PODCAST · history
pplpod
by pplpod
pplpod is a podcast about people, places and lots of other stuff. Each episode takes a deep dive into the lives, choices, and legacies of fascinating figures from history, culture, music, and beyond. From icons who shaped entire generations to hidden stories that deserve the spotlight, pplpod brings you closer to the people behind the headlines and the legends. Thoughtful, engaging, and story-driven, pplpod explores what makes these lives extraordinary—and what we can learn from them today.
Episodes
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C-17 Globemaster III: The Moose, 823 Kabul Evacuees and a Tampa Mix-Up
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Crews call the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III the Moose because its pressure relief vents groan during refueling. The Air Force wanted a replacement for the aging C-141 Starlifter that could fly...
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C-130 Hercules: A Hookless Carrier Landing, Entebbe and the Fulton Yoke
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In late October 1963, Lieutenant James H. Flatley III landed a four-engine Lockheed C-130 Hercules on the carrier USS Forrestal with no arresting hook, completing 29 touch-and-goes and 21...
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A-10 Warthog: The Titanium Bathtub, Kim Campbell and the Retirement Fight
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II grew out of Vietnam, where the U.S. lost about 266 propeller-driven A-1 Skyraiders, mostly to small arms fire, while the Mach 2 F-4 Phantom was too...
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FIM-92 Stinger: The CIA Buyback, Car Battery Hacks and Obsolete Microchips
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The FIM-92 Stinger, introduced in 1981, is a shoulder-fired missile in a roughly 35-pound tube that reaches over Mach 2.5 and hits targets up to 15,700 feet away. It replaced the FIM-43…
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Unilever: Margarine Meets Soap, Dove vs. Axe and the 2026 McCormick Deal
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Unilever was formed in 1930 when Dutch margarine maker Margarine Unie merged with British soapmaker Lever Brothers, two companies that had been bidding against each other for the same palm…
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Time Warner Cable: Nickelodeon Roots, Data Caps and the Spectrum Rebrand
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Time Warner Cable grew from American Television and Communications, founded in 1968, and Warner Cable, founded in 1973. In 1977 Warner Cable began making its own channels, Pinwheel and Star...
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Su-57 Felon: Exposed Screws, a Tarmac Drone Strike and a Downed Okhotnik
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Russia's Sukhoi Su-57, called the Felon by NATO, drew mockery at the Zhuhai Air Show in China when visitors photographed ordinary visible screws on its panels. The jet began with the PAK FA...
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Paris CDG: The 2E Roof Collapse, a Dead Terminal 4 and the 2027 Renumbering
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport began in 1966 as Aéroport de Paris Nord, planned on open farmland 23 kilometers northeast of central Paris so it could grow without the suburban fights that…
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Harpoon Missile: Denmark's Oops Missile, the Eilat and a Black Sea Sinking
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In September 1982 the Danish Navy accidentally fired a live Harpoon anti-ship missile into Lumsås, a quiet vacation housing area, an incident remembered in Denmark as the Hovsa or "Oops"...
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Tomahawk Missile: Operation Epic Fury, the Minab Strike and a $22.9B Order
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Tomahawk cruise missile traces its guidance to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in the 1970s, when engineers needed a low-flying subsonic missile that could slip under Soviet...
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Krispy Kreme: Camel Cigarettes, Channel Stuffing and a McDonald's Split
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Krispy Kreme's yeast-raised recipe came from Joseph LeBeau, an Ohio River barge cook, by way of Ishmael Armstrong's general store in Paducah, Kentucky, where nephew Vernon Rudolph worked in...
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Waffle House: Chick-fil-A's Ouster, Waffle Records and the FEMA Index
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Waffle House opened on Labor Day weekend 1955 in Avondale Estates, Georgia, with a 16-item menu, an open kitchen and 24-hour service. Founders Joe Rogers Sr., a former Toddle House short-order...
