IT’S HISTORY

Camp Hero: real base, strange claims Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Chicago Tribune Tower is a Neo‑Gothic masterpiece and a monument to the city’s fierce history of media warfare. This episode explores its origins in a 1920s architectural competition, unique engineering feats and artistic secrets, secret escape hatches used by Colonel McCormick, a 60‑mile underground tunnel network that once delivered newspapers across the city, a bizarre collection of global...

Before it became a global symbol of hedonism and high‑society scandal, the estate now known as the Playboy Mansion was a dignified 1920s family home. This episode explores the property's Mexican ranch origins, the botanical garden that once drew tourists by streetcar, and the architectural evolution of the Holmby House. It traces the transformation from a quiet family residence into an adult playg...

Niagara Falls wasn’t always a postcard tourist spot. In the early 1900s it became a major industrial center powered by the falls, transforming from a sacred site for Indigenous nations into one of North America’s most powerful industrial hubs with the world’s first large-scale hydroelectric plants. This episode examines the rise and dramatic fall of Niagara’s mills district: how Tesla and Westingh...

Deep within the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai people lived in balance with the landscape for centuries, then endured a century of land seizures, forced evictions, and a prolonged legal fight for sovereignty. The video explores Supai — a modern, isolated town with broadband and air-conditioned homes — and covers the tribe’s legal battle to reclaim ancestral lands, the mule-train postal service logist...

We explored a 103-foot underground museum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why New York has its own Fort Knox Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pennywise's lair? Buntzen powerhouse 🎭 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I found the rock behind the Pentagon 🪨 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

High above downtown Buffalo, two 36-foot replicas of the Statue of Liberty have watched over the city since 1925. They were installed on the Liberty Bank Building, a 23-story Neoclassical skyscraper originally built for the German‑American Bank. During World War I, rising anti‑German sentiment prompted the bank to rebrand as Liberty Bank. This video examines the building’s heavily secured bank vau...

Why Canada's floating McDonald's sank Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Runit Island, a small Pacific islet, is sealed beneath a concrete dome that hides a troubling legacy of the nuclear age. Between 1946 and 1958 the United States conducted dozens of nuclear tests across the Marshall Islands, leaving Enewetak Atoll heavily contaminated. Decades later, radioactive soil, debris, and contaminated equipment were collected and buried in a crater on Runit Island and cover...

Beneath City Hall Park lies one of New York City’s greatest architectural contradictions: City Hall Station — a subway stop designed like a cathedral, sealed off from the public for nearly 80 years after being abandoned in 1945. Built as the ceremonial gateway to the world’s first modern subway system, the station features vaulted Guastavino-tile ceilings, skylights, chandeliers, and handcrafted o...

Before streaming changed everything, Blockbuster Video ruled the American weekend. With bright aisles and endless rows of tapes, Blockbuster turned movie renting into a national ritual and displaced thousands of local video shops. By the 1990s it had over 9,000 stores worldwide and rented 100 million tapes a week. This episode traces Blockbuster’s rise, domination, and downfall; explores abandoned...

Niagara Falls wasn’t always a postcard-perfect tourist spot. In the early 1900s it became an industrial powerhouse driven by the falls and the world’s first large-scale hydroelectric plants. This episode explores the rise and fall of Niagara Falls’ mills district: how Tesla and Westinghouse turned the area into an electrical center, why industries like aluminum and chemicals clustered on its shore...

Towering 398 feet over Niagara Square, Buffalo City Hall is one of the largest Art Deco buildings in America. Behind its mosaic-covered halls and a cosmic stained-glass ceiling that maps the exact night sky over Buffalo in 1931 lie a building full of secrets: a restricted prisoner passage known as the Tunnel of Tears, a passive cooling system that harnesses gales off Lake Erie with almost zero ele...

Beneath Midtown Manhattan lies a secret rail siding: Track 61. Built in the 1910s as part of Grand Central’s service yard, it originally hauled coal and ash. When the Waldorf Astoria was built above it in 1931, the track became a private platform connected to the hotel by a freight elevator. Over decades it carried generals, presidents, and celebrities — Franklin D. Roosevelt used it, and Andy War...

IT’S HISTORY — Weekly tales of American urban decay, hosted by Ryan Socash. Episode: The Mystery of Meigs Field Airport This episode examines how Meigs Field came to be, its opening in Chicago, Mayor Daley’s attempts to shut it down and his overnight destruction of the field, and the site’s status today. Chapters: 0:00 The Mystery of Meigs Field Airport 0:41 How Meigs Field Airport Came To Be 3:20...

Chapters: 00:00 Unveiling Pearl Harbor: Exploring the Forgotten Stories of Infamy 00:53 Rising Tensions: From Diplomatic Clashes to the Road to Pearl Harbor 03:35 Behind Enemy Lines: The Espionage at Pearl Harbor 09:15 Missed Signals: The Radar Oversight at Pearl Harbor 12:46 Resilience and Recovery: Stories of USS Nevada and USS California at Pearl Harbor IT’S HISTORY — Weekly tales of American u...

A once‑cornerstone of Ontario’s power grid, the Hearn Generating Station loomed over Toronto’s waterfront and helped shape the city’s growth. At its peak it supplied about 10% of the province’s electricity, running 24/7 with massive turbines and steam. This episode traces Hearn’s rise, operation, and dramatic decline—from its ambitious beginnings on reclaimed marshland to its role in powering a gr...

Long before Route 66 captured the American imagination, the Lincoln Highway—completed in 1913—was the United States’ first true transcontinental road, stretching from Times Square in New York to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. This episode traces the rise and quiet fall of the Lincoln Highway: from muddy wagon trails and volunteer road crews to cement milestones, patriotic branding, and fierce indu...

Bethlehem Steel: once the backbone of American industry, founded in 1857. The company produced steel for iconic structures such as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building, grew to dominate the U.S. steel market during the two World Wars, and collapsed in the late 20th century. This episode examines the company’s rise and fall, the grueling working conditions inside the massive steelwo...

This episode examines Sears Catalog Homes (sold c. 1908–1940): kit houses ordered from the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog and shipped by train to buyers across the U.S., complete with pre‑cut materials and instructions. Offering over 400 designs at affordable prices, these kits helped many middle‑class families achieve homeownership during a period of rapid urbanization and economic growth. The Grea...

In 1936 the New York Central unveiled the Train of Tomorrow — a sculpted, silver streamliner designed by Henry Dreyfuss that fused Art Deco aesthetics with cutting‑edge engineering, mile‑a‑minute speeds, and interiors that felt more like a private club than a Depression‑era passenger car. Despite its elegance and influence, almost no physical trace of the Mercury survives today. This episode explo...

Explore New Jersey's High Point Monument: its origins, construction and engineering, grand opening, preservation efforts, issues related to its location, temporary closure and reopening, and the current state of what remains. Chapters: 00:00 - High Point Monument: Exploring New Jersey's Tallest Structure 01:26 - Discovering the Origins of New Jersey's High Point Monument 02:43 - Grand Opening of N...