The BrainFood Show

On April 9, 1959, the newly-formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, introduced the world to a new breed of heroes: the Mercury Seven, America’s first astronauts. Selected from a pool of over 500 military test pilots, these men represented the best the nation had to offer, and its best hope in the intensifying Space Race against the Soviets. Almost immediately, the Mercury Seven became national heroes: on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard would became the first American in space, while on February 20, 1962, John Glenn would become the first American to orbit the earth, a feat which catapulted him to superstardom. But among these early pioneers was an astronaut who, while less well-known to the public, would become a legend in the aviation community. His name was Gordo Cooper.

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Humans being horrible to other humans is nothing new. Think of the most brutal thing you can possibly imagine, and it’s almost certain not only has some human done that to another human, but probably some nation did it as a general policy to other humans. Possibly even for the amusement of the masses. And as ever, one of the few universal truths, beyond that Star Trek the Next Generation is the greatest thing humans have ever produced, is that the past was the worst. Nowhere is this perhaps better illustrated than what we are going to do an extremely deep dive into today because it’s an often forgotten bit of history, and even those who know something about it generally haven’t heard of many facets. This is despite the whole thing being central to one of the greatest and most studied conflicts in human history.

Author: Daven Hiskey

Host: Simon Whistler

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While Ben Franklin was remarkably successful in keeping elements of his private life very private to the point that historians can only speculate about much of it, despite having a common law marriage, he was, shall we say, noted for his overt and unabashed love of women and their company, particularly if they were educated- something he even used in argument for why women should be encouraged in education, not restricted as was so often the case in his time. In his view, women were simply even more fun to talk to and spend time with this way. Unshy about any of this, he even once penned an exceptionally detailed letter outlining why older women are much more preferable to sleep with than their younger counterparts. And that any young man seeking a lover to help with difficult to deal with urges before marriage would be wise to find himself an elderly woman to help meet these needs. Much more on this and Franklin’s rather humorous and well thought out reasoning in the Bonus Facts later. Brilliant, charming, funny, extremely sociable, Franklin was beloved by most who met him, knew how to have a good time, and seemed inclined to cast off his puritan upbringing and enjoy life to its fullest… despite also occasionally penning wise proverbs on how to live a good life that seemed to starkly contrast with some of his actual behaviors. British politician William Corbett would sum up that Franklin was “A crafty and lecherous old hypocrite whose very statue seems to gloat on the wenches as they walk the State House Yard.”

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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start out with a follow up to a previous episode in which we mentioned Teddy Roosevelt likely helped delay the start of WWI, but then never actually said in that episode how.

Next up we discuss whether the Tyrannosaurus Rex could really not see

Then we get into a little podcast feedback and finish up by

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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start out by discussing the fascinating story about how the statue of Shakespeare in Central Park, New York, got there, what John Wilkes Booth’s Brother did for Abraham Lincoln’s son, the real story about why Caesar dressing is called that, and a bunch of other interesting stuff!

This is part 4 of our 4 part series on Julius Caesar.  Stay tuned next time for when we talk about something completely different!

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Scapa Flow lies barely seven degrees below the Arctic Circle, in the cold, windswept Orkney Islands at the northern tip of Scotland. Measuring 10 kilometres wide by 8 kilometres long with an average depth of 30 metres, this natural anchorage is bounded to the north by the mainland, to the east by the islands of Burray and South Ronaldsay, and to the west by the island of Hoy. In 1904, Scapa Flow was chosen as the home base for the British Grand Fleet, allowing the Royal Navy and German Imperial Navy to glower at each other across the North Sea. It was from here that the Grand Fleet sailed to the historic 1916 Battle of Jutland, and to here that the German High Seas Fleet sailed to surrender in 1918. In the years leading up to the Second World War, Scapa Flow was thought to be impregnable, and came to symbolize the supposed invincibility of the Royal Navy itself. But in the early morning hours of October 14, 1939, a lone German U-boat succeeded in doing the impossible, penetrating the harbour’s defences, sinking a 30,000-ton battleship, and slipping away undetected. It was one of the most daring feats of the war, and one which shattered the Royal Navy’s illusion of invulnerability. This is the incredible story of the U-47 and Captain Günther Prien, “The Bull of Scapa Flow.”

