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All Episodes

The BrainFood Show — 287 episodes

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Title
1

Can Professional Wine Connoisseurs Tell the Difference Between Cheap and Expensive Wines & Much More

2

Who Invented Night Vision, and How Does it Work?

3

Can Neutron Bombs Really Wipe Out All Humans But Leave the Cities Intact?

4

Why Does the United States Use the Electoral College and Not a Popular Vote to Decide the President

5

The Man Who Burned Down One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World So History Would Remember Him

6

Does Hand or Foot Size Really Correlate with... Length? Do You Retain Your Partners' DNA and More!

7

That Time the British Rioted for Three Months Over a 15% Increase in the Cost of Theater Tickets

8

WTF is Up with the U.S. Military Having a Plan for Countering a Zombie Apocalypse?

9

The Vipeholm Experiments and the Dark Origins of Saturday Candy

10

Who Invented the Computer and Why is C the Default Drive Letter?

11

What Being Shot Feels Like, The Gun Knife, Silencers, Square Bullets and Much, Much More!

12

The Real Life "English Patient"

13

The Insanely Disturbing CIA Funded Canadian Mind Control Experiments

14

Neil Armstrong's Tale

15

Who Invented the Internet and Email?

16

What Happens If Parents Don’t Give Their Baby a Name? If You Donate Your Body to Science? & More

17

The Real Story of Jack the Ripper

18

What Actually Were "Foo Fighters"?

19

The Mysterious Disappearance of One of the Most Successful Recording Artists of All Time

20

Why is the Keyboard Layout What It Is and Is There a Better Version?

21

Why Doesn't the U.S. Use the Metric System, Why Fingernails on Chalkboards Make Us Cringe & More

22

The Forbidden Ancient Roman Scrolls That Shaped History

23

Why the Heck Couldn't Doc Brown Have Just Made Gasoline in Back to the Future III?

24

Introducing: Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat | The Mary Celeste: The Ghost Ship of the Atlantic

25

How Did J.R.R. Tolkien Die?

26

A Vampire and a Real Life Truly Horrific Love Story

27

Why Americans Refrigerate Eggs and Most Countries Don't, How Much Caffeine Can a Human Take and More

28

Incredible Engineering- Inventing the Transistor

29

The Greatest Act of Political and Economic Spite in History

30

Look, Ma- No Wings! The Strange World and Incredible Engineering of Lifting Body Aircraft

31

The Nightmare Nurse

32

What Actually Defines an ‘Assault Rifle’, The Truth About Getting Shot, and Much, Much More

33

The Greatest Archaeological Rescue Mission in History

34

The Sun is Finally Setting on the British Empire This Year

35

The Brink of Starvation- The Inspiring Tale of Inventing Instant Ramen

36

How Shrunken Heads Were Made

37

What Happens When You Find Buried Treasure, Stick Your Head in a Particle Accelerator & Much More

38

The Surprisingly Heartwarming Ending to That Time Japan Invaded the United States' Mainland

39

The Incredible Worst Gun of WWII

40

The Lamentable Laugh Track and Who Invented It

41

The Gruesome Tale of Burke and Hare

42

How the Swiss Stayed Neutral, the Near Disaster Surrender Flight, and More (Stories of WWII Part 4)

43

Who Invented the Ouija Board, and How Does it Work?

44

Introducing: No Such Thing

45

What is the Real Best Way to Survive a Nuclear Blast?

46

What's REALLY Going on With Toast Always Landing Buttered Side Down?

47

The Weapons of World War 2 (Part 2)

48

Tesla vs Edison- Debunking the Myth of the War of the Currents

49

What was Being a Ninja Really Like

50

The Stories of WWII (Part 2)

51

The Truth About Land Mines

52

The Real Life Expendables

53

The Truth About Thomas Edison's Adulthood and Inventions

54

Is Nuclear Winter Actually a Possibility or Just Pseudoscience?

