We're back! After a 7-year break, Mistakes Were Made returns with a high-flying tale—literally. In this episode, Bacon tells Mike the bizarre history of people who tried to fly using helium balloons. From lawn chairs to church pews, it turns out some folks really took “lightheaded” to new heights.

EPISODE 31 - Lawnchair Larry
In this episode of Mistakes Were Made, we dive into the strange history of helium balloon flight attempts, including the infamous Lawnchair Larry and other balloon-powered adventurers. If you love weird history, historical mistakes, or funny stories about real-life stunts gone wrong, this podcast is for you. Subscribe to Mistakes Were Made for more episodes about history’s biggest blunders, epic fails, and bizarre moments.

MISTAKES WERE MADE PODCAST
Comedians Robert Bacon and Mike Kauffman explore some of history’s biggest blunders—mixing well-researched storytelling with a dose of humor. It’s history, but with more laughs and fewer homework assignments.

This week we learn about Mao Zedong and his weird obsession with mangos and murder.

In 1939 Russia invaded Finland in what's called The Winter War. During the war a sniper from Finland, Simo Häyhä, was able to kill hundreds of Russians.

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

This week we learn about the legend of Franz Ferdinand and his cartoon bombs.

In 1867 America bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Some opponents called it "Seward's Folly" after Secretary of State William H. Seward. Turns out it was a pretty great investment.

Building a wall dividing a city. Can't see how this will be a mistake.

This week we learn about the Halifax Disaster and welcome on a new co-host with Bobby Smithney.


*Sorry for the audio quality this week. We're still working stuff out.*

Hey guys, I’ve got some great news. We’re back for season 2 of Mistakes Were Made very soon.

We’ve used this time to think about the podcast and how to make it better and Mike and I came up with a great idea. Neither of us are real history buffs and while that makes the podcast humorous sometimes we both thought that the podcast would be so much better with an actual history buff. Someone who has studied it and understands it more so we can have more to joke off of.

We found that person with Bobby Smithney and he will be joining us for Season 2. We’re currently scheduling dates to record and we expect new episodes to arrive sometime in March. Thanks so much to the listeners who have reached out to ask about the show and all our subscribers. Tell a friend about the podcast or if you don’t have any friends leave a positive review to help get the word out.

Thanks guys! Talk to you soon!

In the year 66 things were pretty tense between the Romans and the Jews around the mediterranean. You see there was this guy named Caligula in charge of the Roman Empire at the time and he wasn’t the worst, but he also wasn’t the best. Caligula spent a lot of money on building projects. Practical ones like aqueducts and harbors, cultural ones like theaters and temples, but also weird ones like taking hundreds of Roman merchant ships and using them to build a 2 mile long floating bridge across the Bay of Bauli. What was the bridge for? He used it to gallop back and forth on his horse for a couple days and then had it disassembled. He also threw some pretty awesome parties, but everyone did back then so that wasn’t the main problem.

The main problem is he was spending money faster than the Empire to make it. So to help offset that he would have citizens falsely accused of crimes. Those citizens would be fined if they were lucky. If they weren’t lucky they would be killed and then the Empire would sell their estate so they could make money. (MORE ON THE PODCAST)

While he was dictator he did the standard dictator stuff. He killed those who spoke out against him and with all the money at the top many of his people starved. Mobutu was spending billions of dollars on himself and his family. He would overpay his generals or other people that might want to overthrow him and underpay his soldiers, many of whom were forced to steal from civilians just so they could have money to eat.

Mobutu also was one of the men who was instrumental in bringing the Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman to Zaire on the 30th of October 1974. According to the documentary When We Were Kings, promoter Don King promised each fighter US$5 million for the fight. Mobutu was the only one who was willing to fund such amounts. Mobutu, wanting to expand his country's image, put up the nation's money to do so. According to a quote in the film, Ali supposedly said: "Some countries go to war to get their names out there, and wars cost a lot more than $10 million."

(MORE ON THE PODCAST)