Timothy Dexter, a Massachusetts merchant after the American Revolution, makes a string of odd business ventures that somehow pay off. He buys worthless Continental currency, ships a cargo of cats to Cuba to fight a rat problem, and sends coal to Newcastle. The stories are told in the Strange As It Seems program, narrated by John Hicks, with its episodes of unusual true events. The broadcast then moves on to a Mrs. America beauty contest winner from New Jersey and the life of scientist George Washington Carver, from his childhood on a Missouri plantation to his peanut research. The episode closes with General Israel Putnam's unusual duel with a British major.

With Timothy Dexter, Alexander Hamilton, Captain Seyz, Mrs. Armand Donnaruma, Moses Carver, Joe, George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington.

Listen for: The Timothy Dexter stories of the cats and the coal, and the Putnam duel with the powder keg

First aired on September 21, 1939.

Episode notes written with AI from the recording itself; the audio is the original broadcast.

Free, complete and restored, no modern ads. A new episode every week: Strange As It Seems on Stupid Potato, every episode so far and the episode guide.

Stupid Potato restores classic radio and TV audio and runs 60 free 24/7 channels and 188 podcasts: old-time radio westerns, detectives, comedy, science fiction and suspense, vintage TV, Saturday-morning cartoons, Halloween and Christmas. No modern ads. Listen free at stupidpotato.com.

In 1644 in Denmark, the writer Theodore Ranging is brought before King Christian IV of Denmark for writing a book praising democracy, which the king calls treason. The king gives him an alternative to execution: eat the book. The episode then moves to Hare Schienberg, a Danish man who comes to ask for money for orphans and insists he has eighty-seven children. Later, a stranger in a small village near New York finds a woman who has kept a lamp burning in her window for seventy years, waiting for a man named Enos. The episode is part of the Strange As It Seems series.

With Theodore Ranging, King Christian IV, Hare Schienberg, Enos.

Listen for: The king's offer to Theodore Ranging of an alternative to execution, and Hare Schienberg's claim to have eighty-seven children

First aired in 1950.

Episode notes written with AI from the recording itself; the audio is the original broadcast.

Free, complete and restored, no modern ads. A new episode every week: Strange As It Seems on Stupid Potato, every episode so far and the episode guide.

Stupid Potato restores classic radio and TV audio and runs 60 free 24/7 channels and 188 podcasts: old-time radio westerns, detectives, comedy, science fiction and suspense, vintage TV, Saturday-morning cartoons, Halloween and Christmas. No modern ads. Listen free at stupidpotato.com.

Strange As It Seems presents two stories. In eighteenth-century Gloucester, England, the wealthy Mr. Rogerson hires cooks from across Europe to prepare rare dishes for his guests, spending his fortune on delicacies. In the second story, Francis Scott Key goes under a flag of truce to the British fleet during the War of 1812 to plead for the release of Dr. Beanes, and is held aboard the admiral's ship through a night of bombardment. Back in Baltimore, a family discusses a new song, and the tune is traced to its French and English origins.

With Mr. Rogerson, Mr. Le Corne, Miss Oros, Francis Scott Key, Admiral Cockburn, Eliza, Ned.

Listen for: The dinner-table conversation about rare foods and Mr. Rogerson's spending, and Key's negotiation with Admiral Cockburn and his view of the flag over Fort McHenry at dawn

First aired in 1950.

Episode notes written with AI from the recording itself; the audio is the original broadcast.

Free, complete and restored, no modern ads. A new episode every week: Strange As It Seems on Stupid Potato, every episode so far and the episode guide.

Stupid Potato restores classic radio and TV audio and runs 60 free 24/7 channels and 188 podcasts: old-time radio westerns, detectives, comedy, science fiction and suspense, vintage TV, Saturday-morning cartoons, Halloween and Christmas. No modern ads. Listen free at stupidpotato.com.