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

Have you ever wondered why the whole world turns green on March 17th? Join Mira and Finn as they uncover the amazing true history of Saint Patrick's Day! We are traveling back over 1,500 years to discover who Saint Patrick really was (hint: he wasn't even born in Ireland!). You won't believe some of the wild facts we found! Did you know that the original color for Saint Patrick's Day wasn't green at all? It was actually blue!

Discover how a quiet, peaceful holiday turned into a gigantic global party. We will learn why a tiny three-leaf plant called a shamrock became so famous, and how millions of Irish families moving around the world shared their joyful traditions. Plus, get ready for some truly mind-blowing celebrations! Find out where the very first parade happened in 1601 (it was in Florida!), how the city of Chicago uses orange powder to turn an entire river glowing emerald green for a week, and how one astronaut even celebrated this awesome holiday from outer space! Get ready for the greenest adventure ever!

Did you know that long before giant elephants stomped across the savanna, their ancient ancestor was only the size of a pig?! Join Mira and Finn as they uncover the colossal, stomping, and splashing history of elephants! In this massive episode, you'll travel back 35 million years to meet a mini-elephant that loved swamps, and then fast-forward to the Ice Age to hang out with giant woolly mammoths! Have you ever wondered how an elephant uses its amazing trunk? You'll be blown away to learn it has 40,000 muscles and can suck up water like a giant super-soaker! We'll explore the epic differences between African and Asian elephants, and find out how these brilliant creatures can smell water from 12 miles away. Plus, discover the jaw-dropping true story of a famous general named Hannibal who marched 37 real-life war elephants through the freezing, snowy Alps! From delicate peanut-peeling tricks to rumbling purrs that shake the ground, this episode is packed with elephant-sized facts. Get ready for a mammoth adventure!

Grab a paddle and jump into a giant canoe! Early Canada was a massive, wild wilderness with no roads—just freezing, rushing rivers. Travel back to the 1600s to discover how early Canadian exploration started all because of... fashion?! That's right! People in Europe were totally obsessed with waterproof beaver hats, and explorers traveled thousands of miles across the ocean to find them. You'll meet the super-strong "voyageurs," who were tough French-Canadian river guides that paddled giant 40-foot birchbark canoes for 14 hours a day and carried heavy 180-pound packs on their backs! We'll explore the giant Hudson's Bay Company trading empire, learn how trading forts packed massive barrels of salted salmon to send all the way to Hawaii, and discover a genius wilderness super-food called pemmican! Plus, find out what happened in 1858 when beaver hats went out of style and 30,000 miners suddenly rushed to the Fraser River looking for shiny gold! It’s a wild adventure full of swamps, waterfalls, and treasure!

Have you ever wondered how television started? Grab your remote control because we are diving into the incredible history of the screen! Believe it or not, the very first face ever shown on a TV wasn't a famous actor or a cartoon character—it was a creepy ventriloquist dummy named Stooky Bill! Back in 1925, the lights needed to record a picture were so blazing hot that a real person couldn't even sit in front of the camera!

Join Mira and Finn as they explore how a twenty-one-year-old farm boy who grew up without electricity managed to invent the very first electronic television. Then, discover the massive "Color TV War" of the 1950s between two huge tech companies racing to bring bright, beautiful colors into people's living rooms! You'll also learn the amazing history of the Disney Channel, find out why TV dinners were actually invented to sell leftover Thanksgiving turkey, and see how massive, hundred-pound wooden TV boxes eventually shrank into the super-fast smartphones we carry in our pockets today. Press play and let's time travel through the magic of television!

Have you ever wondered where snakes came from? Believe it or not, millions of years ago, snakes actually used to have legs! In this spectacular episode of History's Not Boring, Mira and Finn slither back in time to uncover the wild history of snakes. Discover how ancient lizards burrowed underground and lost their limbs, leaving behind weird two-legged fossils!

Then, travel to a steamy prehistoric jungle to meet the terrifying Titanoboa! This monstrous snake was forty-two feet long—the size of a school bus—and hunted giant crocodiles! You will also learn the awesome science behind snake venom, which is basically just super spicy spit used to paralyze their prey.

Plus, we explore why snakes pop up in so many famous ancient myths, from the snake-haired gorgon Medusa to the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Finally, find out why these creepy, legless, unblinking reptiles are actually heroes that protect our food and provide life-saving medicine. Get ready for some amazing facts, including how snakes smell using their tongues and can even fly through the air! Tune in for a totally snake-tastic adventure!

