the English lord nominally put in charge of the province of Connacht.

If you are like me, you mainly know Horace Greeley for the expression "Go West Young Man" and are generally aware that he was a newspaper editor.  You might be aware that he was a congressman and crossed paths with just about every famous person of the mid 19th century.  Abraham Lincoln (check), Karl Marx (check), Mark Twain (check), etc.  Take a listen this week and see how burnout can be a very bad thing.

This week we take a look at the top five archeology stories in the news, ranging from Greek sculpture finds in Athens, to an ancient woodhenge in Denmark, to kids tripping over ancient idols in Isreal, there's plenty up in the archeological world.

The Shroud of Turin is a mysterious cloth kept in the city of Turin/Torino, Italy that is purported to be the burial shroud of Jesus.  The shroud contains an image of a man baring the marks of crucifixion as if he had burned an image into it while laying on one half with the other half folded over him.  The whereabouts of the are first reported in the 1300s when it was ruled a fake.  However, over the years its claim to be the true burial shroud of Jesus has gained traction.  Now, many people flock to see it when it is displayed whether is truly ancient or not.

In the 8th Century an exorcism was performed on a 16 year old girl.  The girl began to speak in Latin, which she did not know, claiming to be a demon named Wiggo.  The demon claimed to have been roaming the countryside doing terrible things because the lack of piousness and Christian behavior of the people and their leaders allowed his presence.  Was this a case of demonic possession or a cover for the priest and chronicler to publish a critique of the powers that be under cover of claiming it was spoken by a demon.  Take a listen and see what you think.

On the 13th of July, 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last person to be executed in the United Kingdom.  Her story is a tragic one, beginning with childhood abuse and ending with the public shooting of her lover outside a London Pub possibly at the behest of another.  While she felt no remorse and didn't seek to appeal her conviction, her family is still working to clear her name to this day.

The Nazca lines have become famous over the years for their mysterious origins and purpose.  Residing in the high desert in Southern Peru, the lines were created by removing the top layer of desert rocks, exposing the different colored clay beneath.  Some of the lines appear to be an astronomical calendar, some are drawings of birds and beasts, and some seem to have no known purpose. The mystery of their purpose has led to them becoming a favorite topic of the pseudoscience community in recent decades as evidence of ancient aliens.  Take a listen and see what we do know about them, when they were made, and what their purpose might be.

If you were to think of the quintessential family feud that first thought for most Americans is the Hatfields and McCoys.  Two families whose fame is solely based on hating each other.  While their feud is famous, the actual details of it are not.  Most of us only know that McCoys hate Hatfields and Hatfields hate McCoys, not why that might be the case.  The podcast this week dives into the feud, what started it, what happed during its height, and what eventually became of it. Spoiler alert... they get along ok these days.

Today's episode is dedicated to a gem that is probably more famous for the rumors and often false history surrounding it then its own beauty... The Hope Diamond.  The Hope Diamond is now known to have been cut from a gem owned by the Royal Family of France and looted during the early days of the revolution.  A lore of the cure of the Hope Diamond made it famous and it now resides in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. where it can be visited by the public.  Take a listen to our podcast and learn a bit about the history of the stone and the rumors of the curse that is supposed to follow it.

This week's topic is the Lore of Thor.  Legends and religions involving Thor come from ancient Northern European roots and have spread around the world, most notably in recent years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Ever wonder how a random god in the Norse pantheon became universally known today in the form of film and Thursdays?  If so, take a listen, our topic this week is for you.

The English countryside is often associated with many things, rivers, lakes, moors, hedgehogs, but not large predators. The largest official remaining predator in the UK is the badger.  While you might not want to back one into a corner, they're not about to go on a wild killing spree.  However, several locations in the UK report continued sightings of big cats.  Is there a hidden native cat roaming the moors of Cornwall?  Many people think they have spotted them, though the film footage is often as grainy and unreliable as people claiming to have filmed bigfoot.  Take a listen and see what you think is behind all of the big cat reports in the UK.

When you think about it, the human reaction to tickling is quite odd.  Why do we laugh when someone grazes your feet with a feather or digs their fingers into your unsuspecting ribs?  While a little tickling can be fun, it has been used as a device of torture in different societies throughout history.  Take a listen this week and find out all about tickle torture.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!  This Christmas Eve we are coming to you with a podcast full of the history of several Christmas traditions.  If you've ever wondered why we have Christmas Tree ornaments, why the colors of Christmas are Red and Green, or why some of the figures in the Nativity scene always seem to be wearing the same color clothes we've got the answers (maybe...).  

