On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about one of the greatest actors of all time, Christopher Lee. This legend played Dracula and was in little known film series such as James Bond, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars. What’s more impressive is that in WWII he became a spy, a Nazi hunter, and a member of the infamous SOE—The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. After he mastered spy craft and acting, he also mastered thrash metal music, becoming the oldest musician to ever break the Billboard Top Twenty with his song “Jingle Hell.” You know his face and his rolls, but you don’t know Christopher Lee and his crazy back story.

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/11/christopher-lee

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/christopher-lee-3395.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee

https://gizmodo.com/22-incredible-facts-about-the-life-and-career-of-sir-ch-1710917366

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Christopher_Lee

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall. This wall was both a symbolic and physical barrier between Soviet and Western ideals for over 30 years. After WWII, Germany was divided into four parts, each run by a different nation. Berlin was divided as well, and it served as the most important border-crossing and battle ground for the Cold War. After thousands of citizens fled the Soviet-let East, they built The Berlin Wall which divided the city in two. Hundreds were killed as guards had orders to shoot to kill, but eventually, the wall came down. What accidental press conference helped destroy the wall? Who was Harald Jager, and what part did he play? What does a mine field, archery, and fake planes have to do with one family’s escape? Listen, laugh, learn.

 

Visit Our Sources:

History Channel’s Take

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-was-the-berlin-wall-and-how-did-it-fall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-berlin-wall-28-year-history-1779495

https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/berlinwall

https://time.com/5720386/berlin-wall-fall/

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the wonderful world of ants. Experts suggest that there are up to ten quadrillion ants alive on the planet, roughly 25% of all life on earth. They are highly organized, intelligent, social, and…creepy. They talk to each other via sound and pheromones. Ants grow crops, they go to war, and they even farm aphids to milk them for honeydew. Their size, scale, venom, and strength is wildly divergent. Their nests and colonies are so complex that they baffle architects, so they are sure to baffle the three of us. If you want to hear if Brent thinks they are machines, give this one a listen!

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/animals/insects/ant-facts/

https://www.toptenreviews.com/the-worlds-most-dangerous-ants

https://canyouactually.com/researchers-poured-10-tons-of-cement-into-this-ant-metropolis-then-dug-it-up/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality

Aphids and Honeydew

Ant Colony in Cement

Aluminum Ant Colony Casts

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about Satan. It only made logical sense for our 666th episode to talk about Lucifer, the Prince of Lies. So where do his origins begin? As with most Christian beliefs, he starts pre-Christianity as a series of malevolent gods and human adversaries who merge to one supernatural baddie. He is never physically described in the Bible, and he is not even said to be the actual snake that tempts Adam and Eve. The modern idea of a giant red, horned beast with a tale comes from centuries of Christian evolution, not much of which is canonical. But he remains one of the most important beings in human mythology, a figure of evil and deceit, bent to topple god and destroy all that’s good. And he’s not even running for president…

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-the-devil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan

https://www.livescience.com/56341-where-did-satan-come-from.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/deathof.htm

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-is-your-soul-worth-2013-9

https://allthatsinteresting.com/moloch

https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Crossroads-a-liminal-setting-for-occult-and-supernatural-activities

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003463739208900402?journalCode=raeb

This is one of the largest public government retractions and alleged cover-ups that exist in the realm of conspiracy theory. The actual facts are that a press release came out from the US Air Force on July 8, 1947, claiming a “flying saucer” crashed thirty miles outside of Roswell. Then, on July 9, the Air Force changed their story and infamously said it was a weather balloon. The story pretty much died down from there until 1978 when UFOlogist and author, Stanton Fieldman, reopened the case and gave it national attention.

So what really happened on the sheep ranch outside of Roswell? Was it as the first witness William “Mac” Brazel claimed with his simple description of a debris field? Was it what the later alleged witnesses claimed—wild stories of metal with memory, substances that couldn’t be broken or burned, and a mysterious light-weight I-Beam that had purple unidentified glyphs scrawled on it? Why did the Air force change their story? What is Project Mogul, and why might the Air Force have made up a story of alien craft just to cover up this real-world project? And what about the supposed mangled alien bodies pulled from the wreckage or the threatening Men In Black? Well, I guess you’ll just have to listen to find out.

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the truly gonzo life of the one and only Hunter S Thompson. Thompson was a journalist who became famous for his crazed drug-fueled antics and anti-authority stance. Born in Louisville, Kentucky to a middle class family, his father died while he was a teenager, and his mother was left very poor and became an alcoholic. During this time, Thompson started writing, and he had such a skill for it, he was allowed to join an elite writing group normally left for the wealthy. He also fell in with a bad crowd and started experimenting with drugs and started committing crimes ranging from shoplifting to vandalism to robbery.

