Citation Needed

Sometimes Popes suck. Pretty much all the time, actually. But some Popes suck more, and that's what we're talking about this week. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here .  Be sure to check our website for more details.  

The  Brooklyn Bridge  is a hybrid  cable-stayed / suspension bridge  in  New York City , spanning the  East River  between the boroughs of  Manhattan  and  Brooklyn . Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the  longest suspension bridge in the world  at the time of its opening, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and a deck 12...

John "Mad Jack" Mytton  (30 September 1796 – 29 March 1834) was a British  eccentric  and  rake  of the  Regency period  who was briefly a  Tory  Member of Parliament.

Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth  (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and prominent socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. president  Theodore Roosevelt  and the only child he had with his first wife,  Alice Hathaway Lee . Longworth led an unconventional and controversial life. Her marriage to Representative  Nicholas Longworth III , a  Republican Party  leader and 38t...

Since 1850, more than 5,000 people have gone over  Niagara Falls , either intentionally (as stunts or  suicide attempts ) or accidentally. The first recorded person to survive going over the falls was school teacher  Annie Edson Taylor , who in 1901 successfully completed the stunt inside an oak barrel. In the following 121 years, thousands of people have been swept over the falls but only sixteen...

Benjamin Franklin   FRS   FRSA   FRSE  (January 17, 1706 [ O.S.  January 6, 1706] [Note 1]  – April 17, 1790) was an American  polymath  who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. [1]  Among the leading  intellectuals  of his time, Franklin was one of the  Founding Fathers of the United States , a  drafter  and signer of the ...

The  New England vampire panic  was the reaction to an outbreak of  tuberculosis  in the 19th century throughout  Rhode Island , eastern  Connecticut , southern  Massachusetts ,  Vermont , and other areas of the  New England  states. [1]  Consumption ( tuberculosis ) was thought to be caused by the deceased consuming the life of their surviving relatives. [2]  Bodies were exhumed and internal orga...

Coleco Industries, Inc.  was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as  The Connecticut Leather Company . [3] [4]  It became a highly successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its mass-produced version of  Cabbage Patch Kids  dolls and its  video game consoles , the  Coleco Telstar  dedicated consoles and  ColecoVision . [5] [6] [7]  While the company disappeared in 1988 as...

This list contains names of people who were found guilty of  capital crimes  and placed on  death row , and were later found to be  wrongly convicted . Some people were  exonerated  posthumously. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here .  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Insane Beauty Treatments are a thing that doesn't have a Wikipedia page. Sorry. Normally we just do a quick and easy copy/paste for this, but that only works when we stay inside the format of the show. So ... how are things with you? We never talk about you. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon...

USS  William D. Porter  (DD-579) , a  Fletcher -class   destroyer , was a ship of the  United States Navy  named for Commodore  William D. Porter (1808–1864).  William D. Porter  was laid down on 7 May 1942 at  Orange ,  Texas ,  United States , by the  Consolidated Steel Corporation ;  launched  on 27 September 1942, sponsored by Miss Mary Elizabeth Reeder; and  commissioned  on 6 July 1943, Lieu...

A nuclear close call is an incident that could have led to at least one unintended nuclear detonation or explosion. These incidents typically involve a perceived imminent threat to a  nuclear-armed country  which could lead to retaliatory strikes against the perceived aggressor. The damage caused by international nuclear exchange is not necessarily limited to the participating countries, as the hy...

Whether condoms were used in ancient civilizations is debated by archaeologists and historians. [101] : 11   In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, pregnancy prevention was generally seen as a woman's responsibility, and the only well documented contraception methods were female-controlled devices. [101] : 17, 23   In Asia before the 15th century, some use of  glans  condoms (devices covering only th...

The  Cardiff Giant  was one of the most famous  hoaxes  in American history. It was a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) purported " petrified  man" uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in  Cardiff, New York . Both it and an unauthorized copy made by  P. T. Barnum  are still being displayed. The original is currently on display at The  Farmers' Mus...

A  patron saint ,  patroness saint ,  patron hallow  or  heavenly protector  is a  saint  who in  Catholicism ,  Anglicanism , or  Eastern Orthodoxy  is regarded as the heavenly  advocate  of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon p...

Juan Pujol Garcia   MBE  (14 February 1912 – 10 October 1988), also known as  Joan Pujol Garcia , was a Spanish spy who acted as a  double agent  loyal to Great Britain against  Nazi Germany  during  World War II , when he relocated to Britain to carry out fictitious spying activities for the Germans. He was given the codename  Garbo  by the British; their German counterparts codenamed him  Alaric...

The  diamond hoax of 1872  was a swindle in which a pair of prospectors sold a false American  diamond  deposit to prominent businessmen in  San Francisco  and  New York City . It also triggered a brief diamond prospecting craze in the western  United States , in  Arizona ,  New Mexico ,  Utah ,  Wyoming , and  Colorado . Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to s...

On the evening of 8 December 1980, English musician  John Lennon , formerly of  the Beatles , was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of  The Dakota , his residence in  New York City . His killer was  Mark David Chapman , an American Beatles fan who was incensed by Lennon's lavish lifestyle and his 1966 comment that the Beatles were " more popular than Jesus ". Chapman said he was inspired by...

The  Narváez expedition  was a  Spanish  journey of exploration and  colonization  started in 1527 that intended to establish colonial settlements and garrisons in  Florida . [1]  The expedition was initially led by  Pánfilo de Narváez , who died in 1528. Many more people died as the expedition traveled west along the explored  Gulf Coast  of the present-day  United States  and into the  American...

Mithridates  or  Mithradates VI Eupator  ( Greek :  Μιθραδάτης ; [2]  135–63 BC) was ruler of the  Hellenistic   Kingdom of Pontus  in northern  Anatolia  from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the  Roman Republic 's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an effective, ambitious and ruthless ruler who sought to dominate  Asia Minor  and the  Black Sea  region, waging several hard-fought but ultim...

The  Australasian Antarctic Expedition  was a 1911–1914 expedition headed by  Douglas Mawson  that explored the largely uncharted  Antarctic  coast due south of  Australia . Mawson had been inspired to lead his own venture by his experiences on  Ernest Shackleton 's  Nimrod  expedition  in 1907–1909. During its time in Antarctica, the expedition's sledging parties covered around 4,180 kilometres (...

The  phantom time hypothesis  is a historical  conspiracy theory  asserted by Heribert Illig. First published in 1991, it hypothesizes a conspiracy by the  Holy Roman Emperor   Otto III ,  Pope Sylvester II , and possibly the  Byzantine Emperor   Constantine VII , to fabricate the  Anno Domini  dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite histo...

An  urban legend  or  contemporary legend  is a genre of  folklore  comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or family member, often with horrifying or  humorous  elements. These legends can be entertaining, but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects. They may also be confirmation of moral...

An  urban legend  or  contemporary legend  is a genre of  folklore  comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or family member, often with horrifying or  humorous  elements. These legends can be entertaining, but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects. They may also be confirmation of moral...

The  Burke and Hare murders  were a series of 16 killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in  Edinburgh , Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to  Robert Knox  for  dissection  at his  anatomy  lectures. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can fi...