History Buffoons Podcast
Two buffoons who want to learn about history!
Recent Episodes
Dec. 22, 2025
In This Our Life: Hattie McDaniel
A nightclub mic no one expected to be open. A maid’s uniform worn to an audition. An ovation that shook the room while the system kept her at the far wall. Hattie McDaniel’s life reads like a ledger of impossible choices—yet ...
Dec. 17, 2025
The Origin of Weird: Timothy Dexter
A fortune built on bed warmers, coal, stray cats, and whale bones shouldn’t exist, yet Timothy Dexter kept cashing in. We jump into the outrageous life of a leather apprentice turned millionaire who wagered on “worthless” Con...
Dec. 15, 2025
Quaker Beard Man: James VI and I
A baby crowned in a cradle. A teenage king kidnapped by his own nobles. A husband sailing into lethal storms to bring home his bride—and returning convinced that enemies could conjure weather. Our latest deep dive follows Jam...
Dec. 8, 2025
1-800-TYPHOID: The Oregon Trail Part Two
Hope can fit inside a covered wagon, but so can heartbreak. We trace the Sager family’s 1844 push toward Oregon—from a baby born on the prairie and a nine-year-old’s leg crushed under a wagon wheel to typhoid, orphanhood, and...
Dec. 3, 2025
The Origin of Weird: The Anti Pope Schism
Power doesn’t just shape history—it picks the chair. We dive into the Western Schism, when Europe faced not one but multiple popes, and legitimacy became a battlefield of theology, politics, and personality. From Rome to Avig...
Dec. 1, 2025
Chimney Cricket: Oregon Trail Part One
A 2,000-mile promise of “free land” sounds irresistible—until you’re walking beside a creaking wagon at two miles per hour, guarding flour from river water and praying cholera spares your camp. We’re pulling the curtain back ...