Best Line Cook Thoughts Podcasts (2025)

1
Reverse Ellis Island: American Migrants Who Fought for Mussolini and Built Stalin’s USSR 38:33

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9m ago38:33

38:33

America saw a significant reverse-migration in the 1800s and 1900s, with 20–50% of Italian immigrants returning to Italy as ritornati and tens of thousands of Americans, including ideologues and workers, moving to Germany, Italy, and the USSR in the 1930s seeking political or economic opportunities. Some of these American expatriates were drawn to …

1
It's Shake and Bake...and Uka Helped 2:01:37

4d ago2:01:37

2:01:37

Show us some love Uka is clearly the cooking extraordinaire, and Halloween attractions should just let Pedro walk by... This week the fellas tackle an odd agenda for a first date, passing out at concerts, and will Luda ever get all his respect? All this and more, sit back, relax, and enjoy! Support the show…

51
Don’t Use Rome as a Model of Why Societies Collapse; Use Crime Syndicates and Somalia Instead 49:42

5d ago49:42

49:42

12,000 years ago, human history changed forever when the egalitarian groups of hunter-gathering humans began to settle down and organize themselves into hierarchies. The few dominated the many, seizing control through violence. What emerged were “Goliaths”: large societies built on a collection of hierarchies that are also terrifyingly fragile, col…

1
A Union General Found a Loophole in the Fugitive Slave Act, Causing 1 Million Slaves to Flee North 45:21

7d ago45:21

45:21

After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, enslaved people feared running away to the North, as their return was mandated, and they faced brutal punishment or even death upon return to deter others from escaping. But that changed during the Civil War. Black slaves in Confederate Virginia began hearing rumors that they could receive their …

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Presidential Debriefing 2:20:39

10d ago2:20:39

2:20:39

Show us some love Yeerrrrrrr…or whatever the kids are saying these days. Ya boy’s are back in the shop, cuts are sharp, mics are hot and we’ve got all the shenanigans your week can handle. Our phrase “the government be government-ing” was in full effect this week as Orange in charge was at the forefront of the conversation. We have a “back down mem…

1
The Civil War’s Brutal Finale: A War of Attrition as Terrible as WW2-Pacific and the Napoleonic Wars 47:55

12d ago47:55

47:55

In 1864, the American Civil War reached a critical juncture with Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign, including the brutal battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, which claimed over 60,000 casualties, surpassing Gettysburg as the Americas’ deadliest clash. Abraham Lincoln faced a contentious re-election against George B. McClellan, while Confe…

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Camp David Looks Like a 1970s Lakeside Retreat. Why is it the Site of the World’s Biggest Political Summits? 41:42

14d ago41:42

41:42

Camp David, nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, spans about 125 acres, making it significantly smaller than other presidential getaways like Lyndon B. Johnson’s sprawling 2,700-acre Texas ranch or the vast 1,000-acre Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Compared to grand diplomatic venues like the White House or international summit …

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Cooking With Pedro 2:03:09

18d ago2:03:09

2:03:09

Show us some love This week, we explore how OnlyFans has blown up for the younger generations, and how maybe one of us can make a quick buck. Also, Emmy donations were on the line, are we losing our freedom of speech?, and definitely don't let Uka find your "lost" money. All this and more so enjoy! Support the show…

1
How British Scientists' Self-Experiments on Underwater Rebreathing Created D-Day Submarine Tech (And Nearly Killed Them in the Process) 53:29

19d ago53:29

53:29

In August 1942, over 7,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, in a largely forgotten landing, with only a small fraction surviving unscathed. The raid failed due to poor planning and lack of underwater reconnaissance, which left the Allies unaware of strong German coastal defenses and underwater obstacles. Inadequate submersible…

1
Over 200,000 Allied Troops Tried and Failed to Crush the Soviet Revolution After World War One 41:20

21d ago41:20

41:20

The Allied Intervention into the Russian Civil War remains one of the most ambitious yet least talked about military ventures of the 20th century. Coinciding with the end of the first World War, some 180,000 troops from several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Romania, among others…

