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Mistakes Were Made
Robert Bacon
32 episodes
1 month ago
History is full of terrible decisions, epic failures, and absurd moments. Mistakes Were Made is here to celebrate them. Comedians Robert Bacon, Mike Kauffman, Bobby Smithney, and Jenna O'Brien dive into the greatest blunders in history, from the Great Molasses Flood in Boston to the rise of eccentric dictators, bizarre wars, and even the oddities of human behavior.

With sharp humor, detailed storytelling, and a healthy dose of sarcasm, they teach each other, and you, how humans have screwed up throughout the ages. Expect epic fails, ridiculous mishaps, and the funniest ways people have ever accidentally changed the world.Whether it’s military disasters, political catastrophes, failed inventions, or historical oddities like Dancing Mania and the Winter War, this podcast mixes comedy with real history for a laugh-and-learn experience. If history had bloopers, this is where you’d find them.

Keywords:
history podcast, funny history podcast, comedy history podcast, historical mistakes, historical blunders, epic fails in history, bizarre historical events, weird history stories, military disasters, political mistakes, human folly history, educational comedy podcast
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History
Comedy,
Improv
RSS
All content for Mistakes Were Made is the property of Robert Bacon and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
History is full of terrible decisions, epic failures, and absurd moments. Mistakes Were Made is here to celebrate them. Comedians Robert Bacon, Mike Kauffman, Bobby Smithney, and Jenna O'Brien dive into the greatest blunders in history, from the Great Molasses Flood in Boston to the rise of eccentric dictators, bizarre wars, and even the oddities of human behavior.

With sharp humor, detailed storytelling, and a healthy dose of sarcasm, they teach each other, and you, how humans have screwed up throughout the ages. Expect epic fails, ridiculous mishaps, and the funniest ways people have ever accidentally changed the world.Whether it’s military disasters, political catastrophes, failed inventions, or historical oddities like Dancing Mania and the Winter War, this podcast mixes comedy with real history for a laugh-and-learn experience. If history had bloopers, this is where you’d find them.

Keywords:
history podcast, funny history podcast, comedy history podcast, historical mistakes, historical blunders, epic fails in history, bizarre historical events, weird history stories, military disasters, political mistakes, human folly history, educational comedy podcast
Show more...
History
Comedy,
Improv
Episodes (20/32)
Mistakes Were Made
The Great Dublin Whiskey Fire
In 1875, Dublin was flooded with whiskey, literally. When a bonded warehouse in the Liberties district went up in flames, over 300,000 gallons of burning whiskey poured through the streets, turning one of Ireland’s poorest neighborhoods into a fiery river of booze. Firefighters quickly learned that water only made it worse, so they turned to an unlikely hero: horse manure.

Comedians Robert Bacon and guest host Jenna O’Brien (filling in for Mike Kauffman) dive into this bizarre disaster where people didn’t die from fire, but from drinking the flaming whiskey. It’s a true story of chaos, comedy, and cautionary tales about Irish ingenuity gone sideways.

SOURCES
  • The Irish Times (June 21, 1875): descriptions of people scooping whiskey with boots, the wholesale poisoning numbers The Irish TimesThe Pot Still Whiskey Blog
  • Irish Examiner (June 21, 1875): “in literal torrents from the doors and windows” Wine Enthusiast
  • The Pot Still blog: detailed local reporting, including the dog incident and hospital admissions The Pot Still Whiskey Blog
  • Wikipedia: overview of the event, location, fatalities not from direct fire but poisoning Wikipedia
  • Wine Enthusiast: recounting the burning river and manure tactics Wine Enthusiast
  • Historic Mysteries: supplementary context on the chaos and the nature of the response 
Keywords: Dublin Whiskey Fire, 1875 Dublin Fire, Irish history podcast, comedy history podcast, whiskey disaster, Liberties Dublin, weird history, whiskey history, Ireland disasters, Mistakes Were Made podcast.
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1 month ago
58 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Lawn Chair Larry
We're back! After a 7-year break, Mistakes Were Made returns with a high-flying tale—literally. In this episode, Bacon tells Mike the bizarre history of people who tried to fly using helium balloons. From lawn chairs to church pews, it turns out some folks really took “lightheaded” to new heights.

EPISODE 31 - Lawnchair Larry
In this episode of Mistakes Were Made, we dive into the strange history of helium balloon flight attempts, including the infamous Lawnchair Larry and other balloon-powered adventurers. If you love weird history, historical mistakes, or funny stories about real-life stunts gone wrong, this podcast is for you. Subscribe to Mistakes Were Made for more episodes about history’s biggest blunders, epic fails, and bizarre moments.

