Episodes
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In the exciting conclusion of our two-part episode on Hoover, we come in at the Cold War and end on a strange note.
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By definition hobos are people who travel from town to town taking odd jobs as they go. But some towns are friendlier than others, and hobos developed a system of symbols they left one another to know what to expect from a town.
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Missing episodes?
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It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that J. Edgar Hoover was perhaps the most powerful American of the 20th century. By the time he established the FBI as America’s police force, presidents were afraid of him. Just exactly how did he get to be so puissant?
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On Halloween 1938 young radio star Orson Welles scared the pants off of America with a fictional news bulletin claiming Martians had landed and were destroying the country. People across the nation ran wild with panic in the streets – or did they? Listen to this classic episode to find out.
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The idea that we aren’t the first advanced civilization to live on Earth sounds like a fringe theory, but it raises a good question: How can we be so sure that a civilization didn’t arise and die on Earth so long ago that any trace of it has been erased?
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Even the dullest hockey game is worth seeing when the Zamboni comes out to resurface the ice.
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Taking care of 12,000 tons of residential trash every day is a hard job. But how does that even work? Listen in to marvel at the NYC sanitation system.
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Despite as much as one percent of the adult population having the condition, science doesn't actually know how stuttering works. The best it's come up with so far: there seems to be an issue between the physical process of speaking and the thought process that underlies it. Find out what science means by this in this classic episode.
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Sometimes you just have to turn it off for a while – all the thinking, and overthinking, analyzing, and figuring out. Sometimes it’s nice to just breathe through your mouth and talk about dumb things criminals do for an episode.
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We all know the story of the Titanic and the tragedy of lives lost. So hey, let's talk about the survivors for a change!
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Misophonia is a condition in which certain sounds trigger people in very negative ways that can really disrupt someone's life. Listen in today to learn all about this fairly recently recognized condition.
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As if being murdering SOBs weren’t enough, the Nazis were also thieving rats. During WWII, they stole billons in gold from countries they overran and moved it to Germany. But at the end of the war, only part of it was recovered. Where’s the rest? Find out the extent of our knowledge in this classic episode.
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The only thing more complicated than an atomic clock is researching how they work and then figuring out how to explain it to other people. But believe us, they are fascinating. Even if you don’t care about clocks or atoms you’ll still like this episode.
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Getting the wind knocked out of you is scary, but passes quickly. Learn exactly what's happening with all that today.
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The Village People were a smash hit singing group that came and went in under two years. Then other people performed under that name for several decades. This is their story.
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If you've ever been to an international airport, you've probably seen one of the keenest spotters of illegal contraband - The Beagle Brigade! These cute dogs aren't after drugs or bombs, they're carefully trained to sniff out agricultural products. Learn all about this furry group of crime stoppers in this classic episode.
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Georgia Tann was a bad human. We feel safe in saying that because she kidnapped babies from poor families to sell to wealthy ones. Listen in if you can stomach it.
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Not too much is known about Margaret Schilling. She was the kind of person whose memory might have been lost to time had she not left behind an indelible reminder of her.
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You probably know wind energy projects have been around since the 90s, but did you know they now provide 10% of America’s energy, and more than that in other countries? Learn about what’s ahead for wind and what it’ll need to become a real star like coal.
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Special effects have been around since the first movies. In fact, the techniques the earliest filmmakers created are still around today, we just use computers to do them faster and cheaper. Hit play on this classic episode and then put on your beret and get ready for SYSK film class.
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