History Buffoons Podcast
Two buffoons who want to learn about history!
Recent Episodes
Feb. 2, 2026
Classic Scurvy: The Belgica Expedition
A wooden ship locked in Antarctic ice for 13 months. A captain who wouldn’t turn back. A doctor who broke the rules and saved the crew with the world’s least appetizing “medicine.” We tell the raw, human story of the Belgica—...
Jan. 28, 2026
The Origin Of Weird: Atomic Bombs Fall on North Carolina, 1961 Goldsboro Incident
A midnight breakup over rural North Carolina. Two hydrogen bombs sheared from a disintegrating B-52. And one small switch that kept the East Coast from waking to a mushroom cloud. We dive into the Goldsboro incident of 1961, ...
Jan. 26, 2026
Tutankhamun’s Money: Howard Carter
A nervous hello, a lime beer, and then a sand-choked staircase that changed history. We pull back the curtain on Howard Carter’s last-chance bet with Lord Carnarvon and the painstaking, high-stakes work that turned a flicker ...
Jan. 19, 2026
Encephal-in-Silence: Dr. Oliver Sacks
A forgotten epidemic turned people into “living statues,” and one composite patient—Leonard—shows what it means to be awake, alive, and trapped. We trace encephalitis lethargica from its eerie rise to its unexplained disappea...
Jan. 14, 2026
The Origin of Weird: Corporal Wojtek the Bear
A starving cub on a mountain trail becomes a brother in arms on one of World War II’s toughest fronts. We tell the full, rarely believed story of Wojtek—the Polish bear who learned to salute, drank beer with the unit, and car...
Jan. 12, 2026
Son of a Wealthy Aristocat: James Smithson
A British scientist born in France, dead in Italy, and never once a visitor to America quietly set the stage for the world’s largest museum complex. James Smithson’s curious will, his wayward heir, and a windfall that shocked...