The Missing Chapter Podcast

On today's MC Short - a story about a young man that suffered a near-death accident - but to his amazement, it was this mishap that propelled him to success.  How did this happen?  Through his mother's devout prayer life.  Their combined faith changed the lives of so many people that he became one of the most powerful men in the 19th century.  Find out more about this man on today's episode of the Missing Chapter!

Dr. Joseph Bell, a Scottish surgeon and lecturer, had an uncanny ability to “read” people based on their wardrobes, body language, and simple surveillance and examination.  This gift went well beyond a doctor’s usual skill to observe.  Bell was able to determine what patients did for a living, or what illness they might be suffering from, simply by glancing in their direction or by watching them for mere seconds.  His abilities made him famous amongst his peers, but a student of his would make him famous worldwide.

The country of North Korea has been riddled with mystery - little is known about this Mississippi-sized country - until fairly recently.  North Korea has been locked down to outsiders, and after miraculous escapes by defectors, and a handful of documentary film crews breaching the borders, we’ve become more enlightened about this Hermit Kingdom and what truly happens on the north side of the 38th parallel.  As electric fences and barbed wire stretch along the border, we now know their purpose is not to keep foreigners out, but to keep their own people in, and after years and years of propaganda, their supreme leaders of North Korea, who have become deities to their people, have made some highly questionable decisions, as well as coming up with very odd, bizarre solutions to simple problems.  Find out one of the more strange decisions the North Korean government made to fix a problem they created, on this episode of the Missing Chapter.

Thank you for reaching out and providing feedback on Episode 26, Top 5 War Movies!  On today's episode, we take your recommendations and discuss the films that may have been omitted from the original episode.  And we can't forget to give you additional "Missing Chapter" facts as we discuss the sequel to the Top 5 War Movies.

In 1940, after Germany invaded Norway, a 22 year-old named Jan Baalsrud, escaped into Sweden where he would be trained in espionage by British officials. He acted as a courier between Stockholm, Sweden and Oslo, Norway, but was caught by Swedish authorities, tried and convicted of espionage.  He served 3 months of a 5-month sentence and was then expelled from the country.  His journey over the next 6 months took him all around the world beginning in Russia, through Bulgaria, Egypt, India, South Africa, United States, Newfoundland, and finally England.  There, he would be trained by the British army in special operations.  The objective would be to disrupt the Germans and provide a place for the Allies to get a foothold in Scandinavia in an effort to liberate Norway.  That was the easy part of his journey.  The next chapter of his story would last 9 weeks and cover 80 miles but would test him to the very limits human endurance and threaten the lives and families of anyone who came into contact with him. On this episode of the Missing Chapter, we welcome back Tim Field to explain this untold story!

Just over a century ago, a young boy was born into a modest family, in the small eastern Montana community of Miles City.  The youngest of 8 siblings, the boy grew up with his aunt and uncle on a farm, that in addition to a variety of different animals, grew chickens.  This boy’s life did not begin without tragedy – his twin sister died at birth and his mother some 2 days later.  The heartbreak he endured at a young age would help shape him into the man he would become and ultimately chart the course for his life of scientific discovery that would change the studies of science and medicine for the entire world.

In the 16 months of fame, James Dean arguably became more popular than the movies themselves. However, the fast fame ended just as quickly as it began when his Porsche 550 Spyder crashed into an oncoming driver near Salinas, California.  But the events that happen after his untimely demise, however, further secure his name as an icon when coincidences surround not only the car, but the parts that come from it.  Find out more today, on today's Missing Chapter Short.

War movies have been entertaining and educating people for decades.  At the very least, no matter how factual some of these movies actually are, they have become a conversation-starter for many.  In classic Missing Chapter fashion, hear the stories behind the stories in the making of some of your favorite war movies, and all the factual and not-so-factual scenes that encompass them.  Did the Phils get the Top 5 correct in your opinion? Find out today on this Missing Chapter Chat.

If you were to take a walk in lower Manhattan, in New York City's bustling financial district, between the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street, they may not notice something peculiar in the side of one of the city's most prominent buildings.  Ranging in size from small, missing chunks of limestone to deeper, baseball-size pits, the J.P. Morgan building's stone façade is scarred with pock marks - a constant reminder of one of the city's, and country's, greatest terrorist attacks of the 20th century.  But this wasn't the result of shrapnel from the 9/11 attacks that gripped our nation in 2001.  This was damage inflicted from an oft forgotten attack earlier on, in September of 1920 - one in which the J.P. Morgan building was never repaired from and one in which an assailant was never convicted.

Sarah Emma Edmonds may be one of the greatest masters of disguise in military history, as she was able to switch from being a betrothed 17-year old girl in New Brunswick, to a 21-year old male volunteer named Frank Thompson, to a male slave and then to a female Irish peddler woman, and then back to a woman and survived to tell the tale.

Sit back and listen to the latest episode “The Tombs of the Unknown Crossdressers" -  a tale of women who served heroically and died in the American Civil War only to be forgotten thus becoming yet another Missing Chapter.