The History Cache Podcast

Over 5,200 years ago a king rose to power in Upper Egypt. His name was Scorpion. Yes, there was a real Scorpion king, and we can piece together a fragmentary picture of his life through the archaeological evidence left behind. Though the details of his life are debated, it’s clear he was an important part of Egyptian history. Come join me as we time travel back to predynastic Egypt and meet the legendary Scorpion King.

In 1928 Glen and Bessie Hyde struck out to make history. They wanted to raft down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon at a time when only 45 people in recorded history had dared to make that journey. If successful, they would set a new speed record, and Bessie would be the first woman in recorded history to make the voyage.

Their scow was found snagged in the river at mile 232, all their belongings still intact, but the young couple had vanished. Their disappearance sparked a mystery still told around canyon camp fires and has made them an inseparable piece of Grand Canyon lore. A diary, a skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull, and a campfire confession all stoked the flames of a century of mystery. Come hear their story.

It’s incredibly unlikely you’ll ever be involved in a plane crash. Its also incredibly unlikely you’ll ever be struck by lightning. Both of those things happened to Juliane Koepcke at the same time. In 1971, she and her mother were making their way from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru, when their plane broke apart at 10,000 feet. Julianna fell almost two miles out of the sky and into the Peruvian jungle. The the only survivor, she was injured, alone, and lost in the Amazon rainforest. What followed is an incredible account of survival, will, and the relentless tenacity of human endurance. Come hear her story.

In 1879 the Victorian world was shocked by one of the most sensational murders it would ever see. When Kate Webster killed, dismembered, and boiled her employer Julia Martha Thomas, she went down in history as one of the most notorious killers of the 19th century. Find out all the gory details and just what David Attenborough had to do with it 131 years later. Yes, that David Attenborough. 

This is the story of Shackleton and the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1916 as presented at this year’s 2021 Intelligent Speech Conference. The theme this year was escape and in the last expedition of the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration, Shackleton and his crew pulled off the greatest escape of all time, against all odds, at the brink of human endurance as they spent nearly two years lost, adrift on the pack ice of the Weddell sea, setting foot onto some of the last uncharted places in the world. This is the cliff notes version of the expedition. For a much more detailed history check out last year’s five-part series. 

She has one of the most recognizable smiles in the world, but why is the Mona Lisa so famous? She is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but didn’t become a worldwide sensation until 1911 when Vincenzo Peruggia stole her from the Louvre museum in Paris. It has been dubbed by some as the greatest art theft of the 20th century. Find out how he pulled it off and how the Mona Lisa, known as La Joconde in France and La Gioconda in Italy, made her way back to France to become the world’s most visited painting. 

Decades before the movie phenomenon of Jaws, our fear of sharks was ignited by a series of real shark attacks that all occurred within a 12-day period in the summer of 1916. Before these attacks along the New Jersey shore, many believed sharks were not capable of killing or attacking humans. This week we sift through the lore to find the real history surrounding the five attacks-and four deaths-that kindled our fascination with these animals. We also discuss how the shark mania that spread out from the 1916 attacks and the sensational film Jaws, has given sharks a reputation as blood thirsty killers, and how that mentality is shifting the more we learn about these incredible animals. Let’s jump into the water with some of history’s most famous sharks.

The turn of the 20th century was an incredible time for aviation and in 1892, eleven years before the Wright Brothers’ famous flight, a pilot was born. Bessie Coleman, known as Queen Bess, was the first African American and the first Indigenous American to receive an international pilot’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, two years before Amelia Earhart. Bared from American flight schools because of her sex and unable to find a pilot to give her lessons in the US due to her race, she left for flight school in France. Upon her return, she had an exciting career barnstorming, or stunt flying, wowing audiences with tailspins, parachute jumps, and walking along the wing of her plane while it was in flight. Her tragic death in 1926 came too soon, but her legacy still lives on. Come hear the inspirational life story of the unstoppable Queen Bess.

In Part 2 of the Historical Oddities series, we uncover two strange pieces of history. In the 1970’s when the crew of the Six Million Dollar Man was shooting an episode inside a funhouse in Long Beach, California, they accidentally stumbled upon something unexpected…the dead, mummified body of the outlaw Elmer McCurdy. Elmer had been shot dead by a Sherriff’s posse the better part of a century before, so what was his corpse doing hanging from the rafters of a funhouse? Today we examine his incredible true story.

Next, we go across the pond and back again to find out how just what the London Bridge is doing in the Arizona desert. Built after the London Bridge of nursery rhyme fame was demolished and before the bridge that now stands over the Thames, this 19th century granite London Bridge was headed for the junkyard until the city of London auctioned it off to an eccentric American millionaire. Tune in to hear how this iconic English landmark became the world's most expensive souvenir. 

History is weird sometimes. In this first episode of a two-part series, we discuss historical oddities, and highlight some of the most curious events and people history has to offer. Today we begin with Frank Hayes, an unstoppable jockey, and Sweet Kiss, a bay mare no one was betting on. She and her jockey would make history with one race—but not because of their victory. Then we skip across the pond to find the unsinkable Violet Jessop, a woman who survived three of the 20th century’s most harrowing shipwrecks. South Africa is our last stop where we find Jack the Baboon who was better at his job working for the Cape Town Port Elizabeth Railway service than most of us are today. Plug in and get weird!