Hidden Lens History Podcast

About Hidden Lens History Podcast

Hidden Lens History is a bite-sized history podcast built from strange newspaper stories. In about five minutes, hear one remarkable, bizarre, funny, or forgotten story pulled from the archives. I dig through old newspapers looking for stories worth following, then chase them wherever they lead. Strange crimes. Ridiculous inventions. Scams. Disasters. Bizarre contests. Famous people doing strange things. Ordinary people having very unusual days. Like why did one newspaper call July 4 a clerical error? How did a greased-pig contest become illegal in Minnesota? And what happens when a headline from 100 years ago turns into a festival 94 years later? I check the claims, find the photographs and records, and try to figure out what actually happened. See the original clippings, images, and sources at hiddenlenshistory.com. The strange side of history, one newspaper at a time. – Chris www.hiddenlenshistory.com (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Hidden Lens History

Category

history · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

9 Sept 2026

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

15 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   6 Oct 2026

   The Real Boy Behind Seinfeld’s Babe Ruth Joke

   In this episode, I follow the real story behind one of Seinfeld’s best baseball jokes. In 1926, Babe Ruth promised seriously ill 11-year-old Johnny Sylvester that he would hit a home run for him in the World Series. Ruth didn’t hit one. He hit three. The story became baseball legend, was rewritten by Hollywood, and eventually resurfaced nearly 70 years later in Kramer’s promise to Paul O’Neill. But the original newspaper story is stranger, and better, than the version most people remember. Read the full story and see the original newspaper clippings:Hidden Lens History: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/the-real-boy-behind-seinfelds-babe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/the-real-boy-behind-seinfelds-babe) Sources:The Daily Messenger — October 6, 1926Daily Notes — October 7, 1926Journal Gazette and Times-Courier — October 7, 1926World-News — October 8, 1926The Tribune — October 12, 1926Daily News — October 12, 1926Daily News — October 14, 1926La Crosse Tribune — September 9, 1942Taylorville Daily Breeze-Courier — December 24, 1948 Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Houdini Tested His Own Coffin

   One hundred years ago today, Harry Houdini climbed into a glass-topped, airtight coffin outside a furniture store in Worcester, Massachusetts, and stayed there for about an hour while a crowd watched. The newspapers promoted it as the coffin Houdini expected to be buried in when he died. Thirty-one days later, Houdini was dead. In this episode of Hidden Lens History, we follow Houdini’s strange final public stunt, what actually happened inside the coffin, and the eerie timing that makes the September 30, 1926 newspaper coverage so remarkable. Read the story and see the images here: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/houdini-tested-his-own-coffin (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/houdini-tested-his-own-coffin) Sources: Worcester Telegram, Sept. 29, Sept. 30 & Oct. 1, 1926; Worcester Evening Gazette, Sept. 30, 1926; Belleville News-Democrat, Oct. 26, 1926; Library of Congress, Item No. 96518807. Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   22 Sept 2026

   A Third Term?

   Exactly 100 years ago today, Americans were wondering whether Calvin Coolidge might break one of the country’s oldest presidential traditions and seek what some considered a third term. A September 22, 1926 political cartoon showed Coolidge standing beside a vase labeled “3rd Term Precedent,” while the Republican elephant encouraged him to take a swing at it. The question was more complicated than it sounds today. In this episode of Hidden Lens History, we follow the debate, an earlier fight over Theodore Roosevelt’s third-term campaign, and the remarkably short statement Coolidge eventually used to answer the question. Read the full story and see the original September 22, 1926 cartoon:https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/a-third-term (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/a-third-term) Hidden Lens History opens newspapers from exactly 100 years ago, finds something worth sharing, and follows it as far as it can. Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

4. 

