Stuff You Should Know

Despite its knights, bishops and castles, the game of chess has been around a lot longer since the Medieval Age. And it wasn't even invented in Europe - chess comes from 2nd-century India, when some unknown inventor created what has come to be considered the perfect game. Learn all about the history of chess and how to play it in this engrossing episode of Stuff You Should Know. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After her daughter and husband died, heiress Sarah Winchester became obsessed with the idea that spirits haunted her and to appease them she had to have a house continuously built for them. So she did - 24 hours a day for 38 years. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Halloween, and Josh and Chuck are ready to creep you out with this year's spooky story, Algernon Blackwood's scary short story, The Empty House. Tune in, turn down the lights and prepare for chills to run down your spine as they read this classic bit of horror fiction. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Although most people who've used Ouija boards don't think they're communicating with the beyond, there is something mysterious about how it works. Learn the ins and outs of the popular parlor game that sprang directly from the 19th-century spiritualism movement in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know how when you see a guide dog leading a blind person to their destination and you think, "There goes a truly great dog?" It turns out you are absolutely correct. Guide dogs are about as special as dogs can get and it's through years of hard work. Learn about the ins and outs of guide dogs in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Times are still kind of tough, but there are some time-tested and easy ways to get ahead and in this episode Josh and Chuck explore them. Learn about not only how to save, but also how to make your new-found dough grow. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a familiar theme, an indigenous group's culture falls apart when exposed to European ideals, weapons and disease. For the Maori of New Zealand, however, a determined effort to preserve and revive its ancient identity has started to pay off. Join Josh and Chuck as they explore the complexities of Maori culture. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During the siege of Syracuse in 214 BCE, the city-state's resident genius, Archimedes, built a number of clever war machines to thwart the invading Roman fleet. One invention, the death ray, has been considered the stuff of legend. But could it have been real? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US has developed some great equipment for peering into deep space that can also be used to great effect when trained on Earth. Now NASA is using satellites to track natural processes around the globe in an effort to better predict natural disasters like hurricanes and volcanoes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You've heard all about diplomatic immunity, but we'll bet you don't really know how it works. Take some time to get into the nuts and bolts of this ancient and bizarre international custom and just how an embassy can be considered sovereign soil in this episode of SYSK. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in the 1990s, Congress effectively banned the scientific study of gun violence. Still, a handful of researchers plugged on and produced a small body of work about the effect of the presence of guns on the human psyche. Chuck and Josh look at the evidence. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in the mid-1980s a new and extremely potent drug hit the scene: crack cocaine. In short order, America was in the grip of both a sweeping addiction and a state of hysteria over use of the drug and the social consequences of crack, like crack babies. Now, 30 years on SYSK takes a look back at the receding wave of the crack epidemic and its lasting legacy on America. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck and Josh have covered just about every aspect of death except dying itself. Here, they fulfill the death suite of podcasts with an in-depth look at just how people die, what happens to the body during the dying process and how people accept death -- and what they regret not having done while they lived. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Improvised explosive devices were the primary killer of American troops in Iraq and continue to top the list in Afghanistan. Their use is so prevalent among guerrillas and insurgents because they are so effective. They are easy to put together with parts that are easy to obtain and they are easy to hide. Learn about these terrible weapons in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are few things more futile than trying to count all of the money in the world. Even many governments have no idea how much currency they have issued. But that won't stop Chuck and Josh from trying and explaining why we can't be sure how much money exists and the problems with flooding the world markets with bread. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometimes providence smiles on historians. Thus is the case with the Rosetta stone, an ancient Egyptian tablet that served as the key for unlocking hieroglyphics, lost to time for a millennia. Learn about the international intrigue, rivalry to translate it and the luck that led to the founding of Egyptology. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just before Francisco Pizarro arrived in South American in 1532, the Inca empire covered 350,000 square miles and boasted a million inhabitants. Yet Pizarro managed to take down this vast, powerful and advanced bureaucracy with only 168 men. Find out how and learn about the Inca on this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a pretty miserable thing to break a bone. There's the initial blinding pain, all of the medical procedures during a trip to the hospital and then, in the best case example, you have to wear a cast for four months. Beneath all of this misery, though, your body is carrying out some pretty amazing processes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The annals of history hold a special place for people who have carried out treachery and betrayed their own. Thousands of years later, their names are still synonymous with being a scoundrel around the world. From Marcus Brutus to Vidkun Quisling and more, Josh and Chuck examine some of the bigger turncoats to live -- and exonerate others. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the Jet Age came about, pilots found they had a brand new problem with their brand new planes: how to bail out when they found themselves in a pinch at 700 mph. In the mid-1940s, aerospace engineers got to work coming up with a fascinating and complex lifesaving device, the ejection seat. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.