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History Buffoons Podcast
Two buffoons who want to learn about history!
Our names are Bradley and Kate. We both love to learn about history but also don't want to take it too seriously. Join us as we dive in to random stories, people, events and so much more throughout history. Each episode we will talk about a new topic with a light hearted approach to learn and have some fun.
Find us at: historybuffoonspodcast.com
Reach out to us at: historybuffoonspodcast@gmail.com
Episodes
150 episodes
School Bus Yacht: Shipwreck of the Migonette
A 52-foot yacht sets off on a 15,000-mile voyage from England to Australia, and five minutes of bad luck turns it into one of the most infamous survival stories ever recorded. We’re Kate and Bradley, and we walk through the Mignonette shipwreck...
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The Origin of Weird: Kamikaze
“Kamikaze” is one of those words that feels locked to World War II, but the original meaning is older, stranger, and way more revealing. We follow the term back to medieval Japan, where “kamikaze” first means “divine wind,” not airplanes and no...
I'm Batman: William Buckley
“You’ve got a Buckley’s chance.” It sounds like a throwaway line until you learn it may be rooted in a real man whose survival odds were basically zero. We start with the meaning of this classic piece of Australian slang, then follow the windin...
Disturbance in the Dirt: African Cemetery Under Higgs Beach
A beach day in Key West can feel like pure escape until you learn what’s under the sand. We tell the story of the African Cemetery at Higgs Beach, a burial ground tied to three illegal slave ships and nearly 300 lives that ended just days or we...
The Origin of Weird: Operation Beluga
A thousand beluga whales. A freezing strait that tightens into a handful of breathing holes. Polar bears waiting at the surface. Then, out of the Cold War backdrop, a Soviet icebreaker shows up with one job: carve an escape route through Arctic...
All The Kate's: Victorian Strongwomen
A woman outlifts the most famous strongman on earth, a trapeze artist turns a “proper” outfit into a midair reveal, and a Welsh powerhouse lives boldly with zero interest in anyone’s approval. That’s where we’re headed, with a listener request ...
You're Killin' Me Smalls: Robert Smalls
A Confederate ship slips out of Charleston Harbor before sunrise, glides past guarded checkpoints, and rolls right under the guns of Fort Sumter. The wild part is not the ship. It’s the captain on deck. Robert Smalls is 23 years old, born ensla...
The Origin of Weird: The Erfurt Latrine Disaster
A medieval power meeting goes wrong in the most horrifying way possible: the floor collapses, and dozens of nobles drop into a cesspit. We’re Bradley and Kate, and we’re walking you through the Erfurt Latrine Disaster of 1184, a real incident p...
Dino-Mite: The Bone Wars
Episode 100 calls for a toast, but we’re not celebrating with a feel-good story. We’re cracking open a classic beer and digging into the Bone Wars, a late-1800s feud so petty and so destructive that it makes modern internet drama look quaint. P...
He's a Yes Man: 5 Men and Anne Boleyn
A queen’s downfall is famous. The five men who died to make the story believable are not, and that’s the part we can’t stop thinking about.We walk through the chain reaction that follows Anne Boleyn’s slide from untouchable to trapped: ...
The Origin of Weird: The Cobra Effect
They tried to fix a snake problem with cash, and accidentally built a snake industry. We’re Kate and Bradley, and we’re telling the infamous real-world story behind the Cobra Effect, a perfect example of unintended consequences, perverse incent...
Captain France: Albert Roche
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-dropping Great War biogr...
I Want Some Cake: John Newton
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 the transatlantic s...
The Origin of Weird: Mary Sears and Thermocline
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 through the thermoclin...
A Nostalgic Town: The History of Deadwood
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 mining camp on Lako...
Know Your Role: H.A. and Margaret Rey
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 (born Hans ...
The Origin of Weird: Avoidable Disasters
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’s Mars Clim...
Balloonart By Treb: Balloonfest '86
1.5 million balloons rise over downtown Cleveland, cameras roll, a Guinness World Records official watches, and a fundraising idea turns into a story people still argue about decades later. We’re Bradley and Kate, and we wanted to know what Bal...
Human Timers: History of The Preakness Stakes
The Preakness is only 1 3/16 miles, but its history takes way more twists than that. We’re coming off watching the Kentucky Derby, mixing up the signature Black Eyed Susan cocktail, and then digging into how the Preakness Stakes becomes a pilla...
The Origin of Weird: Tarrare and His Insatiable Hunger
A man in late 1700s France can eat nonstop and still feel starving. Not “big appetite” starving, but a relentless, aggressive hunger that drives him from normal meals to rotten meat, garbage, and eventually things nobody wants to imagine swallo...
Unstable, Unbalanced and Difficult: Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln’s name still gets tossed around as shorthand for “unstable,” but that label collapses the real story into a punchline. We dig into what her life actually looks like when you line up the facts: a politically engaged woman raise...
Blame it on the Rain: The Rise and Fall of Milli Vanilli
One tiny technical glitch turned pop perfection into one of the biggest music scandals ever. We’re Bradley and Kate, and we’re digging into Millie Vanilli, the late-1980s hit machine that gave the world “Girl You Know It’s True” and “Blame It O...
The Origin of Weird: Rube Waddell
A pitcher so dominant he rewrote the strikeout leaderboard, and so unpredictable he could be lured off the mound by a puppy in the stands. We’re Bradley and Kate, and we’re telling the story of George “Rube” Waddell, a Deadball Era icon whose M...
Seven Siblings and an Orphanage: The Orphan Train
A kid climbs onto a train believing he’s headed toward something better, clutching a single pink envelope addressed to the father who just gave him away. By morning, it’s gone. That small theft becomes a gut-punch symbol for the entire Orphan T...
The Duty of Candour: The 1989 Hillsborough Disaster Part Two
Ninety-six people died at Hillsborough in 1989, but the shock isn’t only the disaster itself. The part that keeps twisting the knife is what came next: an official story that didn’t match what families and survivors lived through, years of “acc...