When we last left Hernán Cortés, he had taken an emperor hostage and everything had blown up in his face. In this episode, we are tracking the brutal and chaotic end of the Aztec Empire. We cover:

• The Sad Night: How the Spanish made a daring escape out of the city in the middle of the night , and how men literally drowned to death because they refused to drop the gold they had stolen.

• The Microscopic Conquistador: Why the deadliest weapon the Spanish brought was actually smallpox. The disease swept through the city, killing half of Tenochtitlan's inhabitants , including their new emperor.

• The Mountain Navy: How Cortés decided to have brigatines, which were small warships, built in pieces inland. He then carried them over land to Lake Texcoco, assembled them , and used them to pincher the locals on the causeways.

• The Ultimate Resume Editor: How Cortés wrote five lengthy letters to Charles V, the King of Spain, to spin his unauthorized actions. He framed his mass violence as "necessary pacification" and tried to convince the king that his insubordination was actually just an expansion of the king's domain.

In the studio: Tom cannot figure out why soldiers wouldn't just drop the gold to avoid drowning , and Travis reveals the universe briefly tried to stop Cortés from exploring by giving him syphilis in Hispaniola.

When Hernán Cortés sailed for the New World, he wasn’t just exploring...he was actively ignoring his boss and bringing "emotionally unstable men with swords" to a continent that had never seen them.

In this episode, we are tracking the absolutely chaotic, blood-soaked story of Spanish colonialism and the conquest of the Aztec Empire. We cover:

• Sinking the Ships: Why the famous "burn the ships" motivational speech is actually a lie, and how Cortés actually just "slightly wet the ships to death" to trap his own men into fighting.

• The Translator: The complicated true story of La Malinche (Melitza), the enslaved teenage girl who served as Cortés's interpreter, and why labeling her a "traitor" to her people is historically lazy.

• The 500-Man Myth: Why the idea that Cortés conquered the Aztecs with just 500 guys is essentially a movie trailer, completely ignoring the tens of thousands of indigenous Tlaxcalan allies who actually carried the war.

• The Hostage Crisis: How Cortés walked into the incredible island city of Tenochtitlan, was welcomed by the Emperor Moctezuma, and immediately pulled a "home invasion with legal stationery" by taking the Emperor hostage.

In the studio: Tom gets immediately derailed trying to figure out if conquistadors fought bulls, and Travis explains how Cortés managed to defeat the arrest squad sent by his own HR department—and then immediately hired them.

Listen to Stonedhenge—History for people who hated history class. 💨🎙️

Long before anyone was making movies about staring at goats, the US government panicked over a rumor and spent 20 years and millions of dollars trying to win a "psychic arms race" against the Soviet Union.

In this episode, we are tracking the absolutely unhinged history of Project Stargate and the CIA's remote viewing program. We cover:

• The Psychic Submarine: How a remote viewer accurately sketched the largest Soviet submarine in human history (the Typhoon-class) completely blind, and earned a secret Legion of Merit medal for it.

• The African Jungle Crash: The time a remote viewer found a missing Soviet TU-22 bomber with top-secret codes just by pointing at a random grid square on a map of Africa—a story completely confirmed by President Jimmy Carter.

• Platform 9 3/4: Why Major General Albert Stubblebine, the man commanding 16,000 US Army Intelligence soldiers, repeatedly gave himself bloody noses by sprinting face-first into his office wall trying to phase through the drywall.

• The 1984 Mars Mission: The 100% real, declassified CIA transcript where government officials paid a man to astral project to Mars in 1,000,000 BC to interview a dying race of tall aliens in tight clothing.

In the studio: Tom pulls up the actual declassified government documents to prove he isn't making this up , and Travis completely loses his mind trying to figure out why ancient Martian aliens speak English.

Long before the US was a global superpower, they were just a 30-year-old country that decided to pick a fight with the strongest navy in the world. Why? Because the British were essentially pulling a massive kidnapping spree and stealing American sailors right off their boats.

In this episode, we are tracking the absolute chaos of the War of 1812. We cover:

• Revolutionary War 2: Why the US thought it would be a great idea to steal America's "top hat" (Canada) , and how General William Hull surrendered Detroit without even putting up a fight.

  
  

• Old Ironsides & Privateers: How the USS Constitution was literally deflecting British cannonballs , and why the US government just gave civilians permission to take their own boats and start stealing British ships.

  
  

• The Accidental Anthem: The wild story of Francis Scott Key watching Fort McHenry get bombarded for 25 hours straight and inadvertently writing the American National Anthem.

  
  

• The Swamp Wars: Why Andrew Jackson and his troops fought the massive Battle of New Orleans a full two weeks after the peace treaty had already been signed.

  
  

In the studio: Tom gets his mind completely blown by the true origins of the National Anthem, and realizes the USS Constitution is the exact ship their buddy has tattooed on the back of his leg.

Long before competitive eating was a televised sport, getting kicked out of your parents' house for eating a quarter of a cow in a single day was just the start of the wildest medical mystery in French history.

In this episode, we are tracking the absolutely revolting life of Tarrare, the 18th-century human garbage disposal. We cover:

• The Traveling Sideshow: Why eating live puppies, swallowing entire baskets of apples, and chugging literal trash was considered peak entertainment before the internet.

