History Goon

A duck, a horse, a cat and a bear. 2 are Marines, 1 is a German turncoat and 1 is in a Polish artillery division. Which is which? You’ll have to listen to find out!

S.2 Ep. 16: Botched Executions We’ve talked about execution methods (Season 1 episode 21) but what happens when an execution goes wrong? Well dear listener, have I got some stories for you! Everything from members of the Royal family (possibly reptilians) to some more… Fiery modern ones. Hang around and enjoy.  

This week I’m joined by either Sam from the award winning NeverDaily Podcast or The Operator from the also award winning 911 Calls with The Operator. We delve into the depths of the Highgate Cemetery; the geography, the history, the famous people that call it their final resting place and THE GIANT F**KING VAMPIRE that haunts it. Plus we’ll get to know a couple of total badasses (giant dorks) that...

Let’s talk about some good guys from WWII this time. The Last trip to the Second World War was… Not as fun as this one is going to be. Leonard Funk joined the Army in 1941 and was part of one of the early on parachute regiments and would go on to prove that he may have had the fastest gun in Belgium. Then we have William GH Cercy who has one of the most wholesome moments in the history of History...

S.2 Ep. 13: FBI Miami Shootout Welcome to 1986 Miami, grab a drink, a Cuban (the sandwich don’t be weird) and a heaping tablespoon of cocaine! This week we’re talking about the most lethal single day in FBI history when a team of Special Agents ran up against two ultraviolet bank robbers named Michael Lee Platt and William Russell Matix. They started off small; robbing grocery stores and drug deal...

S.2 Ep. 11: Bohemian Grove I don’t usually tie episodes into current events but… When the fruit hangs low I have to pick it once in a while. This time we’re headed off to the Redwood forest of California to sneak into a forbidden campground that is off limits to everyone except the ultra elite. Bohemian Grove has been the birthplace of many different world shaping events, everything from hand sele...

This week I’m getting after my first listener suggestion, an Air Force Pararescueman who fought in Vietnam. There isn’t too much more to say here without spoiling things so, enjoy the story of Bill Pitsenbarger’s selfless service to help wounded soldiers. You have no idea how much I wish there was more I could find on this guy…  

S.2 Ep. 10: Irma Grease & Ilse Koch: Nasty Nazi Ladies This one is gonna be a blast… When you think of Nazi war criminals you usually picture some Indiana Jones-esque, cartoonishly evil guy with a giant face scar and tiny mustache. Sometimes it's the person you least suspect. Like someone that looks like she could be one of your friend’s aunts or a random girl you see in town. But, sometim...

This episode was kinda spur of the moment and not a regularly scheduled one but: This time I sat down with my good friend and host of Crimes, Killers, Cults and Beer, Bill Selby to talk about a very uplifting and lighthearted episode. I’m kidding. This guy (not Bill) was one of the most brutal, blood thirsty Nazis I’ve ever read about. Oskar Dirlewanger was a violent, alcoholic, psychopath who cut...

S.2 Ep. 9: The Hashsashin We travel back to the time of Crusaders and Castles to meet a man named Hassan Ibn-Sabah. A man of faith and religion who created an order of professional killers to protect him and also carry out his bidding. He hand selected these men and fed them drugs (allegedly) and made them promises of entry to heaven after their mission. Sound familiar? They had some HUGE targets...

S.2 Ep. 8: New Jack Professional wrestling is a business full of crazy, brave, tough and violent people. Sometimes that all manifests in one person. Let me introduce you to New Jack. He was born Jerome Young but after a rough childhood and a VERY interesting early adult life he got into wrestling and became New Jack. Due to his willingness to do wild stuff he quickly found himself on the Island of...

S.2 Ep. 7: Weirdness in the Canadian Wilderness This time we are headed to some of the remote parts of the Canadian wilderness for some odd occurrences and mysterious disappearances. First we’re swinging through Nunavut where an entire Inuit village seemingly dropped off the face of the earth without a trace. It only gets weirder from there, when 2 investigations by the Royal Canadian Mounted Poli...