   21 Sept 2026

   Babies on Display

   In Washington, D.C., on September 21, 1926, the Florence Crittenton Home opened its annual fall fundraiser with an unusual attraction: babies placed in a downtown storefront window for passing shoppers to see. The display ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and contemporary reporting described it as an appeal for donations to support the women and infants in the home's care. Even stranger, this was not a one-time stunt. A surviving photograph from 1914 shows the same organization holding a similar baby exhibit years earlier. In this episode of Hidden Lens History, we look at this strange little piece of everyday life from exactly 100 years ago. Read along and see the photo here: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/babies-on-display (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/babies-on-display) Hidden Lens History finds strange, forgotten, funny, tragic, and remarkable stories in newspapers exactly 100 years later. Subscribe to get one FREE every day. 100 year old headlines. A century of hindsight. #History #HiddenHistory #1926 #WashingtonDC #NewspaperHistory Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

5. 

   20 Sept 2026

   The 7-Minute Movie That Got a Man Arrested

   This episode follows a headline from September 19th, 1926 about a man who gets arrested after showing a film in his theater. On a Sunday. Which was illegal in Springfield Missouri at the time. Learn more about this wild story that ended up in a Missouri Supreme Court Ruling that affected things for decades. All on the same front page as the Great Miami Hurricane. Read along and subscribe here: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/the-7-minute-movie-that-got-a-man (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/the-7-minute-movie-that-got-a-man) Or go watch episodes on YouTube. -Chris Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

6. 

   18 Sept 2026

   Apparently Queens Liked To Fish

   One hundred years ago today, newspapers across America reported an oddly specific royal fishing contest from the Italian Alps: Queen Elena of Italy caught 268 trout. Her husband, King Victor Emmanuel III, caught 179. Their son Umberto managed 16. That number sounded ridiculous, so I went looking. What I found was a queen who was genuinely obsessed with fishing: rods and reels from across Europe, a device for counting trout, competitions with the King, and even a story about having herself tied to a tree so she could reach a better fishing spot. And on the exact same day, halfway around the world, Queen Elena was making headlines for something completely different: bobbed hair. Hidden Lens History follows real newspaper stories exactly 100 years later and sees where they lead. Head over to read the story and see the images on our Substack; https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/the-queen-who-caught-268-trout (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/the-queen-who-caught-268-trout) Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

7. 

   17 Sept 2026

   A Dr. Said He Changed His Own Eye Color

   In 1926, Dr. J. D. Levine claimed he had changed his own eyes from brown to blue simply by changing what he ate. That was only the beginning. Levine traveled around North America lecturing on iridology, a system he believed allowed him to read the condition of the human body through the iris. Clear blue eyes meant health. Brown eyes meant toxins. Sailors supposedly benefited from sea air. Irish blue eyes? Levine credited potatoes and buttermilk. He even described the human eye as a kind of radio receiver, picking up “vibrations” from elsewhere in the body. So who was J. D. Levine? Did he really believe what he was teaching? And what happened when researchers eventually tested the claims behind iridology? This episode of Hidden Lens History began with one strange sentence in a newspaper published 100 years ago today and went considerably further than expected. Hidden Lens History follows real newspaper stories from exactly 100 years ago and sees where they lead. Read the story and see the original newspaper clippings on Hidden Lens History: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/a-dr-said-he-changed-his-own-eye (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/a-dr-said-he-changed-his-own-eye) Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

8. 

   16 Sept 2026

   Honeymoons In Jail Don’t Go So Big

   Two weeks after her wedding, a 21-year-old woman sat in the Indianapolis city jail and gave a newspaper reporter her advice for other brides. Her advice was that when your husband plans a honeymoon, you should make sure he owns the means of transportation. Emma Catherine Jenkins and her husband had five dollars left. He'd gone to New Albany, Indiana looking for work. They asked a hotel manager if they could sit on the front porch until the 1:30 in the morning train, and while they were sitting there another guest pulled up and left his keys in the car. The Indianapolis Times ran the whole thing as a comedy piece. Jail bride, hubby, advice to girls, photograph and all. But she tells the reporter exactly what happened, start to finish, and the story underneath the jokes is two broke kids two weeks married with two dollars left for gasoline. She's the one who confessed, and nobody made her. And when her husband offered to take the entire charge so she could walk out, she said no. This episode is mostly her. She's a better talker than I am. Original newspaper page and her photograph: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/honeymoons-in-jail-dont-go-so-big (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/honeymoons-in-jail-dont-go-so-big) Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

9. 

