Stuff You Should Know

You've probably seen the movie, but what else do you know about this legendary crime couple? Listen in to find out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

As the operation expands it also begins to unravel. Word starts to leak out of the illegal stuff the Reagan administration was up to, Congress and the press investigate and people start to point finge...

When Ronald Reagan was president, America got involved in some deeply shady stuff, not the least of which was the Iran-Contra scandal – a convoluted operation that managed to combine an illegal covert...

Although it was built atop some musical styles that came before, reggae is mostly its own thing. It evolved as local music in the Trenchtown neighborhood in Kingston, Jamaica but after Bob Marley and ...

Once upon a time there were these things called phone books. Inside you could find the phone number and address of just about everyone in your town. Can you imagine?See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...

To call beans and rice a staple is to undersell the importance of beans and rice. Today we break down the ubiquity of this beloved food combo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

No food is more all-American than peanut butter – 80 percent of homes in the country have a jar of it in the pantry right now. And while the rest of the world might find peanut butter peculiar, maybe ...

Operation Doppelganger was a Russian propaganda project discovered in 2022, a minor part of the enormous, ongoing disinformation and chaos-sewing campaign Russia spreads across the world through socia...

Get yer info on one of Australia’s great true crime cases he-re!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Judy Blume is more than an author. She's a legend in teen literature for her frank and honest portrayals of adolescence. Today we pay tribute to her.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information...

Climate change is having sweeping effects on our climate and this is changing the world, not just for humans and other animals, but plants too. Will the Earth’s flora manage to find safe refuge in tim...

We all know Switzerland is neutral. But why? Listen in and you might learn something.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Josh implored Chuck to try sardines. Did he? Listen in to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

By the 1990s, cigarette makers had been hooking and killing off their customers for about a century. And they’d gotten good at both as well as covering up their harms. In 1994 they were still denying ...

In this classic episode, Chuck and Josh dive into the funky, cool world of the classic TV show, Sooooooooul Train.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Would you believe that Detroit’s crack epidemic in the mid-80s was overseen by one 16 year-old white kid who supplied all the coke? No? Well, that’s not quite true, so okay. The actual story is even m...

Today we salute the great Don LaFontaine, aka The Voice of God in movie and TV trailers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Most new moms get the baby blues soon after giving birth. Postpartum depression is something much different - the symptoms are similar, but their intensity can have sweeping effects on mom, baby, and ...

Back when cars were a brand new thing, before people even knew they'd stick around, two men and a dog drove from San Francisco to New York. This classic episode has their story.See omnystudio.com/list...

Eleanor Roosevelt was something else. We can't get into it here, but just wait until you listen to this episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Now that it’s been 250 years since America split from England, we figure enough time has passed that we can finally learn the difference between the UK, Great Britain, and  the British Isles.See omnys...

During the Cold War all eyes were on the Space Race between the US and USSR. But there was another, overlooked race too and it went in the opposite direction. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy i...

In this classic episode, Chuck and Josh sit and converse on the simple, elegant chopstick.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

When a 9.2 quake shoook Alaska in 1964 it was the 2nd largest earthquake ever recorded. This is that story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Those are three words you probably never thought you’d see together. And the true story is just as interesting as it sounds.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

When a crush of football fans killed 97 people in England in 1989, police and officials engaged in a massive cover-up to blame it on drunken fans. Today we tell that story.See omnystudio.com/listener ...

Until 2007, the largest single corporate bankruptcy was Enron, a $67 billion energy trading company. Its decline was breathtaking, and while it’s a fascinating story of corporate malfeasance and greed...

The sort of commune of Freetown Christiania in Denmark may not be what it used to be, but it's still true to many of its original values. Learn all about this unique neighborhood today.See omnystudio....

Fear is different than being scared, most notably because fear is generally a negative thing and being scared can cause an enjoyable thrill. We'll get into the difference in today's episode.See omnyst...

Even though curses aren’t real – and we go to great pains to make that clear – they are pretty interesting, especially ones you haven’t heard of before. So we dug deep and found some of the curses tha...

It’s a pretty safe assumption that people have been born with birthmarks since humanity began, and between then and now we’ve come up with some wacky, even dangerous, explanations for them – even a fe...

Since the age of Descartes, science has put all of its eggs in the basket of determinism, the idea that with accurate enough measurements any aspect of the universe could be predicted. But the univer...

It's a confusing part of climate change when it seems winter is as cold as ever, but as global temperatures creep ever so slightly higher, a cascade of catastrophic events will almost surely follow. T...

Like many huge discoveries, X-rays were accidentally stumbled upon. That serendipity led to a medical breakthrough still in use today. Learn about how X-rays are created and why they make such delight...

You could be forgiven for thinking the story behind elastics was boring. You’d still be wrong, though. The story of what’s holding up your underwear is a global drama, replete with war, industrial esp...

The world's energy consumption is ruining the planet but for decades physicists have been working on what could solve the world's energy and climate change woes for centuries to come - nuclear fusion....

You know the rule that says the simplest explanation is probably the correct one? That’s called a razor and it’s meant to guide logic. But over time it’s become a broadsword used to disprove opposing ...

It’s easy to think of people in the distant past as kinda dumb for believing things like that mice could spontaneously generate from old grain. But if you look a little deeper, you’ll find there was a...

There are a number of theories for how the universe evolved but none are more widely accepted than the Big Bang theory. Learn about the mind-boggling details of the early universe and hear Dr. Neil de...

It evolved over centuries to become the gold standard for conducting scientific inquiry. Yet many people - including some scientists - don't fully understand it. Learn about the basis of how we explor...

If you’ve ever wanted to listen to two totally untrained, non-chemists who are fully unqualified to explain how the periodic table works nervously explain how the periodic table works, then this episo...

Chuck loved M*A*S*H. Josh didn't. Listen in as they fight to the death.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Does singing make you happy? Yes, yes it does.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

You can make a pretty good case that the rise of opinion “news” and filter bubbles on cable tv created the current cultural and political schism that plagues American society. How did it start? Where ...

Back in the day, broadcasters were bound by law to provide contrasting opinions on political matters. Why? Because of the Fairness Doctrine. What happened to it? Listen to this classic episode and fin...

Today we dive into the unremorseful life of NYC Subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Harvesting rainwater has tons of upsides and not many downsides – you just need to take a few precautions first. Don’t miss this episode, which features some Josh Math™.See omnystudio.com/listener for...

They say that smiling requires fewer muscles than frowning, so why not smile? That doesn’t seem to be true, or at least unproven, and there is lots more about smiling that will keep you glued to your ...

Josh and Chuck delve into the world of 911 in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

The disaster at Three Mile Island thankfully did not cost any lives directly, but the notion that it didn't harm people is very much up in the air. Learn all about the worst nuclear disaster in the hi...