Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History

Send us Fan Mail Join us for the long awaited, fantastic 50th episode extravaganza of Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History as Steve and Neil recall their favourite episodes, run down those you've listened to the most, and introduce some incredible superstar guests. Well one, anyway.  We also take a peek into the future with some news you will not want to miss.  Probably.   Email honourablem...

Send us Fan Mail Step into the bizarre and brilliant world of history’s most unconventional entertainers. In this episode, we explore the lives and legacies of Roland the Farter, a 12th-century court performer whose unique talent earned him land and royal favour, and Le Pétomane, the French stage sensation of the Belle Époque who turned flatulence into high art. From medieval feasts to Parisian ca...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a national hero steps out of the ring and into the shadows of Victorian London?  In this episode, we dive into the wild, tragic, and chaotic post-boxing life of Tom Sayers—the legendary bare-knuckle pugilist and undisputed champion of 19th-century Britain. After his grueling, history-making 1860 world championship fight against American powerhouse John C. Heenan,...

Send us Fan Mail Before Pay-Per-View, YouTube, or basic safety regulations, there was Tom Sayers—the 5-foot-8 bricklayer from Brighton, who became Victorian Britain’s most terrifying bare-knuckle boxing champion. ​In this episode, we take to the ring with the wild history of 19th-century prize fighting, leading up to the infamous 1860 World Title brawl between English champion Tom Sayers and Ameri...

Send us Fan Mail When the Great Fire of London reduced the city to ashes in September 1666, a panicked public demanded someone to blame. Enter Robert Hubert: a French watchmaker who confessed to starting the blaze on orders from the Pope. But was he even in England when the fire began? ​In this episode, we sift through the remains of one of history's most tragic false confessions. Why would a...

Send us Fan Mail Did you know the world's first speeding ticket was issued way back in 1896 and for for driving at four times over the legal limit? 🚗⚡ ​In 1896, British motoring pioneer Walter Arnold tore through Paddock Wood in Kent at an incredible 8 miles per hour, igniting a thrilling chase with a police officer... on a bicycle! ​In this episode, we dive into the wild history of the wor...

Send us Fan Mail Ever wonder how the blue dot on your phone actually knows where you are? Before GPS was a technology, it was a massive mathematical problem — and Dr. Gladys West was the hidden figure who solved it. ​In this episode, we dive into the life of Dr. Gladys West, a Black mathematician whose work for the U.S. Navy changed human navigation forever. From her beginnings on a rural Virginia...

Send us Fan Mail Why doesn’t the USA use the metric system?  Blame pirates.  Seriously. ​In this episode, we dive into the absurd, tragicomic life of Joseph Dombey—an 18th-century French botanist who had the single worst luck in human history. Sent by France in 1794 to hand-deliver the official metric standards (a copper kilogram and meter rod) to Thomas Jefferson, Dombey’s ship was blown off cour...

Send us Fan Mail ​In 1792, amid the chaos of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, astronomer Pierre François André Méchain embarked on a mission to measure the Earth from Paris to Barcelona. His colleague, Jean-Baptiste Delambre took the Paris to Dunkirk route. Together they'll provide an accurate measurement of one ten millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. T...

Send us Fan Mail ​This week, we’re investigating Project A119—a top-secret U.S. Air Force plan.  In the late 1950s, the Cold War was heating up, the Space Race was slipping away, and America’s top military minds came up with the ultimate, infallible solution to flex on the Soviet Union: they really did ask, “What if we dropped a nuclear bomb on the lunar surface just so everyone on Earth could see...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we set sail for the legend of Henry Every (also known as Long Ben, Benjamin Bridgeman, or simply the King of the Pirates). He was the 17th-century pirate captain who pulled off the ultimate score.  We ask just how did an English sailor rise to pirate captain, carry out the most lucrative raid in human history, trigger the world's first global manhunt, and the...

Send us Fan Mail In 1986, Nadine Vaujour, supposedly a bored French housewife, took flying lessons under a fake name with one goal in mind: to steal a helicopter, fly over Paris and pluck her husband, the notorious bank robber Michel Vaujour, off the roof of the high-security Santé Prison. ​In this episode, we dive deep into the extraordinary true crime story of Michel and Nadine Vaujour. From Mic...

