The Day's Dumpster Fire

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever tried taking a shortcut or was given the directions involving a shortcut, only to find out that it tripled the amount of time it would have taken if you just stuck to the normal path? Human beings LOVE shortcuts, but most of the time a shortcut is a recipe for disaster. However, the worst shortcuts result in humans having to eat other humans to stay alive due to all...

Send us Fan Mail Check it out! Kara, Deja, and Ed got the second part of Donner, Party of 90! published for the world to listen to. In this episode, Kara continues the discussion into the famous (and very... taboo) Donner Party where 90 men, women, and children ventured out west in 1846 to make a new life in California. However, after being informed about a supposed "short cut" the party...

Send us Fan Mail Today is the day that you get to hear the thrilling end to one of the craziest and depressing moments in American history up to the 1850: The tragedy of the Donner Party. Check out Episode 52 and Episode 53 for the background that feeds into this conclusion. Be sure to give those a listen on thedaysdumpsterfire.com to get caught up.  Where Kara left off, the Donner party had alrea...

Send us Fan Mail Nobody thought it possible that Ed could edit 50 episode of The Day's Dumpster Fire... especially Ed. But here it is in all it's glory. More importantly Deja is back so Kara needs to mediate and work overtime in keeping them in check because they tend to let things fly off the rails.  In this episode the crew looks back on 50 episodes of a show they had no idea would act...

Send us Fan Mail Hey there! We got a very different episode for you. We'd even prefer not to call it an episode, but rather an interview with a remarkable woman: Charlotte Adelman.  In conjunction with the Arizona Jewish Historical Society, link to their website can be found here, Kara and Ed were able to take their students to the society's building which tells the stories of those who...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Ed and Kara have a "pallet cleanser." Instead of massive wars with hundreds of thousands of people dying, in this episode no one dies (thankfully) but some buildings, both personal and city owned, don't get off so easily. Marvin Heemeyer was a relatively unassuming middle aged guy in Granby, Colorado who owned a reputable muffler shop. Overall Marvi...

Send us Fan Mail Boy oh boy does Kara have an episode for you. In one of the biggest dumpster fires in American history, Kara dives into the first half of the Vietnam War. Yes! technically it's a "police action" but let's face it... it's an actual war when we look at how many people were involved and how many died on both sides.   In this part 1 episode Kara takes some of...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Kara follows up on her exploration into the dumpster fire that is the Vietnam War. She left off in the Vietnam War Part I right at the height of 1969. So if you haven't checked out that episode, it is strongly recommended that you do so now. However, if you feel confident in your knowledge of Vietnam, then you can proceed.   Kara moves on from what started th...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Kara and Ed did something they normally don't do and that is to record an episode of the show live in their classroom. They also brought on students to talk about one of the largest oceanic disasters of all time, the sinking of the Titanic April 14, 1912.   Perhaps one of the greatest dumpster fires of all time, the White Star Line's latest passenger shi...

Send us Fan Mail Have you or someone you love every had the misfortune of being pregnant and having to deal with morning sickness? Some women are lucky and they never get it. Some women get it mildly in their first trimesters. Other women are unlucky to have a severe case of it in their first trimester. And some women are cursed with morning sickness through their entire pregnancy.   In the 1950s...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Day's Dumpster Fire where we don't celebrate humanity's successes but its most fantastic failures.   On today's episode, Kara explores one of America's earliest mysteries dating back to the olden days when America was nothing more than just a couple of colonies. The British colony of Roanoke was designed to be an initial starting point...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Ed takes you into the world of saturation diving where you'll learn how the human body can adapt to absorb extreme conditions only found at the bottom of the ocean.  When we go swimming at the pool, we take it for granted that the depths that some members of society live and breathe in especially when it comes to a lovely concoction called Heliox.  When you s...

