Transcript Lis Hartel was a Danish equestrian competitor in the 1940s and 1950s. She competed in the 1952 Olympics and the 1956 Olympics and she won medals at both. However, her Olympic medals are just the starting point of her fascinating and inspirational story. Learn more about Lis Hartel and her remarkable accomplishments on this …
Transcript Each of the 50 states in the United States has a unique history. 13 of them were originally British Colonies. Some of them were former Spanish or French territory. Most of them were officially US territories before they became states. A few however, were actually independent countries before they joined the Union…..or at least …
Transcript If you ask most Muslims what the holiest site is in Islam, they would probably tell you that it is the Kaaba at the Great Mosque of Mecca. Ask most Jews what the holiest site is in Judaism is and they would probably say the Western Wall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Ask …
Transcript For eight seasons, the TV show Dexter showed the fictional life of a crime-solving forensics expert who just so happened to have been a serial killer who killed serial killers. This got me wondering, has there ever been a real-life Dexter? A killer, or even a criminal, who targeted other criminals? Well, there sort …
Transcript The ancient Romans had a practice called Damnatio Memoriae, which was to banish someone’s memory from public life. It was also sometimes known as oblivion. It called for the complete deletion of the person’s name or image from all statues, inscriptions, coins, and texts. While the practice neither began nor ended with the Romans, …
Transcript Sports history is littered with really bad teams. The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t win a single game and wound up losing 26 in a row. The 2012 Charlotte Bobcats went 7-59 for a .106 winning percentage. The 1899 Cleveland Spiders set a record for futility in baseball winning only 20 games out of …
Transcript One of my dirty secrets is that I’m a fan of pro wrestling. Whenever I tell people this the first thing I inevitably hear is, “you know it’s fake right?” This idea that people think professional wrestling is real comes from the concept that wrestling insiders call kayfabe. Learn about the history of kayfabe …
Transcript Traditionally, the royal families of Europe would arrange marriages amongst their children to establish alliances and bonds between their houses. While this really isn’t done that much anymore, it also wasn’t that long ago that it was done. One monarch, in particular, Queen Victoria, was really good and marrying off her children. So good …
Transcript Pablo Escobar was the biggest drug lord the world has ever known. At his height, he had a monopoly on cocaine trade in the 1980s in the United States. He had a peak net worth of $60 billion in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars. He was personally responsible for thousands of murders and dozens of acts …