Chicken, Baseball, Christmas 

Welcome to the season finale of Seemingly Unrelated! We've managed 46 episodes so far and we'll be returning in March with season 3 (bonus eps continually monthly <a href="https://patreon.com/seeminglyunrelated" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">patreon.com/seeminglyunrelated</a> )To cap it off this festive season we'll be traveling to Japan where holidays like Christmas should seem to be unrelated already, but it gets even weirder. Why is there a Colonel Sanders dressed in a Santa Suit every December? What decidely un-Christian like business has its busiest day of the year on Dec 25th? More importantly: Who is Randy Bass and what has he got to do with buckets of Christmas Chicken? Joining us again is fan favorite co-host <a href="https://www.aliciabrittpuppetry.co.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Alicia Britt</a> to answer this secret blend of 11 secrets and spices and to tackle the most daunting mystery of them all: Is 7-11 actually from Asia?All this and more on the seasonally themed season finale of Seemingly Unrelated! 02:48 Episode Proper Starts for new people

The Christmas Curse of Japan- Season 2 Finale! w/Alicia Britt

Corpulant, Atkins, USDA

When you look at the back of the box of your favorite ready-to-eat meal, where does the list of macromolecules and daily requirements on the nutrition label come from? That's what we are going to find out this week on Seemingly Unrelated as we explore the unusually recent history of the nutrition label by asking: What did we do before we added these things in 1994? Why don't vitamins and minerals show up on every nutrition label? What role did World War II play in getting the governments of the world to take action on minimal nutrition? And why do the founders of vitamines [sic] Funk &amp; McCollum sound like second rate musical writers?We're joined this week by the host of the Blue Collar White Coat podcast, she is a professional science communicator perfectly positioned to talk about the difficulties in translating hard science to public consumption it's Amy Weldon!Together we will find out the greatest mystery of all: Did a corpulant, Victorian undertaker trick us all into counting carbs from beyond the grave? Only here, on Seemingly Unrelated!

Do Nutrition Labels Actually Tell Us Anything About Nutrition? w/Amy Weldon

Lions, Pandas, and Mao Tse-Tong...oh my

!!ALERT ALERT!! GO TO <a href="BIT.LY/ALPHACAT1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">BIT.LY/ALPHACAT1</a> RIGHT NOW THE FUND ENDS FRI 14 NOV !!ALERT ALERT!! The gorilla enclosure seconds the motion to sanction the cave bats for their hoarding of fresh fruit resources. More like the Zoo-nited Nations amirite? I'll stop. On this episode we are diving into the other controversial history behind zoos as explore the ways in which zoos and zoo animals have been used in international diplomacy. Was the first ever zoo made up of trophies from conquest or a contemplative garden to debate the animalistic nature of man? Does the English heraldry actually feature three leopards instead of lions? How long is too long for a zoo to put animals in poorly maintained cages before someone intervenes? And of course, did a polar bear really go swimming in the Thames river every day? To help us answer these questions we must call upon podcasting veteran, director of the film Earbuds: The Podcasting Documentary and current media mogul at <a href="https://www.whitecatentertainment.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">White Cat Entertainment</a> it's Chris Mancini! He'll help us answer that most important question of all: What makes panda bears so damn popular and is it a secret conspiracy? All this and more will be answered this week on Seemingly Unrelated! To get the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/143112379" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">full show notes click here </a>

Have Zoos Been Running the World for 4000 Years? w/Chris Mancini

Witches, beers, pay gap

It's the Seemingly Unrelated Spoooooktacular! We've got a terrifying and spinetingling episode for you this week as we look deep into the history of Witch iconography: the point hat, the broom, the black cat, not the nose though...the nose thing is just exactly what you think it is.Our guide through this spectre of deeply problematic horrors is in fact Michael Johnstone from <a href="https://www.walkietalkybrewing.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Walkie Talky Brewing </a> who has to take the reigns because of a Halloween curse placed on Andrew in 1987 that prevents him from leading on main feed spooky episodes.Michael is better placed for this one because we'll be tackling a popular internet question: Were witches actually just beer brewers who ran afoul of Christian anti-drinking sentiments?Find out as we repeat the same incantation as a woman around the cauldron did but get all the credit this Halloween on Seemingly Unrelated! Get the full bibliography on the free post patreon.com/Seeminglyunrelated

The True Terror Behind Witch Costumes 

Insurance fraud, Cowboys, and Thomas Edison 

We're talking about the very real and physical place that is Hollywood, CA on this episode of Seemingly Unrelated. Why are the hills around Los Angeles filled with the rich and famous while the valleys are home to much more socio-economic diversity? Did film studios set up shop in Hollywood because of the weather? Has the 9th circuit court of appeals been holding back patent law for 150 years? Were the seeds of the Great Recession sown in the Great Depression itself? We dig into these questions with our special guest co-host <a href="https://philwbayles.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Phil W. Bayles</a>! Plus, the most famous billboard in the world tricked us all into thinking it was a legitimate piece of history. All this week on a star studded episode of Seemingly Unrelated. Here are those wild 9th Circuit Cases I mentioned in the episode: <a href="https://archive.org/details/gov.uscourts.f1.067/page/n611/mode/2up" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Click Here</a> #Hollywood #RealEstateScam #Edendale #BoyleHeights #UniversalCity #ThomasEdison #Hollywoodhistory #historypodcast #podcast Find the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/Was-the-2008-housing-collapse-141107822" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">full bibliography for the episode here</a>

