This week the unexpected meets the obscure as we uncover several stories of wartime and daredevil history. First, we meet Sergeant Bill, the heroic Canadian goat of WW1 who saved the lives of three soldiers during battle. He suffered from trench foot, shrapnel, shell shock, and was gassed with the allied soldiers fighting at Ypres. He survived four and a half years at war, returning to Canada a hero. Next, we head to Niagara Falls and meet Lagara the cat, the first creature to survive a barrel ride over Horseshoe Falls. Along the way we visit several famous daredevils, including Annie Edson Taylor, the first person over the falls. We meet Charles Blondin the famous French funambulist who braved the high wire over the Niagara River 300 times. We visit Charles Stevens, the demon barber of Bedminster, and Bobby Leech, famous English daredevil whose death was as strange as his life. Come meet some of history’s boldest animals and a group of wonderful weirdos who dared so much that we can’t stop talking about them a century and a half later.
Leadbelly Part 1: Prodigy
Irena Sendler, the Titanic Engineers, Invisible Hands, and Stubby the War Dog
The Prehistory of Compassion and the Search for Human Happiness
John Robert Fox, Buffalo Soldier
Miep Gies, the Dutch Resistance, and a Girl Who Changed the World
The Elephant Angel of Belfast
The Edmund Fitzgerald
Olympias Part 3: The Rise and Fall of a Legend
Olympias Part 2: Mother of Empire
Olympias Part 1: Witch of Epirus, Mother of Alexander the Great
The First Robot
Why Does Fruitcake Even Exist? Eggnog, Yule Logs, and a Cannibalistic Christmas Troll
The Lost Voyage of Shackleton: The Edge of Human Endurance Part 5 of 5
The Lost Voyage of Shackleton: The Edge of Human Endurance Part 4 of 5
The Lost Voyage of Shackleton: The Edge of Human Endurance Part 3 of 5
Père Lachaise Cemetery: A History of Death in Paris
The Screaming Mummies of Guanajuato and a Horde of Egyptian Cats
The First Monsters
The Lost Voyage of Shackleton: The Edge of Human Endurance Part 2 of 5
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