   16 Sept 2026

   Floating Bread, Dead Bodies, and Mark Twain

   In 1926 a Connecticut state trooper went looking for a drowned woman by floating five loaves of bread. Four of them drifted off. One stopped and sat still while the others went past. They dropped grappling hooks underneath it, and she was there. The papers all reached for Mark Twain, and the method really is in Tom Sawyer, chapter fourteen, the boys on Jackson's Island watching the ferry fire its cannon over the water. But the trooper told reporters he hadn't gotten it from the book. He remembered it from his childhood. The state police wouldn't explain the theory. They said only that the idea was old, that they'd never tried it, and that it had apparently worked. Two weeks later TIME ran it in the section called Science, and ended with a line about how nobody had yet determined what laws govern the attraction of a dead body for a loaf of bread. In November a paper in Vermont reprinted the whole thing, not as a curiosity but because three people had just drowned in Canandaigua Lake and nobody could find them. The woman is never named in any of it. She's Mrs. George Lewis in the front-page story, in the wire copy, in the Vermont reprint, and in the TIME archive that's still online today. Full illustrated version, with all the original pages: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/floating-bread-dead-bodies-and-mark (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/floating-bread-dead-bodies-and-mark) Chapters (adjust to your cut) 00:00 Front page, Bridgeport 02:25 Tom Sawyer, chapter fourteen 05:04 Mrs. George Lewis Keywords: Lake Zoar, Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain, 1926, drowning, folk belief, Connecticut State Police, TIME magazine, Huckleberry Finn, quicksilver, Bridgeport, Newtown Connecticut, old newspapers, history podcast Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

10. 

    14 Sept 2026

    The “Taste Organ”