Send us Fan Mail Hey all,  It's a bit late, but Ed and Kara out Episode 47 out on thedaysdumpsterfire.com which involves the crazy stuff that goes on in the waters around the North Pole like lots and lots of tricky to deal with polar bears. In mid to late 1500s Dutch navigator and respected cartographer Willem Barentsz looked at how explorers were trying to get to India by sailing around Afri...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode, Kara is going to ask you if you have ever had "buyer's remorse" and if you have ever had a business venture fail due to factors outside your control.  Most of us have either experienced one or the other and many of us have experienced both. In the "American Dust Bowl Fire," Kara is taking you back to a time in American history wher...

Send us Fan Mail Hey everyone!   After a brief pause in the month of July, Ed finally figured out how to use the fancy new mixer. Many episodes were recorded in July, but Ed messed them all up... who would have thought something intended to improve life and make it easier record and edit, is way more difficult than originally thought?   In today's episode, both Kara and Deja have family oblig...

Send us Fan Mail Finally, the trio are back together again in the bedroom turned into a janky recording studio. With some of the issues of trying to figure out how a mixer works behind Ed, the group can focus on more ambitious projects... like a multipart exploration in one of the wildest dumpster fires in human history, the French Revolution.    In this first part, we're introduced to King L...

Send us Fan Mail Hey everyone! The gang is back this week to conclude the story of one of the most useless monarchs in French history, King Louis XVI. Everyone knows that Louis lost his mind in the end (actually he lost his head and by extension his mind went with it), but there were a lot of events that led up to his date with the guillotine.   In this episode, Kara is going to explain the founda...

Send us Fan Mail Hey there! Today's episode is going to check all the boxes that go into classifying something as a legit historical dumpster fire. Is there a huge problem? Check. Is there a plan to solve that problem? Check. Does humanity plan out the solution with great detail and expense? Check and Check. When executing that plan, does everything fall apart shortly after? Check. And for a...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Ed opens the book on one of history's most iconic military leaders, Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon is most famous for his wars that were so uniquely titled that they became known as the "Napoleonic Wars." For most of his reign, it was wondered if Napoleon could ever be defeated!   And was he gloriously defeated!   In part 1 of a 2 part series, Ed look...

Send us Fan Mail If you're seeing this episode in your pod catcher and you haven't listened to Episode 38. Napoleon Bonaparte's Greatest Blunder Fire Part 1, be sure to do that before listening to this. While this episode is where we get to fully embrace the legendary poo show that was Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, part 1 looked at his meteoric rise from a minor office...

Send us Fan Mail The time has come to share the rest of the events that befell Robert Falcon Scott and his crew between January and March of 1912. If you have not listened to Episode 31. Terra Nova Fire, you might want to go back and take a listen to that episode before listening to this one.     In the first part, Ed sets the stage for the worldwide craze of being the first one to set foot on the...

Send us Fan Mail Somehow Ed and Deja were able to meet in person and record together in the same room while Kara lives on the opposite end of the Phoenix metropolitan area. However, it took them over an hour and half to figure out how to set up a microphone.    Thankfully Kara came prepared with an actual episode while Ed's computer kept resetting and glitching out.    In today's episode...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Kara comes out swinging with one of the strangest dudes in all of human history... Roman Emperor Caligula.    In four short years, Caligula reshaped the glam life of the ultra-wealthy and put together a rather strange "court" if that is even a thing today or back then.    Caligula started off with all the potential one could ask of an emperor but quickly...

Send us Fan Mail After a brief hiatus due to Ed always struggling with editing software and a few temper tantrums, the gang is back with an episode like no other.    In this episode, Ed dives into the Terra Nova ship / expedition in the 1910s, where three men simultaneously work together and as well as compete to be the first to get the south pole. Part 1 is going to set the stage for what will re...

Send us Fan Mail Hey Everyone!   Kara and Ed decided that they need to spice things up a bit and bring on a guest. So they found a lady by the name of Deja to liven things up. As it turns out, Deja has a bit of a pop culture / music background (as well as a really nice microphone to talk into) and she knows a thing or two about how NOT to make music.    In this episode, you'll be introduced t...