These articles and episodes are ©2019-2024 by their respective authors, and published by the Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope. They are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License. All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.
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Learn all about the lives and times of some of the strangest people in history.
Legend says Lord Cornbury was New York's worst governor: a nepo baby failson, a bully, a bigot, a corrupt spendthrift, a sex pest. Was he all that awful?
Categories: Biography, History, Popular Facts & Fallacies, Series 14
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For our milestone episode #100 we contemplate one of the most confounding conundrums of our age... How old is Charo, really?
Categories: Biography, Entertainment & Media, Series 13
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The Countess di Frasso was the most famous hostess in the world, who threw parties for kings; actors, athletes and aviators; Nazis and mobsters.
Categories: Arts & Culture, Biography, Eccentrics & Prophecies, Entertainment & Media, People & Places
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This one has it all: the afterlife, evil stepmothers, Kickapoo princesses, the Romanovs, bigamy and fraud, ghost farts and spirit chickens.
Categories: Biography, Footsteps into the Unknown, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, People & Places, Series 13
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In 1862, William H. Mumler took the first known photograph of a ghost. Maybe. What unfolded next was an epic story of fraud and self-deception...
Categories: Biography, Footsteps into the Unknown, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, People & Places, Series 13
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In 1876 poet Julia Ann Moore was beloved by the people of Grand Rapids, precisely because her poems were so bad. Then she went national.
Categories: Arts & Culture, Biography, Eccentrics & Prophecies, Series 13
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Billy Sunday was America's foremost evangelist, whose admirers included young men, ex-presidents, and titans of industry... but how was his baserunning?
Categories: Biography, Series 13, Sports & Leisure
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One man's horrifying journey from toilet paper salesman to famous author to spiritual guru to American Hitler to space brother.
Categories: Biography, Eccentrics & Prophecies, History, Series 12
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Burnu Acquanetta, "the Venezuelan Volcano," was an exotic beauty who took Hollywood by storm in the summer of 1942... but who was she really?
Categories: Biography, Entertainment & Media, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Series 8
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Trofim D. Lysenko (1898-1976) set back the study of biology in the Soviet Union for two generations -- but the lessons you should learn from his story are not the one scientists and philosophers have pushed.
Categories: Biography, History, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Science & Nature, Series 7, The Marvels of Science
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Both Texas and Wyoming lay claim to America's first woman governor. But who really deserves the honor?
Categories: Biography, History, People & Places, Series 6
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In an age of excess, he was the most excessive one of all. This week, we look back at the life of legendary salesman and gourmand Diamond Jim Brady.
Categories: Biography, Eccentrics & Prophecies, Most Popular, Series 6
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