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How the U.S. Occupation of Japan After WW2 Forged the Most Durable Peace of the 20th Century 1:00:19

26d ago1:00:19

1:00:19

During World War II, the U.S. and Japan were locked in bitter hatred, fueled by propaganda portraying each other as ruthless enemies, exemplified by dehumanizing "Tokyo Woe" posters in the U.S. and Japanese depictions of Americans as barbaric invaders. After the war, the feelings seemed to turn 180 degrees overnight. By the early 1950s, American se…

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Homer Couldn't Have Written the Iliad, But He Probably Dictated it Word for Word 52:53

28d ago52:53

52:53

The Iliad is the world’s greatest epic poem—heroic battle and divine fate set against the Trojan War. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving, but great questions remain: Where, how, and when was it composed and why does it endure? To explore these questions is today’s guest, Robin Lane Fox, a scholar and teacher of Homer for over 40…

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Back down memory lane 1:58:57

29d ago1:58:57

1:58:57

Show us some love Back like we never left, your favorite podcast is back and we're bringing you what's what in the streets while reporting from our sidewalk. In addition to discussing where we're at, we discuss where we've come from. We kicked the show off talking through undergrad stories, relationships and give our two cents on where we are now. …

1
Depression-Era Planners Thought They’d End Poverty with Public Housing. Instead, They Created the Projects 41:02

1M ago41:02

41:02

In the 1930s, New Deal-era technocrats devised a solution to homelessness and poverty itself. They believed that providing free or low-cost urban housing projects could completely eliminate housing scarcity. Planners envisioned urban communities that would propel their residents into the middle class, creating a flywheel of abundance where poverty …

1
The Alabaman Jacksonians Who Rejected the Confederacy and Marched with Sherman to the Sea 49:01

1M ago49:01

49:01

As the popular narrative goes, the Civil War was won when courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But an aspect of the war that has remained little-known for 160 years is the Alabamian Union soldiers who played a decisive role in the Civil War, only to be scrubbed from the history books. One such group was the First Alabama Calvary, formed in …

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But...SLAVERY?! 2:19:36

1M ago2:19:36

2:19:36

Show us some love The Guys are back in the booth, and this time tackle another exciting week of who knows what. Watch where you get your shrimp and seafood, we have more allegations to beat (once we get there), and how has social media affected your relationships?? Oh and just wait til you hear what Christopher Columbus said... Sit Back and Enjoy! …

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Frederick Douglass’s Private Writings on Abraham Lincoln, His Strong Critiques and Stronger Praise 49:05

1M ago49:05

49:05

Frederick Douglass made the strongest arguments for abolition in antebellum America because he made the case that abolition was not a mutation of the Founding Father’s vision of America, but a fulfillment of their promises of liberty for all. He had a lot riding on this personally – Douglas was born into slavery in Maryland around 1818, escaped to …

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The Industrial Revolution Was Supposed to Lead to Unlimited Free Time But Only Gave Us Smartphones and Endless Dopamine 31:11

1M ago31:11

31:11

Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it.…

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Ragz 2 Riches 2:05:53

2M ago2:05:53

2:05:53

Show us some love It’s us, your favorite podcast, and we’re back bringing you what’s what in these streets, but safely hanging out curbside. This marks our first week completely transitioning to Twitch, so we hope y’all are ready to see us in 4k every week! What we learned this week was, it’s probably better to practice eating a steak before going …

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James Cook Mapped the Globe Before Dying At the Hands of Hawaiians Who Once Worshipped Him 56:56

2M ago56:56

56:56

Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan are known for discoveries, but it was Captain James Cook who made global travel truly possible. Cook was an 18th-century British explorer who mapped vast regions of the Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coast, with unprecedented accuracy. He meticulously conducted soundings to measure…