The robbery landed him in jail, and the judge said he could go to prison or join the military. Thompson decided on the Air Force. He career there was short, and he was discharged in two years for lack of discipline and subordinating other airmen. Once out, he began his career as a journalist, working as a copy boy for Time Magazine. Eventually, he started to get stories to cover, and he landed a big one in 1965 when The Nation hired him to do a story on the Hell’s Angels. Hunter S. Thompson ended up spending a year on the road with the motorcycle club, documenting their lifestyle in his unique literary style. The resulting book was a smash hit, and it gave him enough money to buy his compound called Owl Creek and opened up the door to an impressive (if not unorthodox) career as a journalist.

His next big piece was an article called “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which was where the term Gonzo Journalism got coined. The story was less about the race and more about Thompson’s personal time spent at the race. It led to his next huge success, which was when Sports Illustrated sent him to cover the Mint 400 race in Las Vegas. This lead to his masterpiece, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S Thompson covered everything from Richard Nixon to his own race to be sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. He even got stranded in Vietnam during the evacuation of Saigon! His stories are wild and varied and pretty hard to believe.

What happened when he went to Zaire to cover the Foreman/Ali fight? What was his political platform when he ran for office? What did a typical day of drug use look like for him? Why did he kill himself at the end, and what strange things happened at his funeral? Listen, laugh, learn.

Kentucky Derby Article: http://grantland.com/features/looking-back-hunter-s-thompson-classic-story-kentucky-derby/

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about Sputnik. Sputnik was the first man-made satellite to ever orbit the earth, and it started the Space Race and made the Cold War grow even hotter. It was designed by the Soviet Union using a system of interlocking governmental agencies. Sputnik was far ahead of its time, and it freaked America (and the rest of the world) out. The response was the formation of NASA and DARPA and the race to the moon. Why was public reaction positive, even for most Americans? How did a dog turn the tide on the Soviet win? What impact did it have on the world? Listen, laugh, learn.

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sputnik-launched

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/sputnik

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1

https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/sputnik-and-space-race

https://www.space.com/17563-sputnik.html

https://history.nasa.gov/sputnik-timeline.html

Cool Sputnik Video

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the Grandfather of Glam, David Bowie. He was hands down one of the most important artists of his life time, experimenting with every new style of music and instrument out there. He was one of the main influencers on the androgyny of the 1980s, and his most famous persona, Ziggy Stardust, was a creature that made fun of itself. He was an often obsessed artists who would create a bizarre musical character and inhabit it on and off stage (even hiding his urine from wizards at one point. Honestly.). Listen to this one as we talk about one of the greatest singer songwriters of all time.

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.biography.com/musician/david-bowie

https://www.davidbowie.com/about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie

https://stacker.com/stories/13641/david-bowie-life-story-you-may-not-know

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/522704/15-fascinating-facts-about-david-bowie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_White_Duke#Controversy

Bowie and Crosby Video

Ferrel and Reilly Video

Cool Bowie Video

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the sinking of The Kursk. The Kursk was a Russian nuclear sub and was declared “unsinkable.” However, a constantly declining military budget let their navy start to fall apart. On Aug 12, 2000, during a massive fleet-wide training exercise, the ship fell silent. Well, not exactly silent since seismographs on the other side of the world reported two explosions, one equaling a 4.2 on the Richter Scale. What followed was an epic failure in the Russian Navy’s response, the government’s inactivity, and Vladimir Putin’s callous nature. Everyone on The Kursk died, and their corpses were only discovered by foreign divers since the Russians couldn’t do it themselves. This is a sad story of a government and bureaucracy that left its sailors to die.

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a23494010/kursk-submarine-disaster/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster

https://www.rferl.org/a/the-kursk-catastrophe-a-lesson-for-putin-is-fading-from-russian-attention-20-years-later/30778500.html

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-coronavirus-and-the-kursk-submarine-disaster

https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82260&page=1

https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82720&page=1

Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RL_UdWCPlw

Raising The Kursk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQJ6IMREvz8

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about one of the most famous structures on planet earth—The Great Sphinx of Giza. The Sphinx is old. It is really old, but nobody knows exactly how ancient it is. Popular beliefs put it at 4500 years old, built by the Pharaoh Khafre. Others say it was built by that pharaoh’s father, Khufu. Yet others claim it was discovered by Khufu and is centuries older than either of them. This monument has been subject to vandalism, erosion, and centuries buried under the sand. Was there any truth to Edgar Cayce’s predictions about hidden Atlantean artifacts? What is the water erosion theory, and how does that potentially change the age of the Sphinx? How far is it from the nearest Pizza Hut? Listen, laugh, learn?

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/the-sphinx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesis

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/uncovering-secrets-of-the-sphinx-5053442/

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-great-sphinx-closed-eyes-really