This is Angela Odell, and you are listening to Real Cool History for Kids, a podcast show featuring history told from a distinctly biblical worldview perspective.

Welcome to an adventure.

Welcome to episode 176 of Real Cool History for Kids. This episode is for Anna Buckingham, who wanted to hear the amazing, true story of Magawa, the bomb-sniffing hero rat. Now, when you hear the word rat,

what do you think of? Maybe you think of a small furry animal

that scurries around looking for food, or maybe you think of something a little sneaky,

or maybe even a little bit gross, right? Well, I'm one of those people who's not a huge fan of rodents in general, although I do know that there are some people who just love them.

But today, I'm going to tell you about a rat who was a real-life hero who helped save lives.

Magawa helped make dangerous places safe again by finding hidden bombs.

That's right. He was a rat who sniffed out bombs.

Now, to understand Magawa's story, we need to learn about a place called Cambodia. If you can, pause me for a

moment and go grab your globe or world map. Okay? Got it? Awesome. Okay. Let's find China. We've found that one

before in several other episodes. So find China, big country,

big nation over in Asia. Then slide your finger down to a peninsula that hangs down directly below it.

A peninsula is a piece of land that is surrounded by water on three sides.

Okay, so find a peninsula.

And you will see the names like Thailand and Vietnam.

If you look really, really closely,

you will see a tiny little country kind of tucked in there towards the bottom.

That is Cambodia.

Do you see it? Okay. So many years ago,

Cambodia went through a time of war and conflict. And during that time, thousands and thousands of landmines were buried in the ground. A landmine is a hidden bomb. It just sits under the surface of the ground,

and it can explode when someone steps on it or disturbs it. But even after the war ended, those

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