55

The Stories of WWII

56

The Quest for the Recoilless Gun

57

Creating the Terminator

58

The Truth About the Incredible Childhood of Thomas Edison

59

The Actual Most Painful Sting and How Did They Figure That Out?

60

What was It Actually Like to be a Gladiator, History's Literal Deadliest Fart Killing 1000s, & More

61

The Rock WWII Turned On

62

Billionaire Build a Car- The Insane Car Brand Where Every One is Literally One of a Kind

63

The Truth About Tesla's "Inventions" (Daven and Gilles)

64

The Incredible Soviet Probe Space Heist

65

Does Absinthe Really Make You Hallucinate, The Wine Lover's Meltdown, Inventing Bloody Mary & More

66

The Dark Origins of the Treadmill and Why Oscar Wild was the Worst

67

What Really Causes Spontaneous Human Combustion?

68

How Ancient Romans Made Perfectly Straight & Durable Roads, Concrete Better Than Ours, & Much More

69

Was Keelhauling Actually a Thing?

70

Conspiracy: The Stories Behind Flat Earth, All Seeing Eye, Little Green Men Fake Moon Landing & More

71

Is It Really Possible for a Nuke to Ignite the Atmosphere?

72

The Weapons of WWII

73

The Most Bizarre Substance Known to Science and What It Can Do

74

How the Hell Did Winston Churchill Lose the Election Right After Defeating Germany?

75

The Real Color of the Sun, How Many Nuclear Bomb Powered Rockets It Would Take to Stop the Earth Orbiting the Sun and Much, Much More

76

The Most Badass U.S. President and His Many Insane Exploits

77

WTF is Up with the McDonald's McRib?

78

Are the Odds of Successfully Navigating an Asteroid Field Really Approximately 3,720 to 1?

79

Why Don't Plane Windows and Seats Line Up?

80

What was It Really Like to Be a Gladiator?

81

WTF is Up with Breathable Liquids?

82

The U.S. Plan to Nuke the Moon, Why People Thought the Moon was Made of Cheese and Much More

83

The Classiest Plane Hijacking of All Time

84

Murphy’s Law in Action

85

How to Scratch an Itch in Space, the Surprisingly Long Time You Can Survive in Space Without a Spacesuit, Why the Apollo 13 Astronauts Got Cold, and Much, Much More

86

The Incredible Black Arrow Rocket

87

The Junior High Dropout That Created Dunkin' Donuts

88

Inventing Color in a World That was Black and White

89

How Astronauts Go to the Bathroom in Space and How Women Can Safely Pee Standing Up

90

How They Ruined Superhero Movies

91

Britain's Most Disastrous "White Elephant" Airliner

92

Real Life Space DJs and the Pillownaughts

93

Making Children Cry for Fun and Profit

94

WTF is Up with the Bermuda Triangle?

95

The Forgotten Gun That Changed Everything

96

Who Invented the Egg McMuffin?

97

The Very Real Bear Soldier Who Fought in WWII

98

The Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz

99

The Incredible Biology of Sickle Cell

100

The First Road Trip Part 2: In Which We Discuss All Things Tangentially Related

101

The First Road Trip Part 1: The Gumption of Bertha Benz

102

The Greatest Feat of Piloting in Space

103

Swept Under the Rug: The Truth About the Japanese Holocaust

104

That Time Ben Franklin and John Adams Slept Together and the Hilarity That Ensued

105

Could the Tyrannosaurus Rex Really Not See You If You Didn’t Move?

106

Caesar Part 4: In Which We Discuss All Things Tangentially Related

107

The Incredible Story of U-47 and “The Bull of Scapa Flow”

108

The Nazi Kamikaze Squadron

109

The 1990s were Weird

110

Caesar Part 3: The Real Story of the Ides of March

111

Caesar Part 2: Julius Caesar’s Pirate Adventure and the Long Lost Location of the Rubicon

112

Who Started the Lizard People Conspiracy Theory?

113

Who Started the Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory, How Many Believe This, and What Do They Believe?

114

How Did the Trump Family First Make Their Fortune?