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On the first of April, 1945, a combined American and British Empire fleet appeared off Okinawa, the southernmost of the Japanese Home Islands. Operation Iceberg, the final naval battle of the Second World War, was about to begin. As hundreds of aircraft roared overhead and enormous shells fired from battleships pounded the shore, landing craft streamed ashore carrying tens of thousands of troops into battle. The battle for Okinawa is remembered as among the most savage of the Pacific Campaign, marked by extreme resistance by Japanese soldiers and civilians alike. Equally savage was the aerial battle which raged over the invasion fleet, as pilots of the Japanese Special Attack Units - better known as the kamikaze - brought their bomb-laden aircraft screaming down into the Allied ships. While by this time Allied sailors had weathered kamikaze attacks for nearly six months, the Battle of Okinawa brought with it a terrifying new threat. Just after 7:00 PM on April 1, the crew of the Colorado-class battleship USS West Virginia - a veteran of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - saw a tiny white aircraft screaming towards them at terrifying speed, a fountain of flames streaming from its tail. Though West Virginia’s gunners quickly filled the sky with a wall of tracers, the aircraft rocketed through the defensive screen and slammed into the battleship just forward of her No.2 gun director, setting off a massive explosion that killed four sailors and wounded seven. West Virginia had been struck by a Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka. Effectively a manned, rocket-propelled bomb designed for a single, one-way mission, the Ohka was one of the most ghoulish weapons of war ever devised and a perfect distillation of the sheer desperation which fuelled late-war Japan. But while the kamikazes have become infamous, less-well known is that halfway across the world, the Allied fleet which invaded Normandy in June 1944 nearly suffered a similar fate at the hands of Imperial Japan’s Axis ally, Nazi Germany. In the desperate, dying days of the Third Reich, the Nazis attempted to assemble its own kamikaze squadron, whose pilots, like modern-day viking berserkers, were to ram their jet-powered flying bombs into enemy ships and bombers, inflicting - it was hoped - such horrific casualties that the Allies would be forced to sue for peace. Thankfully, however, lack of resources and ideological differences among the German high command prevented this insane plan from being carried out. This is the story of Leonidas Squadron, the forgotten Nazi kamikazes.

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Anybody reading remember the film Jingle All The Way, you know the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger body checks his way through a crowd of harried single mums, is an accessory to a bomb threat and physically assaults like 4 retail workers, all for the chance to get his hands on that year's hottest toy? Of course you do. That film is great. Okay so let’s talk about the time all of that happened for real, here in our world. Only instead of a turbo-tastic action figure with Booster accessory (don’t worry, there’s always plenty of Boosters left) we’re talking about a foot tall vibrating Elmo plush.

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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start out by discussing in more detail the events surrounding Caesar’s momentous decision to cross the Rubicon, then jump into the real story of what happened on the Ides of March which isn’t exactly the one popular history remembers largely thanks to the notable play by Shakespeare.

Over the course of the episode we also discuss why likely most every quote you’ve ever read from Socrates was not actually something Socrates said, among other tangents.

And just a small correction: “Sherlock” not “Shakespeare” (You’ll know when you get there.)

This is part 3 of our 4 part series on Julius Caesar.  Stay tuned next time for when we look at a variety of interesting facts related to what we’ve discussed in parts 1-3.

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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start out by discussing how a teenage Julius Caesar became the head of his rather prominent family. We then move on to his little month-long or so pirate adventure and finally discuss where exactly the Rubicon was, which interestingly enough is only something that has been relatively recently discovered.

This is part 2 of what will be a 4 part series on Julius Caesar.  Stay tuned next time for when we look more deeply into why Caesar chose to cross the Rubicon and his rather unorthodox and bold strategy in doing so, as well as look at the true story of the Ides of March.

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