History for Kids / History's Not Boring: The Kids History Podcast

Have you ever wondered how deep the ocean really goes? In 1960, two explorers named Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh decided to find out! They squeezed into a tiny, freezing cold steel ball attached to a giant underwater blimp called the Trieste. Together, they sank nearly 7 miles down to the deepest, darkest place on Earth: the Mariana Trench! It took almost five hours to slowly descend through pitc...

Batter up! Have you ever wondered how baseball began? Long before superstars played in giant stadiums, people played wild stick-and-ball games where you could actually throw the ball at runners to get them out! Ouch! Join Mira and Finn as they step up to the plate to uncover the incredible history of America's national pastime. You'll travel back to 1845 when a bank clerk named Alexander...

Have you ever had a secret diary? Meet Anne Frank, a completely normal girl who loved playing games, chatting with friends, and collecting pictures of movie stars. But when World War 2 broke out, her life changed forever. To escape the dangerous Nazis, Anne and her family had to hide in a tiny secret apartment in Amsterdam called the "Secret Annexe"—hidden completely behind a movable woo...

Did you know one of the most famous leaders in history used to be a terrible student who got awful grades? Meet Winston Churchill! Born in a massive 187-room mansion, Winston didn't like school much, but he absolutely loved history and action. As a young man, he traveled the world as a soldier and war reporter. He even got captured in a war zone in South Africa! How did he escape? He jumped a...

Grab your flashlights and step through the time door, because Mira and Finn are heading deep underground for a very special BONUS interview! In this exciting episode, we travel back to London in the year 1940 to meet one of the most famous leaders in world history: Prime Minister Winston Churchill! Did you know that the man who helped lead Britain through its toughest times used to completely hate...

Imagine you have huge news to share with your best friend, but instead of sending a quick text, you have to wait four whole days for a horse messenger to deliver it! That's exactly how life was in the 1830s before a painter named Samuel Morse changed the world forever. After missing a terribly important message about his sick wife because the mail was too slow, Samuel decided there had to be...

Have you ever heard the incredible story of the Sword in the Stone? Grab your armor and get ready to travel back to medieval Britain to uncover the amazing legend of King Arthur! When the Roman army left Britain unprotected in the 5th century, the people needed a superhero. Enter Arthur, a young boy who pulled a magical sword from a solid marble block to become king! But that’s just the beginning....

Imagine walking into a store with ten dollars to buy a bicycle, and the owner says you can have the bike, the entire store, and the whole city block for just fifteen dollars! That is exactly what happened to the United States in 1803 in the greatest real estate bargain in human history: the Louisiana Purchase! Back then, America was only 27 years old and stopped right at the Mississippi River. Pre...

Get ready for the loudest, brightest, and most explosive birthday party on Earth! Have you ever wondered why we celebrate the Fourth of July with massive fireworks, parades, and eating millions of hot dogs? Join Mira and Finn as we travel back in time to the year 1776 to uncover the wild true story behind American Independence Day! You'll step inside a boiling hot room in Philadelphia where 5...

Have you ever wondered how the biggest video game in history got its start? Grab your diamond pickaxe and join Mira and Finn on an epic journey to discover how Minecraft was made! Back in 2009, a single programmer named Markus Persson (known online as Notch!) started building a little block-stacking project called "Cave Game" in his spare time. It was glitchy and didn't even have cr...

Did you know one of the most powerful rulers in history started out as a bullied kid from a tiny island? Jump into the time machine with Mira and Finn to meet Napoleon Bonaparte! Napoleon was a brilliant math and map-reading genius who rose through the ranks of the French army at lightning speed. He was so confident that he even lifted a heavy gold crown and crowned himself Emperor of France! But...

Did you know ballet is basically an extreme sport mixed with a royal dance party? Join Mira and Finn as they leap into the amazing, high-flying history of ballet! We're traveling back 600 years to the Italian Renaissance, where kings and queens threw giant parties and danced in velvet dresses weighing 40 pounds! Find out how an epic French king named Louis XIV loved dancing so much he played...

Did you know that the second most popular sport on Earth was actually invented by kids?! Welcome to the amazing world of cricket, a massive sport with over one billion fans worldwide! But long before players stepped into giant stadiums or played on television, cricket started hundreds of years ago in the windy, green fields of England. Young shepherds guarding their sheep invented the game using e...