    Today’s 100-years-ago-find was pretty immediate once I saw this wonderful sketch in the newspaper under the heading “Latest facts from Science, Mechanics, and Invention.” It’s titled, “‘Jazzin Up’ Jaded Appetites with Science’s New Taste Organ.” That’s right, taste organ. And they didn’t mean your tongue. The picture alone is what stood out. It’s a giant organ like you’d see in a music hall, with two rows of keys, and an organist sitting at the bench. But instead of pipes extending from the top, it’s canisters of liquid, in different flavors. They’re labeled orange, lemon, wintergreen, apple, pineapple, vanilla, nectar, raspberry, cherry, lime, ambrosia, and blackberry. And the best part? There are three tubes connected to the organ. One is in the organists mouth, and the other two are in two “listeners” mouths. As the article explains, “so that the various concentrated liquids can be injected either singly or in the correct combination.” Yum. Unless of course you remember that eventually all of those flavors would be in your mouth at the same time, right? As I understand it, your brain doesn’t simply forget flavors. If you’ve ever had a glass of orange juice even 5 minutes after brushing your teeth, you know what I mean. The idea was developed by a French scholar and further investigated by C.F. Schurch who built a real working model that was “quite successful.” Unfortunately there is no photo of the actual build, at least that I could find, and the one in the paper is just an artist’s rendering. The piece originally ran in that summer’s edition of Science and Invention Magazine, and playfully mentions that: Consideration of this subject is quite as interesting indeed as that of the "smell- organ”, described several years ago in the pages of this magazine. Well naturally I had to track that down. Dig through the archives yourself at Newspapers.com (https://www.tkqlhce.com/click-101861247-15733830?utm_campaign=spooners-park&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.hiddenlenshistory.com&_bhlid=582fb33e9db12bb51ae309781379502958760c8e) → I may earn a commission if you subscribe through this link. Sure enough, June 1922, there it was. The smell organ. “The Newest Noiseless Organ. It Delights You Not With Wonderful Rhapsodies in Sound, But With Wonderful Musical Combinations Expressed by Delicately Graduated Odors.” If you’re just listening to this it’s what I described earlier but now instead of canisters atop the organ, it’s perfume spray bottles. The idea stemmed from the work of French chemist Dr. Septimus Piesse, who claimed that “every perfume produces its own particular effect on the end organs of smell terminating in the mucosa.” He even mapped out each note and its corresponding smell. Here’s just a taste, or whiff, if you will. Mint, patchouli, lavender, cinnamon, violet, sandalwood, rose, and musk. If you’re thinking what I am, that all those smells together would smell like walking past Bath & Body Works in the mall, Dr. Piesse was ahead of you. He says: Of course, the combination of these odors will create a smell entirely different from any of the individual qualities of the various perfumes and it is necessary that in the soft dreamy compositions, the odors blend harmoniously. …the audience will be saved the rather unusual embarrassment, of smelling disagreeable combinations. Some music, would perhaps have to be changed and the odors carefully graduated so that in the smells wafted over the audience no particular perfume will predominate, except when the loud pedal, or rather.in these smell organs, the strong odor pedal is trod upon. The strong odor pedal? I’d say maybe light a match next time. There is an elaborate explanation, then, of how the performance hall would be arranged so that the smells could waft playfully and delicately over the patrons in an organized manner. But if you’ve smelled the back ends of any regional airliner or crowded graduation in a high school gymnasium, I think it was just naive optimism on his part. Both of these wild ideas stemmed from the “color organ,” which was described on earlier pages. That, of course is the one thing does live on today as a good idea: pairing lights with music. But tastes and odors? I think those are better left to meal time. See you tomorrow - Chris Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. Sources * Science and Invention July 1926 * Science and Invention June 1922 * Herald and Review; The Decatur Herald September 14, 1926 Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

11. 

    12 Sept 2026

    Poowee Defeats Hoowee or Sooee

    The first World Championship Hog Calling Contest was held in Omaha, Nebraska on September 11, 1926. The next morning the Sunday World-Herald gave it the banner across the top of the front page, in bigger type than the bomb thrown at Mussolini, which got a column further down. Read the illustrated version, with every clipping: https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/poowee-defeats-hoowee-or-sooee (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/poowee-defeats-hoowee-or-sooee) The winner was Fred Patzel, a forty-seven-year-old farm worker and excavator from Madison, Nebraska. He took a gold medal, seven hundred dollars, and the title of World Champion Hog Caller. Hog calling was a real working skill. Before electric fence and automatic feeders, your animals were spread over open ground and your voice was the only way to gather them. Patzel described his method as four escalating calls: an introduction, an invitation, an order, and then a punch on the flanks of anything still lying in the mud. But the championship itself had been invented a few weeks earlier by the newspaper that reported it. The Live Stock Exchange was brought in, the Omaha Radio Trades Association offered to stage it and helped pay for it, and the contest ran during a radio trade exposition. It was broadcast over WOAW, and the judging weighed how a farm voice sounded coming out of a speaker. Then it got away from everyone. The Literary Digest printed sheet music of his call. The American Legion took him to Philadelphia, a man who had never been more than two hundred miles from home. P. G. Wodehouse named him in the story that introduced the Empress of Blandings. A newspaper in Vienna printed exploits he never performed, and that clipping ended up in his coat pocket, where a reporter found it eight years later. He turned down a thousand dollars to tour and went back to digging. Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

12. 

    11 Sept 2026

    A Goat-Gland Baby and American Fraud

    A giant goat stared out from a 1926 newspaper spread promoting a doctor who claimed goat glands could restore youth. The baby pictured with him was supposed to be proof it worked. I found the same photo running six years earlier. And the very next day after this spread ran, a second doctor was selling the exact same promise in a different city, dressed up to look like a news story. Neither one of them found what they were selling. A hundred years later, we're still buying the pitch anyway, just with better packaging. Read along and see all the clippings, photos, and sources here (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/p/a-goat-gland-baby-and-american-fraud) Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

13. 

