Yes, We Have Bananas

Eleven year-old Johnny Clem formally became part of the Union Army on 1st May, 1863 - though he had already been participating as a Drummer Boy for the 22nd Michigan Infantry in the American Civil War for two years. Clem's youthful determination and bravery propelled him into the ...  Show more

The Day the Clown Cried, Jerry Lewis’s notorious, unreleased Holocaust movie, faced a crisis on 30th April, 1972, when the American actor-director found himself in an extraordinary predicament: the financing for his deeply personal film project had collapsed mid-shoot. Faced with ...  Show more

In the late 19th century, bananas, a fruit that had been popular for thousands of years suddenly became a mass-market sensation. However, just a few decades after it was popularized, the industry had to completely change what was grown due to a pestilence.  As a result, the ban ...  Show more

On this episode of Our American Stories, if you think of the quintessential American fruit, it would probably have to be the apple. But apples are not our cheapest fruit—bananas are! But why? Here’s the History Guy with the story of the banana. Support the show ( https://www.ouram ...  Show more

Bananas. That yummy yellow fruit. We love it. But let me tell you, this simple fruit has a COMPLICATED past. We’re talking labor strikes, insurrections, murder, environmental destruction, insider trading, and even potential nuclear war. No, seriously. Today we get into the very d ...  Show more

HARVEY, our omnipresent virtual voice assistant, gets a software update that makes him go bananas for bananas. And if we talk about anything except bananas, he turns the microphones off! We talk to geneticist Dr. Janina Jeff about how much DNA we share with a banana, find out why ...  Show more