Did you know the internet used to be as big and heavy as an elephant? Grab your keyboards and join Mira and Finn on a time-traveling adventure to the 1960s to discover how the internet was invented! Long before Wi-Fi, smartphones, and tablets, computers were so massive they took up entire rooms and weighed over ten thousand pounds. But there was one huge problem: these giant machines couldn’t even...

Imagine a massive ship as long as two whole football pitches sailing across a lake. Now, imagine it vanishing without a single trace! Welcome back to History's Not Boring! Today, Mira and Finn are traveling to the icy, deep waters of the Great Lakes to uncover one of the biggest mysteries in history—the sudden disappearance of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. Built in 1958 to carry thousands of tons...

Did you know the United States once had a president who led the country from a wheelchair? Meet Franklin D. Roosevelt, often called FDR! Growing up, Franklin was an incredibly energetic kid who loved sailing and swimming. But at age 39, he caught a terrible disease called polio and lost the ability to use his legs forever. Many people thought his public life was over, but FDR refused to give up! H...

Have you ever seen a painting where both eyes are on the same side of the nose? Meet Pablo Picasso, one of the most brilliant and bizarre artists in history! From the time he was a baby, Picasso was obsessed with art—his very first word was even the Spanish word for pencil! By the time he was a teenager, he was already painting better than grown-up masters. But Picasso didn’t want to be normal; he...

Have you ever heard of an engineer who built the modern world while wearing a giant eight-inch-tall hat just to look taller? Meet Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the greatest inventors in history! With a name that sounds like a powerful wizard, Brunel engineered some of the most unbelievable structures of the 1800s. Join Mira and Finn as they explore how this brilliant mastermind helped dig the ve...

Step into the time machine! Mira and Finn are traveling all the way back to 1786 Vienna, Austria, for a very special BONUS interview! Today, they are knocking on the door of the greatest musical genius in history: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! But wait—is this famous composer a serious, boring grown-up? No way! Join Mira and Finn as they discover that Wolfgang (or "Trazom" as he likes to be c...

Have you ever met a real-life superhero? What if their superpower wasn't flying or lifting cars, but making incredible music? Meet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! By the time he was just three years old, he was already playing complex chords on the harpsichord. At age five, he was writing his own songs, and by eight, he composed an entire symphony for a full orchestra—all entirely in his head while...

Have you ever wondered how the giant, towering city of New York got its start? Prepare to have your mind blown! Long before it was filled with soaring skyscrapers and yellow taxis, New York was a tiny, muddy Dutch village called New Amsterdam. Join Mira and Finn as they travel back to the 1600s to discover how a small trading post famous for making beaver hats transformed into one of the greatest...

Are you ready to meet the most famous monster in ancient history? Journey back to Ancient Greece to uncover the spine-tingling legend of Medusa! Imagine a terrifying creature with living, hissing snakes instead of hair, whose icy stare could turn any human into a solid stone statue in exactly one second. Yikes! How could anyone possibly defeat her? Enter Perseus, a brave young hero sent on an impo...

Imagine standing in a muddy field in ancient Britain when suddenly, the ground starts to shake! You hear the thundering hooves of horses and see a massive wooden war chariot speeding toward you. Riding inside is a terrifying warrior queen with bright red hair flying in the wind! Her name is Queen Boudicca, and she is leading a massive army to take on the most powerful military in the ancient world...

Imagine trying to skip a 9,000-pound rock across a lake! It sounds completely impossible, but in 1943 during World War 2, a brilliant British engineer named Barnes Wallis figured out how to do exactly that. The Allies needed to stop enemy factories from making weapons, but the factories were powered by massive, unbreakable dams. Normal bombs couldn't scratch them, and heavy underwater nets st...

Have you ever wondered what is actually inside your pen? Today, we are time-traveling to uncover the messy, wild, and incredibly sticky story of ink! Without this humble liquid, we would have forgotten almost everything humans ever did. Join Mira and Finn as we travel back 4,500 years to ancient Egypt and China, where the very first ink was made out of scraped chimney dirt and tree sap! Then, shiv...