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American Anarchists: The Original Domestic Extremists 39:37

2M ago39:37

39:37

In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, gover…

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Practice Makes Perfect 2:13:22

2M ago2:13:22

2:13:22

Show us some love The Fellas are back...and we are in midseason form! Topics include the preseason at the work place, can you trust relationships in today's climate, and have you been to the lost and found recently? It's lit in there....all this and more, sit back and enjoy. Support the showBy Fresh Cutz

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100 Years Before Ford v. Ferrari, a Horse Breeder Revolutionized Thoroughbred Racing Through a Similar Obsession With Progress 1:14:41

2M ago1:14:41

1:14:41

Horse racing was the most popular sport in early America, drawing massive crowds and fueling a cultural obsession with horses’ speed and pedigree. In the early 1800s, every town in America with a few thousand people had a horse racing track, with major cities drawing crowds of up to 50,000. In the midst of this was Alexander Keene Richards (1827–18…

1
Western Rome Fell Due to Germanic Immigration, Mass Inflation, and a Bloated Bureaucracy 39:05

2M ago39:05

39:05

It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the battlefield – rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire. R…

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Why the Atomic Bombing of Japan is as Justified in 2025 as it was in 1945 52:29

2M ago52:29

52:29

It's been 80 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the question of whether or not those bombings were justified has never been more contentious. That wasn't the case in the immediate aftermath: 85% of the American public approved the decision to bomb the cities in 1945, but this has dropped to 56% in more recent years, particularl…

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Surviving the Siege of Leningrad with Sawdust Bread and Iron Determination 46:54

2M ago46:54

46:54

The first year of the siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941 marked the opening stage of a 900-day-long struggle for survival that left over a million dead. The capture of the city came tantalizingly close late that year, but Hitler paused to avoid costly urban fighting. Determined to starve Leningrad into submission, what followed was a w…

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What’s the Tea?! 2:10:27

2M ago2:10:27

2:10:27

Show us some love What’s up ladies and gents, your favorite co hosts are back with this week’s shenanigans bringing you all what’s what in the streets, news and across the pond. The topic of conversation is the tea..and what’s brewing on the app. In addition to that, the Detroit “Lipton Tea Serial Killer” started to make a name for himself and clai…

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Depression-Era Governor Huey Long Wanted to Confiscate Individual Fortunes Over $1 Million, Possibly Leading to His 1935 Assassination 1:05:41

2M ago1:05:41

1:05:41

The most radical piece of legislation in the 20th century was Louisiana Governor Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth Plan,” a bold proposal to confiscate individual fortunes exceeding $1 million to fund healthcare, free college education, and a guaranteed minimum income for families struggling through the Great Depression—a plan so radical it sparked the…

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Rope Equals Fire as Humanity’s Most Important Invention: It Allowed Hunting Mammoths and Building Pyramids 55:36

2M ago55:36

55:36

“‘Rope!’ muttered Sam[wise Gamgee]. ‘I knew I’d want it, if I hadn’t got it!’” Sam knew in the Lord of the Rings that the quest would fail without rope, but he was inadvertently commenting on how civilization owes its existence to this three-strand tool. Humans first made rope 50,000 years ago and one of its earliest contributions to the rise of ci…

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6:30 am: Learn New Line Dance 1:54:18

2M ago1:54:18

1:54:18

Show us some love The guys are back and talk about still hating gratuity culture in America, learning a couple of line dances (the entry level version), and still have no idea what we have saved on our phones. AI is rapping, we are still waiting for the files, and plenty of things to review! We cover all that and more since our break so sit back an…

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The Scopes Trial Was Entirely Orchestrated But Became an Unintended 1920s Culture War Touchpoint 56:43

3M ago56:43

56:43

July 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes Trial – a trial that exposed profound divisions in America over religion, education, and public morality. This was a legal case in Dayton, Tennessee, where high school teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution, violating the state's Butler Act. The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee l…

