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The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we’re experts. Because this is the internet, and that’s how it works now.

April Fools' Day 04/01/2026

April Fools' Day April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom in many Western countries on the consisting of , , and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool[s]!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved with these pranks, which may be revealed as such the following day. The custom of setting aside a day for playing harmless pranks upon one's neighbor has been relatively common in the world historically. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40666375

The Placebo Effect 03/25/2026

The Placebo Effect A placebo ( ) is a medicine or treatment intended to appear genuine to its recipient, but which has no pharmaceutical effect. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like ), , and other procedures. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40577835

Guy Fawkes 03/18/2026

Guy Fawkes Guy Fawkes (; 13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial involved in the failed of 1605. He was born and educated in ; his father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a Catholic. Fawkes converted to Catholicism and left for mainland Europe, where he fought for Catholic Spain in the against Protestant Dutch in the . He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England without success. He later met , with whom he returned to England. Wintour introduced him to , who planned to assassinate and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters leased an beneath the ; Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder that they stockpiled there. The authorities were prompted by an anonymous letter to search during the early hours of 5 November, and they found Fawkes guarding the explosives. He was questioned and tortured over the next few days and confessed to wanting to blow up the House of Lords. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40514390

Enshit*ification 03/11/2026

Enshit*ification Enshit*ification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a process in which decline in quality over time. Initially, create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to both users and business customers to maximize short-term for . /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40365735

Sputnik 03/04/2026

Sputnik Sputnik 1 (, : Спутник-1, Satellite 1), often referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth . It was launched into an elliptical by the on 4 October 1957 as part of the . It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three became depleted. Aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40252355

Competitive Watersliding 02/25/2026

Competitive Watersliding Taken from this article from Outside Magazine. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40202555

Freedom House Ambulance Service & Bessie Coleman 02/18/2026

Freedom House Ambulance Service & Bessie Coleman Freedom House Ambulance Service was the first in the United States to be staffed by with medical training beyond basic first aid. Founded in 1967 to serve the predominantly Black of , it was staffed entirely by African Americans. Freedom House Ambulance Service broke medical ground by training its personnel to previously unheard-of standards of emergency medical care for patients en route to hospitals. The paramedic training and ambulance design standards pioneered in the Freedom House Ambulance Service would set the standard for emergency care nationally and even internationally. Despite its successes, the ambulance service was closed eight years after it began operating. Elizabeth Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an early American . She was the woman and first to hold a license, and is the earliest known Black person to earn an . She earned her license from the on June 15, 1921. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40108330

James Damore and the Google Memo 02/11/2026

James Damore and the Google Memo /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/40046990

The Super Bowl 02/04/2026

The Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual game of the (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since , replacing the . Since 2022, the game has been played on the second Sunday in February. Prior Super Bowls were played on Sundays in early to mid-January from 1967 to 1978, late January from 1979 to 2003 and the first Sunday of February from 2004 to 2021. Winning teams are awarded the , named after the who won the first two Super Bowls. Because the NFL restricts the use of its "Super Bowl" trademark, it is frequently referred to as the "big game" or other generic terms by non-sponsoring corporations. The day the game is held is commonly referred to as "" or "Super Sunday". /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39974390

Unholy Spirits: The People who Have Sex with Ghosts 01/28/2026

Unholy Spirits: The People who Have Sex with Ghosts Taken from this article: From this article: /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39878800

Feral Children 01/21/2026

Feral Children A feral child (also called wild child) is a young individual who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, with little or no experience of human care, social behavior, or language. Such children lack the basics of primary and secondary . The term is used to refer to children who have suffered severe or before being abandoned or running away. They are sometimes the subjects of and , often portrayed as having been raised by animals. While there are many cases of children being found in proximity to wild animals, there are no eyewitness accounts of animals feeding human children. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39701055

Failed Constitutional Amendments 01/14/2026

Failed Constitutional Amendments Hundreds of proposed to the are introduced during each session of the . From 1789 through January 3, 2025, approximately 11,985 measures have been proposed to amend the United States Constitution. Collectively, members of the and typically propose around 200 amendments during each two-year term of . Most, however, never get out of the in which they were proposed. Only a fraction of those actually receive enough support to win Congressional approval to go through the constitutional ratification process. Some proposed amendments are introduced over and over again in different sessions of Congress. It is also common for a number of identical resolutions to be offered on issues that have widespread public and congressional support /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39700765

Captain Thomas Moore 01/07/2026

Captain Thomas Moore Sir Thomas Moore (30 April 1920 – 2 February 2021), more popularly known as Captain Tom, was a officer and . He made international headlines in April 2020 when he raised money for charity in the run-up to his during the . He and the during the , and later became an instructor in . After the war, he worked as managing director of a concrete company and was an avid motorcycle racer. On 6 April 2020, at the age of 99 during the first COVID-19 national lockdown, Moore began to walk 100 lengths of his garden in aid of , with the goal of raising £1,000 by his 100th birthday on 30 April. In the 24-day course of his fundraising, he made many media appearances and became a household name in the UK, earning a number of accolades and attracting over 1.5 million individual donations. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39614430

The Fir-Tree - by Hans Christian Andersen 12/31/2025

The Fir-Tree - by Hans Christian Andersen "The Fir-Tree" (: Grantræet) is a by the Danish poet and author (1805–1875). The tale is about a so anxious to grow up, so anxious for greater things, that he cannot appreciate living in the moment. The tale was first published 21 December 1844 with "", in , in , by C.A. Reitzel. One scholar (Andersen biographer []) indicates that "The Fir-Tree" was the first of Andersen's fairy tales to express a deep pessimism. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39559390

