HeyJaredBarely Historical
Barely Historical is a comedy podcast where two lifelong friends pick a year, dive in, and immediately regret it.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 6
- Latest publication
- Sep 9, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 8, 2026
Latest episodes
The Pony Express: The Wild History Behind America’s Famous Mail Riders (opens the original)
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The Pony Express is one of the most famous legends of the American West—but apparently, Jo and Amanda knew almost nothing about it. This week on Barely Historical , we're getting into the real history of the Pony Express: the teenage riders racing mail across nearly 2,000 miles, the isolated station workers who actually kept the operation running, the surprisingly expensive cost of sending a letter, and why the entire Pony Express lasted only about 18 months. Then things get significantly less w
History of TV Dinners: Dear Swanson, My Wife Has Stopped Trying (opens the original)
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In late 1953, Swanson had ten refrigerated train cars full of unsold Thanksgiving turkey and no plan. A salesman named Jerry Thomas, not a chef, not a food scientist, looked at 260 tons of poultry and said what if we put it on a tray with little compartments like the airlines use. Nobody in that room thought they were about to start a national argument about what it means to be a wife. They thought they were about to move some turkey. This week we get into how a frozen tray became a referendum o
Syphilis: The Horrifying History (opens the original)
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Syphilis is one of those diseases you think you know about until you actually learn its history. Then it gets significantly worse. In this episode of Barely Historical , Jo and Amanda dive into the horrifying, bizarre, and occasionally absurd history of syphilis , from its mysterious origins and the infamous “French disease” to the brutal symptoms, disfigurement, neurological damage, and treatments doctors threw at patients before modern medicine figured out what the hell to do. We play Fact or
Victorian Postmortem Photography | The Internet's Been Lying to Us (opens the original)
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Postmortem Photography | The Internet's Been Lying to Us In 1867, a photographer walked into a Philadelphia parlor, set up a tripod next to the sofa, and photographed a woman who had died the day before. Her husband had brushed her hair and put her wedding ring back on her finger. He paid three dollars, about a week's wages, and kept that photo on the mantle for the rest of his life. That is Victorian postmortem photography. And you have it completely wrong in your head, because the internet got
Lizzie Borden: America's First Influencer? (opens the original)
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Did Lizzie Borden really kill her father and stepmother, or did America turn an acquitted woman into its first true crime celebrity? In 1892, two brutal hatchet murders shocked Fall River, Massachusetts. But the real story isn't just about the crime. It's about how newspapers, public obsession, and nonstop speculation transformed Lizzie Borden into one of America's first viral figures, long before social media ever existed. This week, we're diving into: The infamous Lizzie Borden murders Why the
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