The Gunboat Philadelphia

In the 1880s, a conservator at the Smithsonian set out for Montana to capture an American bison before the dwindling species vanished forever. He returned with six taxidermied bison that he displayed in the museum. The bison diorama wowed visitors so much that it helped kickstart ...  Show more

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has spent a lifetime thinking about how history gets told. Before becoming the head of the Smithsonian, he was a curator, someone whose job is deciding which stories, people, and objects help us make sense of ourselves. So as America appr ...  Show more

For millennia, humans have created artifacts of their lives—from art, to books, to music. This hour, we explore ideas about capturing the ephemeral human experience for future generations to find. Guests include paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger, museum curator Ariana C ...  Show more

A past caller who's made strides in living with grief, learning to tell her story and finding a path of acceptance catches up with Gethard in studio (no phones!). They ask: Are we living in a simulation? What's dark matter? What type of scientist parties the hardest?

Documenting democracy. Untwisting the world’s largest tornado. Searching for wrecks of lost slave ships. Dinosaur hunting in Morocco. Accidentally inventing a new color. Come dive into one of the curiously delightful conversations overheard at National Geographic’s headquarters, ...  Show more

Episode 4: Hosts Aprile & Meredith tune in to… a ghost story set at a historic site, a story set in post-Katrina New Orleans, and a story about a happy birthday.Follow us for more @rattledandshookor send us a message from rattledandshook.comOriginal artwork by PuppyteethIntro voi ...  Show more