  
  

• Weaponized Indigestion: The moment the French military looked at a guy who smelled terrible and ate stray animals, and decided he was the perfect covert spy to smuggle classified documents in his stomach.

  
  

• The Hospital Horror Story: The real reason you don't let a guy with a bottomless pit for a stomach hang around an 18th-century medical ward (spoiler: it ends with him trying to eat cadavers and being the primary suspect in a missing toddler case).

In the studio: Travis aggressively points and condescends while , and Tom physically tests if he can fit his own fist sideways in his mouth.

Grab a bucket. You're going to need it for this one.

What if J. Robert Oppenheimer didn't actually invent the atomic bomb, but just rediscovered it?

Today, we are flipping the script. Travis is taking a break from the research, and Tom is putting on his tinfoil hat to dive into the ultimate ancient conspiracy: The destruction of Mohenjo-Daro. We look at the impossible evidence suggesting a Bronze Age utopia was wiped off the map by a nuclear blast 4,500 years ago. We cover:

• The Bronze Age Utopia: How a 2500 BC city in Pakistan had perfect grid streets, indoor plumbing, and zero weapons.

• The Trinity Connection: Why archaeologists found vitrified green glass melted into the desert floor that perfectly matches the 1945 atomic test sites.

• The Ancient Texts: The ancient Hindu war manuals that specifically describe radiation sickness, hair falling out, and birds turning white.

• Oppenheimer's Confession: The chilling reason the father of the atomic bomb learned to read Sanskrit.

In the studio: Tom takes the reins so Travis can recover from being sick, and immediately proves why he probably shouldn't be trusted with the research.

Long before anyone knew what a germ was, or had any basic common sense, getting sick basically meant a demon was pissed at you, or the moon was just in a bad spot.

In this episode, we are tracking the absolute chaos of historical medicine from ancient Mesopotamia all the way to the Renaissance. We cover:

• The Humoral Theory: Why ancient doctors (and the guys who bled George Washington) thought draining your blood to balance your "four fluids" was peak healthcare.

• Astrological Surgery: The era where ignoring a star chart before pulling a tooth was considered actual malpractice.

• The Miasma Era: The real reason Plague Doctors stuffed those creepy bird masks full of incense (spoiler: everything just smelled terrible).

In the studio: Travis explains why you can't get a tooth pulled when the "alligator is in retrograde", and Tom admitted that he doesn't smoke in public because of his eyes are a bright red beacon to the public.

Listen to Stonedhenge—History for people who hated history class. 💨🎙️

In the Bible, humanity tried to build a tower to heaven, and God responded by smashing it and scrambling everyone's languages. Fast forward to the Middle Ages, and European Crusaders found the ruins and thought, "We should probably try that again."

In this episode, we look at humanity's repeated urge to touch the sky and immediately regret it. We cover:

• The Literal Crime Scene: How medieval peasants didn't view Babel as a metaphor, but as a real, historical tower that explained why communication was so hard.

• The Rebuild Pitch: The daring theological loophole that if they built the tower for God instead of to God, maybe He'd give everyone a universal language back.

• The "Pizza at Home" Problem: Why the project ultimately failed (turns out, funding a multi-generational mud-brick skyscraper in a warzone is a logistical nightmare).

In the studio: Travis explains why God wouldn't want to use a stone tower as a fireman's pole, and Tom questions exactly why his teenage son keeps a 12-inch ruler sitting out on the bathroom counter.

What happens when thousands of heavily armed sailors suddenly get laid off? They steal an island and start their own businesses. In the early 1700s, unemployed privateers took over the Bahamian port of Nassau, declaring it the lawless "Republic of Pirates".

In this episode, we hoist the black flag and dive into the Golden Age of Piracy. We cover:

• The Pirate Constitution: How pirate ships were actually highly organized democracies where captains were elected and the crew operated on a strict profit-share system.

  
  

• Pirate Workers' Comp: Why losing your right arm in battle earned you a massive payout of 600 pieces of eight, while losing an eye only got you 100.

  
  

• The Legends: From "Papa Pirate" Benjamin Hornigold to Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, a 6'4" giant who literally tied lit fuses into his facial hair to terrify his enemies.

  
  

In the studio: Travis breaks down the economics of a pirate "S-Corp" , while Tom recounts his past of traveling the country in a pirate band playing sea shanties.

Before coffee, humanity ran on "low battery mode"—mostly beer, wine, and going to bed at sunset. Then, an Ethiopian goat herder noticed his goats were dancing after eating some weird red berries, and suddenly, the world woke up.

In this episode, we pour a fresh cup and trace the history of the world’s favorite legal drug. We cover:

• The Goat Origin Story: Did a goat named Kaldi actually discover caffeine, or was he just the first guy to realize his livestock was tweaking?

• The "Devil's Drink": How religious leaders tried to ban coffee as "Satan's bitter invention" until the Pope tasted it and decided it was too delicious to let the non-Christians have all the fun.

• The "Penny Universities": How coffee houses became the "Internet before the Internet," leading to the invention of stock markets, insurance, and revolutions.

In the studio: Travis explains to Tom why civilization used to be slightly drunk all day, and shares a surprisingly wholesome story about falling in love at a Waffle House.