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Dairy Queen: The 5% Butterfat Rule, Blizzard Flips and Texas Belt Busters
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Dairy Queen's soft serve contains 5 percent butterfat, half the 10 percent minimum to be legally called ice cream. J.F. McCullough and his son Alex created the formula, and in 1938 friend…
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Chicago O'Hare: Why Orchard Field Is ORD, Split-Finger Gates and Bees
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Chicago O'Hare's ORD code comes from Orchard Place, a German-American farming community that became a 2 million square foot Douglas plant during World War II. It built 655 C-54 Skymasters…
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F-22 Raptor: The YF-23 Flyoff, Rain-Damaged Stealth and Only 187 Jets
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor was conceived in 1981 to survive Soviet missiles and fighters such as the Su-27 and MiG-29 over a European battlefield, combining stealth, supercruise near Mach...
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Thomas Cook: A 178-Year Firm's Overnight Collapse and Operation Matterhorn
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! On September 23, 2019, Thomas Cook, founded in 1841, went into compulsory liquidation, stranding about 600,000 travelers and ending 21,000 jobs. Its decline started with the June 2007 merger...
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RCA's Many Meanings: Radio Corporation, Heart Arteries and Riot Control
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! This episode walks through a single Wikipedia disambiguation page for the letters RCA and finds them attached to music, medicine, mathematics, sports and warfare. The best known is the Radio...
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Club Med: Straw Huts, a Rothschild Rescue and a Fosun Bidding War
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Club Med began in 1950 as a low-cost summer tent colony run by Belgian entrepreneur Gerard Blitz, first on Majorca and then in Djerba, Tunisia, built around sports, nature and social equality....
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Little Caesars: Pizza Pizza Sleeves, Caesarland and the $5 Hot-N-Ready
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Little Caesars began on May 8, 1959, when Mike and Marian Ilitch opened Little Caesar's Pizza Treat in a Garden City, Michigan strip mall, selling hot dogs, chicken, subs, shrimp and fish...
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Hertz: The JFK Clock, a Bankrupt Meme Stock and the False Arrest Payout
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Hertz began in Chicago in 1918, when 22-year-old Walter L. Jacobs rented out a dozen Ford Model Ts. John D. Hertz, a salesman stuck with traded-in cars at a dealership, painted them yellow as…
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F-35 Lightning II: The Lift Fan, a 2,000-Pound Diet and a $2 Trillion Bill
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, nicknamed Fat Amy and the Battle Penguin by pilots, grew out of the post-Cold War Joint Strike Fighter program, which aimed to replace the F-16, F/A-18,...
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V-22 Osprey: Eagle Claw's Legacy, the Marana Crash and Vortex Ring State
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey traces back to April 1980 and Operation Eagle Claw, the failed attempt to rescue 53 Americans held in Tehran. At the Desert One rendezvous, helicopters hit a haboob...
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Boston Logan: The Hyatt Spite Hotel, a 2,557-Foot Runway and Filled Harbor
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Boston Airport opened in September 1923 at Jeffries Point in East Boston, started scheduled flights to New York in 1927, and was named in 1943 for General Edward Lawrence Logan. Hemmed in by...
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AstraZeneca: The $117B Pfizer Rejection and Nexium's Mirror Molecule
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! AstraZeneca was formed in 1999 by merging Sweden's Astra AB, founded in 1913 by doctors and apothecaries, with Britain's Zeneca, spun out of Imperial Chemical Industries in 1993. From 2013 CEO...
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Abbott Laboratories: Dosimetric Granules, BinaxNOW and the Formula Shortage
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In 1888 Dr. Wallace C. Abbott, a 30-year-old University of Michigan graduate practicing in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood, tackled the unreliable strength of liquid plant extracts. He...
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Nick Woodman's GoPro: Shell Belts, the Karma Drone Recall and a 2026 Sale
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! On a 2002 surf trip to Australia, Nick Woodman wanted footage of himself on waves, something only sponsored pros with camera crews could get. He named his company GoPro after that goal and his...
