Marco Polo Part 1

On October 30, 1938, a young virtuoso, Orson Welles, produced a realistic radio broadcast of a full-scale alien invasion that ignited widespread panic across America. Or so the story goes. Happy Halloween! Sources: A Brad Schwartz. Broadcast Hysteria : Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. Hill And Wang, A Division Of Farrar, Straus And Giroux, 2015.

Over a cold December weekend in 1952, a thick, yellowish fog strangled London. One of the worst ecological disasters in the country’s history, it led to clean air reforms.Sources:American Experience. “When Smog Turned Deadly - History’s Most Dangerous Smog Events.” Pbs.Org, American Experience, 8 Aug. 2025, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/most-dangerous-smog-history/. Accessed 25 Oct. 2026.Kate Winkler Dawson. Death in the Air : The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City. Hachette Books, 2018.

The brutal murder of 8 people - 2 of them children - in Villisca, Iowa in 1912 was never solved. There has been no shortage of theories since then!

The dictator of Paraguay in the 1860’s was a man named Francisco Solano López, who decided to go to war with Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. It was disastrous for him and the people of Paraguay and still the bloodiest war ever fought in South American history - also known as the War of the Triple Alliance.Sources:Schofield Saeger, James. Francisco Solano López and the Ruination of Paraguay. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2007.

We continue the epic journey of Marco Polo with things both real and imagined, believed and disbelieved. All grand adventures and great odysseys must come to an end, but the question now was, were they to be believed?Sources:Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence BargreenThe Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo and Rustichello da PisaGenghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

Marco Polo dictated the greatest world travel adventure story in history while he was in prison. How did he get there? Well, he was only 17 when he joined his father and uncle in the family trade, and so begins the odyssey of Marco Polo…Sources:Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence BargreenThe Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo and Rustichello da PisaGenghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

The Silk Road was one of most influential network of trade routes to ever exist. This episode is related to our next series and a listener request!Sources:Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence BargreenThe Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo and Rustichello da PisaGenghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

You recognize the name Chevrolet from one of the world’s top car manufacturers in existence, but do you know the story of the man who gave it its name? Joining us is Tony from the How the West Was F#cked podcast!Sources:Barras, P. (2004). The Louis Chevrolet Adventure.K, C. E. (2025). Chevrolet’s. Independently Published.Louis Chevrolet | Automotive Hall of Fame. (2025). In Automotivehalloffame.org. https://automotivehalloffame.org/honoree/louis-chevrolet/Louis Chevrolet | Biography & Facts. (2019). In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Chevrolet

The Iran Contra Affair had other, far reaching, and devastating consequences. Because of close relationship between the CIA and the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, drug smuggling and the lucrative cocaine trade in disaffected communities in the United States became increasingly prevalent. As the CIA turned a blind eye to the crimes it was directly or indirectly condoning, the United States started the War on Drugs.Sources:Mayer, Jane, and Doyle McManus. Landslide. HarperCollins, 1 Jan. 1988.PBS. “The Iran-Contra Affair .” Pbs.org, PBS, 2019, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reagan-iran/.Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance : The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Tiverton, Devon, Old Street, 2015.

In part 2, we see the coverup unravel. Not only did the Reagan administration have to explain damning evidence of arms for hostages, but also the diversion of profits from those arms sales to the Contras, both of which are highly illegal, not to mention hypocritical. Sources:Mayer, Jane, and Doyle McManus. Landslide. HarperCollins, 1 Jan. 1988.PBS. “The Iran-Contra Affair .” Pbs.org, PBS, 2019, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reagan-iran/.Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance : The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Tiverton, Devon, Old Street, 2015.