115

Caesar Part 1: Caesarean and the Fascinating Story of Dr. James Barry (a.k.a. Margaret Bulkley)

116

The Bull Moose (Part 2)

117

Legendary Legends: The Greatest Adventurer and the Voyage of the Nautilus

118

The Bonkers Atomic Car with 5,000 Miles Range

119

The Nukes of the North- Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

120

The Bull Moose (Part 1)

121

The Many Ways Studios Try to Get You to Watch More Ads

122

Britain's Disastrous WWII Fighter Plane

123

Accidentally Nuking a Country

124

Why Do You Forget Everything When You Enter a New Room?

125

Incredible Engineering- The Man Who Froze Time

126

The Hilarious Christmas Riot

127

A Perilous Journey- John Adams Goes to France

128

The Crapper, The Poop Log, the Parasitic Poop Twigs, and Much, Much More

129

What Really Happened After the Mutiny on the Bounty?

130

The Truth About the 12 Days of Christmas

131

The Lord of Misrule and the First Book Banned in America

132

Are Poinsettias Poisonous and the Truce

133

The Amazing Story Behind The Christmas Carol

134

The Incredible Flame Thrower Packing Insect

135

Fires of Industry, Witchcraft, and the First Spark of the Revolution

136

Denazification and the Unsolved High Tech Murder That Reshaped Post-Cold War Europe

137

How Do Spy Agencies Actually Recruit Spies in Real Life?

138

The Kids Who Led the Resistance Movements Against the Nazis

139

How Did People in Medieval Times Actually Siege a Castle in Reality

140

How Much Did Top Gun: Maverick Cost the U.S. Taxpayer?

141

What Did the German Public Know About the Holocaust During WWII?

142

Who Invented Nachos and the Potato Chip? Is the Green Part of the Potato Bad for You? And Much, Much More

143

WTF are Smelling Salts?

144

The Time a King Let the Leader of a Cult Become King to See if the World Would End

145

Crazy Cool Science- What Causes This Sand to Sing?

146

Who Started the SS and How Did They Rise from a Handful of Men to Such Extreme Power?

147

Who Invented the Band-Aid?

148

The Crazy Carnival Ride Soviet Turntable Procedure That Gave Us the First Corrective Eye Surgery

149

Forgotten Hero- The Other Oskar Schindler

150

Who Were the Real Life "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” and What Did they Actually Do?

151

Rebuilding Civilization, America's Most Mysterious Monument, and Blowing It Up

152

The Horrifying World of Mind-Control Creatures

153

Hollywood vs Reality: What Actually Happened During Apollo 13?

154

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire: The Extraordinary Saga of the Unsinkable Nevada

155

The Great Vibrator Myth

156

WTF is Up with the Swastika?

157

The Insane Engineering of Atmospheric Diving Suits

158

What Did the British Royals Get Up to During WWII?

159

What Did the British Royals Get Up to During WWI?

160

Hitler’s “Ideal Aryans” Who Were Actually Jewish Ad Campaign

161

How NASA Learned to Land on the Moon

162

What's Up with Space Food?

163

What is Up with the Van Allen Belts and How Did Astronauts Survive Flying Through Them?

164

What was Hitler Like as a Child? And was His Grandfather Really Jewish?

165

The Twisting, Turning Tale of the Invention of Dr Pepper

166

So What Happens Exactly When Someone Wins the Lottery?

167

The Weird, Wacky, and Hilarious World of Animal Mating

168

The Forgotten First Major Public Nuclear Disaster

169

How Does Darth Vader Poop?

170

One of the Most Disastrous Naval Experiements of All Time

171

How Did the Crusades Actually Work?

172

The Secretary: Great Expectations

173

When is the Optimal School Start Time?

