The Cracked Podcast

How well do you read Latin? Because if you’re not all that good at reading Latin or other dead languages, good news: you could have still had a job as an 1800s historian. Fun example: there’s a story claiming the Roman emperor Caligula was SO CRAZY, he sent a whole army to a beach to pick up seashells for him. However, the Latin word ‘musculi’ means both “shells” and “military huts”, so he likely actually told his troops to pack up their campsite. Which is normal. That’s a completely different kind of emperor, right? And here’s a fun thing: your pop cultural understanding of the Roman Empire is approximately that far off of the truth, in a lot of fascinating ways.

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by Siobhan Thompson (CollegeHumor, BBC America) and Patrick Wyman (Tides Of History, ‘Jeopardy!’) for a trip through the inaccurate lies you’ve been fed about the ancient Romans, and also the much more interesting true things you never knew about them. Get your head straight about everything from mighty gladiators to ancient fast food to the stunning economic benefits of living near a former Roman road.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/overrated-myths-and-underrated-facts-about-ancient-rome/

Enormous gratitude this week! New episode next week. And in the meantime, here are some of our recent favorite episodes of the show: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/happy-new-year-and-thank-you21-from-cracked-podcast/

Also did you know we’re going on tour in 2019? It’s true! See us LIVE in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday April 11th and in St. Paul, Minnesota on Friday April 12th.

CHICAGO TICKETS: http://bit.ly/crackedchicago

ST. PAUL TICKETS: http://bit.ly/crackedstpaul

Enormous gratitude this week! New episode next week. And in the meantime, here are some of our recent favorite episodes of the show: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/happy-new-year-and-thank-you21-from-cracked-podcast/

Also did you know we’re going on tour in 2019? It’s true! See us LIVE in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday April 11th and in St. Paul, Minnesota on Friday April 12th.

CHICAGO TICKETS: http://bit.ly/crackedchicago

ST. PAUL TICKETS: http://bit.ly/crackedstpaul

“No bad ideas in a brainstorm.” That’s a common saying that implies a darker truth: as soon as an idea leaves a brainstorm’s cocoon, and gets put into practice, it can metamorphose into a living, breathing disaster. After all, who knows how your theoretical idea would actually work? How can we put any idea into practice without testing it on millions of people first? And surprise -- sudden mental left turn here -- what if we already had a way to test all kinds of ideas, see how great they really are, and then easily make your life better by implementing them?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by Adam Tod Brown (Unpopular Opinion) and Nick Wiger (Doughboys) for a worldwide brainstorming session. They’ll consider all kinds of real ideas, tested by real countries, that could upgrade life in America if we just had the courage to borrow them. The year’s almost over, so throw on some headphones and find out how copying the best laws from Sweden, Cuba, Taiwan and more places could be our first and best decision of 2019.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/12-great-ideas-america-should-steal-from-other-countries/

“No bad ideas in a brainstorm.” That’s a common saying that implies a darker truth: as soon as an idea leaves a brainstorm’s cocoon, and gets put into practice, it can metamorphose into a living, breathing disaster. After all, who knows how your theoretical idea would actually work? How can we put any idea into practice without testing it on millions of people first? And surprise -- sudden mental left turn here -- what if we already had a way to test all kinds of ideas, see how great they really are, and then easily make your life better by implementing them?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by Adam Tod Brown (Unpopular Opinion) and Nick Wiger (Doughboys) for a worldwide brainstorming session. They’ll consider all kinds of real ideas, tested by real countries, that could upgrade life in America if we just had the courage to borrow them. The year’s almost over, so throw on some headphones and find out how copying the best laws from Sweden, Cuba, Taiwan and more places could be our first and best decision of 2019.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/12-great-ideas-america-should-steal-from-other-countries/

You’re holding a couple hundred billion transistors right now. Yes, you. You with the smartphone in your hand. That’s possible because -- surprise -- transistors are only a few nanometers in size now. A size so small, that description means nothing to you, right? Well here’s something: what if transistors and all other things we engineer are only going to get smaller from here? And what if that entire process began a shockingly short time ago, in a specific place, and changed the entire world faster than anybody realized it was happening?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by author Simon Winchester. His latest book is ‘The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World’, and he & Alex will explore exactly that. They’ll also get into why 1776 should be famous for more than the American Revolution, why Eli Whitney should be famous for being a con man, how the Hubble Space Telescope got itself contact lenses, and more shocking tales of precision changing the entire world overnight.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/how-few-precision-engineers-invented-your-entire-life/

You’re holding a couple hundred billion transistors right now. Yes, you. You with the smartphone in your hand. That’s possible because -- surprise -- transistors are only a few nanometers in size now. A size so small, that description means nothing to you, right? Well here’s something: what if transistors and all other things we engineer are only going to get smaller from here? And what if that entire process began a shockingly short time ago, in a specific place, and changed the entire world faster than anybody realized it was happening?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by author Simon Winchester. His latest book is ‘The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World’, and he & Alex will explore exactly that. They’ll also get into why 1776 should be famous for more than the American Revolution, why Eli Whitney should be famous for being a con man, how the Hubble Space Telescope got itself contact lenses, and more shocking tales of precision changing the entire world overnight.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/how-few-precision-engineers-invented-your-entire-life/

Space: it’s the final frontier AND somehow the least popular frontier. A couple decades of successful shuttle launches passed unnoticed. A slew of orbital science experiments didn’t excite anybody. Even the Space Race wasn’t the nation-gripping drama we decided it was retroactively. Why isn’t space travel capturing more imaginations? Why aren’t people more stoked about it? And would it help if we did a rad podcast episode about the most kickass exploits in all of space history?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by ‘American Dad’ writer, Cracked legend, and prince of all our hearts Soren Bowie for a celebration of outer space heroics. They’ll dig into the death-defying (and sometimes, death-receiving) bravery that’s driven decades of space exploration, even though only a few of those bold explorers became famous in the aftermath. Plus, enjoy a special bonus story of how the very best of us went out into the universe in the form of a space probe.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/13-badass-astronaut-cosmonaut-stories-everyone-should-hear/

Space: it’s the final frontier AND somehow the least popular frontier. A couple decades of successful shuttle launches passed unnoticed. A slew of orbital science experiments didn’t excite anybody. Even the Space Race wasn’t the nation-gripping drama we decided it was retroactively. Why isn’t space travel capturing more imaginations? Why aren’t people more stoked about it? And would it help if we did a rad podcast episode about the most kickass exploits in all of space history?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by ‘American Dad’ writer, Cracked legend, and prince of all our hearts Soren Bowie for a celebration of outer space heroics. They’ll dig into the death-defying (and sometimes, death-receiving) bravery that’s driven decades of space exploration, even though only a few of those bold explorers became famous in the aftermath. Plus, enjoy a special bonus story of how the very best of us went out into the universe in the form of a space probe.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/13-badass-astronaut-cosmonaut-stories-everyone-should-hear/

Here’s some common sense: the more complicated a machine gets, the more ways it can break down and fall apart. That applies to everything from cars to kids’ toys to Hollywood, and that last thing (Hollywood) is this principle’s most fun application. Because what happens to your favorite movie if any step of the process goes differently? Is it even still that thing you like if it has different writing/casting/directing/editing/releasing/endless continuing list of these things?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by podcasting titan Matt Gourley for a deep dive into all the ways our favorite franchises could’ve come together completely differently. From James Bond to Star Wars to even bigger pop cultural touchstones than those (!), they’ll discover how close we came to not even recognizing the movies, TV shows, and other entertainments closest to our hearts.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/11-pop-culture-alternate-histories-that-almost-happened