Oddball History

96: Cavalcade of Rich Weirdos

This week on a very special Oddball History Podcast it's the Cavalcade of Rich Weirdos--three exceedingly wealthy and almost unbelievably weird men straight from the pages of history, from the barely literate American Revolution-era investment wizard Timothy Dexter to the early 18th century British playboy with a penchant for crashing carriages for fun, Mad Jack Mytton, to the always colorful Howard Hughes. PLUS: The highest stakes claw game, robot cars and a really great cheeseburger.

95: "1, 2, 3, 4... FIVE EMPERORS???": The Year of Five Emperors

This week on a very special Oddball History, it's the Year of Five Emperors, a wild, bloody, chaotic time even by the standards of the Roman Empire--from Commodus being strangled by his personal trainer on New Year's Eve 192, setting the whole sordid saga in motion, to the great and brutal general Septimius Severus emerging from the pack of would-be emperors as the last emperor standing. PLUS: Fun with 1940s slang, the Greek Myth of the week and of course, Varsity Blues.

94: The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre & Similar Misadventures

This week on a very special Oddball History we're lowering ourselves down into the sewer to learn all about the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre, a grisly and all too true comedy of errors set in 1902 French Indochina, as well as Mao's tragically misguided (but super popular) war on sparrows and the species of toad brought to Australia as a pest control measure in the 1930s, which has been spreading across the country and terrorizing the native wildlife ever since. ALSO: Today in history, dung beetles, and the first ever Greek Myth of the Week!

93: Beef A La History

What's beef? Beef is when you hate someone so much for so long that your hate goes down as a matter of public record, as we learn this week on a very special Oddball History Podcast. From Hollywood icon Joan Crawford claiming her "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane" co-star Bette Davis smelled to Roald Amundsen's "Haha f--k you" letter to fellow polar explorer Robert F. Scott to Queen Elizabeth I grilling a Scottish emissary about whether she or her cousin Mary Queen of Scots was hotter, history has never been saltier.

92: Martians, Martians, Martians!: The Turn of the Century Martian Craze

This week on a very special Oddball History we're going back to the well of weird history that is the Turn of the 20th Century, to a time when Martians were real (or seemed to be anyway). PLUS: Top Comments is back, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives CONTROVERSY, and upwards of two Simpsons references!