Send us Fan Mail Meet Krystyna Skarbek (alias Christine Granville), Britain’s first and longest-serving female secret agent of World War II. Long before the world knew of Ian Fleming's James Bond or Vesper Lynd, this Polish-born countess was pulling off the most daring covert operations in espionage history. ​In this episode of Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History, we tell the remarkable tr...

Send us Fan Mail In 1897, Swedish explorer S.A. Andrée set out to fly a hydrogen balloon over the North Pole. Alongside Knut Frænkel and Nils Strindberg, he launched The Eagle (or the Ornen) into the freezing unknown. Less than three days later, they were fighting for their lives on shifting pack ice. ​In this episode, we examine the reasons behind the expedition, the design of the balloon, how th...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when the supreme leader of the Catholic Church goes completely mad with power? You get the Cadaver Synod. Join us for the terrifying medieval courtroom drama of 897, when Pope Formosus was put on trial by Pope Stephen VI. The problem was that Formosus had been dead for 9 months!  We explore the political schemes, the gruesome trial and punishment of a corpse, and the...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a dictator's fiercest critic lives right in his backyard?  Welcome to Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History and the story of Hitler and The Feuchtwanger family. The Jews who lived as his neighbors and who were the relatives of the Nazi Party's Public Enemy Number 1. All without the Fuhrer suspecting a thing. We look at Adolf Hitler's rise to power...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wondered who invented the football penalty kick? Meet William McCrum, the forgotten Irish goalkeeper from County Armagh who revolutionized soccer history in 1890 by proposing what critics furiously called the "death penalty" rule to stop dirty play.   ​In this episode, we dive deep into the fascinating sports history of how a wealthy linen manufacturer&apos...

Send us Fan Mail Meet Sergeant Stubby, the ultimate four-legged hero of the Great War. In this episode, we dive into the incredible true story of a stray pit bull mix who wandered onto a Yale University training camp and ended up on the front lines of World War I. ​From saving his regiment from mustard gas attacks to capturing a German spy by the seat of his pants, Stubby’s bravery earned him a li...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine waking up in the dark, cold, confused, in absolute agony and trapped inside a wooden box at the bottom of a six foot hole - you’ve just been buried alive! ​In this episode, we dive into one of history’s most chilling and enduring urban legends: the story of Margorie McCall, the Irish woman whose epitaph reads, lived once, buried twice.  After seemingly succumbing to a feve...

Send us Fan Mail Wait... What? Roland Garros wasn’t a tennis player?! 🤯  If you think the French Open is named after a legendary clay-court champion, prepare to have your mind blown. In this episode, we dive into the wild, daring, and true history of the real Roland Garros.  Before he became synonymous with the French Open Tennis Tournament, he was a fearless pioneer of early flight, a daredevil...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine surviving a Great White Shark attack, dragging your bleeding body to shore, and thinking the worst is over—only to be intercepted and mauled by a pride of lions on your way to safety.  In this episode, we unpack the jaw-dropping true story of John Doyle, an American surfer who lived through what might be the most unbelievable streak of bad luck and ultimate survival in hum...

Send us Fan Mail ​How did a young sailor from South Dakota become the ultimate "secret weapon" in the Hanoi Hilton? ​In this episode, we dive into the legendary story of Douglas Hegdahl, the U.S. Navy apprentice seaman who fell overboard and ended up a prisoner during the Vietnam War. While his captors dismissed him as the "Incredibly Stupid One," Hegdahl was actually executing...

Send us Fan Mail Did you know the man who named the very first dinosaur also tried to eat every animal in the world? Welcome to the utterly chaotic world of William Buckland—the 19th-century theologian, pioneering geologist, and the official father of paleontology. ​Long before Jurassic Park, Buckland was rewriting Earth's history. He discovered and named the Megalosaurus (the first scientifi...

Send us Fan Mail On October 27, 1962, the world almost ended. While the Cuban Missile Crisis raged on land, a terrifying showdown was happening deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. This is the incredible true story of Vasily Arkhipov, a Soviet Navy officer who single-handedly prevented the outbreak of World War III.    ​Trapped inside the suffocating, overheated Soviet submarine B-59, the crew was cut...

Send us Fan Mail In 1010 AD, a Benedictine monk strapped wings to his hands and feet and leaped from the tower of Malmesbury Abbey. He didn’t just make history; he broke both his legs and became a legend. ​Join us as we peel back the historical layers of Malmesbury Abbey, one of England’s most storied—and occasionally violent—religious sites. From its founding in the 7th century to the daring flig...