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Dish Network: AutoHop, a Space Debris Fine and the $1 DirecTV Offer
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Charlie Ergen, Candy Ergen and Jim DeFranco founded EchoStar Communications in 1980 to sell 10-foot C-band satellite dishes in rural America. In 1987 they applied to the FCC for a direct...
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DirecTV: The Black Sunday Smart Card Kill and AT&T's $67 Billion Gamble
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! DirecTV traces back to 1985, when the Howard Hughes Medical Institute sold Hughes Aircraft to General Motors for $5.1 billion, creating Hughes Electronics. Hughes teamed with Stanley E....
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Bethlehem Steel: The Ferris Wheel Axle, Gray Beams and a Pension Collapse
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Augustus Wolle founded the Saucona Iron Company in Pennsylvania in 1857; it became the Bethlehem Iron Company in 1861 and rolled its first rails in 1863. When the rail market saturated in the...
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E-3 Sentry AWACS: A Tilted Rotodome and the 2026 Prince Sultan Strike
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The E-3 Sentry, the Airborne Warning and Control System, grew out of the look-down problem: the 1960s Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star could not pick low-flying jets out of ground clutter....
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Monsanto: From Saccharin and the Dayton Project to Roundup Ready Seeds
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! John Francis Queeny founded Monsanto in St. Louis in 1901 and named it after his wife, Olga Mendez Monsanto. It started with food additives, saccharin, caffeine and vanillin, then moved into...
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Comcast: Tupelo Muzak, a Failed Disney Bid and the 2026 NBCUniversal Split
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In 1963 Ralph Roberts, Daniel Aaron and Julian Brodsky paid $500,000 for American Cable Systems in Tupelo, Mississippi, a five-channel system with about 12,000 customers, and soon added a…
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Troy Smith and Sonic: A Root Beer Stand, Borrowed Cars and a Penny a Bag
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! After World War II, veteran Troy Smith went home to Seminole, Oklahoma and worked as a milkman, then switched to delivering bread because it was lighter. In Shawnee he bought and sold the...
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Heartland Payment Systems: 100 Million Cards Stolen and the E3 Fix
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Bob Carr co-founded Heartland Payment Systems in Princeton, New Jersey in 1997 to bring enterprise-grade card processing to small and mid-sized merchants. A $40 million private equity…
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MiG-29 Fulcrum: Roof-Breathing Intakes, a Spy's Radar Leak and HARM Hacks
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In November 1977 a U.S. reconnaissance satellite photographed an unknown twin-tailed jet at the Ramenskoye flight test center, and analysts dubbed it Ram-L. It was the Mikoyan MiG-29, later...
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Peloton: The Mr. Big Heart Attack, a Tread+ Recall and a $95 Used-Bike Fee
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Barnes & Noble executive John Foley pitched colleague Tom Cortese on a connected spin bike, and they founded Peloton Interactive in early 2012. A 2013 Kickstarter asked $1,500 for an early…
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Eurofighter Typhoon: Four-Nation Work Share and a Deliberately Unstable Jet
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Eurofighter Typhoon began in the late 1970s with clashing national needs: Britain's AST-403 concept for a low-level strike jet to replace the Jaguar, and West Germany's TKF-90…
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Colgate-Palmolive: Shared Toothpaste Jars, Soap Operas and Palm Oil Scores
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In 1806 English immigrant William Colgate opened a shop on Dutch Street in New York City, boiling animal fats with lye to make starch, soap and candles. A heart attack in 1833 briefly halted...
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Aegis Combat System: SPY-1 Radar, the Vincennes Error and SM-3 Space Kills
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The U.S. Navy built Aegis because 1960s shipboard radars could track only two to four targets while the Soviet Union was developing supersonic anti-ship missiles meant to arrive in swarms. A...
