John Quincy Adams was the 6th president of the United States who won his election in controversial fashion over Andrew Jackson in 1824. He spent his youth gallivating around Europe on his daddy's dime, helped author the Monroe Doctirine as Secretary of State, brought Florida into the union, was an incredibly outspoken abolitionist, and kept a pet alligator in the East Room of the White House.

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Justice is blind. So blind, apparently, that it doesn't mind if pigs, rats, statues, and other non-human entities are brought to trial. This is the history of the trials of animals and inanimate objects held over the centuries. The charges against them range from murder to vandalism and, as it turns out, these trials were often conducted for surprisingly existential reasons.


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Tampa Bay’s Gasparilla Pirate Festival is a huge city holiday and boasts the third-largest annual parade in the United States. It’s also a drunken, pirate-themed, rage fest based on a lie. Learn about its history as a holiday, Jake and Dan’s Gasparilla experiences, and all you ever wanted to learn about turn-of-the-century tourism.

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Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-American escape artist, illusionist, actor, and aviator who beefed with spirit mediums and psychics throughout the early 20th century. He went from poor immigrant slumming it with his family in Wisconsin to an international superstar traveling the globe and mystifiying audiences with his wife Bess all throughout Europe and the States.

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At the Second Council of the Lateran in 1139, Pope Innocent II banned Christians from using ranged weapons against other Christians under threat of excommunication. Was this to disarm the peasantry whose primary combat weapon was bows and arrows? Or were the reasons much... dumber and more selfish?

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During a snow storm in December of 1915, an incredibly intelligent Enzo brown bear launched a series of attacks on dozens of residents in a small Japanese town. The Sankebetsu incident is regarded as the worst animal attack in Japanese history.

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Jake and Dan compete in a historical parenting advice quiz to determine who would be the better father. Enjoy this FREE Softcore History Patreon preview and Merry Christmas to all our Softies out there.

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Takanakuy is an annual Christmas tradition where residents of Santo Tomás, Peru call out neighbors they believe have wronged them throughout the year to physical combat. With no court houses in this community tucked away high up in the Andes Mountains, this centuries old tradition is used to settle legal disputes or clean the slate on petty disagreesments in front of the whole town.

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Being executed for your crimes is never fun but throughout history, some executions have been much, MUCH worse than others. Specifically, the executions that did NOT go as planned. From beheadings that needed way too many swings of the ax and backup executioners who had no idea what they were doing to the first-ever use of the electric chair in 1890, many an execution has gone horribly wrong. We go over some of the worst.

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Henry Kissinger was a pragmatic statesman above all else. Unfortunately, he was also German and, as such, his pragmatism took a lot of dark, destructive turns. His Cold War policy eschewed ideology (and any morsel of morality that might have previously existed) in favor of outcomes. The ends always justified the means to Kissinger when it came to the global stage. Also, this guy f*cked.


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