i am not making this up podcast – Tracy S. Morris

A well-worn Hollywood plot is one where the President’s daughter is kidnapped, so a hero has to rescue her. In real life, this never would have happened to Alice Roosevelt. Not just because her father, Teddy Roosevelt was a badass who could have rescued her himself. But also because the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and Alice could rescue herself.

Ella Watson, a woman who was never known as Cattle Kate until the men behind her murder dubbed her so.

One of the most infamous outlaws of the Old West may not have existed, but may have been invented by real murderers to cover up the lynching of an innocent rancher and her husband. This is the story of who Cattle Kate was, and who she was not.

Napoleon is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders of all time, up there with Alexander the Great. But one of his most humiliating defeats actually came from a pack of domesticated rabbits.

If you don’t have a lot of patience to listen to the audio, it says that starting next week, I’ll be producing the I Am Not Making This Up podcast twice a month instead of only once. From now on, look for it on the first and third Monday of every month.

The library of Alexandria may have contained between 40,000 and 400,000 scrolls in it’s heyday.

On September 2, a fire destroyed the National Museum of Brazil, taking with it 90 percent of the museum’s collection. This included recordings of dead languages and zoological and botanical specimens.

When we think about large, destructive loss of accumulated knowledge, we think of the burning of the Library of Alexandria. But the burning of the library may be a myth. The library may have actually burned more than once. Or it may not have burned at all, instead gradually declining into obscurity.

Editorial Note:

Apologies for this show being over a week late. Due to the changes in the household from the oldest child starting first grade, I’m figuring out my new work/life balance. It’s going about as well as one can expect.

Editorial Note 2: I received an e-mail stating that I pronounced New Madrid Fault incorrectly in the last podcast. I’m not from the St. Louis area. I am from the Arkansas Ozarks, however. So I pronounced it the way I hear it local to me, (Mah-Drid).

According to this article from the Riverfront Times, that is the correct, local way to say it. But I’m also told in the e-mail that locals pronounce it Mae-Drid. Sounds like even in that region, the word might be contentious.