Don't Look Now

In December 2009, Steven Koecher, a 30 year old from nearby Utah, parked his car in a suburb of Las Vegas and was seen on camera walking through the neighborhood.  He was never seen again.  He took his wallet and phone but left behind Christmas gifts he had bought for his family.  No one has ever found any evidence of foul play or illicit activity.  Making the disappearance all the more strange, h...

Today's episode is a pretty grim one.  The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys was a reform school operated by the state of Florida in Marianna, Fl that first opened in 1900.  While the name changed over the years, one thing didn't: constant rumors and reports of abuse at the school.  The school was finally closed in 2011 after pressure was brought from a group of former residents calling t...

This week's podcast deals with the Coup in Guatemala in 1954 where the CIA backed a coup and regime change in order to prevent a communist takeover or help the United Fruit Company's bottom line depending on who you ask.  The previous government had supported better working conditions and had redistributed uncultivated land away from large landholders (i.e. UFC) which triggered the Unite...

Most people know that Amelia Earhart was a famous aviator, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and famously disappeared on an attempt to fly around the world.  In today's podcast we talk a bit more about her life, how she got into aviation, and how she got her big break as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.  Come take a listen and find out a bit more about a Kansas...

Amy Robsart was born in 1532 in Norfolk, England to a fairly wealthy farming and grazing family.  When she was almost 18 she married Roberty Dudley, a younger son of the Earl of Warwick.  It was considered to be a love match as opposed to something political or to bind family lines together.  However, soon after they were married, Robert became an obvious favortie of Queen Elizabeth I and many tho...

After a week off, we're back.  This week's topic is Davey Crockett of coonskin hat fame. Crockett is one of those larger than life characters that often seem to show up in early American history.  While most of us know him from The Ballad of Davey Crockett and movies about the Alamo, who was the real Davey Crockett.  Was he an American hero, or a drunk who abandoned his family?  Versions...

Most people have belonged to a book club at some point in their lives, but have you ever thought about the history of book clubs?  Come find out about how book clubs have developed and changed over time, from ancient Greece, to Puritan America, to Oprah.  Probably the only thing they all have in common is at least one member who didn't do the reading.

Wolves were effectively irradicated from Yellowstone National Park in the early 20th century and were gone until reintroduced through human intervention in 1995.  While many could have predicted what the return of wolves might do to th elk population of the park, the truly remarkable thing is the overall effect on the park all the way down to amount of water runoff.  Take a listen this week and fi...

While we sometimes talk about how the practice of medicine has evolved over time from pure magic and ritual to science-based practice, we often ignore the practice of veterinary medicine and how it evolved and developed.   If anything, people of the Middle Ages were more dependent on their animals and often had a very strong bond, so there was a large market for people that could heal everything f...

This week's podcast has a bit of a mobster flair.  It's a two parter with the first part dedicated to the life of Henry Hill, the subject of the movie Goodfellas and mentioned a bit previously on our podcast about the Lufthansa Heist.  From there we turn our attention to the Copacabana, the NY nightclub famed for some of it's early mob connections and amazingly still open today (if...

In today's episode we turn our attention to a non-cryptid animal that inspires fear in many,.. the shark.  The book and film Jaws have made many afraid to go in the water, but did you know that the events of the book are loosely based on events that happened early in the 20th century?  In July 1916 four people were killed by sharks in 11 days at the Jersey shore, some well inland on a river....

In this week's podcast we discuss Baldwin IV, King of the Crusader state of Jerusalem and most famously known as The Leper King.  Baldwin contracted Leprosy at an early age but it was slow to develop which allowed him to become king before being diagnosed.  While leprosy was often a very shunned disease, he became a beloved and effective ruler even though is life and reign were short.  

The Boston Tea party is an iconic even that still lives on in American culture and politics.  However, how much do you know about the event itself and what led up to it.  Who planned it? Was it planned at all?  Take a listen this week and find out all about America's favorite protest.

Ever wondered where your glass of foamy beer got its start?  Turns out beer has been around just about as long or longer than written record.  It seems that once humans had figured out how to grow grains they also started figuring out how to ferment them.  Take a listen this week and learn about the history of beer.

The Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaira, better known as Sisi, became the Empress of Austria in 1854 when she married Emperor Franz Jospeh the First.  She was not raised to be a public figure and never quite fit in as Empress.  While she was famed for being beautiful and intelligent, she generally hid from public view and had a controversial reign before being assassinated in 1898.  Howeve...

This week's podcast revolves around a couple of mental health issues and the story surrounding them.  The first is the Pellagratic Delirium or Pellagrous Encephalopathy.  This condition is due to lack of Niacin (vitamin B3) and became a widespread problem in the Venetian Empire after the introduction of corn meal to the diet of the poor population.  This outbreak resulted in the creation of m...

This week's subject is King Tut.  While the discovery of his tomb and the legend of the related curse has made his name well known around the world, who was he really?  Learn a bit about what we know about the man (or more accurately boy) behind the name and myth.

While we have discussed Napoleon in the past on this podcast, today we talk about his younger sister Pauline.  Famous for her beauty and scandalous affairs, she is the only sibling to visit him in exile on Elba.  While she only lived to be 44 she certainly lived life to its fullest.  Take a listen and learn all about  Paula Maria Bonaparte Leclerc Borghese

This week's podcast is dedicated to the search for the Yeti, not the top end drink cooler, but the Cryptid that is rumored to roam the Himalayas eating yaks and sometimes people.  The Yeti has attracted the attention of some very famous mountaineers including Sir Edmund Hillary who spent a decent chuck of the late 50's searching for the creature and claimed to have found its prints on hi...

Mary Anning was a pioneer in the field of paleontology, working in the early 19th Century, she discovered many famous dinosaurs and marine reptiles such as Ichthyosaurus. Her contributions were often overlooked due to her gender and social status, which let to her being ineligible to join the Geological Society of London or often receive no credit for her contributions.  Among other things she is...

Today's podcast is about one of America's favorite conspiracy theories, The Roswell Incident.  In 1947, debris was recovered from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico that was recovered by personnel from the nearby Army Air Field.  The stuff of conspiracy began when the Army announced it had picked up a "flying disc" before retracting the statement the next day. The debris was then...

The Pack Horse Library Project was part of the WPA's attempt to relieve rural poverty in Kentucky.  Since many people in Appalachian Kentucky didn't have access to books, the "book ladies" of the Pack Horse library brought books to them in remote areas via packhorses.  The librarians would haul hundreds of books into the back country via horseback, serving rural communities and...

While there might be some debate about what is indeed the world's oldest profession, what might be the world's oldest medical profession is that of the midwife.  Women have most likely been helping other women give birth since before modern humans were a thing.  Take a listen this week and learn about the history of the midwife... from revered helper, to outcast witch, and back again ove...

This week we discuss the invention of the graham cracker... the tasty snack that is used for making smores, pie crusts, and other fun snacks.  However, its history is not what you might expect.  The original graham cracker was invented by the reverend Sylvester Graham in the late 1800s.  He was a proponent of avoiding lustful thought by eating the blandest food possible and made a completely dull...

This week we look at one of the most ubiquitous things in modern dieting... calorie counting.  When did we first start paying attention to the caloric content of food and worrying about how much energy we were taking in vs. burning off?  The popularization of counting calories for weight loss and management was popularized by Lulu Hunt Peters, a doctor who had been the head of the pathology lab at...