Episodios

  • Episode 294 - The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 - How the New York Sun Flummoxed the Public

    Episode 294 - The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 - How the New York Sun Flummoxed the Public
    Apr 2 2026
    In this episode we set the Elevator of History back to 1835 where we witness the ;'penny paperss' papers sold for one cent instead of six that featured stories people WANTED to read, rather than news by and for a political party. These papers brought us separate sections on news, finance, sports and featured on the scene reporting and lurid true crime details. But it was the New York Sun that launched into a six day report of what a famous mathematician, chemist and learned individual was looking at the moon through a legendary telescope and reporting the discovery of the most amazing things including: albino moon-bison, miniature zebras, one horned goats, unicorns and the fascinating bat people of the moon who dwelt in massive temples carved from giant rubies. The public was fascinated by this series of articles until the report, six days later that the telescope had caught a stray sunbeam, magnified it's intensity and set the observatory alight causing it to burn to the ground. In the days and weeks that followed it slowly came out that none of this was true, however, the Sun never printed a retraction and their readership had grown significantly despite the scandal, most new readers stayed. We discuss all this, the Blue Fugates, touch on Orson Welles War of the Worlds and discuss Terry Gilliam's the Adventures of Baron Munchausen in this it can't get weirder than this episode of the Family Plot Podcast!

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    49 m
  • Episode 293 The Great Stork Derby - Charles Vance Millar's Most Outrageous Practical Joke

    Episode 293 The Great Stork Derby - Charles Vance Millar's Most Outrageous Practical Joke
    Mar 26 2026
    This episode is so full of weird tasty historical goodness you'll want a second course. Arthur talks an afternoon with Dean and a vist from his girlfriend and we discuss Toronto and Canada in the 20's and 30's and the introduction of a millionaire with no heirs and a wicked sense of humor who died on October 31st 1936 and for the next ten years set off a fertility contest that became talked about all over the world. All while Toronto desperately tried to hold onto it's Toronto the Good identity in this too much money, a will can be binding and a joke, more fun in Canada than you thought you could have episode of the Family Plot Podcast.

    (Slight correction, Dean at one point claims the original Forever Knight was set in New York and filmed in Toronto. What was the blueprint for Forever Knight, starring Rick Springfield was actually called Nick Knight and was set in LA but was still filmed in Toronto.)

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    50 m
  • Episode 292 Women's History Month - The Life of Shirley Temple Black

    Episode 292 Women's History Month - The Life of Shirley Temple Black
    Mar 19 2026
    What a show! WWe dive deep into the life of Shirley Temple Black, from her young life as a precocious little girl with a smile, to her mother's enrolling her in the Meglin Kiddies Dance School at the age of three, to her subsequent discovery a few months later, hiding behind the piano when Educational Pictures director Charles Lamont came to the school looking for talent. She at first joined the Baby Burlesks, a somewhat uncomfortable series in which toddlers, clad in costumes above the waist and diapers below recreated onscreen moments from more famous pictures...this led to many unclomfortable moments among viewers. But her performance in Stand Up and Cheer! impressed the directors at Fox who signed her to a simple contract and proceeded to make movies like The Littlest Rebel, Curly Top, Dimples, amd The Littlest Princess where she played an adorable moppet with an unforgettable smile who became the single most bankable star of the 1930's. Not one performer in that era made as much as this singing and tap-dancing little starlet. When she aged out of that kind of role both Fox and MGM tried to repackage heer and she made a handful of films that ranged from watchable to deeply forgettable. MGM released her from her contract and she married her first husband, who was unable to handle the pressure of BEING her husband leading to his drinking and their divorce. Eventually she would marry Charles Alden Black who would be her husband till his death in 2004. She would also become a politician and candidate for congress, a stateswoman and a diplomat during the 70's and 80;s. She would move from this role to a quite life at home, only turning up occasionally in interviews or to collect an honor, though when she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and eventually got a mastectomy she was very public with her diagnosis, treatment and an advocacy for testing early and frequently, Otherwise she lived a quiet life until she would eventually pass away in the early 2010's. She would be mourned on morning news programs across the country and we dive deep into her amazing life in this Women's History Month special episode.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    1 h y 8 m
  • Episode 291 Women's History Month - Walking the Walk - Emma Gatewood's Appalachian Treks

    Episode 291 Women's History Month - Walking the Walk - Emma Gatewood's Appalachian Treks
    Mar 12 2026
    In this episode , we look into the life of Emma aka Grandma Gatewood. Born in rural Ohio at the tail end of the 19th Century, she was the 7th of 15 children raised in a one room cabin, sleeping four to a bed, her only moments of peace were walks from her family home. At 19, she met PC
    Gatewood, an Elementary school teacher who also treated her with unkindness and violence. Her only escape was to get away, talking walks to escape the violence. She had 11 children with Gatewood until she was divorced from him. Then she raised them as best she could working any job she could get to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. By the time she was in her sixties, she had a goal...to walk the length of the Appalachian Trail. She did so and so much more in this it's never too late keep going episode of the Family P;ot Podcast!!

