Sidequests

Antonio López de Santa Anna was President of Mexico eleven times, fought the Texas Revolution, and declared himself the Napoleon of the West. He was also the man who, after losing his leg to cannon fire, had the limb preserved, paraded through Mexico City in a glass coffin, and buried with full military honors. Then a mob dug it up. Then he accidentally helped invent bubble gum. This is the strang...

Antonio López de Santa Anna was President of Mexico eleven times, fought the Texas Revolution, and declared himself the Napoleon of the West. He was also the man who, after losing his leg to cannon fire, had the limb preserved, paraded through Mexico City in a glass coffin, and buried with full military honors. Then a mob dug it up. Then he accidentally helped invent bubble gum. This is the strang...

Americans received 52.5 billion robocalls in 2025 — 160 per person, per year, most of them offering loans you never applied for. But where do these calls actually come from? This episode of Sidequests traces the full ecosystem: the fake websites harvesting your data, the brokers selling it dozens of times over, the overseas call centers placing millions of calls at near-zero cost, and the reason b...

Americans received 52.5 billion robocalls in 2025 — 160 per person, per year, most of them offering loans you never applied for. But where do these calls actually come from? This episode of Sidequests traces the full ecosystem: the fake websites harvesting your data, the brokers selling it dozens of times over, the overseas call centers placing millions of calls at near-zero cost, and the reason b...

Episode 8 of our ten part series The Titanic Disaster covers the two hours and forty minutes between the collision and the moment Titanic vanishes. The bow descends, the stern rises, the ship breaks in two, and 1,517 people die in water that is four degrees above freezing. The free episode follows the evacuation — the band assembling on deck, the lifeboats launching half-empty, the separations, th...

Episode 8 of our ten part series The Titanic Disaster covers the two hours and forty minutes between the collision and the moment Titanic vanishes. The bow descends, the stern rises, the ship breaks in two, and 1,517 people die in water that is four degrees above freezing. The free episode follows the evacuation — the band assembling on deck, the lifeboats launching half-empty, the separations, th...

NASA has announced plans for a permanent lunar base. Which is exciting — and also something NASA has announced before. This episode of Sidequests covers the missions that were seriously planned, thoroughly engineered, and never flew: a human Venus flyby designed around existing Apollo hardware, a nuclear rocket engine that actually worked and could have reached Mars in the 1980s, a U.S. Army Moon...

NASA has announced plans for a permanent lunar base. Which is exciting — and also something NASA has announced before. This episode of Sidequests covers the missions that were seriously planned, thoroughly engineered, and never flew: a human Venus flyby designed around existing Apollo hardware, a nuclear rocket engine that actually worked and could have reached Mars in the 1980s, a U.S. Army Moon...

Five moments in history when weather wasn't background — it was the deciding factor. A Scottish meteorologist's forecast that made D-Day possible. The Atlantic storms that destroyed the Spanish Armada when cannons couldn't. The Russian winter that turned Napoleon's invasion into one of history's greatest military catastrophes. The typhoons that protected Japan from Mongol conquest — twice — and ga...

Five moments in history when weather wasn't background — it was the deciding factor. A Scottish meteorologist's forecast that made D-Day possible. The Atlantic storms that destroyed the Spanish Armada when cannons couldn't. The Russian winter that turned Napoleon's invasion into one of history's greatest military catastrophes. The typhoons that protected Japan from Mongol conquest — twice — and ga...

Episode 7 of our ten part series The Titanic Disaster covers the last day. Sunday, April 14 — church services in the morning, elegant dinners in the evening, ice warnings arriving all day and going mostly unacted upon. Then, at 11:39 PM, Frederick Fleet sees a dark shape ahead. He rings the bell three times, grabs the telephone, and delivers the four words that ended an era: “Iceberg right ahead.”...

Episode 7 of our ten part series The Titanic Disaster covers the last day. Sunday, April 14 — church services in the morning, elegant dinners in the evening, ice warnings arriving all day and going mostly unacted upon. Then, at 11:39 PM, Frederick Fleet sees a dark shape ahead. He rings the bell three times, grabs the telephone, and delivers the four words that ended an era: “Iceberg right ahead.”...

