For millennia, the tradition of telling ghost stories around the fire was a Christmas/Yule/Solstice tradition. I'm personally disappointed the practice has died down, so here I am, bringing it back! Merry Christmas, Blessed Yule, Happy Solstice, and enjoy!

The short story read is "The Ghost's Summons" written by Ada Buisson and published posthumously in 1868. 

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Welcome to tales of my travels! From James Oglethorpe’s utopian (and wildly short-lived) vision of a sober, lawyer-free, anti-slavery colony, to a booming slavery-dependent economy, this episode traces how idealism, alliance, exploitation, and resilience shaped the charming city of Savannah, Georgia (the US State, not the country!). Along the way, we wander through cotton-fueled wealth built on enslavement, Civil War occupation and near-destruction, haunted cemeteries, architectural rebirth, and modern preservation efforts that saved Savannah from decay. It’s part walking tour, part historical reckoning, and part personal reflection on privilege, memory, and why understanding the full, messy story of a place—especially the parts we were never taught in school—makes travel, and history itself, far more meaningful and enjoyable.

To get updates and other content, follow me  on Instagram and Threads @thecuriousalexjones.

Sources used for this episode include my amazing and knowledgeable tour guide, Wikipedia, visitsavannah.com, georgiaencyclopedia.org, and georgiahistory.com

In this episode, we pick up right where we left off—Plymouth on the brink, alliances hanging by a thread, and Ousemequin suddenly kidnapped in a swirl of Wampanoag-Narragansett rivalries. As the Pilgrims scramble to rescue their tenuous lifeline, we dive into the tangled politics, uneasy trust, and cultural misunderstandings that shaped the colony’s fragile first year and later spread.  We wrap up the Mayflower by exploring how an alliance born of desperation helped spark centuries of conflict and myth-making. And as we head toward America’s 250th, we ask what it really means to confront our past with curiosity, honesty, and critical thinking. 

Explore more by following @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram.

The 2 major sources used for this episode series are:

• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing

In this episode, we dive back in with the Mayflower Pilgrims as they limp into Patuxet—land they’ve commandeered from the Wampanoag—and struggle through a brutal winter of illness, hunger, and chaotic colonial drama, all while the Wampanoag, led by Massasoit Ousemequin, weigh whether to wipe them out or work with them.  From glacial-paced house-building to the shock of an unexpected Native visitor, through Tisquantum’s complicated, world-spanning backstory and the uneasy alliance that followed, this episode unpacks just how razor-thin the Pilgrims’ survival really was—and how these early, fragile relationships helped set the stage for the future United States. 

Explore more by following @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram.

The 2 major sources used for this episode series are:

• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing

This Thanksgiving mini-episode untangles the myths around Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims, and that famous 1621 feast—spoiler, it was way less magical than the storybook version—and shows how the real meaning of the holiday actually comes from Lincoln using Thanksgiving to help reunite the country during the Civil War. By zooming out and telling the whole messy, fascinating truth, we can still celebrate gratitude, connection, and the good in our lives… just without the sugar-coated mythology. 

Please excuse the mic bumps in the background, I had to record in the tiny closet of a hotel room while vacationing for the holiday!

Explore more by following @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram.

The 2 major sources used for this episode series are:

• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing

Today, we put a pin in the Pilgrims and focus (extra long) on the world they were walking, or rather stumbling, into. Long before the Pilgrims commandeered one of their abandoned villages, there existed a widespread population of sachemships, rich creation stories, highly sophisticated agricultural techniques, and engineering that outclassed the colonists’ "civilized" huts. We cover their 13-moon calendar, community-first values, and the political pressure they faced after devastating epidemics and growing threats from the Narragansett. All of it builds to 1620, when their leader has to decide if these fragile newcomers at Patuxet are a problem… or the unlikely allies he needs.

Explore more by following @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram.

The 3 major sources used for this episode series are:

• Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, by Linda Coombs, published in 2023 by Crown Books for Young Readers 
• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing

The Separatists who founded Plymouth Colony set out to build God’s perfect community—and immediately met with obstacles. After fleeing England, ditching the Dutch, and surviving a miserable Mayflower voyage, they landed way off course and wrote the surprisingly secular, and later influential, Mayflower Compact to keep the peace. What followed was an exhausting exploration, stolen corn, and divine excuses, as they laid the shaky, ironic groundwork for America’s “city upon a hill." 

Explore more by following @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram.

The 2 major sources used for this episode series are:

• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing

They left England for “religious freedom”… but only for themselves. As we explore the deep roots causes of the American War for Independence, which started in Massachusetts, we dive into the real, detailed story of the Mayflower Pilgrims — from sneaking out of England and clashing with the Dutch to surviving a leaky ship and founding Plymouth Colony. It’s a tale of faith, stubbornness, irony, and the birth of unique personality- one that would, generations later, influence the founding of a nation. 

Explore more by following @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.

The 2 major sources used for this episode series are:

• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing

**NOTE: there is an editing mistake about halfway through where my voice overlaps, because this was my first time using the audio editor I’m using. You can skip 30 seconds past it and not lose any information- sorry!! 

The definition of "curiosity":  1. A strong desire to know or learn something or 2. A strange or unusual object or fact.

This podcast is all about my passion for learning and what I am currently learning about. And I have to do something with all that information! So if you would like to learn some new things, please follow!

Learn more by following @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

The 2 major sources used for the upcoming episode series are:

• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing