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Society & Culture
**Citation Needed**

The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single Wikipedia article about it, and pretend we’re experts. Because this is the internet, and that’s how it works now.

Latest Episodes:

Bike Batman Oct 15, 2025

Show notes

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/real-life-superhero-who-beats-cops-bike-thieves/

Broadcast signal intrusion Oct 08, 2025

Show notes

A broadcast signal intrusion is the hijacking of broadcast signals of radio, television stations, cable television broadcast feeds or satellite signals without permission or licence. Hijacking incidents have involved local TV and radio stations as well as cable and national networks.

"Rube" Waddell Oct 01, 2025

Show notes

George Edward "Rube" Waddell (October 13, 1876 – April 1, 1914) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB). A left-hander, he played for 13 years, with the Louisville Colonels, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago Orphans in the National League, as well as the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns in the American League. Born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and raised in Prospect, Pennsylvania, Waddell was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.

Waddell is best remembered for his highly eccentric behavior, and for being a remarkably dominant strikeout pitcher in an era when batters were expert at making contact. He had an excellent fastball, a sharp-breaking curveball, a screwball, and superb control; his strikeout-to-walk ratio was almost 3-to-1, and he led the major leagues in strikeouts for six consecutive years.

History's Most Expensive Party Sep 24, 2025

Show notes

The 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire,[1] officially known as the 2,500-year celebration of the Empire of Iran (Persian: جشن‌های ۲۵۰۰ ساله شاهنشاهی ایران, romanized: Jašn-hây-e 2500 sale' šâhanšâhi Irân), was hosted by the Pahlavi dynasty in the Imperial State of Iran in October 1971. Concentrated at Persepolis, it consisted of an elaborate set of grand festivities that sought to honour the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire, which was founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC.[2][3] The event was aimed at highlighting ancient Iranian history and also showcasing the country's contemporary advances under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been reigning as the Shah of Iran since 1941.[4][5] The site brought sixty members of royalty and heads of state from abroad.[6]

ChatGPT convinced a guy that he's a superhero Sep 17, 2025

Show notes

Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. We analyzed the conversation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/technology/ai-chatbots-delusions-chatgpt.html

Victorian Mummy Mania and Sundry Weirdness Sep 10, 2025

Show notes

Mummia, mumia, or originally mummy referred to several different preparations in the history of medicine, from "mineral pitch" to "powdered human mummies". It originated from Arabic mūmiyā "a type of resinous bitumen found in Western Asia and used curatively" in traditional Islamic medicine, which was translated as pissasphaltus (from "pitch" and "asphalt") in ancient Greek medicine. In medieval European medicine, mūmiyā "bitumen" was transliterated into Latin as mumia meaning both "a bituminous medicine from Persia" and "mummy". Merchants in apothecaries dispensed expensive mummia bitumen, which was thought to be an effective cure-all for many ailments. It was also used as an aphrodisiac.

The Vasa Sep 03, 2025

Show notes

Vasa (previously Wasa) (Swedish pronunciation: [²vɑːsa] ⓘ) is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century, until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard") until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. Between her recovery in 1961 and the beginning of 2025, Vasa has been seen by over 45 million visitors.[2]

Exxon Valdez Aug 27, 2025

Show notes

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled more than 10 million US gallons (240,000 bbl) (or 37,000 tonnes)[1] of crude oil over the next few days.[2]

How I Survived a Wedding in a Jungle That Tried to Eat Me Alive Aug 20, 2025

Show notes

https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/essays/jungle-wedding/

Olestra / Olean Aug 13, 2025

Show notes

Olestra (also known by its brand name Olean) is a fat substitute food additive that adds no metabolizable calories to products. It has been used in the preparation of otherwise high-fat foods, thereby lowering or eliminating their fat content.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved olestra for use in the US as a replacement for fats and oils in prepackaged ready-to-eat snacks in 1996,[2] concluding that such use "meets the safety standard for food additives, reasonable certainty of no harm".[3]: 46399 In the early 2000s, olestra lost popularity due to supposed side effects and is largely phased out, but products containing the ingredient are available in some countries.

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