MISTAKES WERE MADE PODCAST
Comedians Robert Bacon and Mike Kauffman explore some of history’s biggest blunders—mixing well-researched storytelling with a dose of humor. It’s history, but with more laughs and fewer homework assignments.
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5 months ago
1 hour 22 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Mao Zedong
This week we learn about Mao Zedong and his weird obsession with mangos and murder.
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7 years ago
55 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The Winter War Sniper
In 1939 Russia invaded Finland in what's called The Winter War. During the war a sniper from Finland, Simo Häyhä, was able to kill hundreds of Russians.

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4
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7 years ago
22 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Franz Ferdinand
This week we learn about the legend of Franz Ferdinand and his cartoon bombs.
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7 years ago
31 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Seward's Folly (Alaska For Sale)
In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million—a deal widely mocked at the time as “Seward’s Folly.” Critics believed the U.S. had bought nothing but frozen tundra, ice, and bears. History, of course, proved them spectacularly wrong. The purchase provided vast natural resources, strategic advantages, and eventually became a cornerstone of American expansion.

Comedians Robert Bacon, Mike Kauffman, and Bobby Smithney dive into the political drama, public ridicule, and behind-the-scenes maneuvering that made the Alaska Purchase possible. Mixing history with humor, they highlight how one man’s vision—and a very cold gamble—turned into one of America’s smartest deals.

Keywords:
Alaska Purchase podcast, Seward’s Folly, William H. Seward history, Mistakes Were Made podcast, comedy history podcast, 19th century U.S. history, American land deals, political blunders and triumphs, funny history podcast, historical mistakes that worked out.
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7 years ago
37 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The Berlin Wall
Building a wall dividing a city. Can't see how this will be a mistake.
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7 years ago
39 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The Halifax Disaster
This week we learn about the Halifax Disaster and welcome on a new co-host with Bobby Smithney.


*Sorry for the audio quality this week. We're still working stuff out.*
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7 years ago
37 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The History of Mooning
In the year 66 things were pretty tense between the Romans and the Jews around the mediterranean. You see there was this guy named Caligula in charge of the Roman Empire at the time and he wasn’t the worst, but he also wasn’t the best. Caligula spent a lot of money on building projects. Practical ones like aqueducts and harbors, cultural ones like theaters and temples, but also weird ones like taking hundreds of Roman merchant ships and using them to build a 2 mile long floating bridge across the Bay of Bauli. What was the bridge for? He used it to gallop back and forth on his horse for a couple days and then had it disassembled. He also threw some pretty awesome parties, but everyone did back then so that wasn’t the main problem.

The main problem is he was spending money faster than the Empire to make it. So to help offset that he would have citizens falsely accused of crimes. Those citizens would be fined if they were lucky. If they weren’t lucky they would be killed and then the Empire would sell their estate so they could make money. (MORE ON THE PODCAST)
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8 years ago
29 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The Leopard Hat Dictator (Mobutu Sese Seko)
While he was dictator he did the standard dictator stuff. He killed those who spoke out against him and with all the money at the top many of his people starved. Mobutu was spending billions of dollars on himself and his family. He would overpay his generals or other people that might want to overthrow him and underpay his soldiers, many of whom were forced to steal from civilians just so they could have money to eat.

Mobutu also was one of the men who was instrumental in bringing the Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman to Zaire on the 30th of October 1974. According to the documentary When We Were Kings, promoter Don King promised each fighter US$5 million for the fight. Mobutu was the only one who was willing to fund such amounts. Mobutu, wanting to expand his country's image, put up the nation's money to do so. According to a quote in the film, Ali supposedly said: "Some countries go to war to get their names out there, and wars cost a lot more than $10 million."

(MORE ON THE PODCAST)
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8 years ago
45 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The Turkmenistan Dictator (Saparmurat Niyazov)
Saparmurat Niyazov (Super-murat Ne-yah-zov) was born on February 19th, 1940 in the former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. He didn’t have the best childhood. His father either died fighting Nazis in World War II or dodged fighting and was therefore sentenced by a military court (two different stories on this). When he was 8 his mother and both his siblings were killed in an earthquake that leveled the city they were living in when the building they were all in collapsed. Niyazov spent 8 days digging himself out of the rubble with his bare hands. When he emerged he was the only living member of his family so he was shipped off to a Soviet-run orphanage in the middle of the mountains. (More on the podcast)

 
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8 years ago
31 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
German Sub Poop Party
U-boat is the anglicised version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, literally "undersea boat". While the German term refers to any submarine, the English one refers specifically to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. 

