Citation Needed

The  Cardiff Giant  was one of the most famous  hoaxes  in American history. It was a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) purported " petrified  man" uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in  Cardiff, New York . Both it and an unauthorized copy made by  P. T. Barnum  are still being displayed. The original is currently on display at The  Farmers' Mus...

A  patron saint ,  patroness saint ,  patron hallow  or  heavenly protector  is a  saint  who in  Catholicism ,  Anglicanism , or  Eastern Orthodoxy  is regarded as the heavenly  advocate  of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon p...

Juan Pujol Garcia   MBE  (14 February 1912 – 10 October 1988), also known as  Joan Pujol Garcia , was a Spanish spy who acted as a  double agent  loyal to Great Britain against  Nazi Germany  during  World War II , when he relocated to Britain to carry out fictitious spying activities for the Germans. He was given the codename  Garbo  by the British; their German counterparts codenamed him  Alaric...

The  diamond hoax of 1872  was a swindle in which a pair of prospectors sold a false American  diamond  deposit to prominent businessmen in  San Francisco  and  New York City . It also triggered a brief diamond prospecting craze in the western  United States , in  Arizona ,  New Mexico ,  Utah ,  Wyoming , and  Colorado . Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to s...

On the evening of 8 December 1980, English musician  John Lennon , formerly of  the Beatles , was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of  The Dakota , his residence in  New York City . His killer was  Mark David Chapman , an American Beatles fan who was incensed by Lennon's lavish lifestyle and his 1966 comment that the Beatles were " more popular than Jesus ". Chapman said he was inspired by...

The  Narváez expedition  was a  Spanish  journey of exploration and  colonization  started in 1527 that intended to establish colonial settlements and garrisons in  Florida . [1]  The expedition was initially led by  Pánfilo de Narváez , who died in 1528. Many more people died as the expedition traveled west along the explored  Gulf Coast  of the present-day  United States  and into the  American...

Mithridates  or  Mithradates VI Eupator  ( Greek :  Μιθραδάτης ; [2]  135–63 BC) was ruler of the  Hellenistic   Kingdom of Pontus  in northern  Anatolia  from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the  Roman Republic 's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an effective, ambitious and ruthless ruler who sought to dominate  Asia Minor  and the  Black Sea  region, waging several hard-fought but ultim...

The  Australasian Antarctic Expedition  was a 1911–1914 expedition headed by  Douglas Mawson  that explored the largely uncharted  Antarctic  coast due south of  Australia . Mawson had been inspired to lead his own venture by his experiences on  Ernest Shackleton 's  Nimrod  expedition  in 1907–1909. During its time in Antarctica, the expedition's sledging parties covered around 4,180 kilometres (...

The  phantom time hypothesis  is a historical  conspiracy theory  asserted by Heribert Illig. First published in 1991, it hypothesizes a conspiracy by the  Holy Roman Emperor   Otto III ,  Pope Sylvester II , and possibly the  Byzantine Emperor   Constantine VII , to fabricate the  Anno Domini  dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite histo...

An  urban legend  or  contemporary legend  is a genre of  folklore  comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or family member, often with horrifying or  humorous  elements. These legends can be entertaining, but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects. They may also be confirmation of moral...

An  urban legend  or  contemporary legend  is a genre of  folklore  comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or family member, often with horrifying or  humorous  elements. These legends can be entertaining, but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects. They may also be confirmation of moral...

The  Burke and Hare murders  were a series of 16 killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in  Edinburgh , Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to  Robert Knox  for  dissection  at his  anatomy  lectures. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can fi...

John Herbert Dillinger  (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster of the  Great Depression . He led a group known as the " Dillinger Gang ", which was accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times but escaped twice. He was charged, but not convicted, of the murder of an  East Chicago, Indiana , police officer who shot Dillinger in his ...

Frederick Douglass  (born  Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey , c. February 1817 [a]  – February 20, 1895) was an American  social reformer ,  abolitionist , orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from  slavery  in  Maryland , he became a national leader of the  abolitionist movement  in  Massachusetts  and  New York , becoming famous for his oratory [5]  and incisive  antislavery  writin...

The Sound and the Fury  is a novel by the American author  William Faulkner . It employs several narrative styles, including  stream of consciousness . Published in 1929,  The Sound and the Fury  was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not immediately successful. In 1931, however, when Faulkner's sixth novel,  Sanctuary , was published—a sensationalist story, which Faulkner later said was written onl...

Homeopathy  or  homoeopathy  is a  pseudoscientific [1] [2] [3] [4]  system of  alternative medicine . It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician  Samuel Hahnemann . Its practitioners, called  homeopaths , believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called  similia similibus curentur , or "like cures...

James Orsen Bakker  ( / ˈ b eɪ k ər / ; [1]  born January 2, 1940) is an American  televangelist  and convicted  fraudster . Between 1974 and 1987, Bakker hosted the television program  The PTL Club  with his then wife,  Tammy Faye , and developed  Heritage USA , a now-defunct Christian theme park in  Fort Mill ,  South Carolina .

The  Black Sox Scandal  was a  Major League Baseball   game-fixing  scandal in which eight members of the  Chicago White Sox  were accused of throwing the  1919 World Series  against the  Cincinnati Reds  in exchange for money from a  gambling  syndicate led by  Arnold Rothstein . Judge  Kenesaw Mountain Landis  was appointed as a response to the incident to be the first  Commissioner of Baseball...

Atlas Shrugged  is a 1957 novel by  Ayn Rand . Rand's fourth and final novel, it was also her  longest , and the one she considered to be her  magnum opus  in the realm of  fiction  writing. [1]   Atlas Shrugged  includes elements of  science fiction ,  mystery , and  romance , and it contains Rand's most extensive statement of  Objectivism  in any of her works of fiction. The theme of  Atlas Shru...

Andrew Carter Thornton II  (October 30, 1944 – September 11, 1985) was a former narcotics officer and lawyer who became the head member of "The Company", a  drug smuggling  ring in  Kentucky . The son of Carter and Peggy Thornton of Threave Main Stud farm in southern  Bourbon County, Kentucky , Thornton grew up living a privileged life in the  Lexington, Kentucky , area and attended the prestigiou...

This week, Cecil takes us through a series of some of history's most courageous, most loyal, and most memorable animals. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here .  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh  (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a  U.S. Air Mail  pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the  Orteig Prize  for making the first nonstop flight from  New York City  to  Paris  on May 20–21. Lindbergh covered the  33 + 1 ⁄ 2 -hour, 3,6...

Linda Laura Hazzard  ( née   Burfield ; December 18, 1867 – June 24, 1938), nicknamed the " Starvation Doctor " [1]  was an American  quack ,  fraud ,  swindler  and  serial killer  noted for her promotion of  fasting  as a treatment. She was imprisoned by the state of  Washington  for a number of deaths at a sanitarium she operated there in the early 20th century. Her treatments were responsible...

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic  is an animated television series produced by  Hasbro  as part of the  My Little Pony  toy franchise, which is tied in with the  2010 relaunch  of dolls and play sets and original programming for the American children's  cable channel   Discovery Family  (formerly Hub Network).  Lauren Faust  was selected as the creative developer and executive producer for the...

Fordlândia is a district and adjacent area of 14,268 square kilometres (5,509 sq mi) in the city of  Aveiro , in the Brazilian state of  Pará . It is located on the east banks of the  Tapajós river  roughly 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of the city of  Santarém . It was established by American industrialist  Henry Ford  in the  Amazon Rainforest  in 1928 as a prefabricated industrial town intended...