Canals on Mars 12/24/2025

Canals on Mars During the , it was erroneously believed that there were "" on the planet . These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed by using early telescopes without photography. They were first described by the Italian astronomer during the of 1877, and attested to by later observers. Schiaparelli called these canali (""), which was mistranslated into English as "canals". The Irish astronomer made some of the earliest drawings of straight-line features on Mars, although his drawings did not match Schiaparelli's. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39510285

Great Feasts 12/17/2025

Great Feasts The Field of the Cloth of Gold (: Camp du Drap d'Or, pronounced ) was a between King and King from 7 to 24 June 1520. Held at , between in and in the English , it was an opulent display of wealth by both kings. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39413765

Storm Chasers 12/10/2025

Storm Chasers National Geographic article on Storm Chasing called Chasing Tornadoes. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39224670

Robert Maxwell 12/03/2025

Robert Maxwell Ian Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak-born British and politician. Of , he escaped the and joined the during . He was decorated after active service in the . In subsequent years he worked in publishing, building up to a major academic publisher. After six years as a (MP) during the 1960s, Maxwell again put all his energy into business, successively buying the , and , among other publishing companies. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39224185

Collar Bomb Heist 11/26/2025

Collar Bomb Heist On August 28, 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells a near his hometown of , , United States. Upon being apprehended by police, Wells died when an locked to his neck detonated. The investigation into his death uncovered a complex plot described as "one of the most complicated and bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI". /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39151675

Penis Theft 11/19/2025

Penis Theft Koro is a delusional disorder in which individuals have an overpowering belief that their are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals. Koro is also known as shrinking penis, and was listed in the . /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/39064695

Balloon Fest 1986 11/12/2025

Balloon Fest 1986 Balloonfest '86 was a event in , , United States, held on September 27, 1986, in which the local chapter of set a by almost 1.5 million . The event was intended to be a harmless . However, the released balloons drifted back over the city and and landed in the surrounding area, causing problems for traffic and a nearby airport. In consequence, the organizers faced lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages, and cost overruns put the event at a net loss. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38982665

Nutmaxxing 11/05/2025

Nutmaxxing Mostly taken from this GQ article here: /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38907275

Time travel claims and urban legends 10/29/2025

Time travel claims and urban legends Multiple accounts of people who allegedly have been reported by the press or circulated online. These reports have turned out to be either or else based on incorrect assumptions, incomplete information, or interpretation of fiction as . Many are now recognized as . /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38744330

QAnon Shaman vs. USA et al 10/22/2025

QAnon Shaman vs. USA et al https://azdailysun.com/news/state-and-regional/qanon-shaman-files-40-trillion-lawsuit-against-trump-with-plan-to-revolutionize-america/article_5f4ad841-60ef-4060-9ff3-7f33d7ee4f0d.html /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38720435

Bike Batman 10/15/2025

Bike Batman https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/real-life-superhero-who-beats-cops-bike-thieves/ /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38571085

Broadcast signal intrusion 10/08/2025

Broadcast signal intrusion A broadcast signal intrusion is the hijacking of signals of , , broadcast feeds or satellite signals without permission or . Hijacking incidents have involved local TV and radio stations as well as cable and national networks. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38491470

"Rube" Waddell 10/01/2025

"Rube" Waddell George Edward "Rube" Waddell (October 13, 1876 – April 1, 1914) was an American in (MLB). A , he played for 13 years, with the , , and in the , as well as the and in the . Born in , and raised in Prospect, Pennsylvania, Waddell was elected to the in . Waddell is best remembered for his highly behavior, and for being a remarkably dominant strikeout pitcher in an era when batters were expert at making contact. He had an excellent , a sharp-breaking , a , and superb control; his strikeout-to-walk ratio was almost 3-to-1, and he led the major leagues in strikeouts for six consecutive years. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38310750

History's Most Expensive Party 09/24/2025

History's Most Expensive Party The 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire, officially known as the 2,500-year celebration of the Empire of Iran (: جشن‌های ۲۵۰۰ ساله شاهنشاهی ایران, : Jašn-hây-e 2500 sale’ šâhanšâhi Irân), was hosted by the in the in October 1971. Concentrated at , it consisted of an elaborate set of grand festivities that sought to honour the legacy of the , which was founded by in 550 BC. The event was aimed at highlighting and also showcasing the country's contemporary advances under , who had been reigning as the since 1941. The site brought sixty members of royalty and heads of state from abroad. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38310200

ChatGPT convinced a guy that he's a superhero 09/17/2025

ChatGPT convinced a guy that he's a superhero Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. We analyzed the conversation. /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38224665

Victorian Mummy Mania and Sundry Weirdness 09/10/2025

Victorian Mummy Mania and Sundry Weirdness Mummia, mumia, or originally mummy referred to several different preparations in the , from "mineral " to "powdered human ". It originated from mūmiyā "a type of resinous found in and used curatively" in , which was translated as pissasphaltus (from "pitch" and "asphalt") in . In , mūmiyā "bitumen" was into Latin as mumia meaning both "a bituminous medicine from Persia" and "mummy". Merchants in dispensed expensive mummia bitumen, which was thought to be an effective for many ailments. It was also used as an . /episode/index/show/citationpod/id/38152030

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