Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast

In 1989 Kraft held a promotional sweepstakes (grand prize: a new minivan) with game pieces in packages of Kraft Singles and due to a series of errors, every single one was a winner. By the time they caught the mistake, over 10,000 people had already...

The Glass-Steagall banking bill was one of the most important progressive reforms of the 20th Century. It's gone now, but as often happens with members of Congress, Glass and Steagall have been almost entirely forgotten. Glass's story offers some very...

Guest: Steve Mang, college professor and amateur ultra-long-distance runner, joins us to talk about CC Pyle's Bunion Derbies, the informal name of two LA-to-NYC footraces held in 1928 and 1929. Amateur runners, some lacking basic equipment or running...

Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928 had little immediate impact on the world because it took over 15 years to crack the secret of how to mass-produce the it. Until that happened, penicillin existed more as an idea than as a medical...

Will the US mint a trillion-dollar coin? Probably not, but in 2001 the tiny island nation (I know, I know) of Vanuatu created $300 million overnight by quadrupling its sovereign debt using as its stated collateral a 182-pound ruby that may or may not...

In 1975 a right-wing loon purchased 300 acres of swampland outside Cape Canaveral with the dream of building a theme park recreating the experience of a US Special Forces barracks in a rural Vietnamese hamlet at the height of the war. Visitors could...

After a player died from being hit by a pitch in 1920, Major League Baseball banned the "spitball." But it allowed 17 players whose careers were determined to be dependent on it to continue throwing it. A century later, baseball is still dealing with...

In the late Sixties through the Seventies, John Brisker was widely known as the meanest, toughest man in professional basketball. After winning ABA titles in Pittsburgh and punching his way through a few tumultuous seasons with the Supersonics of the...

Guest: Jen Howard () author of on . Her book looks at the social, economic, and political causes of our addiction to Stuff, and our talk ranges from Marie Kondo to the Container Store to the Montgomery Ward Outlet. Why do we have all this crap and...

What if I told you that right now you can get a new car very nearly for free? Sounds like a scam, right? Well thanks to Hydrogen Fuel Cells, the Technology of the Future of 2002, you can. With some caveats. Crazy, right? Now what if I also told you...