Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchHearst Castle: Julia Morgan, William Randolph Hearst, and Citizen Kane
Episode 12073
William Randolph Hearst spent childhood summers in canvas tents at Camp Hill on the California coastal land his mining magnate father George Hearst b…
3 days, 14 hours ago
Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House: Aluminum, Zeppelins, and a Fog Shower
Episode 12072
Starting in 1928, Buckminster Fuller set out to mass-produce houses the way Henry Ford built cars, finishing a first design around 1930. An early gra…
3 days, 14 hours ago
Buckminster Fuller: Guinea Pig B, Geodesic Domes, and Spaceship Earth
Episode 12071
Richard Buckminster Fuller Jr., born in Massachusetts in 1895, invented an umbrella-driven rowboat at 12, rejected classroom geometry, and was expell…
3 days, 14 hours ago
Bran Castle Beyond Dracula: Teutonic Knights, a Queen, and a Court Fight
Episode 12070
Bran Castle is sold to the world as Dracula's castle, yet Bram Stoker never visited Romania, his fictional castle was a crumbling ruin, and Vlad the …
3 days, 14 hours ago
Art Deco's Hidden History: Concrete, King Tut, and a Sharkskin War
Episode 12069
The people who built the Chrysler Building and danced through the 1920s never called their style Art Deco. They said style moderne or modernistic, an…
3 days, 14 hours ago
Angkor Wat Was Never Lost: LiDAR, Colonial Myths, and a Sinking Temple
Episode 12068
Built in the early 12th century by the Khmer king Suryavarman II in present-day Cambodia, Angkor Wat originally covered 162.6 hectares and, unlike mo…
3 days, 14 hours ago
Crystal Palace: How a Giant Lily Pad Built the 1851 Great Exhibition
Episode 12067
In 1850 the organizers of London's Great Exhibition, including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Stephenson, rejected all 245 design entries and had…
3 days, 14 hours ago
Krak des Chevaliers: The Crusader Fortress Undone by a Forged Letter
Episode 12066
Perched on a 650 meter hill in the Homs Gap of Syria, Krak des Chevaliers began in 1031 as a Kurdish garrison placed by the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo, …
3 days, 14 hours ago
The Surprising History of the Cocktail: Horses, Politics, and Prohibition
Episode 12065
Your elegant drink may be named after an 18th century horse trade trick. This episode breaks down what makes a true cocktail, a base spirit, a modify…
4 days, 9 hours ago
The Philly Cheesesteak Story: From Hot Dog Cart to Global Icon
Episode 12064
The Philly cheesesteak had no cheese for roughly its first 20 years. This episode follows the sandwich from Pat and Harry Olivieri's hot dog cart nea…
4 days, 9 hours ago