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Su-27 Flanker: Fatal T-10 Prototypes, the Cobra and a Canned Meat Deal
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In 1969 Soviet intelligence learned that the United States was building the F-15 Eagle, and the general staff asked for a fighter with Mach 2 speed, bomber-escort range, dogfight agility and...
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Sanofi: An Elf Aquitaine Offshoot, the Plavix Patent War and mRNA Misstep
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Sanofi was founded in 1973 as a subsidiary of the French oil company Elf Aquitaine. It merged with Synthélabo in 1999, then in 2004 took over Aventis, which had been formed in 1999 from...
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Roche: Synthetic Vitamin C, Seveso Dioxin and the Stanley Adams Affair
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! F. Hoffmann-La Roche was founded in Basel, Switzerland in 1896 by Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche, and in 1934 became the first company to mass produce synthetic vitamin C, sold as Redoxon. During…
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Chuck E. Cheese: Nolan Bushnell's Rat, a Robot Arms Race and Pasquale's
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Chuck E. Cheese began as a way to sell video games. In the late 1970s Atari founder Nolan Bushnell wanted his arcade machines out of bars and pool halls and into family spaces, so he built…
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Olive Garden: Unsalted Pasta Water, Lifetime Passes and a 294-Slide Revolt
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Olive Garden was created by General Mills, the cereal maker, which opened the first restaurant in Orlando, Florida on December 13, 1982, with co-founders including Blaine Sweatt. Following the...
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Baskin-Robbins: A Coin Toss, 31 Flavors and the Tiny Pink Tasting Spoon
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In the 1940s most American ice cream came in vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. Irv Robbins learned the trade as a teenager in his father's shop in Washington state, while his future...
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JFK Airport: The Near KIA Code, Terminal City and the Lufthansa Heist
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! John F. Kennedy International Airport sits on more than 5,000 acres of former Queens marshland that included the Idlewild Beach Golf Course. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, seeing his first airport...
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Priceline: Blind Bids, William Shatner's Negotiator and a Psychic Ad Row
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Priceline was founded in Connecticut in 1997 by Jay Walker with early funding help from Michael Loeb, launched its website in 1998, and went public in the 1999 IPO wave under CEO Richard...
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Pershing 1 and 1a: Thrust Reversal Ports, the Land Train and Zero Defects
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The MGM-31 Pershing was a two-stage, solid-fueled theater ballistic missile, and solid fuel posed a hard problem: once lit, the motor cannot be shut off. Before engineers could solve that, the...
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SFO: A 1927 Cow Pasture, Runways 750 Feet Apart and a Therapy Pig
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! San Francisco International Airport is not in San Francisco: it sits in unincorporated San Mateo County, on what began in 1927 as Mills Field, a 150-acre experimental pasture leased from the...
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Royal Caribbean Group: Losing $5.8B, a Shared Shipyard and a Record 2025
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Royal Caribbean was founded in Norway in 1969 by three shipping companies tied to the Skaugen, Wilhelmsen and Gotaas-Larsen names. Its key decision came in 1997, when it bought Celebrity...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
pplpod is a podcast about people, places and lots of other stuff. Each episode takes a deep dive into the lives, choices, and legacies of fascinating figures from history, culture, music, and beyond. From icons who shaped entire generations to hidden stories that deserve the spotlight, pplpod brings you closer to the people behind the headlines and the legends.
Thoughtful, engaging, and story-driven, pplpod explores what makes these lives extraordinary—and what we can learn from them today.
HOSTED BY
pplpod
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does pplpod have?
pplpod currently has 1000 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is pplpod about?
pplpod is a podcast about people, places and lots of other stuff. Each episode takes a deep dive into the lives, choices, and legacies of fascinating figures from history, culture, music, and beyond. From icons who shaped entire generations to hidden stories that deserve the spotlight, pplpod...
How often does pplpod release new episodes?
pplpod releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 1000 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
Where can I listen to pplpod?
You can listen to pplpod on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts pplpod?
pplpod is created and hosted by pplpod.
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