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    54 m
  • Episode 290 - Womens History Month - The Packhorse Librarians of Appalachia

    Episode 290 - Womens History Month - The Packhorse Librarians of Appalachia
    Mar 5 2026
    In this episode, we set the Elevator of History to the Kentucky portion of the Appalachians where we check out the Packhorse Librarians. Women, funded by the WPA, who brought books into the hoots and hollers of Kentucky, providing reading and kinship in rural communities who otherwise would have no access to books. They traveled on mules and horses carrying books in saddlebags and pillowcases to needy communities and while they only lasted a short time, they helped change rural Kentucky and make it part of the modern world and helped raise the rate of illiteracy from 31 percent to just 5 percent in the 1940s. We cover the history, notable packhorse librarians and do our best to honor the history of these 'book women'.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    1 h y 4 m
  • Episode 289 - Black History Month - The Harlem Hellfighters of World War I

    Episode 289 - Black History Month - The Harlem Hellfighters of World War I
    Feb 26 2026
    Jump on the Elevator of History with us and ride it back to America's involvement in World War I. When the US brought over a segregated unit of Black Men that were mostly a labor batallion, then they were loaned to the French Infantry who gave them French helmets, equipment, weapons and rations and put them on the front lines. For 191 days, the longest of any unit in the war they stayed on the front lines, never giving up ground, always pushing forward and cementing their legacy and their strengths forcing the US Army to reconsider it's segregation and the idea that Black soldiers weren't capable or competent fighters. And while it would take another thirty years to desegregate the US Military, it might not have happened at all without the persistence, dedication and heroism of the Harlem Hellfighters!

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    1 h y 11 m
  • Episode 288 - Black History Month - Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre with Carmita from Missing in the PNW

    Episode 288 - Black History Month - Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre with Carmita from Missing in the PNW
    Feb 19 2026
    TW - This episode we drop a few 'f' bombs, and a few other words we would not normally use. But we are dealing with an act of domestic terrorism that has been concealed by polite history. We discuss the rRise of Black Wall Street in the Greenwood District of Oklahoma. How discovering oil in the early twenties brought people of all colors to to the young state of Oklahoma unintentionally creating a community of Black entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and other professionals,,This created a segregation and suspicion drove them into the community of Greenwood where they built black schools, black theaters, black hotels and black shops. Their community was so good and prosperous that even whites would shop there when they could get a product better or cheaper. However, one night, a young man named Dick Rowland who worked in Tulsa had to use the restroom. Being black, he couldn't go to the bathroom where he worked he had to go to one of the 'Black Only' bathrooms and the closest one was on the top floor of the nearby Drexler Building. The elevator was operated by one Sarah Page and as Dick rode the elevator, it shook briefly, causing Dick to wobble, he grabbed Sarah's arm to right himself, and Sarah, not expecting the contact, yelled as she was very startled. That's it...well Dick left the elebator a clerk saaw him and reported the incident to the police. Police arrested Roland and Black World War I veterans showed up armed, to prevent the vigilante lynch mob from attacking the jail and lynching Dick. It was this event that set off the Tulsa Race Massacre...an overnight series of assaults, unreasonable arrests, theft, arson and murder that devastated the district of Greenwood. And we, along with Carmita from Missing in the PNW and Murder in the PNW, tell this true story from the dark history of America and Oklahoma in this 0h-yeah-this-happened, domestic terror and if-this-doesn't-make-your-blood-boil-nothing-will episode of the Family Plot Podcast

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    1 h y 28 m
  • Episode 287 - The Valentine Phantom of Montpelier, Vermont - Happy Valentines Day

    Episode 287 - The Valentine Phantom of Montpelier, Vermont - Happy Valentines Day
    Feb 12 2026
    This week, we step away from doom, gloom and reminders of the fact that we are currently under an authoritarian administration thaat does not value human life and only serves to protect the billionaire class to talk about a magical event that happens every February in the tiny city of Montpelier, Vermont. It seems that, since 2002 when people in Montpelier on Valentine's day morning, they find their town covered in hearts, celebrating love, community and kindness. More than one person has served the role of the Phantom, like the Dread Pirate Roberts, it's a title that gets passed on from time to time. We cover the history of the tiny capital of Montpelier, the history of the Valentine Phantom and how even during a blizzard and the height of the pandemic, the Montpelier Valentine Phantom (or Bandit) was able to cover the town in hearts. So join us for this feel good episode of the Family Plot Podcast!

    (PS - The 'Secret Santa' from Independence Missouri was Larry Stewart, a Lees Summit Businessman who passed away in 2007)

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
    Más Menos
    44 m