    10 Sept 2026

    The Baby With Two Birthdays

    A ship pulled into San Francisco in 1926 with a math problem: it left port with 128 passengers, and arrived with 130. One of the two babies born at sea that voyage became a minor newspaper sensation, because of exactly where, and exactly when, he was born. This one starts as a quirky headline and turns into a genuine unsolved mystery 100 years later, one that even his own gravestone may not settle. Read the full story, clippings, and photos at hiddenlenshistory.com (http://www.hiddenlenshistory.com) Watch on Youtube and follow us on every social platform @hiddenlenshistory This episode contains one affiliate link (Ancestry (https://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=h0VCp%2afWTrg&offerid=2105163.16&type=3&subid=0)). If you sign up through it, I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

14. 

    9 Sept 2026

    A Letter That Took 18 Years to Get Delivered

    Today’s Find One hundred years ago today, the B.F. Goodrich Rubber Company’s New York branch received a letter that had been mailed eighteen years earlier. The letter had been posted sometime around 1908, less than a mile from where Goodrich’s branch office eventually stood. It never actually made it to its original destination. By then, the building had moved. Instead, the letter slipped into the mail chute of the Mills Building at 15 Broad Street and stayed lodged there, undiscovered, for nearly two decades. Nobody found it because nobody had reason to look (except maybe the original sender who was wondering where his tubes were). The Mills Building where the letter was lost, was a ten-story structure completed in 1882. It stood at the corner of Broad Street and Exchange Place, wrapped around the J.P. Morgan building next door. It stayed in use for 43 years until Equitable Trust took over the lease in early 1925. They began tearing the building down to put up a new skyscraper in its place. It was during that demolition that workers pulled apart the old mail chute and found the letter still inside it. Here is a similar mail chute from the era: And the best part of the story? Inside the letter was a check for $25.20 (roughly $900 today!). It was a payment for two inner tubes, written at a time when that was the retail price. By 1926, the papers report those same two tubes cost less than ten dollars. Apparently eighteen years of industrial progress in rubber manufacturing had cut the price by more than half. Mail delivery at the time was pretty remarkable, too. You could mail a letter in New York one day, and have it delivered in San Francisco the next evening. Even today, I once had a postcard delivered six months after I mailed it. But 18 years to go less than a mile?! Incredible. It reminds me of the Frog and Toad story where the two of them wait on the porch for days anticipating the mail. Because turns out, the mail carrier was a snail. One thing I couldn’t find out was whether the original sender was able to get his tubes elsewhere. See you tomorrow. – Chris Watch the story on Youtube (https://youtube.com/shorts/NCJ0vHqATPE?feature=share) Sources * Wire report, September 9, 1926 (”And He Cussed the Tire Concern, Sure”) * Brownwood Banner-Bulletin, September 9, 1926 (”Eighteen Year Old Letter Contained Order for Tubes”) * Photos: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library, “Equitable Trust Company Building,” The New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1926. * Mail Chute, Grand Central. Bain News Service, publisher, [between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014699661/ (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014699661/) This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

15. 

    9 Sept 2026

    Hidden Lens History: The Podcast Trailer

    I’m taking the same daily stories I find from newspapers 100 years ago, and giving them to you every way I can. Now you can listen to them! Every episode is short, usually five minutes or less. That’s about how long it takes to deliver something genuinely strange, funny, or true that happened exactly a century ago every day. I follow the headline wherever it takes us and some days learn right alongside you. I’ll have new episodes every day, right beside the newsletter where you can see the actual articles and images we’re talking about. Subscribe and you’ll never miss one. -Chris Get full access to Hidden Lens History at www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe (https://www.hiddenlenshistory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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