A Samurai Walks Into The White House

A Samurai Walks Into The White House

Author: iHeartPodcasts June 4, 2026 Duration: 35:44

History is often taught as a series of discrete, unrelated events -- and that could not be further from the truth. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore a fascinating Venn diagram of historical events... and learn that, technically, yes! A samurai could have sent something like a fax to President Abraham Lincoln.

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History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Ridiculous History
Podcast Episodes
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Duration: 42:42
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CLASSIC: Clara, The World's Most Famous Rhinoceros [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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Duration: 43:55
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The Grim Christmas Folklore of Johnny Ace, with Jake Brennan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:10
While the career of rhythm-and-blues vocalist Johnny Ace was short, he left a huge mark on the music world. Up until Christmas Day of 1954, Ace seemed set to reach genuine crossover success in pop music -- until, that is…
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Duration: 29:35
Ben, Noel and Max return with this week's Classic episode! Monopoly is a pretty divisive game, and people tend to either love it or hate it. However, for hundreds of Allied POWs captured during World War II, Monopoly bec…
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Duration: 39:19
Let's be honest. If you live in the United States, you probably think fruitcake is ridiculous. It's like the MRE of Christmas, passed around from one family to the next. But what makes it so resilient? How, out of all th…
CLASSIC: Idiomatic For The People, Part I [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:05
Language is beautiful and, in many cases, continually evolving. As a result, we end up with hundreds of strange idioms and figures of speech that we use on a daily basis, with little to no understanding of what they orig…
Spontaneous Human Combustion: A Bizarre Controversy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:50
Can people really just, for no discernable reason, catch on fire? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the centuries old folklore and investigations of a phenomenon known as "spontaneous human combustion" -- and…
IP, Part Three: A Copyright for Everyone! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:59
As Ben, Noel and Max close out another year of Ridiculous History, they return to the patently baffling world of intellectual property. In part three of this series, the guys finally tackle one of the weirdest concepts o…