Time Tellers

August 1835. A penny paper prints a breathless scientific report and, overnight, the moon blooms with forests, oceans, and winged humanoids. Listeners gather in public squares to hear the tale read aloud; theologians and citizens debate souls and science while the nation wrestles with a new, electrifying media age. This episode follows the Green Moon hoax from its breathless headlines to the ashes...

When a passerby insists on pronouncing the state one way, a single resolution from the 1880s stands between history and habit. This episode opens with that small-but-stubborn decision — a deliberate choice to honor French spelling and Quapaw heritage that turned pronunciation into law. From there we chase the folklore: bans on blue light bulbs and teachers punished for bobbed hair. Those stories s...

On March 25, 1913, a series of relentless storms and rapid snowmelt turned the rivers around Dayton into a single unstoppable force. What began as a quiet morning expecting spring rain soon became a tidal wave that swept through downtown, ripping foundations from the earth, turning Main Street into a watery highway, and trapping families on rooftops. Corporations, soldiers, nurses, and ordinary ne...

It’s the 1920s: an Arizona rancher lets his donkey nap in a bathtub, a sudden flood turns a sleepy scene into a chaotic rescue, and a costly retrieval sparks a town ordinance banning dozing equines in tubs. The tale—part history, part folklore—traces how one small, messy problem became a cautionary legend carried far beyond its prairie roots. Along the way, meet Mojave County’s wink-worthy fixes—l...

This final episode takes you beyond the Lower 48 into Alaska’s glacial silence, Hawaii’s living volcanoes, and the contested shores of the territories. Dan and Renee weave intimate stories of scale—ancient ice and roaring lava—alongside people who have lived these places for millennia. These parks are living, changing landscapes where conservation collides with colonization, sacred names are recla...

Imagine owning a bar where nobody's allowed to be... drunk. In this episode we follow the absurd-sounding Alaska rule that a drunken person may not remain where alcohol is sold, and meet the staff and officers who treat the law as public-safety gospel rather than punchline. What reads like a cartoon ordinance is actually a tool to prevent over-serving and keep people safe — selectively enforced, o...

Step into a wagon of wonder and danger: this episode unspools the American love affair with miracle cures, from 19th‑century medicine shows to the cold logic of eugenics. You'll meet charismatic hucksters, desperate families, and doctors whose theories did more harm than good. Through vivid stories—bleeding halls, opiate‑laced tonics, targeted ads, and forced sterilizations—we trace how bad scienc...

Dan, hypothetical. You, me, a boxing ring, and one very confused black bear—welcome to Alabama. In this episode we follow a thread of stories that feel equal parts courtroom drama and tall tale: a 1990s crackdown on sideshow bear wrestling born from animal-welfare concerns, barroom tranquilizers gone wrong, and bruised human egos. From an enforceable anti-cruelty statute to a tidy traffic law outl...

When a midnight improvisation becomes a stadium staple and a roadside stand sparks a fast‑food empire, what stories do our favorite late‑night meals tell? This episode follows tacos, burritos, nachos, fajitas, and chimichangas as they cross borders, get reinvented, and shape a new culinary language. Through vivid anecdotes, surprising origin myths, and on‑the‑ground voices, we trace how necessity,...

Ever been so bored you wondered, what if I wrestled a bear — and the bear signed a waiver? In this episode of Time Tellers, Dan and Renee open a dusty legal atlas and step into America’s stranger corners: laws born of church mores, backyard feuds, and theatrical protest. We tell the origin stories, read the actual or reported wording, and decide whether each oddity is enforceable law, folklore, or...

One glittering sphere, one counted-down second, and millions pause: this episode follows the ball from rooftop to broadcast, revealing how a simple descent became a carefully engineered ritual of time, crowd, and meaning. Interwoven with the history are the hosts’ messy human stories—stage lights and post-it costumes, a blizzarded drive, a funeral song, and a knocked-over microphone—reminding list...

Follow the trail of familiar melodies from medieval Europe to American front porches: a story of banished festivities, Victorian reinvention, wartime solace, and booming radio hits. Along the way you’ll meet Puritans who banned Christmas, a songwriter who never meant to write a carol, and soldiers who found peace in a simple hymn. In this episode we weave together the human moments behind the musi...