174

Hitler's Many Women and Their Often Unfortunate Ends

175

The Secretary- Training for Greatness

176

That Time the USA Tried to Make Hippo Farming a Thing

177

The Fascinating Saga of History’s Largest Diamond

178

ENOUGH! The First Astronaut Strike In Space... Allegedly

179

The Incredible Real Life Cold War Bond Villain Ice Lair

180

32 Seconds from Detonation- That Time the U.S. Almost Accidentally Nuked North Carolina... 3 Times

181

Nikola Tesla's Rather Peculiar Childhood and Oddities (Daven & Gilles)

182

The Incredible Tale of Inventing Walmart

183

Why Did Japan Join the Nazis? (Given, You Know, the Nazis Explicitly Hated Non-Aryans)

184

Why Wasn't There an Italian "Nuremberg / Tokyo War Crimes" Trial After WWII?

185

How Did the SR-71 Blackbird Get Made and How was It So Fast?

186

WTF is Up with Embalming and Displaying Communists?

187

What's the Deal With Presidential Libraries?

188

The Twisting, Turning Road That Gave Us the Microwave Oven

189

A Guide to Building the Pyramids- How Did They Do It?

190

How Did the Wright Brothers Win the Race Into the Air?

191

From 0 to 1000 to 0- What Happened to Howard Johnson's?

192

How Did Christianity Go From a Tiny Jewish Cult to Rule the Western World So Quickly?

193

The Marxist Mummies- The Weird Practice of Mummiffying Communists

194

What's the Difference Between Hardwood and Softwood? (I swear this is more interesting than it sounds :-))

195

WTF is Vegemite?

196

Hancock's Revolution- Birthing the United States

197

How Do We Actually Know We Landed on the Moon?

198

Heinz 57, The Lord of the Pumps, and a Tasty, Tasty Dunkin' Empire

199

The True Story of the Amistad

200

How Vladimir Putin Came to Power (And How He Has Held on to it for So Long)

201

Does Any Government Have a Plan if Aliens Invade the Earth?

202

An Ultra Deep Dive Into How to Get the Best Possible Sleep According to Science and Why It's Literally Killing You When You Don't

203

What was it Really Like to Be a Lighthouse Keeper?

204

The Mysterious Death of Yuri Gagarin

205

How Government Works, When Does the U.S. Government Debt Become Unsustainable, And Much More

206

What's So Special About McDonald's Fries?

207

What's It Actually Like to Be an Amish Person?

208

Who was the Most Prolific Serial Killer of All Time?

209

That Time the Postal Service Tried Sending Mail Via Missile

210

Lies! The Truth About the Tesla vs Edison Feud

211

Is There Any Hard Evidence That Jesus Actually Existed?

212

That Time the U.S. Tried to Build a Massive Military Base on the Moon

213

Common Things Different in Europe vs. the United States

214

The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 4)

215

Medieval Times [Part 5]

216

Medieval Times [Part 4]

217

Medieval Times [Part 3]

218

Medieval Times [Part 2]

219

Medieval Times [Part 1]

220

Making Diamonds

221

What We’ve Learned This Month

222

For the Love of the Word Nerds… (And Their Rather Unfortunate Nazi Brethren)

223

The Difference Between… [Part 2]

224

The Difference Between… [Part 1]

225

The Absolutely Badass First Female U.S. Presidential Candidate

226

It’s a Wonderful Life [Part 2]

227

It’s a Wonderful Life [Part 1]

228

The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Foods (Part 1)

229

The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 3)

230

The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 2)

231

The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 1)

232

The Greatest Practical Joke and the Last Laugh

233

Lord Minimus- The Renaissance Dueling Dwarf

234

That Time a Major Studio Intentionally Made a Crappy “Fantastic Four” Movie and Why Superheroes Wear Their Underwear on the Outside

235

Why Do Some Countries Have People Drive on the Left and Others on the Right? (+Contest Winners)

236

Forgotten History Part 2: The First Film and the Murder That Nearly Killed It

237

The Forgotten Plague- DANCE MANIA!!!

