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Ida Bell Wells-Barnett  (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), more commonly known as  Ida B. Wells , was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the  Civil Rights Movement . She was one of the founders of the  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People  (NAACP). [1]  She arguably became the most famous black woman in America, during a life that wa...

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova  ( Italian pronunciation:  [ˈdʒaːkomo dʒiˈrɔːlamo kazaˈnɔːva; - kasa-] ; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an  Italian  adventurer and author from the  Republic of Venice . [1] [2]  His autobiography,  Histoire de ma vie  ( Story of My Life ), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. [3]   Our...

Le Pétomane  ( / l ə ˈ p ɛ t ə m eɪ n / ,  French pronunciation: ​ [ləpetɔˈman] ) was the  stage name  of the  French   flatulist  (professional farter) and entertainer  Joseph Pujol  (June 1, 1857 – 1945). He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal  muscles , which enabled him to seemingly  fart  at will. His stage name combines the French verb  péter , "to fart" with the - mane ,...

The  Entertainment Software Rating Board  ( ESRB ) is an American  self-regulatory organization  that assigns  age and content ratings  to consumer  video games . The ESRB was established in 1994 by the  Entertainment Software Association  (formerly the Interactive Digital Software Association), in response to criticism of  controversial video games  with excessively violent or  sexual content .

Rodney Glen King  (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) was a construction worker turned writer and activist after surviving an act of  police brutality  by the  Los Angeles Police Department . On March 3, 1991, King was violently beaten by LAPD officers during his arrest for fleeing and evading on  California State Route 210 . A civilian, George Holliday, filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and...

Prohibition in the United States  was a nationwide  constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of  alcoholic beverages  from 1920 to 1933. During the nineteenth century,  alcoholism , family violence, and saloon-based  political corruption  prompted  prohibitionists , led by  pietistic  Protestants, to end the  alcoholic beverage  trade to cure the ill society and...

Carrie Amelia Nation  (forename sometimes spelled  Carry ; [1]  November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911) was an American woman who was a radical member of the  temperance movement , which opposed alcohol before the advent of  Prohibition . She is remembered for attacking alcohol-serving establishments (most often taverns) with a  hatchet .   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If yo...

The  Gregorian calendar  is the most widely used  civil calendar  in the world. [1] [2] [Note 1]  It is named after  Pope Gregory XIII , who introduced it in October 1582. The calendar spaces  leap years  to make the average year 365.2425 days long, approximating the 365.2422 day  tropical year  that is determined by the Earth's revolution around the Sun.    Our theme song was written and performe...

Sigmund Freud  ( / f r ɔɪ d /   FROYD ; [3]   German:  [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt] ; born  Sigismund Schlomo Freud ; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian  neurologist  and the founder of  psychoanalysis , a clinical method for treating  psychopathology  through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. [4]   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support...

Stede Bonnet  (1688 [1]  – 10 December 1718) [2] [3]  was an early eighteenth-century  Barbadian   pirate , sometimes called "The Gentleman Pirate" [4]  because he was a moderately wealthy land-owner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy  English  family on the island of  Barbados , and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. In 1709, he married Ma...

The  1960 Valdivia earthquake  (Spanish:  Terremoto de Valdivia ) or  Great Chilean earthquake  ( Gran terremoto de Chile ) of 22 May is the  most powerful earthquake  ever recorded. Various studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the  moment magnitude scale . It occurred in the afternoon (19:11  GMT , 15:11 local time), and lasted approximately 10 minutes. The resulting  tsunami  affected southern C...

The  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency  ( DARPA ) is an agency of the  United States Department of Defense  responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the  Advanced Research Projects Agency  ( ARPA ), the agency was created in February 1958 by President  Dwight D. Eisenhower  in response to the  Soviet  launching of  Sputnik 1  in...

Lake Peigneur  (locally pronounced  [pæ̃j̃æ̹ɾ] ) is a saline [A] lake in the US state of  Louisiana , 1.2 miles (1.9 km) north of  Delcambre  and 9.1 miles (14.6 km) west of  New Iberia , near the northernmost tip of  Vermilion Bay . With a maximum depth of 200 feet (61 m), it is the deepest lake in Louisiana. It was a 10-foot (3 m) deep  freshwater  body, popular with sportsmen, until an unusual...

