Oddball History

This week on a very special but possibly cursed Oddball History Podcast, it's curses, curses and more curses, including the TRUTH behind the Curse of Tutankhamen… The GOAT whose removal from a 1945 World Series game led to the Chicago Cubs being cursed for 71 years… SEVERAL CENTURIES of Macbeth-related mishaps and tragedies… PLUS: Donkey Kong Country Returns, funny bumper stickers, and pretzel dogs!

Ancients die in the darnedest ways this week on a very special Oddball History Podcast--including a philosopher who laughed himself to death after seeing a donkey eat some figs; a wrestler who was eaten by wolves (or lions!) after getting his fingers caught in a tree stump; a legendary playwright who was struck down by a falling turtle, and so much more! PLUS: Unsolved Mysteries, fun with trebuchets and the Little Rascals.

So it's come to this: An episode about farts. This week on a very special Oddball History, a 3,925-year-old fart joke from Ancient Sumer; Martin Luther farts at the Devil; Roman emperor Elagabalus breaks out the whoopee cushion; Benjamin Franklin writes an essay called "Fart Proudly," in which he sarcastically proposes scientists focus their efforts on making farts smell good; and so, so much more!

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, Scott learns all about the lost art of court jestering and meets a few of the most famous jesters in history, including Roland the Farter, King Henry VIII's favorite funnyman Will Sommers, and Britain's Smallest Man, the amazing Jeffrey "Lord Minimus" Hudson. PLUS: Baseball, the wrath of Lucky the Leprechaun and olive talk!

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, it's everything you always wanted to know about marooning (the practice of punishing someone, usually a sailor, by leaving them stranded on a desert island) but were too afraid to ask, as well as a somewhat comprehensive rundown of the most famous maroonings in history. ALSO: Pirate humor, the Jenny Jones Show and the golden age of dynamite!

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast it's the lighter side of historic murder plots, from the Roman emperor Nero resorting to Wile E. Coyote technology in an attempt to commit matricide to the CIA's decades long Fidel Castro-centric brainstorming session to the near indestructible "Irish Rasputin" Mike Malloy, the man who couldn't be murdered (almost). PLUS: The Waltons, Regular Rasputin and dated microphone humor!

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad kings episode this week on the Oddball History Podcast, as Scott gets to know the most bizarre and least sane royals of all time, including the Zhengde Emperor of the Ming Dynasty and his loyal army of eunuchs, the Tsar who hated Russia and once put a rat on trial for treason (it was found guilty and given the death penalty fwiw) and Caligula, the original dangerously insane Roman Emperor. PLUS: Warm memories of the WWE Attitude Era, King Ralph and more!

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, we shamelessly attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the World Cup with our very own soccer episode, featuring the wildest stories in the history of the beautiful game--from the 1915 British Football Match Fixing Scandal to the 1966 World Cup being saved by a collie mix named Pickles to the altogether insane tale of Carlos Kaiser, the Brazilian con man who spent the 1980s and 90s as an active professional soccer player while never actually playing any soccer.

The popes have gone wild this week on a highly spiritual Oddball History Podcast, from Sergius III having his two immediate predecessors strangled, to Benedict IX more or less openly selling the papacy, to Leo X and his beloved pet elephant Hanno rampaging through the streets of Rome as a goof. PLUS: Witches, pigeon squatters and Love Island!

Bird, bird, bird, bird is the word this week on a very special Oddball History Podcast, as Scott learns all about the most legendary birds in history, including the heroic war pigeons of World Wars 1 & 2, Thomas Jefferson's pet mockingbird Dick, Charles Dickens's bitey pet raven Grip, and Jimmy, the top billed bird star of the Golden Age of Hollywood. ALSO: Legendary bird guy John James Audubon pulls a prank for the ages, the triumphant return of the Greek Myth of the Week, and bullfighting!