Was the 2008 Housing Collapse Predicted by Hollywood? w/Phil W. Bayles 

Yom Kippur, South India, and Changing Identity

At the time of this episode's release we are in the middle of a 10 day period of reflection and piety for the Jewish people. The window between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is known as the 'High Holidays' to many. So, we at Seemingly Unrelated want to take this confluence of events where the High Holidays overlap with an extra 3rd episode of the show inside of a calendar month to put the spotlight on these holidays.What are the High Holidays about? Why are they celebrated so much in the home and not at the temple? How did the Jews of the Malabar coast in South India and the Egyptian god Anubis help shape the meaning of the word "atonement" during these Holidays? What does it mean to atone anyway and how does the shifting nature of that word reflect a flexible Jewish identity spread over thousands of years and bound to no single region of the world? These are the questions we set out to answer on this extra episode as well as to ask what atonement means for the High Holidays of 2025.To help guide us on our journey is our special guest and the person who will be leading the discussion while Andrew learns some new things, Dr. Ophira Gamliel. Ophira is a senior lecturer in religious studies at the University of Glasgow and author of <a href="https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/161890/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Judaism in South India 849-1489: Relocating Malabar Jewry</a>.If you are listening to this before Oct 2, we also think you'll appreciate this screening of <a href="https://allegralaboratory.net/anthrokino-the-rose-of-ioannina/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Rose of Ioannina</a> that is definitely worth checking out.Bibliography:“Eyal Weizman ← Forensic Architecture.” Accessed September 28, 2025. <a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/about/team/member/eyal-weizman." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://forensic-architecture.org/about/team/member/eyal-weizman.</a>Gamliel, Ophira. “Land Fetishism and Genocidal Iconoclasm.” Palestine/Israel Review, The Pennsylvania State University Press, September 2, 2025. <a href="https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/366001/." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/366001/.</a>Gamliel, Ophira. Matrilineal Jews or Slave Descendants? Halakhic Laws and Trade Alliances in Medieval Malabar. Edited by Mahmood Kooria. Amsterdam University Press, 2024. <a href="https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/287725/." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/287725/.</a>Google Arts &amp; Culture. “A 13th-Century Manuscript Depicts an Eastern Muslim Boat from Maqamat al-Hariri.” Accessed September 28, 2025. <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/a-13th-century-manuscript-depicts-an-eastern-muslim-boat-from-maqamat-al-hariri/pwHrty-7mcYEsw." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/a-13th-century-manuscript-depicts-an-eastern-muslim-boat-from-maqamat-al-hariri/pwHrty-7mcYEsw.</a>Lambourn, Elizabeth A. “‘Things for the Cabin’: Inhabiting the Ocean.” Chapter. In Abraham’s Luggage: A Social Life of Things in the Medieval Indian Ocean World, 189–218. Asian Connections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

"No amount of water can wash away genocide" w/ Ophira Gamliel

Oysters, Railroads, and Kuwait 

If it's 2 am in Denver Colorado and you've been out partying all night, where will you go to fill up on some fast food to tide you over? Well, if it's 1858 the answer is: oyster bars. This week on Seemingly Unrelated we are cracking open the shell that hides the secret history of the oyster asking big questions like: How dangerous were oyster beds to early European colonists? Why does anyone know about Altoona, PA? HOW much did the US government spend on the transcontinental railroad?! What putrid Youtube rabbit hole has our guest fallen down recently? And of course, do oysters really get people excited or is it just the beverages we tend to pair with them?Our guest this week is a marketing guru and podcast producer/host of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wire-stripped/id1321861159" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Wire Stripped</a> as well as <a href="https://flixwatcher.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Flixwatcher</a> (both featuring Andrew as a guest in multiple episodes) it's<a href="https://www.instagram.com/kobestarr/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Kobi Omenaka</a>!All this plus: How McDonald's rebuilt the 11th busiest airport in the world, on Seemingly Unrelated! Bibliography:Ali, Rafat. ‘The 23 Grandest Amtrak Train Stations in America’. Skift, 26 October 2013. https://skift.com/2013/10/26/the-22-grandest-amtrak-train-stations-in-america/.Bill of Rights Institute. ‘Westward Expansion Migration US’. Accessed 15 September 2025. https://live-bri-dos.pantheonsite.io/essays/migration-west/.Burrows, Michelle. Oyster Nutrition Facts. n.d.‘Cannery’. The Baltimore Museum of Industry, n.d. Accessed 15 September 2025. https://www.thebmi.org/exhibits/cannery/.Jennifer Bohnhoff. ‘A Short Inquiry into Canning, Oysters, and Christmas’. Accessed 15 September 2025. http://jenniferbohnhoff.com/3/post/2018/12/a-short-inquiry-into-canning-oysters-and-christmas.html.‘Kuwait International Airport’. Airport Technology, n.d. Accessed 15 September 2025. https://www.airport-technology.com/projects/kuwait-international/.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. ‘Traveling on the Overland Trails, 1843-1860 | National Expansion and Reform, 1815 - 1880 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress’. Web page. Accessed 15 September 2025. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/national-expansion-and-reform-1815-1880/traveling-on-the-overland-trails-1843-1860/.Maryland, Preservation. ‘This Day in History: Chartering of the B&amp;O Railroad’. Preservation Maryland, 28 February 2022. https://preservationmaryland.org/this-day-in-history-chartering-of-the-bo-railroad/.‘OYSTERS AND TYPHOID’. Journal of the American Medical Association 84, no. 4 (1925): 286–87. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1925.02660300044015.Program, Campus Archaeology. ‘The Great Oyster Craze: Why 19th Century Americans Loved Oysters’. MSU Campus Archaeology Program, 23 February 2017. https://campusarch.msu.edu/?p=4962.Stover, John F. History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Purdue University Press, 1987.University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. ‘History of Oysters’. 18 September 2017. https://www.umces.edu/oysters/history.Virginia Institute of Marine Science. ‘History of Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay’. Accessed 15 September 2025. https://www.vims.edu/research/units/labgroups/molluscan_ecology/archive/vorhf/introduction/.