Sex robots  or  sexbots  are hypothetical  anthropomorphic   robot   sex dolls . [1]  As of 2018, although elaborately instrumented sex dolls have been created by a number of inventors, no fully functioning [ vague ] sex robots exist. There is controversy as to whether developing them would be  morally  justifiable.   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to suppo...

The  Damascus Titan missile explosion  (also known as the  Damascus accident [1] ) was a 1980  U.S.   Broken Arrow incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The incident occurred on September 18–19, 1980, at Missile Complex 374-7 in rural  Arkansas  when a  U.S. Air Force   LGM-25C Titan II   ICBM  loaded with a 9 megaton  W-53 Nuclear Warhead  had a  liquid fuel  ex...

The  United States Electoral College  is a body of electors established by the  United States Constitution , constituted every four years for the sole purpose of electing the  president and  vice president  of the  United States . The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, and an  absolute majority  of 270 electoral votes is required to win an election. Pursuant to  Article II, Section 1, Cla...

The  Dyatlov Pass incident  ( Russian :  Ги́бель тургру́ппы Дя́тлова ) refers to the unsolved deaths of nine ski  hikers  in the northern  Ural Mountains  in the  Soviet Union  (now  Russia ) between 1 February and 2 February 1959. The experienced trekking group, who were all from the  Ural Polytechnical Institute , had established a  camp  on the slopes of  Kholat Syakhl  in an area now named in...

Robert Smalls  (April 5, 1839 – February 23, 1915) was an enslaved African American who escaped to freedom and became a ship's pilot, sea captain, and politician. He freed himself, his crew and their families from slavery during the  American Civil War  by commandeering a Confederate transport ship,  CSS  Planter , in Charleston harbor, on May 13, 1862, and sailing it from Confederate-controlled w...

David Vaughan Icke  ( / aɪ k / ; born 29 April 1952) is an English writer and public speaker. A former  footballer [1]  and sports broadcaster, Icke has been known since the 1990s as a professional  conspiracy theorist . [2] [3]  He is the author of over 20 books and numerous DVDs, and has lectured in over 25 countries, speaking for up to 10 hours to audiences. [4] [5]

Joshua Abraham Norton  (February 4, 1818 [3]  – January 8, 1880), known as  Emperor Norton , was a citizen of  San Francisco , California who proclaimed himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States" in 1859. He later assumed the secondary title of "Protector of Mexico". [4]  Norton was born in England but spent most of his early life in South Africa. 

The  Nazino affair  ( Russian :  Назинская трагедия ,  translit.   Nazinskaya Tragediya ) was the  mass deportation  of 6,000 people to Nazino Island in the  Soviet Union  in May 1933. The deportees, mostly  political prisoners  and  petty criminals , were forcibly sent to the small, isolated island in  Western Siberia , located 540 kilometers (340 mi) northwest of  Tomsk , to construct a " specia...

Julie d'Aubigny  (1670/1673–1707), better known as  Mademoiselle Maupin  or  La Maupin , was a 17th-century swordswoman and  opera  singer. Her tumultuous career and flamboyant life were the subject of gossip and colourful stories in her own time, and inspired numerous portrayals afterwards.  Théophile Gautier  loosely based the title character, Madeleine de Maupin, of his novel  Mademoiselle de M...

The  Luddites  were a radical group of  English  textile workers and weavers in the 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a "fraudulent and deceitful manner" to get around standard labour practices. [1]  Luddites feared correctly that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would r...

Sexology  is the scientific study of  human sexuality , including human sexual interests,  behaviors  and functions. [1]  The term  sexology  does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sexuality, such as  political science  or  social criticism . [2] [3] 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...

Gloria Ramirez  (January 11, 1963 – February 19, 1994) [1]  was an American woman dubbed "the Toxic Lady" by the media when several hospital workers became ill after exposure to her body and blood. She had been admitted to the  emergency department  while suffering from late-stage  cervical cancer . While treating Ramirez, several hospital workers fainted and others experienced symptoms such as sh...