Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History
Join two brothers for a hilarious dive into the untold stories of history's most obscure figures. Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History unearths the hidden tales your teachers forgot to mention—If you love a good laugh with a bit of sibling rivalry, and learning about remarkable everyday people who did extraordinary things, subscribe for your weekly dose of banter and historical deep dives. It’s the history podcast where the underdogs finally get their due.
Episodes
48 episodes
Lion's Last Guard: The Downfall of Tom Sayers
What happens when a national hero steps out of the ring and into the shadows of Victorian London? In this episode, we dive into the wild, tragic, and chaotic post-boxing life of Tom Sayers—the legendary bare-knuckle pugilist and un...
The Bricklayer's Fists: How Tom Sayers Conquered The World
Before Pay-Per-View, YouTube, or basic safety regulations, there was Tom Sayers—the 5-foot-8 bricklayer from Brighton, who became Victorian Britain’s most terrifying bare-knuckle boxing champion.In this episode, we take to the ring ...
Robert Hubert & The Great Fire of London: Innocent or Arsonist?
When the Great Fire of London reduced the city to ashes in September 1666, a panicked public demanded someone to blame. Enter Robert Hubert: a French watchmaker who confessed to starting the blaze on orders from the Pope. But was he even in Eng...
Walter Arnold and the world’s first speeding ticket
Did you know the world's first speeding ticket was issued way back in 1896 and for for driving at four times over the legal limit? 🚗⚡In 1896, British motoring pioneer Walter Arnold tore through Paddock Wood in Kent at an incredible 8 miles...
Gladys West: The Hidden Figure Behind GPS Technology
Ever wonder how the blue dot on your phone actually knows where you are? Before GPS was a technology, it was a massive mathematical problem — and Dr. Gladys West was the hidden figure who solved it.In this episode, we dive into the life of...
Joseph Dombey and the Pirates Who Saved the Ounce
Why doesn’t the USA use the metric system? Blame pirates. Seriously.In this episode, we dive into the absurd, tragicomic life of Joseph Dombey—an 18th-century French botanist who had the single worst luck in ...
Pierre Méchain and the big metric lie
In 1792, amid the chaos of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, astronomer Pierre François André Méchain embarked on a mission to measure the Earth from Paris to Barcelona. His colleague, Jean-Baptiste Delambre took the Paris to Dunk...
Project A119: The Secret Plan to Nuke the Moon
This week, we’re investigating Project A119—a top-secret U.S. Air Force plan. In the late 1950s, the Cold War was heating up, the Space Race was slipping away, and America’s top military minds came up with the ultimate, infallible ...
How Henry Every Vanished with $100 Million
In this episode, we set sail for the legend of Henry Every (also known as Long Ben, Benjamin Bridgeman, or simply the King of the Pirates). He was the 17th-century pirate captain who pulled off the ultimate score. We ask just how di...
The Paris prison break that stunned the world
In 1986, Nadine Vaujour, supposedly a bored French housewife, took flying lessons under a fake name with one goal in mind: to steal a helicopter, fly over Paris and pluck her husband, the notorious bank robber Michel Vaujour, off the roof of th...
Krystyna Skarbek: The greatest female spy of all time.
Meet Krystyna Skarbek (alias Christine Granville), Britain’s first and longest-serving female secret agent of World War II. Long before the world knew of Ian Fleming's James Bond or Vesper Lynd, this Polish-born countess was pulling off the mos...
S.A. Andrée’s Artic Balloon Expedition That Disappeared for 30 Years
In 1897, Swedish explorer S.A. Andrée set out to fly a hydrogen balloon over the North Pole. Alongside Knut Frænkel and Nils Strindberg, he launched The Eagle (or the Ornen) into the freezing unknown. Less than three days later, they were fight...
The Macabre Trial of Dead Pope Formosus
In 897 AD, the Catholic Church staged the most gruesome judicial trial in history: The Cadaver Synod. Pope Stephen VI exhumed the decaying body of Pope Formosus, sat the corpse on a throne in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and subjected it t...
Hitler’s Jewish Neighbors: The Feuchtwanger Story
What happens when a dictator's fiercest critic lives right in his backyard? Welcome to Honourable Mentions: Hilarious History and the story of Hitler and The Feuchtwanger family. The Jews who lived as his neighbors and who were the ...
Who invented the penalty kick?
Have you ever wondered who invented the football penalty kick? Meet William McCrum, the forgotten Irish goalkeeper from County Armagh who revolutionized soccer history in 1890 by proposing what critics furiously called the "death penalty" rule ...
Sergeant Stubby the American hero of WWI
Meet Sergeant Stubby, the ultimate four-legged hero of the Great War. In this episode, we dive into the incredible true story of a stray pit bull mix who wandered onto a Yale University training camp and ended up on the front lines of World War...
Margorie McCall: Lived Once, Buried Twice
Imagine waking up in the dark, cold, confused, in absolute agony and trapped inside a wooden box at the bottom of a six foot hole - you’ve just been buried alive!In this episode, we dive into one of history’s most chilling and endur...
Roland Garros: The War Hero Who Never Played Tennis
Wait... What? Roland Garros wasn’t a tennis player?! 🤯 If you think the French Open is named after a legendary clay-court champion, prepare to have your mind blown. In this episode, we dive into the wild, daring, and true history o...
Attacked by a Shark, then Mauled by Lions: The Unreal Story of John Doyle.
Imagine surviving a Great White Shark attack, dragging your bleeding body to shore, and thinking the worst is over—only to be intercepted and mauled by a pride of lions on your way to safety. In this episode, we unpack the jaw-drop...
Doug Hegdahl: The Incredibly Stupid War Hero
How did a young sailor from South Dakota become the ultimate "secret weapon" of the Vietnam War? In this episode, we dive into the legendary story of Douglas Hegdahl, the U.S. Navy apprentice seaman who fell overboard and ended up a prisoner ...
The Bone Hunters: How the Bucklands Unearthed and Ate History
Did you know the man who named the very first dinosaur also tried to eat every animal in the world?Welcome to the utterly chaotic life of William Buckland—the 19th-century pioneering geologist, father of paleontology, discoverer of the Mega...
How Vasily Arkhipov saved us all from nuclear war
On October 27, 1962, the world almost ended. While the Cuban Missile Crisis raged on land, a terrifying showdown was happening deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. This is the incredible true story of Vasily Arkhipov, a Soviet Navy officer who sing...
A Wing and a Prayer: The Story of Elmer the Flying Monk
In 1010 AD, Elmer (or Eilmer) a Benedictine monk strapped wings to his hands and feet and leaped from the tower of Malmesbury Abbey. He didn’t just make history; he broke both his legs and became a legend.Join us as we peel back the...
Admiral Yi Sun-sin: Part 2: Victory, Death, and Immortality
After being stripped of his rank and tortured, Admiral Yi Sun-sin returned to a decimated navy with only 13 ships remaining.We break down:The Miracle at Myeongnyang: How Yi used the treacherous currents of the Myeongnyang Strai...
Yi Sun-sin: The greatest Admiral who ever lived
In the beginning, Yi Sun-sin was just a young man struggling to pass the Joseon military service examinations. In this episode, we explore the early career of Korea's greatest hero, from a devastating horse-riding accident during his training t...