History Buffoons Podcast

A 5-foot-1 farm kid gets told he is too small for war, then he breaks into the French Army anyway. That is not a metaphor, it is Albert Roach’s real World War I origin story, and it sets the tone for one of the most jaw-dropp...

The most famous hymn in the world has one of the most uncomfortable origin stories. “Amazing Grace” was written by John Newton, a man who spent years at sea, fought authority like it was his job, and participated directly in ...

A U.S. destroyer chases a German U-boat through the North Atlantic, the sonar pings start to lie, and the target seems to vanish like a ghost. The twist isn’t a secret engine or a lucky escape. It’s ocean physics. We walk thr...

Deadwood starts with a simple, dangerous idea: there’s gold in the Black Hills, so people move in even when they’re not supposed to. We follow the real history of Deadwood, South Dakota from its first days as an unsanctioned ...

Curious George didn’t just come from a cute idea. He came from a suitcase of drawings carried through a collapsing Europe while German-born Jewish refugees tried to stay one step ahead of the war. We tell the story of H A Rey...

A $125 million Mars mission disappears because two teams can’t agree on units. That’s not a sci-fi plot, it’s the kind of avoidable disaster that makes us laugh, then cringe, then double-check our own work. We start with NASA...