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.
Designed by #13 at Lodge #777.
Charles Dickens once said “The law is a ass.” We once said that he used the wrong indefinite article in that sentence.
Milton D. Hays just wanted to run a railroad like a tyrant, and his complete lack of ethics allowed him to realize that dream.
Categories: Feats of Building & Engineering, Series 15, Wild Card
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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 1835 Maria Monk claimed that Montreal's Hôtel-Dieu convent was a vice den. She was making it all up... but Americans desperately wanted to believe her.
Categories: History, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Series 13
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In August 1834 Bostonians burned down a convent full of nuns, thanks to religious prejudice and the suspicious testimony of a lazy teenager with a grudge.
Categories: History, Series 13
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The strange transformation of a Qu'ran study group into a UFO doomsday cult with a quick break in the middle for disco fever.
Categories: Eccentrics & Prophecies, People & Places, Series 13
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Joseph Raber was "too lazy to live and too lazy to work" -- the perfect victim for six conspirators who insured him to the gills and murdered him.
Categories: People & Places, Series 13
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In October 1846, the world discovered surgical anesthesia. Four men would spend the next two decades fighting over which one of them deserved the credit.
Categories: History, Series 12, The Marvels of Science
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In 1939, Gustave Blair convinced an Arizona court that he was the missing Charley Ross. But was he really? The answer has been a mystery... until now.
Categories: Bonus Episodes, Intriguing & Unsolved Mysteries, People & Places
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Errata for The Hot House; French Leave; The Icelander; "I'm the Naughty Boy"; What-Is-It?; Moron or Madman?; Suffer Little Children; and more.
Categories: Bonus Episodes, Errata
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In which two Irish art students commit a daring daylight museum heist with virtually no planning, and somehow get away consequence-free.
Categories: Arts & Culture, Series 7
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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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The idea that color has healing power is a relatively modern (and utterly fallacious) one. We discuss its development through the 19th and 20th centuries.
Categories: Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Science & Nature, Series 5
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