Oddball History

This week on an all new Oddball History Podcast, it's the Pig-Faced Lady Craze of 1630-1865--arguably one of the bizarre crazes in recorded history. PLUS: Muladona the mule-woman, mermaids & Power Rangers!

This week on the Oddball History Podcast, it's a salute to bareknuckle boxers past and… further past. From Georgian London to Ancient Greece and back again, meet the baddest, toughest and most brandy-drunk bareknuckle boxers in history, including Elizabeth Wilkinson, the Undefeated First Lady of 18th Century Brawling; Ancient Olympian Glaucus of Carystus, whose greatness was foreshadowed when he f...

This week on a very special but possibly cursed Oddball History Podcast, it's curses, curses and more curses, including the TRUTH behind the Curse of Tutankhamen… The GOAT whose removal from a 1945 World Series game led to the Chicago Cubs being cursed for 71 years… SEVERAL CENTURIES of Macbeth-related mishaps and tragedies… PLUS: Donkey Kong Country Returns, funny bumper stickers, and pretzel dog...

Ancients die in the darnedest ways this week on a very special Oddball History Podcast--including a philosopher who laughed himself to death after seeing a donkey eat some figs; a wrestler who was eaten by wolves (or lions!) after getting his fingers caught in a tree stump; a legendary playwright who was struck down by a falling turtle, and so much more! PLUS: Unsolved Mysteries, fun with trebuche...

So it's come to this: An episode about farts. This week on a very special Oddball History, a 3,925-year-old fart joke from Ancient Sumer; Martin Luther farts at the Devil; Roman emperor Elagabalus breaks out the whoopee cushion; Benjamin Franklin writes an essay called "Fart Proudly," in which he sarcastically proposes scientists focus their efforts on making farts smell good; and so, so much more...

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, Scott learns all about the lost art of court jestering and meets a few of the most famous jesters in history, including Roland the Farter, King Henry VIII's favorite funnyman Will Sommers, and Britain's Smallest Man, the amazing Jeffrey "Lord Minimus" Hudson. PLUS: Baseball, the wrath of Lucky the Leprechaun and olive talk!

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, it's everything you always wanted to know about marooning (the practice of punishing someone, usually a sailor, by leaving them stranded on a desert island) but were too afraid to ask, as well as a somewhat comprehensive rundown of the most famous maroonings in history. ALSO: Pirate humor, the Jenny Jones Show and the golden age of dynamite!

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast it's the lighter side of historic murder plots, from the Roman emperor Nero resorting to Wile E. Coyote technology in an attempt to commit matricide to the CIA's decades long Fidel Castro-centric brainstorming session to the near indestructible "Irish Rasputin" Mike Malloy, the man who couldn't be murdered (almost). PLUS: The Waltons, Regular Ras...

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad kings episode this week on the Oddball History Podcast, as Scott gets to know the most bizarre and least sane royals of all time, including the Zhengde Emperor of the Ming Dynasty and his loyal army of eunuchs, the Tsar who hated Russia and once put a rat on trial for treason (it was found guilty and given the death penalty fwiw) and Caligula, the original dangerously ins...

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, we shamelessly attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the World Cup with our very own soccer episode, featuring the wildest stories in the history of the beautiful game--from the 1915 British Football Match Fixing Scandal to the 1966 World Cup being saved by a collie mix named Pickles to the altogether insane tale of Carlos Kaiser, the Brazi...

The popes have gone wild this week on a highly spiritual Oddball History Podcast, from Sergius III having his two immediate predecessors strangled, to Benedict IX more or less openly selling the papacy, to Leo X and his beloved pet elephant Hanno rampaging through the streets of Rome as a goof. PLUS: Witches, pigeon squatters and Love Island!

Bird, bird, bird, bird is the word this week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, as Scott learns all about the most legendary birds in history, including the heroic war pigeons of World Wars 1 & 2, Thomas Jefferson's pet mockingbird Dick, Charles Dickens's bitey pet raven Grip, and Jimmy, the top billed bird star of the Golden Age of Hollywood. ALSO: Legendary bird guy John James Audubon pu...

