Robert Maxwell

Robert Maxwell

Author: Citation Needed Media December 3, 2025 Duration: 42:47

Ian Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor and politician.[1][2]

Of Jewish descent, he escaped the Nazi occupation of his native Czechoslovakia and joined the Czechoslovak Army in exile during World War II. He was decorated after active service in the British Army. In subsequent years he worked in publishing, building up Pergamon Press to a major academic publisher. After six years as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) during the 1960s, Maxwell again put all his energy into business, successively buying the British Printing Corporation, Mirror Group Newspapers and Macmillan Inc., among other publishing companies.


Ever wondered how confidently incorrect a person can become after a ten-minute internet deep dive? Citation Needed is a comedic exploration of that exact phenomenon. Each episode, the hosts from Citation Needed Media pick a topic-which could be anything from the history of a bizarre invention to the biography of a semi-forgotten public figure-and their sole source material is a single Wikipedia article. They then proceed to discuss, dissect, and wildly extrapolate from that one page, adopting the unearned authority of online experts. The result is a hilarious and often insightful collision between earnest curiosity and total improvisation, revealing just how fragile our shared understanding of culture and society can be. You’ll hear genuine attempts to parse dense, dry information immediately derailed by personal tangents, absurd hypotheticals, and the inevitable realization that the wiki text itself might be deeply flawed. It’s a podcast that celebrates the joy of learning something new while simultaneously mocking the platform where most of us go to do it. The conversations are loose, funny, and surprisingly informative, not because the hosts are actual experts, but because they’re so willing to follow a strange fact down a rabbit hole and see what they find. Tune in for a unique blend of casual research and comedic commentary that holds a mirror to our own online habits.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Citation Needed
Podcast Episodes
Sleeping Beauty [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:04
The earliest known version of the tale is found in the French narrative Perceforest, written between 1330 and 1344.[7] Another was the Catalan poem Frayre de Joy e Sor de Paser.[8] Giambattista Basile wrote another, "Sun…
The Sinking of the Whaleship Essex [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:24
Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was…
Carlos Kaiser [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:47
Carlos Henrique Raposo (born 2 April 1963), commonly known as Carlos Kaiser, is a Brazilian con artist and former footballer who played as a striker.[citation needed] Although his abilities were far short of professional…
Crazy Patents [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:02
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosur…
Richard Dawkins [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:49
Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941)[3] is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author.[4] He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understan…
Siege Weapons and Fortifications [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:37
A siege engine is a weapon used to destroy fortifications such as defensive walls, castles, bunkers and fortified gateways. A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military constructi…
Pied Piper and the Children's Crusade [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:43
The legend dates back to the Middle Ages. The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in multicoloured ("pied") clothing, who was a rat catcher hired by the town to lure rats away[1] with his magic pipe. When the c…
Project 57 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:40
Project 57 was an open-air nuclear test conducted by the United States at the Nellis Air Force Range in 1957,[1][2] following Operation Redwing, and preceding Operation Plumbbob. The test area, also known as Area 13, was…
Sun Wukong the Monkey King [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:46
Sun Wukong (Chinese: 孫悟空, Mandarin pronunciation: [swə́n ûkʰʊ́ŋ]), also known as the Monkey King, is a literary and religious figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to t…