The Ridiculous Truth About Pirates, Chapter Two: History's Most Successful Pirate Was A Woman

The Ridiculous Truth About Pirates, Chapter Two: History's Most Successful Pirate Was A Woman

Author: iHeartPodcasts April 23, 2026 Duration: 43:33
Ridiculous History
HistoryCultureSocietySociety & Culture

Live from the beautiful Baha Mar resort, Ben, Noel, Max and returning guest Matt dive into popular misconceptions about pirates. First, piracy was by no means restricted to the Caribbean. Second, not all successful pirates were dudes. In fact, as the guys discover in the second-part of this two-part series, history's wealthiest pirate was a Chinese woman named Zheng Yi Sao, or Chin Shih. As they arrive closer to the modern day, the guys discover another notorious Chinese pirate smack-dab in the middle of the Sino-Japanese war: a double, triple, maybe even quadruple maritime bandit known as Huang “Two Guns” Bamei.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.


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

Official website RSS
youtubetiktok
Ridiculous History
Podcast Episodes
The Ridiculous Truth About Pirates, Chapter One: The Caribbean [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:04
Fellow Ridiculous Historians, Ben, Noel and Max are back on their pirate obsession. In this special two-part series live from the legendary Baha Mar, the guys welcome returning guest Matt Frederick for a fascinating expl…
Eurovision, Chapter Two: Pop Music as Problematic Diplomacy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:26
Now, we know this is going to sound weird, but... it turns out one of the world's most popular pop music contests is also one of the world's best examples of 'soft diplomacy'. So what happens when countries that hate eac…
CLASSIC: Prohibition, Prescriptions and the Rise of 'Medicinal' Booze [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:42
From 1920 to 1933, the United States was, technically speaking, a dry country. The National Prohibition Act made the manufacture, transport and sale of alcohol illegal for the vast majority of the population. However, th…
Fort Sauerkraut: North Dakota’s Strange, Ill-Planned Origin Story [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:02
As the gang gets ever closer to finally completing their mission to do an episode on every state in the United States, they arrive at North Dakota. While North Dakota remains one of the nation's least populated states, i…
The Bizarre Tale of the 1909 Catnip Riot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:52
Here's one for the cat lovers: Does your feline friend absolutely love catnip? If you have a cat with the right sensitivities, this stuff completely rocks their world. They'll go nuts for it, rolling around in the stuff,…
CLASSIC: Did Robert E. Lee hate Confederate Memorials? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:48
In this week's Classic episode, the guys return to a strange, oft-overlooked aspect of the Civil War. From 1861 to 1865, the United States of America was a country divided. More than a century later, it remains America's…
IQ Tests are (Kind of) Dumb [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:13
Have you ever taken an IQ test? Originally envisioned as a way to determine which French children should be locked in asylums, Alfred Binet's attempt to quantify human intelligence took the modern world by storm. Yet, as…
Did Lead Lead to the Fall of the Roman Empire? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:52
Don't do lead, kids! Nowadays everyone knows the dangers this substance poses to humans -- especially children in their formative years -- but back in the day, lead was everywhere. Ancient Rome was riddled with the stuff…

12345...10»