Shows / Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious Minds
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious Minds
Actually... is a deep-dive podcast that digs up the stories history left behind - the ones that got buried, dismissed, or quietly erased. Each episode pulls apart a piece of pop culture, true crime, or hidden history to find the version nobody tells you: the hoaxes, the cover-ups, the myths that calcified into "fact."
Join us each week for the stories that are stranger, messier, and far more interesting than the official version.
Episodes
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 21: Ed and Lorraine Warren, Part 2: The Hauntings That Didn't Add Up
The stories were terrifying. The books became bestsellers. Hollywood turned them into horror classics. But what happens when the people who were actually there…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 20: Ed and Lorraine Warren, Part 1: The Couple Who Sold the Supernatural
Before The Conjuring, before Annabelle became a horror icon, and before Hollywood turned their investigations into a multimillion-dollar franchise, there were…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 19: The Amityville Horror: The Haunting, The Hoax, and the House
In 1974, six members of the DeFeo family were murdered inside a house in Amityville, New York. Just over a year later, a new family moved in – and fled after…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 18: Good Luck: The Strange, True Story of the Ouija Board
For more than a century, the Ouija board has fascinated, frightened, and mystified millions. But what if one of the world's most infamous supernatural objects…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 17: The Salem Witch Trials, Part 2: Twenty Innocent People
So how much of what we think we know about the Salem witch trials is actually true? In Part 2, the conclusion of our two-part series, on the Salem Witch…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 16: The Salem Witch Trials Part 1: How a Village Invented Its Witches
Everyone knows the story of the Salem witch trials. A group of girls behaved strangely, frightened villagers cried witchcraft, and innocent people paid the…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 15: The Greenbriar Ghost: The Dead Woman Who Named Her Killer
In 1897, a young West Virginia woman died suddenly, was buried quickly, and might have been forgotten. The doctor called it natural causes. Her mother, Mary…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 14: The Room Where Death Used to Live: Coffin Doors, Parlors, and a Very Persistent Myth
Was your living room once a “death room”? And did old American houses in the Northeast really have special doors for carrying out coffins? They’re the kind of…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 13: The Unluckiest Number in History...?
Why does the number thirteen make so many people uneasy...and when did Friday the 13th become a miniature horror holiday? In this week's episode, we untangle…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 12: Pure Imagination: The Real Story of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
You probably think you know this movie. You've seen it. You can quote it. You maybe watched it more times than you can count as a kid. But the funny part about…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 11: The Case the Jury Never Heard: How Lizzie Borden Walked Free
Everyone knows the rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. But nearly every part of it is wrong. In 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 10: The Ground Zero Imposter: Inside Tania Head’s Lie About Surviving 9/11
For years, Tania Head was regarded as one of the most remarkable survivors of September 11. She claimed she had escaped from the 78th floor of the South Tower…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 9A - The Hole Story - What Ever Happened to the Ozone Layer?
Remember when the hole in the ozone layer seemed like an impending global catastrophe...and then everyone simply stopped talking about it? In this episode, we…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 9B: 600 Feet from Home: The Jennifer Odom Kidnapping Case
In February 1993, twelve-year-old Jennifer Odom disappeared during the 600-foot walk from her school bus stop to her home in rural Pasco County, Florida. Her…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 8: Robert Todd Lincoln: The Man History Wouldn’t Leave Alone
Robert Todd Lincoln is remembered for one of history’s strangest coincidences: his eerie connection to the assassinations of three American presidents: his…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 7: The Great Cabbage Patch Kids War of Christmas 1983
In Christmas 1983, one toy turned otherwise reasonable parents into a nationwide army of determined shoppers. Cabbage Patch Kids were oddly named, a little…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 6: Before Dallas: The Forgotten Plot to Kill JFK
Three years before Dallas, a 73-year-old retired postal worker sat in a dynamite-rigged Buick, waiting for President-elect Kennedy's car to pass by in Palm…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 5: The Million Dollar Corner: What Was Hiding Behind Macy's Famous Giant Shopping Bag?
For more than sixty years, a giant red Macy’s shopping bag wrapped around the corner of the company’s Herald Square flagship. But when it came down in July…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 4: A Complicated Man - Emily Wilson and the Translation that Changed The Odyssey
In November 2017, Emily Wilson published something unprecedented in more than four hundred years of English literature: the first complete English translation…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 2: Go Ask Alice — The Fake Diary That Fooled America for 50+ Years
In 1971, a "real diary" from an anonymous, drug-addicted teenage girl hit bookshelves — and terrified a generation. Except the girl never existed. "Go Ask…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 3: Whatever Happened to D.B. Cooper’s Money? —The Perfect Crime’s Imperfect Ending
In 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a plane, collected $200,000 in ransom, and vanished into a storm over the Pacific Northwest — parachute…
Actually... Forgotten Stories for Curious MindsEpisode 1: Project Acoustic Kitty — The CIA’s Most PURR-Posterous Idea
In 1966, the CIA spent five years and roughly $20 million (in today's money) turning a house cat into a surveillance device — implanting a microphone in its…