Have you ever had a giant argument on the playground? Now imagine if entire countries had a disagreement, but instead of fighting, they built a massive global clubhouse just to talk it out! After the devastating events of World War II, leaders from all over the globe realized they needed a permanent way to keep world peace. But how do you get 50 different countries to agree on a completely new set of rules? You throw the biggest, most important meeting ever!

In 1945, thousands of delegates traveled to San Francisco to create the United Nations. It was a monumental task! Since they didn't have computers or emails, tired typists had to use 78 tons of paper—that's heavier than a dozen elephants! The final signing ceremony for the massive UN Charter took eight whole hours!

Join Mira and Finn as they travel back to the 1940s to uncover how this amazing global team-up happened. You'll find out which US President coined the name, why the UN headquarters in New York is actually its own international territory, and why UN Peacekeepers always wear bright blue helmets!

Aloha, history explorers! Did you know the tallest mountain on Earth isn’t Mount Everest? It’s actually a massive underwater volcano in Hawaii! In this exciting episode, we are traveling to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to uncover the epic story of the Hawaiian Islands. Discover how deep-sea magma created a chain of 132 islands, and learn about the brilliant ancient Polynesian navigators who found them using only the stars, birds, and ocean waves!

Then, meet King Kamehameha, a powerful warrior who flipped a 5,000-pound rhino-sized rock and united all the islands into one kingdom! We’ll also explore the time of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the tragic but important history of Pearl Harbor, and the happy day in 1959 when Hawaii became the 50th American state. Plus, find out why the Hawaiian alphabet only has 13 letters, how you can go snowboarding on a tropical island, and try your best to pronounce the name of Hawaii's state fish: the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a! Grab your surfboards and snow pants for a fiery, volcano-sized adventure!

Did you know that the deck of cards you use for Go Fish or Crazy Eights is actually an ancient spy tool? It's true! Grab your time machine and join Mira and Finn on a wild adventure to uncover the secret history of playing cards! The story starts way back in ancient China during the Tang Dynasty, where a real princess played the very first card game using long strips of paper money. From there, the cards traveled thousands of miles across the famous Silk Road to Egypt, where the original card suits were actually gold coins, swords, cups, and polo sticks!

But the drama doesn't stop there. When cards made their way to Europe, card makers decided to base the kings on real historical rulers like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar! The absolute craziest part? During World War II, spies teamed up with an American playing card company to create top-secret map decks. When dropped in water, these sneaky cards would peel apart to reveal hidden escape maps for captured soldiers! Tune in to discover how a simple deck of cards became a brilliant historical treasure!

Did you know that one of the most famous sports in the world started with bored shepherds and wild rabbits? Grab your clubs and time travel back over six hundred years to the windy, sandy coast of Scotland to discover the wild history of golf! In this episode, Mira and Finn uncover how Scottish shepherds invented the game by using their long wooden walking sticks to whack round sea pebbles into empty rabbit holes. But did you know this fun new game was actually completely banned by the King of Scotland? Find out why golf was considered a massive threat to national security, and why soldiers were supposed to be practicing archery instead! You won't believe how the first fancy golf balls, called "Featheries," were made by cramming an entire top hat full of wet goose feathers into a tiny leather ball. From Old Tom Morris helping to design the first 18-hole courses to Apollo 14 astronauts sneaking clubs into a spaceship to play on the Moon, this episode is a hole-in-one! Join us as we tee off into the unbelievable true story of golf!

Have you ever heard of the King of the Wild Frontier? Join Mira and Finn as they explore the incredible life of Davy Crockett! Did you know he ran away from home at just twelve years old and walked almost 400 miles on a massive cattle drive? Or that he claimed to have hunted exactly 105 wild bears in a single winter? Davy's life was like a real-life action movie! From surviving in the deep wilderness to wearing his famous coonskin cap all the way to the United States Congress, Davy Crockett was a true American legend. We’ll uncover how he stood up for poor farmers, how wild "tall tales" said he could ride a lightning bolt, and the incredible bravery he showed defending the Alamo in Texas. Plus, find out how a catchy theme song and a TV show made millions of kids wear imitation coonskin caps more than 100 years later! Get ready to travel back to the 19th-century American backwoods for a wild, history-packed adventure!