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast it's the Cavalcade of Rich Weirdos--three exceedingly wealthy and almost unbelievably weird men straight from the pages of history, from the barely literate American Revolution-era investment wizard Timothy Dexter to the early 18th century British playboy with a penchant for crashing carriages for fun, Mad Jack Mytton, to the always colorful Howa...

This week on a very special Oddball History, it's the Year of Five Emperors, a wild, bloody, chaotic time even by the standards of the Roman Empire--from Commodus being strangled by his personal trainer on New Year's Eve 192, setting the whole sordid saga in motion, to the great and brutal general Septimius Severus emerging from the pack of would-be emperors as the last emperor standing. PLUS: Fun...

This week on a very special Oddball History we're lowering ourselves down into the sewer to learn all about the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre, a grisly and all too true comedy of errors set in 1902 French Indochina, as well as Mao's tragically misguided (but super popular) war on sparrows and the species of toad brought to Australia as a pest control measure in the 1930s, which has been spreading acros...

What's beef? Beef is when you hate someone so much for so long that your hate goes down as a matter of public record, as we learn this week on a very special Oddball History Podcast. From Hollywood icon Joan Crawford claiming her "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane" co-star Bette Davis smelled to Roald Amundsen's "Haha f--k you" letter to fellow polar explorer Robert F. Scott to Queen Elizabeth I gri...

This week on a very special Oddball History we're going back to the well of weird history that is the Turn of the 20th Century, to a time when Martians were real (or seemed to be anyway). PLUS: Top Comments is back, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives CONTROVERSY, and upwards of two Simpsons references!

This week on a very special Oddball History, Jimmy has retired from history podcasting, leaving Scott to ramble about hippopotamuses--specifically the brief period in 1910 when Congress considered importing hippos to solve a meat shortage. 

Come on in, the water's warm. Part 2 of the Oddball History Holiday Classic Chapters: (00:00) Intro (00:57) The Last Castrato (09:20) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (15:31) Scott Goes Ghost Hunting (23:19) Margaret Howe Does Hand Stuff with Dolphins (31:12) Tusko: The Elephant That Took Too Much Acid (41:24) Robert Cornish - Boy Genius (50:40) Gladiator Blood and Encino Man (54:35) John C. Woods...

Check out our favorite segments from the past 2 years. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (01:58) Jacques Ferron and the RIghteous Donkey (08:46) Ken Allen the escAPE artist...get it? escAPE? (17:13) The First Ever Diss Track - Sumerian Dog Poem (21:41) Scott Gets Mad at Us - Texas Rangers (28:25) Gary Suitor gets cut by the Cleveland Cavaliers (34:47) A Night out with Rube W...

The early 2000s were a different time. A better time? Depends who you ask. We'll be covering Boy Meets Boy, Kid Nation, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:20) Top Comments (08:32) Boy Meets Boy (Bravo 2003) (16:06) Kid Nation (CBS 2007) (28:42) My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance (Fox 2004) (35:35) Podcastin'

The HMS Wager did everything wrong. Here is the story of the shipwreck, mutiny, and return home to merry old England.    Chapters  (00:00) Intro (08:40) Top Comments (21:55) The HMS Wager (45:49) Podcastin'

We'll cover Gregor MacGregor, George C. Parker, and Natwarlal. Also butts and stuff. Chapters (00:00) Intro (02:58) Top Comments (20:37) Gregor MacGregor Makes Up a Country (28:15) George C. Parker has a bridge to sell you (33:53) Natwarlal, India's legendary conman (39:34) Honorable Mention: Alan Conway and Stanley Kubrick (42:45) Stand Up Shows and Dumb Thoughts

The conman so nice, he sold the Eiffel Tower twice! And more such stories. Enjoy. Chapters (00:00) Intro (02:14) Top Comments (22:24) Victor Lustig: King of the Con (55:42) Show Dates and Chit Chat

Georgia Tech and Cumberland faced off in 1916. The Yellow Jackets won 222-0. This is that story.   Chapters: (00:00) Intro (05:05) Top Comments + Some Meandering (26:06) 1916 Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland Beatdown (45:58) Idle chit chat and stand up comedy dates