Stuff You Should Know

Chuck and Josh do their best to tackle “the craft,” which most normal people call stand-up comedy. Stand-up dates back to the vaudeville days but it really started to take off in the 60s when comics s...

Bras are loved and hated, sometimes at the same time. But as difficult and restrictive as they can be, they rescued women from a much cruel contraption: corsets. The question remains, though, do women...

Basically everything you think of when you think of vampires, mummies, werewolves, and Frankenstein all come from a spate of films made in the 1930s, and every one of them by Universal Pictures. Amazi...

Is retirement bad for your health? Well it certainly can be if you don't take steps to prevent it. Listen in to learn more about the "retirement curse."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informat...

The history of golf is a bit muddled, but once it was truly born in Scotland, it started the beginning of lifelong obsessions for people dumb enough to pick up a club and give it a try. Learn all abou...

It’s time to get jazzed up for some Earth science of the waterlogged variety. Join Chuck and Josh in this classic episode as they tour some of the most interesting ecosystems on the planet and learn w...

3 Putt Bogey is a golf podcast hosted by Chuck Bryant and Adam Pranica, two mid handicappers who are just good enough to know exactly how bad they still are. The name says it all: one great shot, foll...

In today's episode, we detail the life and times of ettiquette queen Emily Post.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Mabon is often called the Pagan Thanksgiving  but though it seems like it’s as ancient as Halloween, it’s actually only around 50 years old. But, pagan or not, it’s a great chance to really feel the f...

No you’re no dreaming – go ahead, pinch yourself – we’ve finally made an episode on dreams! We’ve done episodes on lucid dreaming, night terrors, sleepwalking, sleep paralysis – basically everything b...

The advent of nuclear weapons and the Cold War kicked off a craze in the US for building rec rooms with foot-thick reinforced walls and outfitted with survival rations and board games. Would they work...

Throughout the history of the world, there have been many cases of what is known as collective hysteria - groups of people, usually young women, who all exhibit the same physical symptoms of non-exist...

The Philadelphia Experiment is a bad movie from the 1980s, and also the conspiracy theory that refuses to die, despite virtually zero evidence of its occurrence. Learn all about this strange non-event...

Mermaids aren't real. That much we know. But the history and lore of these magical and sometimes menacing creatures of the sea is pretty interesting stuff. Learn all about these half women/half fish t...

In 1960 physicist Freeman Dyson suggested that in the hunt for alien life, we should search for evidence of massive engineering projects that encapsulate stars with solar arrays to harness their energ...

When the Mary Celeste was discovered floating and abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean one day in 1872, the legend of the ghost ship was born. Why did the Mary Celeste’s crew disappear? Was i...

In 1987, a very strange broadcast intrusion occurred in the city of Chicago. For just a couple of minutes, the odd TV character Max Headroom appeared onscreen in the middle of an episode of Dr. Who. H...

Dragons are like mermaids in that they're not real. And that's about where the comparison ends. Learn all about dragons today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

The Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles has had no less than 16 unnatural deaths, from suicides to murders and everything in between. Listen in to the history of this decidedly creepy hotel. See omnys...

The famous blue people of Kentucky are no longer blue. But why were they like that in the first place?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Seeing your near twin is probably pretty weird. But could there be a genetic commonality as well? You bet  there could!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

David Hahn was a kid who was really into science. So much that he built a nuclear reactor in his mother's potting shed. And it worked. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Cancer is a terrible word in any language for at least two reasons: It’s incredibly difficult to get rid of once it grows in the body, and there’s a very good chance that you or someone close to you w...

You know the leisure suit, perhaps the tackiest suit to ever be invented. It was so huge in the 70s and spread as wide the lapels of the shirts worn with them. Then, as fast as they hit the scene they...

Are there benefits to boredom? Or is it all negative? Why do we get bored? What can we do to break free from boredom? The answers to those questions and more are coming your way today.See omnystudio.c...

Wasps have a bad rap. Because their sting really hurts and they don't make honey like their cousins. But they are super cool and you shouldn't kill them. Listen to this classic episode and learn!See o...

Why does the story of The Odyssey endure this many years after it was first spoken? Listen in to find out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

In the 1920s, a certain set of women wanted to loosen up and have a good time. Today, we get into it with the flappers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Today we tell the story of the kids TV network that changed it all, Nickelodeon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Blacksmiths? You got that right. Learn all about this age old occupation in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

In the 80s, a pair of psychologists theorized why being part of a group can change people’s thoughts and feelings, both about themselves and other people. It sounds dry, but SIT explains everything fr...

Japanese nuclear worker Hisashi Ouchi is often called on the internet “the world’s most radioactive man.” That’s not exactly true, but it gets the point across about how severe the fatal dose of radia...

It is to the great nation of Canada’s lasting credit that it has prized Terry Fox as one of the most beloved and admired citizens for nearly 50 years now. It’s difficult to get across how much he mean...

The 1920s were just absolutely nuts. People got into weird fads really intensely and one of the strangest of all was flagpole sitting. It’s just what it sounds like – sitting on top of a flagpole for ...

The break-up of the USSR was a tough one for Russia, being the jilted republic. For the entire decade after, the country plunged into a type of controlled chaos, with a rampantly corrupt kleptocracy t...

Today we dive in to celebrate the international treasure that is Dolly Parton. Why is she nearly universally loved? Listen in to find out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

The US has an unusual number of outbreaks of food-borne illness going on in the summer of 2026, and the star of the show is cyclospora. How does this parasite make people sick, where does it come from...

It’s rare that the downfall of an empire can be chalked up to the decisions of just one person. It’s even rarer, when the empire falls over the course of a year. That’s pretty much what happened with ...

Narcolepsy is one of those amazing rare disorders that everyone thinks they understand – people just fall asleep at random times, even in the middle of doing something. But there’s a lot more to it an...

Rope is one of the unsung heroes of the world of inventions. Think about it. Then let us tell you about it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Did a shipwreck double the size of the United States? Sort of. Listen in to find out what the heck that means.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Irony is one of those things that you know when you see it, but it’s almost impossible to define. Well, that’s not quite right – there are a ton of definitions for irony but none of them quite capture...

Ever wanted to know more about how the Manhattan grid was made? Well this is your chance. Find out all about it in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Robert Maxwell was a lot of things, publisher, mogul, spy, politician, crook. But was he murdered when he fell from his yacht?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Did Nero play his fiddle while Rome burned during the Great Fire of 64 CE? Absolutely not. Find out how we know when Chuck and Josh bust a two thousand year-old myth. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

You've probably seen the movie, but what else do you know about this legendary crime couple? Listen in to find out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

As the operation expands it also begins to unravel. Word starts to leak out of the illegal stuff the Reagan administration was up to, Congress and the press investigate and people start to point finge...

When Ronald Reagan was president, America got involved in some deeply shady stuff, not the least of which was the Iran-Contra scandal – a convoluted operation that managed to combine an illegal covert...

Although it was built atop some musical styles that came before, reggae is mostly its own thing. It evolved as local music in the Trenchtown neighborhood in Kingston, Jamaica but after Bob Marley and ...

Once upon a time there were these things called phone books. Inside you could find the phone number and address of just about everyone in your town. Can you imagine?See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...