238

How Porcupines Mate, the Bizarre Sex Habits of Giraffes (and Much, Much More)

239

Twice Executed

240

Taking the Mystery Out of Murder- A Couple of Dumbbells

241

How Everyone Plays Monopoly Wrong Which Makes It Worse, Where the Game Pieces Came From, Who Really Invented It and Much More

242

Animal Facts Part 3: A Doughnut Brain, Dung and the Milky Way, Ant Overlords and More

243

Animal Facts Part 2: Melting Caterpillars, Heating Bees, Why Vultures Don’t Get Sick, and More

244

Animal Facts Part 1: The Blowhole, Cow Tipping and Much, Much More

245

A Disturbing Tale and the “Trial of the Century” That Led to Women Jumping Out of Cakes

246

The Woman Who was the Most Successful Pirate of All Time

247

A Christmas Gift and a Riot

248

Christmas Traditions- The Crapper, The Poop Log, the Parasitic Poop Twigs, and Much, Much More

249

12 Days

250

The Truce

251

The Sledgehammer for the Poor Man’s Child

252

The Remarkable Sarah Hale

253

Tech History Part 3: FIRST!!! + Many, Many Bonus Facts and Contest Winners

254

The Dude Who Burned Down the Greatest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Because of Reasons

255

Macabre Part 4: The Vampire of Cinkota and a Truly Horrific Love Story

256

Tech History Part 2: Who Invented the Internet, Email, and the Web?

257

Tech History Part 1: A QWERTY Story and Whether the Dvorak Layout is Actually Superior

258

Macabre Part 3: The Nightmare Nurse

259

Macabre Part 2: How Shrunken Heads Were Made

260

Macabre Part 1: The Gruesome Tale of Burke and Hare

261

The Final Final Frontier (Part 6): The Real Color of the Sun, How Many Nuclear Bomb Powered Rockets It Would Take to Stop the Earth Orbiting the Sun and Much, Much More

262

The Final Frontier Part 5: Are the Odds of Successfully Navigating an Asteroid Field Really Approximately 3,720 to 1?

263

The Final Frontier Part 4: The U.S. Plan to Nuke the Moon, Why People Thought the Moon was Made of Cheese and Much More

264

The Final Frontier Part 3: How to Scratch an Itch in Space, the Surprisingly Long Time You Can Survive in Space Without a Spacesuit, Why the Apollo 13 Astronauts Got Cold, and Much, Much More

265

The Final Frontier Part 2: How Astronauts Go to the Bathroom in Space and How Women Can Safely Pee Standing Up

266

The Final Frontier Part 1: Real Life Space DJs and the Pillownaughts

267

The War Bear

268

The Prisoner (+Contest Winners)

269

The First Road Trip Part 2: In Which We Discuss All Things Tangentially Related

270

The First Road Trip Part 1: The Gumption of Bertha Benz

271

Could the Tyrannosaurus Rex Really Not See You If You Didn’t Move?

272

Caesar Part 4: In Which We Discuss All Things Tangentially Related

273

Caesar Part 3: The Real Story of the Ides of March

274

Caesar Part 2: Julius Caesar’s Pirate Adventure and the Long Lost Location of the Rubicon

275

Caesar Part 1: Caesarean and the Fascinating Story of Dr. James Barry (a.k.a. Margaret Bulkley)

276

An Interview with Audio Production Guru Mike Russell

277

The Bull Moose Part 2

278

Growing a YouTube Channel

279

The Bull Moose Part 1

280

Stealing the Eiffel Tower

281

Writing and Researching Online- A Chat with Karl Smallwood

282

A Restaurant for a Beetle and $100 and a Bike- The Fascinating Stories Behind Four Famous Businesses

283

Enlightened Rigging of the Lottery + Wheezy Waiter (The BrainFood Show Episode 5)

284

The Fascinating Origin of Pong and Atari + Interview with the Creators of Quest for Glory and the Upcoming Hero-U (The BrainFood Show Episode 4)

285

The Preposterous Pyramid (The BrainFood Show Episode 3)

286

The White Feather (The BrainFood Show Episode 2)

287

The BrainFood Show Episode 1: Throwing Tomatoes