Epic (and illegal) college pranks that demanded advanced engineering degrees, weeks of planning, and cross-country logistics. We look at feats requiring custom equipment to steal a 1.7-ton cannon and complex assembly to build a police car replica atop a massive dome. These stories reveal what happens when brilliant, unsupervised minds choose hilarity over homework, proving that the greatest challenge is often the joke itself.

Content Notice

This episode discusses technically illegal activities undertaken as pranks, including theft of property (The Caltech Cannon Heist), breaking and entering, public disruption, and a hoax involving claims of building a nuclear reactor which crossed into a public safety concern (The MIT "Reactor" Prank). The content is framed within the context of historical college traditions and engineering challenges.

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Today we dive into the true roots of Thanksgiving, a holiday ranked second only to Christmas. The rosy story taught in school leaves out crucial details. We ask: Why wasn't turkey even on the menu, and what exactly brought the Wampanoag tribe to the Pilgrims' harvest festival? This rabbit hole uncovers the controversial history and long-held myths, examining why the accepted narrative obscures the brutal truths of early colonial history.

Content Notice

This episode discusses the real history of Thanksgiving, focusing on controversial aspects and dark historical facts that differ from grade-school narratives. Topics include the whitewashing of history, the concept of Manifest Destiny, the bloody conflicts between settlers and Native Americans, including massacres, death from disease brought by colonizers, and the capture and selling of Native Americans into slaver

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Flower bulbs traded for houses. A man sat on a pole for weeks while crowds watched. Hundreds danced in the streets until they died. Stuffed animals became retirement plans. A prophecy sent people fleeing to mountaintops with homemade boats. This episode covers the moments when mass delusion took over—not because people were stupid, but because social pressure and fear of missing out override everything else. It all sounds ridiculous now. It felt inevitable then.

Content Notice

This episode discusses mass hysteria events and economic bubbles. Treatment is historical and analytical.

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A contest to feed Napoleon's army created the canning industry. Engineers trying to survive nuclear war accidentally invented the internet. A submarine navigation system became GPS. A messy lab bench saved millions from infection. A melted chocolate bar led to the microwave. This episode covers inventions nobody planned—solutions to specific problems that ended up solving problems nobody knew existed. Sometimes the best innovations come from noticing what wasn't supposed to happen.

Content Notice

This episode discusses military technology development and wartime applications. Treatment is historical and analytical.

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David Goggins sat in his truck for a week outside a Navy recruiting office, too afraid to walk in. Not because he didn't want to be a SEAL—because finding out he couldn't would destroy the dream. A story about the ten steps that changed everything, and why the parking lot was harder than Hell Week.

Content Notice

This episode discusses weight loss, intense physical training, and military selection processes. Contains references to depression and self-doubt. Presents honest but encouraging perspective on overcoming fear of failure.

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Radium that glowed in the dark. Lead that stopped engines from knocking. Teflon that made everything slide off. They solved real problems. Then decades later, we found them in everyone's blood. This episode covers the substances we thought were miracles until we realized they don't break down, don't leave, and accumulate forever. The gap between "this works" and "this kills you slowly" turns out to be about fifty years. By the time we figured it out, it was already everywhere.

Content Notice

This episode discusses toxic chemical exposure, occupational deaths, and corporate negligence. Treatment is factual and investigative, not graphic.

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Let's explore a catalog of prohibitions imposed by governments convinced they were protecting citizens. Why were common recreational games, popular foods enjoyed globally, specific colors, and even reference books deemed illegal? We trace the moral panics that led to restrictions lasting decades, revealing a structural failure: the ease with which fun things are banned compared to the difficulty of regulating profitable dangers.

Content Notice

This episode discusses historical legal restrictions surrounding moral panics, including accusations of organized crime (Pinball) and laws initially targeting prostitution (Japanese dance ban). It also references censorship and "objectionable" words like "knock up" and "ball" in the discussion of dictionary bans.

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Taft, your namesake hated being president. Fell asleep in meetings, gained 100 pounds, called it "the loneliest place in the world." Then became Chief Justice and was genuinely happy for the first time in decades. Between 1868 and 1923, Ohio produced seven presidents through pure political machinery—swing state math, party bosses, and electability over vision. Then Harding's corruption killed it. This episode covers how a state became a presidential factory, why Taft's redemption story matters, and why the whole system collapsed.

Content Notice

This episode discusses political corruption, including bribery, embezzlement, and the Teapot Dome scandal. Treatment is historical and analytical, not graphic.

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George Shaw took scissors to the first platypus specimen in 1798—not to dissect it, but to check for stitches. It looked too wrong to be real. The bombardier beetle shoots boiling chemicals from a rotating turret. The mantis shrimp punches so fast it creates temperatures approaching the surface of the sun. Tardigrades survived ten days in space, then walked away. This episode covers animals so fundamentally impossible they forced scientists to rewrite the rulebook. Nature doesn't care about our categories. It cares about what works. 

Content Notice

This episode discusses biological science and evolutionary adaptations in accessible terms.

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Small, overlooked details that shifted war outcomes—a chocolate bar, a weather forecast, a language nobody bothered to learn, a pigeon flying through gunfire, and a diplomat's public confession. Not dramatic turning points but quiet pivots that only look important in hindsight. Wars decided by generals, but also by meteorologists, chocolatiers, pigeons, and the choice to confirm or deny one telegram. 

Content Notice
This episode discusses warfare and military history, including casualties and wartime conditions. Treatment is historical and analytical, not graphic.

Let's see what the world's been hiding.