Omnibus
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Omnibus
Every week, Ken Jennings and John Roderick add a new entry to the OMNIBUS, an encyclopedic reference work of strange-but-true stories that they are compiling as a time capsule for future generations.
Episodi recenti
684 episodi
Grit (Entry 551.PR1004)
In which a plucky immigrant "printer's devil" creates a newspaper that puzzles and pays off generations of young American boys, and John avoids a chai...
The Grand DARPA Challenge (Entry 543.PS5507)
In which a government-backed desert race for unmanned vehicles ignites the technologies driving the autonomous future now creeping into our cities - w...
Jack Kirby’s Lost Art (Entry 688.DE2203)
In which Jack Kirby, a titan of American pop culture, confronts the disappearance of thousands of pages of his original comic art—and the battle over...
New York to Nome (Entry 835.AC2710)
In which two young Depression-era clerks break from their dull routines and embark on a canoe trip. Certificate #44688
(LIVE) New Coke (Entry 835.LK0538)
In which three well-meaning Atlanta executives accidentally announce their surrender in the cola wars, and Ken reads a letter. Certificate #38738.
Pneumatic Tubes (Entry 955.JN0308)
In which mail, cash, trash, passengers, burgers, and cats are sent zipping through vast networks on puffs of compressed air, and John would like to be...
Management by Wandering Around (Entry 754.PS10740)
In which a Wyoming-educated economist gets big in Japan by inventing modern business theory, and Ken wants to be able to wince on a call. Certificate...
The Spirit of Australia (Entry 1203.PS7716)
In which an power tools salesman builds the world's fastest boat in his Sydney backyard and somehow survives the experience, and John thinks it's funn...
Spam (Entry 1195.JB0607)
In which a Minnesota meat concern changes the face of world cuisine by passing their surplus pork shoulder off on hungry soldiers, and Ken imagines a...
The False Dmitrys (Entry 451.2K0428)
In which three or four pretenders decide to pass themselves off as a very convincingly killed Russian prince, and John realizes some jobs have drippin...
Laugh Tracks (Entry 704.EC0202)
In which a mystery of Nazi propaganda, once solved, powers television sitcoms for decades to come, and Ken wonders about the least talented part of a...
The NATO Phonetic Alphabet (Entry 826.RV2213)
In which post-war science finally develops the perfect system for spelling things over radio and telephones, and John learns he has been misspelling a...
Muzak (Entry 820.1S1616)
In which a series of engineers, entrepreneurs, and classic TV producers discover that America wants gentle music piped into its public spaces, and Ken...
We Now Conclude Our Broadcast Day (Entry 1422.PS0305)
In which television stations spend decades signing off every night after the national anthem, and John likes to keep a stiff upper lip during Mormon T...
The MGM Auction (Entry 783.JB2813)
In which wheeler-dealers and Debbie Reynolds pillage a priceless trove of movie treasure for pennies on the dollar, and Ken has never been in his own...
Allan Bakke, M.D. (Entry 093.SS0510)
In which a Marine vet and NASA engineer changes the course of American public policy when he fails to get into medical school, and John has no pith. C...
Radioactive Boy (Entry 1026.JB4132)
In which a Detroit-area teen overachieves in Boy Scouts by trying to build a nuclear reactor in a potting shed, and Ken only wants capitalized toys. C...
Dollar Princesses (Entry 370.NU3603)
In which a generation of English peers and their sons look to fix their leaky castle roofs by marrying wealthy American "buccaneers," and John has nev...
Teddy Girls (Entry 1283.PR3122)
In which the dandyish vintage finds of postwar British teens set a blueprint for the rest of 20th-century youth fashion, and Ken keeps getting hit in...
The Integratron (Entry 650.SS0117)
In which a 700-year-old Venusian designs a mysterious whitewashed dome in the Mojave Desert, and John would like to change history at the mutiny on th...
Chemtrails (Entry 212.AM0407)
In which internet-era conspiracy theorists become convinced that jet contrails are weather control masterminded from Fairbanks, Alaska, and Ken thinks...
Ex-Millionaires (Entry 438.EC0514)
In which some of the bankers who lost their shirts in the Great Depression find a cushy retirement in the Bronx instead of jumping out windows, and Jo...
Margarine (Entry 759.JU0525)
In which butter substitutes have to overcome scientific hurdles, dairy-friendly laws, and bad news about trans fats, and Ken thinks Germany is trying...
Chopin's Heart (Entry 218.JB4124)
In which Poland's most famous exile partially returns to Warsaw to posthumously annoy both tsars and Nazis, and John's restaurant idea has some light...
Hostile Architecture (Entry 601.PR2907)
In which today's cities face tough choices on how to guide urban behavior with incredibly uncomfortable-looking design features, and Ken would pee on...
The War Between the States (Entry 1409.IS1902)
In which it takes decades for America to decide whether its civil war was an insurrection or an invasion, nomenclature-wise, and John walks very errat...
The Dreadnought Hoax (Entry 380.PS6831)
In which six bored, Cambridge-connected bohemians con their way onto the British Empire's naval flagship by dressing as African royalty, and Ken think...
The Comics Code Authority (Entry 248.2CH2115)
In which a crusading social psychiatrist drums up the moral panic that gets two mega-popular comic book genres banned from America's newsstands, and J...
Gorillas, Discovery of (Entry 540.PS10420)
In which it takes Europe over two thousand years to figure out that the greatest of the great apes is not just Carthaginian folklore, and Ken would li...
Victorian Hairwork (Entry 1394.LK2118)
In which the popularity of "mourning bequeathments" and the death of the Prince Consort lead to an explosion of morbid family handicrafts, and John gi...
Hawaiian Guitar (Entry 572.PS14409)
In which a Honolulu teenager discovers a rusty bolt by the side of the road and changes the face of 20th-century music across multiple genres, and Ken...
Vows of Silence (Entry 1403.PS10730)
In which a famed monastic tradition is revealed to be a modern misunderstanding of the chattiness of religious life, and Ken does not want to know wha...
Rock Paper Scissors (Entry 1079.1CH2613)
In which an ancient Chinese game of intransitive balance changes the world as both a children's pastime and a decision-making method, and John has the...
Lemmings (Entry 711.MK1503)
In which the documentary films of the Arctic are revealed to be full of lies, leading to one misunderstood rodent, and John thinks about a vole in a b...
Pulgasari (Entry 1007.IS4602)
In which North Korea jump-starts its fledgeling monster movie industry by literally kidnapping talent from across the DMZ, and Ken was distracted by s...
The World's Tallest Building (Entry 1444.GE1104)
In which the measurement of spires and skyscrapers becomes a source of architectural squabbles and global prestige, and John hides in the forest with...
Anthropology Days (Entry 053.NU1516)
In which the planners of the third modern Olympics scour the globe hoping to populate a human zoo and maybe make the exhibits do sports, and Ken think...
The Mona Lisa Heist (Entry 800.JN1206)
In which an Italian workman creates a cultural icon when he attempts to repatriate a Renaissance masterpiece from the laxly secured Louvre, and John u...
Genuine Leather (Entry 522.GE0321)
In which the tanning industry invents a fancy-sounding term for one of its worst grades of leather, and Ken learns his childhood jacket may have had e...
The Dionne Quintuplets (Entry 352.JB0525)
In which five adorable and identical Franco-Ontarians become an international sensation and then wards of the state, and John doesn't know what to cal...