S.2 Ep. 6: Nathan Bedford Forrest From humble beginnings comes who would become one of possibly THE WORST people I’ve covered on this show. Nathan Bedford Forrest grew up pretty poor but as a young man got into a very lucrative business, slave trading. He made a ton of money selling human beings like used cars, including, allegedly the daughter of a very well known person. Unfortunately, he made e...

S.2 Ep.5 - Bay of Pigs and Operation Northwoods Ah, the 1960’s. Peace. Love. Threats of nuclear war. What a time to be alive, and of course the ever creeping threat of Communism. This week we are talking a little about the Cuban Revolution where Castro took over, then we’re going to talk about how this was almost IMMEDIATELY a problem for Washington. And when Washington DC has a problem like this...

Christmas Bonus : The Christmas Truce of 1914 War is hell. Trench warfare is a special kind of hell. What’s special is finding out that the men across the stretch that nobody crosses have more in common with you than the leaders sending you to your death is something special. Every once in a while, in the most inhuman times, soldiers find common ground.  Today we're all brothers Tonight we&#39...

S.2 Ep. 4 - Samuel Whittemore This time we jump back into the American Revolution to visit a soldier turned Statesmen. He started off as the son of a farmer and became a British soldier and then officer during the Austrian War of Succession and then the French and Indian War. After his warfighting was done, Samuel Whittemore became a low level politician in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at a p...

S.2 Ep. 3 - Operation Wraith of God Following the events of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the Israelis took the fight to anyone they considered an enemy of the state. Members of Black September, the PLO and other assorted terrorist groups would meet some pretty gruesome fates at the hands of Mossad, the Israeli government's most dangerous tool. 

S. 2 Ep.2 : The Munich Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics are being held in Germany for the first time since 1936. There a guy in charge at the time that gave Germany a not so great reputation so, the German government wanted to do everything they could to make this experience feel less… militant than it was in 1936. Unfortunately that meant incredibly lax security measures which was bad news for t...

We are starting Season 2 with a bang. Have you ever gone outside at night and looked up at the vast starfield above you and thought, “Man, I bet so many people have died in space…” Well… Not a ton but more than a handful have met their maker after slipping the bonds of our atmosphere, attempting to go where no man has gone before. The Final Frontier. Anyways, here's a bunch of stories about sp...

Join me from the comfort of my couch (and yours) for a little teaser of things to come in Season 2.

History Goon Ep. 30 - Dallas Stoudenmire We are closing out Season 1 with some Cowboy stuff! And with a name like Dallas Stoudenmire you bet your boots he is gonna do some cowboy lawman stuff. Drunk fist fights. Drunk gunfights. Chasing bad guys… Drunk of course. He was one of the better lawmen that the city of El Paso had seen at the time and he didn’t take s**t from anyone. That is until the Man...

This week we are talking about one of the most notorious and violent broad-daylight robberies in the history of the United States, The North Hollywood Shootout. 2 scumbags with a taste for automatic rifles and trying to cosplay Heat (which I got to watch for research purposes) started off robbing armored cars full of cash but would eventually step up to banks. What happens when 2 guys in homemade...

History Goon Ep. 28 - The Bennington Triangle  Back home. Vermont. This time we are going to visit one of the creepiest places in my little state; The Bennington Triangle. This place has it all: Murders, insanity, a failed town, monsters, man eating rocks, missing people and the formation of the Vermont State Police. Are those things related? You be the judge. Is it strange? Yeah, it absolutely is...

History Goon Ep. 27 - Tanks for the Memories This week, I'm bringing you some of the silliest, scariest and weirdest tanks ever designed. Some of them never saw combat (thankfully) and some did and had varying levels of success. Everything from the Kugelpanzer which was basically the Atlasphere from American Gladiators but with a machinegun, to the Russians being God's silliest gooses and...

We pick up from the last episode right after Cliff “Elvis” Walcott’s Blackhawk, Super 6-1 was shot down by an RPG. The guys on the ground have to scramble to get to the crash site before it’s too late but the militiamen have started blocking roads off and making life difficult for the Rangers and Delta. As they were fighting towards the crash site, Mike Durant in Super 6-4 was shot down. Things ge...