A volcano no one had heard of explodes. The sun goes pale. And somehow humanity responds with monsters and bikes. This Sidequest looks at 1816 — the Year Without a Summer. Famine in Ireland. Food riots in France and Germany. Mass westward migration out of New England as families abandoned farms that simply wouldn’t grow anything. Religious revivals. Apocalyptic panic. And in a villa on a cold, gra...

A volcano no one had heard of explodes. The sun goes pale. And somehow humanity responds with monsters and bikes. This Sidequest looks at 1816 — the Year Without a Summer. Famine in Ireland. Food riots in France and Germany. Mass westward migration out of New England as families abandoned farms that simply wouldn’t grow anything. Religious revivals. Apocalyptic panic. And in a villa on a cold, gra...

By 1945, the Allies had tried nearly everything to undermine Nazi Germany from the inside. Leaflets dropped from planes. Radio broadcasts. Forged documents. And then someone in the Office of Strategic Services — the forerunner to the CIA — had an idea that was either brilliant or completely unhinged, possibly both. What if they weaponized the mail? This week's Sidequests covers Operation Cornflake...

By 1945, the Allies had tried nearly everything to undermine Nazi Germany from the inside. Leaflets dropped from planes. Radio broadcasts. Forged documents. And then someone in the Office of Strategic Services — the forerunner to the CIA — had an idea that was either brilliant or completely unhinged, possibly both. What if they weaponized the mail? This week's Sidequests covers Operation Cornflake...

Episode 5 of our ten-part series on The Titanic Disaster takes place entirely before anything goes wrong. It’s Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13. Ireland is 300 miles behind. America is still three days ahead. The engines are warming up — 386 miles Thursday to Friday, 519 miles Friday to Saturday, 546 on Sunday before the iceberg ends the count. The ship is a self-contained world of 2,208 peopl...

Episode 5 of our ten-part series on The Titanic Disaster takes place entirely before anything goes wrong. It’s Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13. Ireland is 300 miles behind. America is still three days ahead. The engines are warming up — 386 miles Thursday to Friday, 519 miles Friday to Saturday, 546 on Sunday before the iceberg ends the count. The ship is a self-contained world of 2,208 peopl...

Before telegrams and treaty negotiations, before summits and press conferences, European diplomacy played out in royal courts where every detail was scrutinized — including, with surprising frequency, what was growing on your face. This Sidequest covers the War of the Whiskers: the era when a clean-shaven diplomat could cause an international incident, when ambassadors were quietly briefed on the...

Before telegrams and treaty negotiations, before summits and press conferences, European diplomacy played out in royal courts where every detail was scrutinized — including, with surprising frequency, what was growing on your face. This Sidequest covers the War of the Whiskers: the era when a clean-shaven diplomat could cause an international incident, when ambassadors were quietly briefed on the...

In the fifth century BC, Athens was rising. Wealthier, more powerful, more ambitious than it had ever been. And Sparta — the dominant military power for generations — was watching, and growing afraid. What happened next gave us one of the most important ideas in the study of power and conflict: the Thucydides Trap. The historian Thucydides watched Athens and Sparta drag each other into a 27-year w...

In the fifth century BC, Athens was rising. Wealthier, more powerful, more ambitious than it had ever been. And Sparta — the dominant military power for generations — was watching, and growing afraid. What happened next gave us one of the most important ideas in the study of power and conflict: the Thucydides Trap. The historian Thucydides watched Athens and Sparta drag each other into a 27-year w...

Episode 5 of our ten-part series on The Titanic Disaster follows the ship to her final port: Queenstown, Ireland, April 11, 1912. One hundred twenty Irish emigrants board, carrying everything they own and leaving behind everything they know. Seven passengers disembark, including a Jesuit priest named Francis Browne whose telegram-ordered departure would save his life and preserve the most comprehe...

Episode 5 of our ten-part series on The Titanic Disaster follows the ship to her final port: Queenstown, Ireland, April 11, 1912. One hundred twenty Irish emigrants board, carrying everything they own and leaving behind everything they know. Seven passengers disembark, including a Jesuit priest named Francis Browne whose telegram-ordered departure would save his life and preserve the most comprehe...

The monuments on the National Mall feel timeless. Inevitable. As if they rose from the earth fully formed.. of course the Washington Monument is there, of course it looks like that, of course the Lincoln Memorial anchors the western end of the Mall with the Reflecting Pool stretching out before it. None of it was inevitable. All of it was a fight. This week’s Sidequests traces the 200-year argumen...