Episodi

  • The standing order to sink the ship that doomed the Tuapse

    The standing order to sink the ship that doomed the Tuapse
    Sep 7 2026
    A Soviet tanker stopped by ROC warships after a presidential order; how do forty-nine crew vanish at sea?

    The standing order to sink the ship that doomed the Tuapse

    In this episode, we follow the Tuapse on its lawful commercial voyage and the sudden confrontation that left its crew taken aboard by an ROC task force. What decisions, orders, and mistakes turned a routine passage through the Balintang Channel into a geopolitical crisis?

    Person: Captain Vitaly Kalinin
    Date: June 23, 1954
    Location: Balintang Channel, Bashi Straits (19°35′N, 120°39′E)
    Event: Boarding and seizure of the tanker Tuapse
    Status: Forty-nine civilian crew members taken from the ship

    - The Tuapse departed Odessa in May 1954 carrying 11,702 tons of aviation fuel bound for Shanghai under Captain Vitaly Kalinin.
    - The Republic of China had enforced a closed port policy since June 18, 1949, extended into international waters with covert backing.
    - A ROC Navy task force under Admiral Ma Ji-zhuang intercepted the Tuapse; the lead ship Tan Yang (ex-Yukikaze) fired warning shots.
    - Boarding parties led by Captain Chiu Zhong-ming overwhelmed crew who tried to protect the Soviet flag and sabotage machinery; the radio operator sent a final message before equipment was smashed.
    - Chiang Kai-shek had issued a standing order to sink ships that resisted, a directive present before the Tuapse encounter.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    18 min
  • The pilot’s earache that spared him and haunted every role

    The pilot’s earache that spared him and haunted every role
    Sep 7 2026
    The pilot’s earache that spared him and haunted every role

    A young Navy radioman waits on the tarmac at Barbers Point while his squadron takes off without him, grounded because his pilot's ear hurts too much to fly. Days later the carrier they were supposed to join is hit by a kamikaze attack, and several hundred men aboard it are killed. What does a man do with a survival he never earned, and how does it follow him into every role he plays for the rest of his life?

    In this episode, we trace Paul Newman's life from a divided Cleveland household through a Navy deferment that saved him, a Broadway stage where he met his wife, a string of roles inherited from a dead James Dean, and a late-life turn to auto racing and philanthropy, asking what a man owes to the arbitrary fact of his own survival.

    Person: Paul Newman
    Location: aboard the USS Bunker Hill, Pacific theater
    Date: spring 1945
    Case: a pilot's earache that grounded Newman's crew before a kamikaze attack on the Bunker Hill
    Status: Newman survived the war, built a decades-long acting and racing career, and died in 2008

    - Newman was born January 26, 1925, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, to Arthur Sigmund Newman Sr. and Theresa Garth
    - He trained as a Navy radioman and tail gunner after a colorblindness diagnosis, later found to be incorrect, ended his pilot track
    - His unit's assigned pilot developed an earache before a deployment to the Bunker Hill; his crew was grounded and the rest of the squadron flew without them
    - He tested against James Dean for East of Eden in 1954, lost the role, then replaced Dean twice after Dean's death, including the lead in Somebody Up There Likes Me in 1956
    - He was nominated for the Academy Award nine times before winning Best Actor in 1986 for The Color of Money
    -

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    18 min
  • The microphone that announced Secretariat and vanished

    The microphone that announced Secretariat and vanished
    Sep 7 2026
    The microphone that announced Secretariat and vanished

    A camera operator swings his lens away from the finish line — not because he lost the shot, but because the horse has already crossed it and left the frame empty. In the broadcast booth, a man tries to put a number on a gap so wide that the sport's own arithmetic breaks down in real time. What does it cost a voice to become inseparable from the most watched moment in a sport's history, and then disappear from the story it made permanent?

    In this episode, we trace the career of the man behind two of American racing's most famous television calls, asking how precision, restraint, and twenty years of unglamorous preparation built a voice that outlived its own name.

    Person: Charles David Anderson
    Location: Belmont Park, New York
    Date: not stated
    Case: the live television call of Secretariat's 1973 Belmont Stakes and Affirmed's 1978 Belmont Stakes
    Status: Anderson died in 1979 at age 47, his calls enduring in the record while his name faded from public memory

    - Anderson called Secretariat's winning margin at 25 lengths live; videotape and photograph analysis later established the true margin as 31
    - He tracked Secretariat's first three-quarters

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    16 min
  • A .32 revolver that discharged and ended his life on Christmas night

    A .32 revolver that discharged and ended his life on Christmas night
    Sep 7 2026
    A .32 revolver that discharged and ended his life on Christmas night

    An hour after buying a brand-new Oldsmobile, a twenty-five-year-old singer sat in a Houston dressing room passing a loaded revolver around a table between sets. Two witnesses in that room left two different accounts of what he believed about the gun in his hand, and neither matches the story that would spread through newspapers and tribute records within weeks. What actually happened in those seconds, and why did a different, more dramatic version take its place in memory?

    In this episode, we follow John Marshall Alexander Jr, known as Johnny Ace, from the Beale Street clubs of Memphis to the top of the rhythm-and-blues charts, and trace how his death on Christmas night 1954 gave rise to a legend that outran the documented facts, asking why the myth of Russian roulette proved more durable than the eyewitness record.

    Person: John Marshall Alexander Jr (Johnny Ace)
    Location: City Auditorium dressing room, Houston
    Date: December 25, 1954
    Case: a .32 caliber revolver that discharged backstage between sets
    Status: ruled a self-inflicted accidental death, eyewitness accounts conflicting

    - He signed to Duke Records in 1952, and his first recording, "My Song," topped the R&B chart for nine weeks starting that September.
    - He placed eight consecutive hits on the rhythm-and-blues charts between 1952 and 1954.
    - Cash Box named him the Most Programmed Artist of 1954 based on a national poll of disc jockeys.
    - He bought a new 1955 Oldsmobile about an hour before his death; bassist Curtis Tillman and singer Big Mama Thornton, both present in the dressing room, gave differing accounts of what he believed about the gun.
    - His finished recording "Pledging My Love" reached number one on the R&B chart on February 12, 1955, and held that position for ten weeks after his death.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 min