Killer Means Awesome

During the global disruptions of World War II, even civilian ships on the sea were regularly attacked by combatants, as the passengers and crew aboard the British steamship City of Cairo found out on the night of November 6, 1942. What followed was a terrifying ordeal in which many people died but others survived weeks of suffering and privation on lifeboats in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. And 73 years later, equally improbably, salvage crews located the wreck 17,000 feet below sea level and recovered $50 million worth of silver.

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

The steamboat Arabia sank in the Missouri River in 1856 and was written off as a total loss. But in 1988 five enterprising treasure hunters dug deep under Kansas cornfields to make an unbelievable find -- the Arabia and its full freight of perfectly preserved food, clothing, and building supplies. Today this remarkable discovery remains the largest collection of pre-Civil War artifacts ever recovered.

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

Nothing about his upbringing in the wilds of 17th century New England suggested William Phips would one day be knighted by the English king and then made governor of the Massachusetts colony. But a knack for finding and salvaging valuable shipwrecks made his ascent possible. His work on one shipwreck in particular -- Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion -- became a global sensation and cemented his legend as a treasure hunter without equal. 

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

On November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald vanished in a matter of minutes. She was the largest ship on the Great Lakes. No mayday. No distress call. Just a captain's last words: "We are holding our own." The wreck inspired Gordon Lightfoot's famous song, but the real story is stranger than the lyrics. Fifty years later, nobody agrees on exactly what caused the ship to go down, and the lake has never given up a single body. Plus, a recent legal saga involving a police department, a relic from the ship, and a $600,000 settlement continues to keep the story alive.

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

Harrison Okene, a crew member on the Jascon-4 tugboat, was using the bathroom in the middle of the night when the boat -- and his whole life -- turned upside down. A rogue wave flipped the Jascon-4 and sent it to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, 20 miles off the coast of Nigeria. All crew members except the 29-year-old Okene died. How he managed to survive for the next three days is one of the most amazing maritime survival tales of all time.

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

In 1900, a Greek sponge diver surfaced in a panic, describing rotting bodies and horses on the seafloor. His captain thought he was hallucinating, so he went down himself. He came back up holding a 2,000-year-old bronze arm.
The Antikythera wreck holds the world's oldest known computer, a weapon pulled straight from ancient mythology, and a statue engineered to move on its own. What this single ship was carrying remains one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in history. And the excavation continues to this day.

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

The Spanish Armada of 1588 was supposed to be invincible. But its ships fared poorly in battles in the English Channel and then began to suffer catastrophic losses while attempting a dangerous escape north around Scotland and Ireland. Among the 28 ships lost by Spain was the mighty Girona, with 1,300 men aboard and a small fortune in gold and silver. Where did it sink? An Irish chieftain in a clifftop castle knew the answer, but he kept it secret for years in hopes of one day salvaging the treasure for himself and his clan. For the thrilling conclusion to this historical mystery, listen to the latest episode of Killer Means Awesome, a Brainstorm podcast. 

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

In 1622, a Spanish galleon loaded with half a billion dollars in gold, silver, and Colombian emeralds sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys, taking 260 lives with it. Spain spent 60 years searching for the valuable wreck and never found it. More than three centuries later, a treasure hunter named Mel Fisher picked up the search. Every morning he told his crew: "Today's the day." It took him 16 years, a Supreme Court battle, and unthinkable personal loss to finally be right.

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

Few 18th century pirates had more success than Sam Bellamy. In one remarkable year, he seized or looted no fewer than 53 ships in the Atlantic Ocean. But then in 1717 Bellamy and his crew died in a nighttime shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod, spilling a massive haul of treasure into the ocean and beyond the reach of salvagers for more than 260 years. Only in 1984, thanks to the dogged efforts of Massachusetts native Barry Clifford, did Bellamy's treasure begin to see the light of day once more. 

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!

In 1120, a drunken midnight party aboard a brand-new luxury ship killed nearly 300 of England's young nobility, including the only legitimate male heir to the throne. What followed was two decades of brutal civil war, the rise of an entirely new dynasty, and a lesson in how one submerged rock can reshape the course of a nation for centuries.

Listen to the first four seasons of Killer Means Awesome to hear incredible true stories. Season 1 features amazing tales about recently discovered shipwrecks, while Season 2 highlights biographies of people you really should know. Season 3 tells incredible stories of real inventions, and Season 4 offers impossible to believe tales of true crime!