4.3 • 10.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2019
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
German immigrant John Jacob Astor was the first multimillionaire in the United States, and his descendants would go on to play prominent roles in the country's history -- but how exactly did he get this enormous fortune? According to the official story, he started off in the fur trade and later expanded into real estate. Yet for more than a century people rumors about the real origin of Astor's wealth have been floating around the fringes of conversation -- what if he wasn't a legitimate businessman in the beginning, but instead engaged in less savory endeavors?
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0:00.0 | From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. |
0:06.7 | You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. |
0:11.6 | A production of I Heart Gradio's How Stuff Works. |
0:24.0 | Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. There's a no-space hole to my left. |
0:28.8 | There's a no-hole indeed. They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Paul |
0:35.6 | Mission Control Deccant who has recently been rethinking his moniker and maybe going with Paul |
0:42.2 | Hollywood in a British accent. Most importantly, you are here and that makes this stuff they don't |
0:51.5 | want you to know. This is a strange episode for us and an interesting story. There's a |
0:59.2 | couple of different conspiratorial myths we run into here and we also run into the evolution of |
1:05.9 | media and the great game of telephone that we've mentioned in previous episodes. But before we |
1:12.6 | begin, Matt, I have to ask you, do you think this summer will be the summer that our hometown |
1:20.9 | burns down? Then Atlanta burns again? Just from the heat this time, not from the interesting warfare. |
1:28.4 | My goodness. I wouldn't be surprised. My family and I went out to the Canterbury Park Festival |
1:34.8 | on Gosh Was That Saturday? Yes, it was Saturday. Just standing outside, uncovered was a |
1:42.8 | terrible thing. I would not recommend it to anyone. Find a tree, get underneath it and you'll be okay. |
1:49.2 | The music is still going to sound great. There we go. That's the spirit. It's a positive |
1:55.6 | positive spin on a terrible, terrible thing. I just landed back in town late |
2:04.8 | yesterday night or early this morning. I'm not sure which and the thing that hit me immediately |
2:11.4 | was the heat. Everyone who lives here enjoys summer and autumn and all the hits, although |
2:20.1 | slow jazz of the season until summer comes. This is terrible. This is horrific. No idea how hot or cold it |
2:29.2 | is. In your neck of the global woods, folks, but please send us what do they say on Facebook? |
2:36.1 | Thoughts and prayers are better yet ice cubes. Did you ever have those weird little popsicles that |
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