Picture a Christmas that smells of smoke and fear instead of cinnamon and spice: villages lit by bonfires, masked figures pounding through the night, and a goat-demon whose rattling chains make children hide behind shutters. This episode peels back the cozy remaster and walks you through the original holiday — a season forged by the terror of winter and the rituals people invented to survive it. W...

In this captivating episode of Time Tellers, Dan and Renee delve into America's tumultuous history with the metric system—a tale filled with twists, turns, and unexpected drama. From the chaos of pirates intercepting metric shipments to the political maneuvers that stymied a full conversion, the duo unravels why the United States remains one of the few countries resisting the global embrace of the...

When Pearl Harbor shattered the nation, thousands of Japanese‑Americans were forced from their homes into horse stalls, fairgrounds, and hastily built camps surrounded by barbed wire. This episode follows families as they pack in hours, children say goodbye to pets, and communities try to build schools, gardens, and daily life amid fences and guard towers. Through archival headlines, the shocking...

Imagine its 3:45 a.m. in late November: a freezing parking lot, a lukewarm to-go coffee, and a line that snakes around the building. Hundreds of people wait for one sliding door to open and a chance at a discounted TV. That familiar chaos—camped-out shoppers, terrifying crowds, and fevered deals—was once tied to financial panic, presidential calendars, and annoyed police officers. In this episode...

Pull up a chair as Time Tellers serves a short, spicy history of how global dishes were translated, watered down, and gloriously reinvented on American tables—from chicken tikka masala’s Glasgow epiphany to the gyro, fries, and pad thai that became something new on this side of the world. Through lively anecdotes, immigrant voices, and kitchen confessions, this episode reveals the human stories be...

It was the start of a new decade. America, still reeling from the 1929 crash, passed a single law meant to save its farmers and manufacturers — and instead helped plunge the world into deeper economic ruin. In this episode of Time Tellers, Renee and Dan trace the rise of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act: from a farm-focused bill to a 20,000-item tariff behemoth, the political fights that carried it int...

Step into the steeple and listen: this episode peels back the gleam to reveal the Liberty Bell's real life — a noisy workbell, a flawed casting, and a slow-creeping crack that history remade into meaning. From humble laborers and Quaker ideals to abolitionists, suffragists, and touring crowds, the bell's fracture becomes a story of contested liberty and hopeful reinvention. We follow the bell from...

It’s late, you’re tired, and the glowing drive‑thru menu promises salvation: melty, greasy, perfect. In this episode we follow that first bite back through time — from Hamburg steak to county fair tinkering, from a kid named Lionel’s bold slice of cheese to the diner counters of Erie where Greek sauce rules — and uncover the messy, delicious arguments over who really invented the cheeseburger. Alo...

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It’s not just silence — it’s something older than sound. Stand on the rim of a mile-deep canyon as sunlight crawls across stone that remembers a time before life had legs, and climb into cliff rooms where hands shaped a life that still speaks. In this final episode of our series, Renee and Dan follow rivers through red rock, explore Mesa Verde’s ancient masonry, and listen to the people who’ve liv...

October 26, 1825: a packet boat slides out of Buffalo, Governor DeWitt Clinton pours Lake Erie into the Atlantic, and a ribbon of water reshapes a continent. This episode sails the Erie Canal’s dramatic voyage — from the feverish hand‑digging and deadly swamps to the politics that branded it “Clinton’s Folly” and the jubilant Wedding of the Waters that proved its power. Along the towpath we meet t...

Stand ankle-deep in a cypress swamp as mist rises and something moves in the reeds — this episode opens in the thick, humming heart of the Southeast and pulls you into a landscape that feels alive and full of secrets. We hike the Great Smoky Mountains at sunrise, paddle the Everglades’ river of grass, creep along Congaree’s cathedral of trees, and visit the isolated ruins of Fort Jefferson. Along...

Step into a vast, wind-carved landscape where geysers huff like old engines, glaciers whisper their slow retreat, and redwoods stand like stone columns holding fog in their branches. In Episode 3, hosts Renee and Dan lead you from Yellowstone’s boiling, bison-strewn plains through Glacier’s alpine drama and Olympic’s dripping rainforests to the cathedral hush of the redwoods, tracing each park’s b...