Were you aware that the Nutcracker Ballet was not much of a hit when first performed in 1892 in St. Petersburg, Russia?  While the music was well received, the ballet itself was not an instant fan favorite.  It didn't grow to high popularity until the 1940s when it began to take off in the United States.  Over the years it has become a quintessential part of the Christmas season in America.  Come take a listen and see how and why it took off.

On June 18th, 1875 a warehouse full of thousands of casks of whiskey caught fire in the Liberties area of Dublin causing a river of flaming whiskey to pour down the streets, often up to six inches deep.  While the fire did a great deal of damage, it most regrettably caused the deaths of 13 people.  However, none died from the effects of the fire itself.  They instead died of acute alcohol poisoning from drinking too much from the flood of whiskey they found.

Today's podcast is about a divorce case in New York that took place 100 years ago. Kip Rhinelander, the heir to a prominent New York Family, secretly married Alice Jones, a working class girl.  While this would normally draw the ire of his family the situation became national news when rumors began to spread that the new bride was "colored" and not "white".  This kicked off a media firestorm that led to a trial with the Rhinelander family attempting to annul the marriage on the grounds of Alice having fraudulently misrepresented herself as "white" to Kip.  The trail came at the height of the eugenics movement and the creation of anti-miscegenation laws like Virginia's Racial Integrity Act that prevented interracial marriages, making the trial national news across the country. 

This week we discuss the holiday season's most famous bright spot: Christmas Lights.  Decorating trees, houses, shopping malls, and making up vast displays; Christmas lights are a staple of the holiday season.  When did electric lights on objects become a thing?  Take a listen and learn about the origin of the light and when they became a mainstay of the US holiday season. 

This week's podcast in on Cesare Lombroso, an Italian anthropologist and criminologist that had the unfortunate assertation that criminality was inherited and could be directly identified through physical traits.  While we now know that some congenital abnormalities can affect brain function and lead to psychological issues, most of Lombroso's assertations have been proven wrong.  The most unfortunate aspect of Lombroso's ideas was the inherent racism at the root of many of the ideas of what made someone physically, and thus mentally primitive. This led to a lot of the ideas later being adopted by the fascists and their thoughts of racial supremacy.  While the ideas were incorrect and often hurtful, ironically a lot was learned over the years in proving them wrong.

While the Candyman movies involve a mysterious paranormal murderer that can be summoned thought the bathroom mirror stalking the projects of Chicago, they are based on a true story.  Today's podcast discusses the bizarre details surrounding the murder of Ruthie Mae McCoy who was killed in her apartment in the ABLA housing project of Chicago's Near-West Side. McCoy's killer/killers entered her apartment though her bathroom medicine cabinet, crawling through from the vacant apartment next door by taking advantage of a hole created to access piping between apartments. 

This week's episode tells the story of Elmer McCurdy, a not too successful bandit of the old west who was eventually killed in Oklahoma in 1911.  However, McCurdy's story didn't end then.  After being embalmed, no one wanted to pay for his burial, and he went on display at the funeral home.  Elmer's desiccated eventually toured the United States in various ways until it was forgotten that he was actually a real person and not a wax figure.  The truth of his identity wasn't discovered until the 1970's when he was discovered while filming a TV episode in an amusement park dark ride.  Take a listen and find out all about Elmer, who's like only got more interesting after he was dead.

We're back after a one week hiatus with stories of the bizarre area where the law and ghosts overlap.  We have two stories this week: the first where the testimony of a ghost is officially admitted as evidence in a trial, and the second where a house is declared legally haunted.  Take a listen and see just how ghosts and our legal system have intermingled.

Have you ever wondered where the tradition of the pumpkin patch came from?  Today, every Halloween season, we have active pumpkin patches on farms that have not just the obligatory pumpkins for sale, but giant slides, corn mazes, hay rack rides, and hundreds of other random activities to attract families to spend their time and money.  On today's podcast we look at the history of the pumpkin patch and how it changed from small patches grown by the native peoples of North America into the large industry it is today.