The Fast Food Craze that Built Your City w/Kobi Omenaka

Italians, Vikings, and the Rapa Nui oh my 

Up front this is just about which Europeans landed on the Americas first and set up shop. The actual answer beyond that is no one and there are many peoples and histories that populate both continents for millenia before any Europeans managed to cross the Atlantic (or vice-versa?).Either way, we are digging into the major competing narratives about which White guys traveled where to get at the heart of the question: Who cares? Along the way we'll talk about: Was the inventor of baking powder the most annoying person in Massachusetts? Should all Italian-American stereotypes really have a Louisiana accent instead of Long Island? Where the ancestors of the Pilgrims all Scandanavian? And why are researchers dedicated to making organ transplants more successful so obsessed with a guy on a raft sailing to Easter Island?Our guest co-host this week is a professional armorer and safety manager as well as a pretty radically nice guy, it is Dan Walker (no link because he does not exist online for you)All of this plus, why are people so obsessed with finding heroes in the history of European colonial expan...on right...no that one actually makes sense on the face of it...this week on Seemingly Unrelated!

Who Actually "Discovered" America & Why Do We Care? w/Dan Walker 

Three little pigs, wootz steel, Parthia vs Python

How could the Three Little Pigs have stopped the most powerful military of the 1st century BCE? That's what we set out to explore on this episode of Seemingly Unrelated where we dive into the history of steel making, story telling, and how they connect the Battle of Carrhae with learning to code in Python. Our guest co-host this week is <a href="https://www.aliciabrittpuppetry.co.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">puppeteer extoridanaire Alicia Britt</a>! We'll be asking the big questions this week like: How do you court an armorer? What is so common about the 'Common Era?' Which real time strategy game unit works best against the Roman legions? As well as, could Rumpelstiltskin spin you a website made of gold? All these questions and the secret anti-capitalist lesson of the Three Little Pigs this week on Seemingly Unrelated. Visit <a href="https://codestorytelling.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">codestorytelling.com</a>&nbsp;for more about learning how to code through story telling #fables #history #historypodcast #steel #armor #Rome #Parthia #Aesop #fairytales

How Fables Defeated the Roman Empire w/Alicia Britt

Seemingly Unrelated is a podcast all about exploring how everyday things connect to major movements in history, politics and culture.🎵 Subscribe to the <a href="https://shows.acast.com/seemingly-unrelated" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">show everywhere</a> 📽️ Find the videos on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@SeeminglyUnrelatedPod" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Youtube</a>🎰 Want even more? Get bonus episodes for as little as $2/month and a list of sources for this episode <a href="https://www.patreon.com/SeeminglyUnrelated" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on our Patreon</a> Follow us on <a href="https://seeminglyunrelated.substack.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Substack</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/seeminglyunrelatedpod" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Instagram</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@seeminglyunrelatedpod" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TikTok </a>

Impossible connections between the everyday and the incredible 

Welcome to Seemingly Unrelated! The podcast where we connect the seemingly mundane elements of everyday life,to the most unbelievable but true stories and events across: history, society, and culture. Each episode Dr. Andrew Johnstone will draw completely outrageous connections between simple things in life and their seemingly unrelated connections. How did Sperm Whales help re-elect Margaret Thatcher? What do Spelling Bees have to do with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1888? Is the guy who invented CAPTCHA secretly Batman? These questions and more are answer in Seemingly Unrelated. Seemingly Unrelated Podcast is owned and produced by Life's Little Murder Boards Ltd.Company number: SC852204

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