undated
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Aunt Mary's New Tooth
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Grog in 1740
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The naval origin of the word 'grog,' an eleven-year-old's thirty-foot climb down a well to save a baby, and the heartfelt truth behind 'I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.'
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Clam Chowder
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Chowder turns out not to be American (though baseball is), and a familiar popular tune hides inside Nicolai's opera 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.'
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Bits of Bread
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Tom Molineaux
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Parliament Buildings
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Why Britain's Parliament is swept for hidden explosives, a German who paid customs duty on goods that never arrived, and the era when golf was banned in Scotland.
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Tin Can Tied to Dog's Tail
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A tin can on a dog's tail nearly kills two people, a traveler recovers $10,000 minutes before sailing for Europe, and an auto race won at fifteen miles an hour.
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First Car of Funeral Train
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European diplomats squabble over who rides first in a funeral procession, and a great song hit is stumbled upon entirely by accident.
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More Married Men
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The United States somehow tallies more husbands than wives, a fourfold arrest sparked by a penny's worth of pickles, and a son who turns the tables and spanks his own father.
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A Girl Changes Her Mind
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A girl reconsiders as she changes her stockings, Denmark keeps its own Fourth of July, and a two-thousand-year-old aqueduct still runs with water.
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44 Year Old Quarrel
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Two women bury a forty-four-year grudge, the still-unsolved death of magician Chung Ling Soo, and the mirrors mounted behind the seats at Westminster Abbey.
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Two Million an Hour
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A man who earned two million dollars in an hour, two celebrated authors trading public blows, and a fireside seat bought with half a peck of oysters.
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Building Rises from the Sea
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A five-hundred-year-old building rising back out of the sea, the real story behind 'millions for defense but not one cent for tribute,' and the five tunes buried in one famous song.
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Two Days on a Streetcar
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A Russian immigrant who rode the streetcars nonstop for two days, two kings wagering on a wrestling match, and a discarded ballad that made an operetta world-famous.
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Ostracize
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'Ostracism' began as an oyster, a hymn figures in the rescue of nine people, and a man who lived undetected inside a palace for years.
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Boy Battles Eagle
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A boy's fight to the death with an eagle, a beggar who saved more than $10,000, and an office manager who allowed his typists time to primp.
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Sneezing for 21 Days
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A ten-year-old girl who sneezed for twenty-one straight days, an Indian game that ended in a massacre, and fresh proof that history repeats itself.
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Stone Giant
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A stone giant that fooled a nation, the superstition hidden in a simple introduction, and a beloved musical work composed for a dog.
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Number Two Is Unlucky
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The case for two being unluckier than thirteen, parental pride breaking a picket line, and the roar of machinery launching a great industry.
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Frightened Out of Speech
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A young woman frightened speechless, a curfew used to head off a revolution, and a mailman who threw away two hundred letters.
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Chimp Language
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A man compiling a dictionary of chimpanzee speech, the truth that Cinderella's slipper was never glass, and the golden cross that ruined many men.
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1788 War Prediction
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A 1788 prophecy of the twentieth century's wars, the real meaning of 'carnival,' and an orchestra that used two cannons for its bass.
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Animals Field Day
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Animals holding a field day in New Jersey, kisses settling a $5,000 debt, and a song born from an offhand remark.
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Two Billion Dollar Bet
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Two men betting over two billion dollars on a building, Scottish cows in sweaters, and the herring that is never seen alive.
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Funeral Fire
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The bonfire that began as a funeral pyre, a constable who chased a heifer into his own trap, and two famous women dueling with their fingernails.
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Explosion Heard Three Thousand Miles Away
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An explosion heard three thousand miles off, a man sentenced to hang himself, and another jailed for frying a steak.
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Five Men Swindled
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Five notable men swindled by two unschooled miners, a few dollars of brass sold for $3,000, and the claim that the Battle of Bunker Hill never happened.
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Not English
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The world's most-spoken language isn't English, a son's death restores a mother's lost voice, and a severed hand that misled a whole police force.
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Reward Nineteen Years Later
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A good deed repaid richly nineteen years on, firefly-catching as a genuine industry, and the one second that spares a fifth of American drivers a head-on crash.
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Joan of Arc
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Joan of Arc waited four centuries after her death to be made a saint, and a man built a fortune buying up worthless currency.
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Marriage Customs
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Our marriage customs handed down from the ancients, a man who fell fifteen thousand feet from a plane and lived, and a song of mockery turned by the enemy into a victory march.
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Black Cats
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The case that a black cat truly does carry bad luck, a lawyer prevailing in a hopeless case, and the odd suit that never once came before a judge.
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His Brother's Father
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How a man became his own brother's father, a jury that returned an impossible verdict, and a 1755 letter that traveled fifty miles an hour.
date unknown
Babies and Weather
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Newborns that sense a coming storm, $20,000 of radium kicked around the streets of New York, and the truth that 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary' was never meant as a war song.
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Detective Stories
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Detective stories reaching back more than twenty-five centuries, the mystery of why Paganini's strings snapped, and twin brothers hurt in identical accidents a week apart.
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Ape Saved Key Possession
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An ape that saved a prized possession of the British Empire, the inventor of a noiseless soup spoon, and how 'ambition' once meant only politics.
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Angel of Death
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Gabriel is never named in the Bible as the Angel of Death, a U.S. president who couldn't write until nineteen, and a New York song that crossed the Atlantic twice before catching on at home.
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Motion Pictures
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Motion pictures were never actually made in Hollywood, bandits who robbed a bank using barbed wire, and Dolley Madison, the only private citizen granted the floor of the U.S. House.
date unknown
Victim Arrested
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(MP3)
The robbery victim who wound up arrested, a fisherman who landed a five-dollar bill, and the American anthem whose tune is shared by thirteen other nations -- the series finale.