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The Panda Was First Discovered By Theodore Roosevelt’s Sons During a 9-Month Expedition in Himalayan China 42:05

3M ago42:05

42:05

In the late 1920s, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and his younger brother Kermit, sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, wanted fame and glory apart from the family spotlight. They were seeking the “empty spots” on the maps, the areas that had yet to be explored and described by Westerners. From these remote places, they hoped to bring back exotic animals t…

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How Do We Really Know What Happened in the Past When Many Historians Were Propagandists and AI is Fabricating Everything Else? 48:46

3M ago48:46

48:46

“History is written by the winners.” This aphorism is catchy and it makes an important point that a lot of what we know about history was written with an agenda, not for the purposes of informing us. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. There are many times that the so-called “losers” wrote the histories remembered today. After the American Civil War, Sou…

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Eugénie de Montijo: The Spanish Empress Who Built Modern Paris and is Blamed For Imperial France’s Downfall 45:45

3M ago45:45

45:45

Thirty-three years after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Empire, his nephew (known as Napoleon III) became the first president of France before becoming emperor himself. Although he was a capable ruler and reformer, Napoleon III’s failed military campaigns, especially France’s loss to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War, led to his defeat, capture,…

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Zone 1 with the works 1:47:34

3M ago1:47:34

1:47:34

Show us some love Yesss that's right, your two favorite guys from your favorite podcast are back like we never left. We may have needed a few boats to get here post flood, but the fact is we made it and we're ready to bring y'all this week's shenanigans. Y'all favorite president is back in the new, this time he shares his love of alligators with al…

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John Adams: The Most Influential Yet Overlooked Founding Father? 38:38

3M ago38:38

38:38

John Adams is arguably America’s most underrated Founding Father. He has no currency that bears his image. No national holidays celebrate his birth. He’s nearly never named as anyone’s favorite president. And he has no dedicated memorial in Washington, D.C. Despite this, he was perhaps the most influential early American, rivaling Washington, Jeffe…

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Why Thomas More -- Henry VIII’s Hatchet Man and Heretic Hunter -- Was Himself Executed For Heresy After the English Reformation 49:11

3M ago49:11

49:11

Thomas More was one of the most famous—and notorious—figures in English history. Born into the era of the Wars of the Roses, educated during the European Renaissance, rising to become Chancellor of England, and ultimately destroyed by Henry VIII, he hunted Protestants for heresy and had them burnt at the stake in the final years of Catholic England…

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Delululemon 2:08:16

3M ago2:08:16

2:08:16

Show us some love AI is a great tool, but we don't know if its ready to replace humans...or is it? We talk about how we use it in everyday life, Lululemon has revealed some of their profit margins (by accident?), and the Diddy verdict is in...were you surprised by the results? All this and more, sit back and enjoy. Support the show…

1
Don’t Look to 1903s Germany to Understand American Populism. Look to 1830s New York Revivals Instead. 1:03:45

3M ago1:03:45

1:03:45

Something strange happened in Upstate New York during the 1830s. This area was called the "Burned-Over District" because so many fiery religious revivals swept through that it was metaphorically burned over. This region became a key source of the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement marked by emotional preaching and mass conversion…

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Operation Barbarossa Saw Millions of POW Executions, Civilian Murders, and Starvation Deaths 52:35

3M ago52:35

52:35

Operation Barbarossa, launched by Nazi Germany on June 22, 1941, aimed to swiftly conquer the Soviet Union, targeting key cities like Moscow, Leningrad, and Kyiv. Hitler reportedly said a meeting with his generals before the campaign began "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down," With German forces …

1
Pistol Duels Existed Across the 19th-Century World, But Only the Chaos of the American West Produced Gunfighters 51:30

3M ago51:30

51:30

To understand American history and its deep-seated relationship with violence, we must look to the last three decades of the 1800s in the American West, which had the highest murder rate per capita in American history. And it all boils down to one place: Texas. Texas was born in violence, on two fronts, with Mexico to the south and the Comanche to …