During World War II, U-boat warfare was the major component of the Battle of the Atlantic, which lasted the duration of the war. Germany had the largest submarine fleet in World War II, since the Treaty of Versailles had limited the surface navy of Germany to six battleships, six cruisers, and 12 destroyers but nothing on undersea boats. Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote "The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril."

On April 6, 1945, a German navy submarine named the U-1206 departed from the port city of Kristiansand, in Nazi-occupied Norway, and began its first combat patrol with it’s captain Karl-Adolf Schlitt. Assigned to the waters of the North Atlantic, its mission was to seek out and destroy British and American ships on the high seas. (MORE ON THE PODCAST)
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8 years ago
22 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The Romanian Dictator (Nicolae Ceausescu)
Nicolae Ceausescu (Nick-o-lie Chi-Ches-Coo) was born on January 26th, 1918. He was one of the ten children of a poor peasant family. His father owned 7 and a half acres of agricultural land, a few sheep, and he also supplemented his large family's income through tailoring.

At the age of 7 Nicolae started his education at the local village school, but after only 4 years of education he ran away from home to escape his extremely religious, abusive, and strict father. He initially lived with his sister and became an apprentice shoemaker. The shoemaker he was an apprentice for was an active member in the then-illegal Communist Party and taught Nicolae about communism. Nicolae loved it and he was soon given small tasks to help spread the word of communism. (More on the podcast)
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8 years ago
31 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
The Great Molasses Flood in Boston
In 1919 the molasses business was booming. So much so that molasses tanks had to be built in places like Boston and quickly. Some tanks were built too quickly though and mistakes were made.
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8 years ago
28 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Dancing Mania
Europe in the middle ages wasn't a very happy place to live. That's why it was so weird that randomly groups of people started dancing in masses. This was known as "Dancing Mania" and it would happen several times thoughout history.
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8 years ago
20 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Immortal Combat
Since the beginning of written history there have been tails of people trying to cheat death and live forever. It explores humanity's deep-seated fears and comprehension of its own mortality. Many people through history did not see this as fiction, but instead strived to make it a reality.
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8 years ago
34 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Horrible Compromise
The compromise that eventually lead to the American Civil War.
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8 years ago
29 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Prohibition
“The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.” - Reverend Billy Sunday


Reverend Billy Sunday was a proponent of the “Noble Experiment”, a anti-alcohol movement that gained steam throughout the nineteenth century and became a staple of the progressive movement at the start of the twentieth century. By 1900, Maine, Vermont, Kansas, Iowa, and North Dakota were already dry states with many scheduled to follow. The Prohibitionists believed that there was no way a person in a dry state could obtain liquor. However, they overlooked the postal service, which was run by the federal government, not the states. So alcohol could be purchased from a wet state and sent to a dry state. (More on the podcast)
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8 years ago
33 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Vikings "Discover" America
Check it out, we found a completely different continent! Let's murder people on it! 
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8 years ago
26 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
Tulip Mania
Basically the story of Beanie Babies, but hundreds of years before Beanie Babies.
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8 years ago
30 minutes

Mistakes Were Made
History is full of terrible decisions, epic failures, and absurd moments. Mistakes Were Made is here to celebrate them. Comedians Robert Bacon, Mike Kauffman, Bobby Smithney, and Jenna O'Brien dive into the greatest blunders in history, from the Great Molasses Flood in Boston to the rise of eccentric dictators, bizarre wars, and even the oddities of human behavior.

With sharp humor, detailed storytelling, and a healthy dose of sarcasm, they teach each other, and you, how humans have screwed up throughout the ages. Expect epic fails, ridiculous mishaps, and the funniest ways people have ever accidentally changed the world.Whether it’s military disasters, political catastrophes, failed inventions, or historical oddities like Dancing Mania and the Winter War, this podcast mixes comedy with real history for a laugh-and-learn experience. If history had bloopers, this is where you’d find them.

Keywords:
history podcast, funny history podcast, comedy history podcast, historical mistakes, historical blunders, epic fails in history, bizarre historical events, weird history stories, military disasters, political mistakes, human folly history, educational comedy podcast