Softcore History

Gouverneur Morris was an American statesman, framer of the Constitution, and one of the most under appreciated Founding Fathers of the United States. He also had a peg leg, loved messing around with married women, became the minister of France during the Reign of Terror where he actively rode for Louis XVI, and helped develop New York City as we know it. He was a total wildcard. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

The most famous architect in American history might have been agenius, but he was also a real piece of sh*t. After his wife refusedto grant him a divorce, Frank Lloyd Wright ran away to Europe withanother married woman. The love affair was one of the biggest socialscandals of the early 20th Century in America. The pair were in love,but the ending was far from happy. In fact, it was insane. Subscri...

We cover three of history's worst famous fathers who had very different parenting styles. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the Softcore History Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like this, listener voicemails, movie watch-alongs, and weekly bonus episodes.  Get 10% off ZIppix Toothpicks with code SOFTCORE at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://zippixtoothpicks.com/discount/SOFTCORE⁠⁠...

In 1962, World Cup host Chile was set to play Italy in their final group stage match. Both sides needed a win to advance to the knockout stage. What ensued, thanks to a pair of Italian newspaper articles calling host nation Chile "backwards," "illiterate," and "full of prostitutes," was less of a soccer match and more of a blood feud. This is the story of "The Battle of Santiago." Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠...

In 1973, the strangest trade broke out between two New York Yankees teammates. This is the career defining story of both Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the Softcore History Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like this, listener voicemails, movie watch-alongs, and weekly bonus episodes.  Get 10% off ZIppix Toothpicks with code SOFTC...

Staff Sergeant Ray Lambert hit Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach with the first wave on D-Day. He was a medic. His job was to save, not kill. But that fact did not prevent him from taking an absolute BEATING on the beach that day. Despite multiple horrific wounds throughout the morning, he never stopped treating wounded soldiers. He might have had the most brutal day of anyone on Omaha Beach who did...

The capture of Fort Ticonderoga early in the American Revolution was a crucial, if militarily uneventful, victory early in America's fight for independence. The capture cut British Canada off from the 13 colonies and supplied important heavy artillery to force the British out of Boston. And it was all accomplished by glory hounds Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, a ragtag group of men more interest...

After the launch of Sputnik, the U.S. needed a response to show they had not fallen behind the Soviets during the Cold War. The Air Force put together a top-secret, very real plan under the name Project A119 to detonate a nuclear bomb on the surface of the moon for the rest of the world to see. Carl Sagan was brought in to do calculations on the blast radius and the Space Race almost went atomic....

The recent release of the UFO Files left out arguably the most exciting human vs. extraterrestrial encounter in American history: when a group of backwoods Kentucky rednecks spent an August night in 1955 fighting off a dozen goblin-like aliens with a shotgun and a rifle from inside their humble farmhouse. This is the story of The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter aka the Hopkinsville Goblins. Subscribe...

Zhu Houzhao took over the Ming Dynasty at just 14. He was more interested in women, drinking, and pretending to be a soldier than actually running China. He left his royal court in the hands of his eunuch friends as he hung out in his "Leopard Quarter" all day getting wasted with his exotic animals and prostitutes. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince. com/SOFTCORE...

The Assyrian queen Semiramis is one of the most notorious rulers in ancient history. Not just because she was a woman ruling a violent, male-dominated society. And not because she competently ruled the massive empire for years. Mostly, it turns out, because there were some WILD stories about her, um, dating life. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history cont...

Lewis Charles Levin was a 19th century Jewish American politician, newspaper editor, and conspiracy theorist who believed that Irish immigrants were soldiers of the Catholic Church sent by the Pope to cause division in our nation. He became a congressman for the state of Pennsylvania and was a major voice in the nativist movement. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of...

As American soldiers liberated France, they had one thing on their mind: Boning. It turns out that the GIs who were landing in Normandy and fighting in the hedgerows were at least partly motivated by the fact that they were convinced Francewas going to be their own personal Panama City Beach circa Spring Break 2003. Between the famous brothels in Paris, the French having a reputation for... being...

In 1919, rumors were swirling that a naval base in Newport, Rhode Island, was rife with immoral (gay) behavior. In response, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt commissioned a sting operation. Send fresh, young sailors into the base to honeytrap men into having sex with them. What followed was one of the biggest scandals in U.S. Navy history. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreo...

We put together a 68 person March Madness bracket of some of the most evil and despicable humans to ever grace this planet and decide who is the worst of all time. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like this, listener voicemails, movie watch-alongs, and weekly bonus episodes. Download thePrizePicks app today and use code SOF...

When you think about prostitutes and serial killers, you generally assume the former is being killed by the latter. But in the case of Bridget Fury, the former IS the latter. Fury was infamous in antebellum New Orleans for killing Johns who didn't pay, mutilating rival ladies of the night, and all other manner of horrific crimes. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of e...

With the MLB season about to start we pick our starting nine for Hell’s baseball team — the most talented and least moral person at every position in MLB history, dead players only. We also pick the All-Heaven starting nine and decide who would win between the two. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like this, listener voicem...

King Xerxes launched a second invasion of Greece in 480 BC to avenge his father's failures a decade before. The massive Persian army of over 100,000 men was met by Leonidas and his force of 300 Spartans (and roughly 7,000 other soldiers) at a pass in Thermopylae. This three day stand turned the Spartans into martyrs and a rallying cry for the Greek city states. Subscribe to the Softcore History Pa...

Maybe we don't talk about the Pacific Theater in World War 2 as much as we should because we don't want to acknowledge how gross it actually was. The Battle of Peleliu is arguably the best example of how foul it was. Unspeakable war crimes, temperatures exceeding 110 degrees, crabs eating dead bodies that had exploded from the heat, human mutilation by normal men who'd been broken by the savagery...

Huey Long was one of the most radical and powerful politicians in American history. Between his time as both the governor of Louisiana and senator he completely steamrolled his enemies and changed the state entirely during the Great Depression. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like this, listener voicemails, movie watch-alo...

The Japanese committed a lot of war crimes in World War II but cannibalism wasn’t one of them, though only because cannibalism wasn’t technically a war crime because no one thought to make a rule against it. Still, Imperial Japanese soldiers practiced cannibalism more than you would think, and NOT because of a lack of food. We talk about the instances Japanese soldiers ate Allied troops both as an...

Michael A. Aquino Jr. was an American military officer, specialist in psychological warfare, Nazi admirer and Satanist priest who started his own religion. This is the story of the Temple of Set. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like this, listener voicemails, movie watch-alongs, and weekly bonus episodes. Rob Foxhttps://ww...

Captain Royce Williams will receive the Medal of Honor soon, for a secret he kept for 50 years — that during the Korean War, badly outnumbered and outgunned, he took on and defeated 6 Soviet MiGs by himself despite the fact that the Soviet Union was not an official combatant in the Korean War. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episod...

The minute President Roosevelt stepped foot on the USS Quincy to meet with Ibn Saud on the Bitter Lake, he changed the course of America's future in the Middle East. We dive deeper into the complex and often rocky relationship the United States has had with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like...

Porter Rockwell was many things. A man with three wives and twenty-one children, a lawman, and one of the OG Mormons. But above all he was the early Mormon church’s muscle. Their enforcer. And he had no compunction about killing for church leaders like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Subscribe to the Softcore History Patreon for hundreds of hours of extra history content including episodes like th...