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Rome Definitively Eclipsed Greece in 197 BC By Making the Alexandrian Phalanx/Cavalry Obsolete 46:35

4M ago46:35

46:35

The battle of Cynoscephalae represents a key moment in the history of the Greco-Roman world. In this one battle the Macedonian hold over mainland Greece was broken, with the Roman Republic rising in its place as the pre-eminent power in the Greek East. At Cynoscephalae, the proud Macedonian kingdom of Antigonid monarch Philip V was humbled, its arm…

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Explicit ghost stories 2:07:14

4M ago2:07:14

2:07:14

Show us some love Yo chat! You're two favorite co host are back with another banger of an episode. With all the madness going on in our world, there have been rumors about a potential draft; well tune in so we can all be on the same page about these requirements. Trump had a parade for his birthday and yes, it was the ultimately the 'top' slingin' …

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Exploring the Wreckage of the Britannic (the Titanic’s Sister Ship) and Discovering Why It Sunk in 50 Minutes 48:25

4M ago48:25

48:25

The RMS Titanic is history’s most famous shipwreck, but it wasn’t the only ship of its kind. The White Star Line built two other nearly identical vessels: The RMS Olympic and Britannic. The Olympic carried passengers until 1935 and can be visited today. The Brittanic sank only four years after her sister ship the Titanic off the Greek island of Kea…

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Did Tariffs Make America a Manufacturing Powerhouse Or Trigger Economic Misery and Stifle Global Trade? 44:55

4M ago44:55

44:55

At a time when debates over tariffs, regulation, and the scope of government are back at center stage. Is this time in American history unprecedented, or can we find parallels in the past? For example, has trade “hollowed out” U.S. manufacturing—or have fact tariffs like the Corn Laws in Britain hurt working-class families the most? Was the Great D…

1
Chat...Who was that? 2:02:45

4M ago2:02:45

2:02:45

Show us some love #NBA segments are now just the norm, and there always seems to be one that pops up. The BET awards were this week and we recapped a little...and definitely saw the age gap on the Red Carpet. Riots to some, protests to others, but LA is in the news again and we give an update...and what is the the Blickety Blackest thing you have s…

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Uka got the Call 1:35:14

4M ago1:35:14

1:35:14

Show us some love What video games are you excited about coming...and do you think they are too complicated now? And while waiting for GTA to ever come out (who knows when), there is AI making up its own rules again. Pete is absolutely going to dance across the stage if he gets another degree, and Uka breaks down what happens when "the call" is mad…

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Alan Pinkerton: The Private Detective Who Saved Lincoln’s Life and Built America’s Contract Security State 50:07

4M ago50:07

50:07

Alan Pinkerton is perhaps the most over-achieving barrel-maker who ever lived. After practicing his trade in rural Illinois for a few years in the 1850s, the Scottish immigrant busted up a counterfeiting ring, which got the attention of Chicago’s police department, offering him a job as a detective. From here he worked as an intelligence agent in t…

1
MacArthur’s Plans to Drop 50 Nuclear Bombs During the Korean War 50:45

4M ago50:45

50:45

The Korean War came dangerously close to going nuclear, and if would have if Gen. Douglas MacArthur had gotten his way. He proposed using 30 to 50 nuclear primarily to targeting air bases, depots, and supply lines across the neck of Manchuria to create a radioactive barrier and halt Chinese and North Korean advances. This would have killed millions…

1
The Many Ways That Rome Never Fell and Lives On Today 37:16

4M ago37:16

37:16

Rome’s Western Empire may have fallen 1,600 years ago, but its cultural impact has a radioactive half-life that would make xenon jealous. Over a billion people speak Latin (or at least a Latin-derived language). Governments around the world self-consciously copy Roman buildings and create governments that copy the imperial senate. Every self-aggran…