Today's episode is dedicated to the debate about who the childhood scare game "Blood Mary" takes its inspiration from.  Is it Queen Mary of England, a legendary witch, or a Balkan Countess.  Since we are talking about Bloody Marys it's only fitting we spend some time talking about the origin of the drink as well, which is also shrouded in mystery.  

This week we have multiple stories of cryptids from around the US.  There's always a fun story of the local creepy monster or legend to make kids out camping rethink their decisions when they wake up in the middle of the night.  This week we have everything from Sink Hold Sam to the Pope Lick Monster. Take a listen and learn about some of the more strange local legends both whimsical and sinister.

My apologies for the late podcast this week... the blue screen of death reared its ugly head, but the computer issues are now fixed and the podcast is finally posted.Our topic this week is Amelia Elizabeth Hobley-Dyer, the Ogress of Reading.  A woman who made money "caring" for children of unwed mothers in Victorian England.  Unfortunately, this often meant her killing the children and pocketing the money from the poor women who paid her to take them in. 

Where did the people of Scotland come from?  The Picts were living in Scotland when the Romans arrived but where did they come from and who did they descend from?  Theorys abound: from home grown stories of them descending from an Egyptian queen to more conventional crossings of the Irish Sea by Gaelic peoples.  Take a listen and see what you think.

The ornate eggs that Faberge made for the imperial family of Russia are famous around the world. 52 eggs were made for the imperial family, and the majority of these are still around today, on display around the world in various collections.  However, some of the eggs are still missing and have from time to time been found in the strangest of places.  Take a listen, maybe you'll be the next to come across a long lost egg.

Daniel Dunglas Home (pronounced Hume) was a medium of the mid 19th century that gained fame in both Europe and the US for his ability to levitate and move objects during seances.  He became one of the most famous mediums of the spiritualist movement and had many high profile believers and doubters including Arthur Conan Doyle as a prominent believer and the poet Robert Browning as a prominent detractor. 

The concept of a Wendigo, a malevolent spirt that can cause someone to become an insatiable cannibal is a part of Algonquin Folklore that is both part cryptid and part culture-bound syndrome.  While the concept has entered the vernacular of the western world with horror movies and stories depicting it, it stems from the Algonquin culture where the threat of starvation in the winter woods was a very real thing.  The tales help to steer society away from greed and account for the potentially very real possibility of resorting to cannibalism in times of extreme need.  Take a listen as we discuss the legend of the Wendigo.

This week's topic is the life of Margaret Brown, better known as The Unsinkable Molly Brown in mostly fictionalized accounts after her death.  Margaret was born in Hannibal, Missouri about 30 years after Mark Twain.  She is famed for her activism in social causes and for surviving the sinking of the titanic.  Take a listen and find out more about her facinating life.

Today's podcast is about one of the more light-hearted cryptids out there.  The mysterious jackalope, seen mounted on many walls but not often in the wild.  Take a listen and find out about this icon of the great plains.

Today's podcast has two topics: the miraculous staircase of the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the vampires of New Orleans.  Both of which are linked, oddly enough, by their relationship to nuns.  

Andrew Cunanan was a serial murderer that killed five people during a crazed spree in 1997.  His most famous and final victim, other than himself, was Gianni Versace, the famed clothing designer.  What drove him to do what he did?  Listen in and see what you think.

The conclusion of our two part episode on Jim Jones and the People's Temple.  The People's Temple moves to California and problems begin in earnest.  The cult eventually moves to Guyana and creates the settlement of Jonestown where is slowly decays into human rights abuses and ultimately the Jonestown Massacre.  Don't drink the Flavor Aid.

We discuss the early life of Jim Jones, the cult leader most infamous for the mass murder/suicide of his followers at Jonestown in Guyana.  From his start in life as part of a desperately poor and dysfunctional family, to his alternately being a preacher, atheist, communist, civil rights crusader, and cult leader, his life seems to be a constant contradiction full of shifting positions.  Take a listen and see what you think. 

Today's podcast deals with a couple of the lesser known cryptids of the United States: The Pukwudgies of the Massachusetts woods and the wand wielding frog people of Ohio.  Time for a little detour into the weird ;)

During and after World War I, a group of women living in Nagyrev, Hungary, used arsenic to poison up to 300 men.  The ringleader of the group was Zsuzanna Fazekas, a local midwife with a strangely missing husband.  The poisoning was initially aimed at abusive husbands, but eventually spread to parents of the women involved and thier own children.