Tag: ttp

The “American Dream” was first coined in 1931. In 1971 two things happened on exactly the same day . . . the world’s biggest song was released lamenting the end of the American Dream. And the world’s biggest dreamer opened the most amazing American institution. In today’s episode we cross paths with Apple Pie, James…

Have you ever heard the origin of Halloween? Perhaps you’ve heard about the Irish holiday Samhain, but there’s more. And all of it converges on one year, 1848. In this episode learn about Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, the most powerful volcano ever recorded, Yellow Fever, premature…

The Resolute Desk was a gift to the President as the movie National Treasure says. But did you know it involved Tasmania, Van Diemen’s Land, Explorer John Franklin, Maritime Salvage Laws, Senator Lawrence S Foster, Abel Tasman, Anthony Van Diemen, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the HMS Resolute, Sweden’s 300,000 oak trees, Rutherford B Hayes…

When the Industrial Revolution came to town, it inspired an opposite movement that may have changed the world. It certainly inspired a construction style and a whole bunch more.  Today we rub elbow’s with Teddy Roosevelt, David Sedaris, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O’Keefe, the Carnegies, Crayola Crayons, Edgar Allen Poe, Chicago Academy of…

The Louisiana Purchase kicked off Westward Expansion in the United States. Then came the transcontinental railroad, Homesteading and factory towns.  Even the Industrial Revolution aided rural communities with new farming technology and access to bigger markets. But one day in 1971, Rural America was cancelled. In today’s episode we cross paths with Arthur Nielsen, UNIVAC…

Robert Smalls was the defiant slave who decided freedom was a better choice. That is when his and President Abraham Lincoln’s lives would be intertwined, from the Civil War all the way through death. In this episode we discover Lydia Polite, Harriet Buss, Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, the Freedsman Bureau, Parris…

Did you know the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the Chinese Spy Balloon and the International Space Station all have one thing in common?  A law written in Roman Times.  Let us tell you about NASA and Captain Skip Strong, the Stamp Act, H.G. Wells,  Edward Bulwer Lytton, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute,…

French Lick, Indiana was once the top resort town in the U.S. Famous people like Bing Crosby, Al Capone and Ronald Reagan all went there. But it’s known for much more than that and what starts in there, changes the world. This week’s episode features Tod Sloan, FDR, West Baden Springs Hotel, Sun Rayed Tomato…

Everyone knows they changed it in 1985 to New Coke. But how many know of the other four times? And one of those might be considered a public duping. To get the answer today’s story covers Thomas Edison, Cocaine, Kola Nut, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Robert Gozuieta, Fanta, Tab, Diet Rite, Robert Woodruff, Atlanta’s Jewish…

The 20th Century presented the perfect moment for the rise is Trivia, and the games that go with it. Maybe that window is beginning to close. In today’s episode we explore the Han Dynasty, WW2, Merv Griffin, Charles Van Doren, NBC, College Bowl, Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, Alex Trebek, Radio Quiz Bowls, Information Please, the $64K…