It’s that time of year, Buzzkillers, when we ring out the old and ring in the new. This is the end of another year of busting myths and taking names. We couldn’t be more pleased with the way the old show has developed, and we couldn’t be more stoked about the new things we’ve got…

Christmas Day, December 25th, is the most well-known date and event in the Christian calendar, and it doesn’t occur to most people to ask whether there’s any historical basis for placing Christ’s birth on that exact date. Do we actually _know_ that Christ was born on December 25th, over 2000 years ago? Well, let me…

Let me take you back to a significant year in world history, Buzzkillers. 1963. Many important and famous things happened in that year, and you know about most of them: the Beatles released their first album (Please Please Me) in March, the island prison at Alcatraz in California was closed, Martin Luther King gave his…

This week, we examine a history myth that gets a lot of “air time” during the holidays: the supposedly religious origins of the candy cane. The story (seen mostly in emails from your nutty uncle) goes something like this: In the early 20th century, a confectioner in Indiana created the candy cane as a symbol…

“In 1814 we took a little trip, along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississipp. We took a little bacon and we took a little beans. And we fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.” It’s a stirring folk song, perfect to stoke the patriotic fires of a young nation back in…

Try to picture in your imaginations, Buzzkillers, the Great Seal of the United States of America. Can you see it? If you can’t, pull out a one-dollar bill and have a look. There is a bald eagle in the center, clutching arrows in one of its talons, and a laurel leaf in the other. First…

Valley Forge, Winter 1777. George Washington and his Continental Army were encamped and dug in against a British attack. They waited out the winter, but it was a brutal experience. The weather was very bad, and soldiers tried to endure disease, malnutrition, and exposure. Many deserted, and more than 2,500 soldiers had died by March…

At 5:16 pm on Tuesday, the 9th of November, the lights went out in large parts of the north-eastern United States, and in the Canadian province of Ontario. A protective relay in the system that covered those areas was set too low, and when there was a surge in current demand, that relay tripped and…

Oh, Buzzkillers, the ways that history myths start and spread are numerous and strange. This week we look at the story that men dressed as women to get into lifeboats escaping the sinking Titanic, which struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage to New York close to midnight on 14 April 1912. That famous ship…

We love myths about Churchill. Legends about him are so numerous that they are, more or less, job security for the researchers here at the Buzzkill Institute. Good old Winston seems to attract myths and misquotes like a magnet. Spend any time in Oxfordshire in England and you’re bound to be told to visit Blenheim…