Follow the trail of familiar melodies from medieval Europe to American front porches: a story of banished festivities, Victorian reinvention, wartime solace, and booming radio hits. Along the way you’ll meet Puritans who banned Christmas, a songwriter who never meant to write a carol, and soldiers who found peace in a simple hymn.

In this episode we weave together the human moments behind the music — Dickensian charity, sleigh races in New England, immigrant voices, and modern pop reinventions — to show how these songs became the soundtrack of an American season.

Tune in to discover the surprising origins and emotional stories behind the carols you thought you knew, and learn why these songs still matter to families, choirs, and even astronauts.

Picture a Christmas that smells of smoke and fear instead of cinnamon and spice: villages lit by bonfires, masked figures pounding through the night, and a goat-demon whose rattling chains make children hide behind shutters. This episode peels back the cozy remaster and walks you through the original holiday — a season forged by the terror of winter and the rituals people invented to survive it.

We trace the story from sun-calling solstice festivals and Roman chaos to Alpine Krampus runs, Icelandic cat-gorging legends, and Puritan attempts to erase the whole thing. Along the way the narrative shifts — punishment morphs into redemption with Dickens, then into shopping lists and performance, leaving us with a holiday that hides its darker roots under lace and store windows.

By the end, the monsters feel less like villains and more like mirrors: reminders that the holiday has always been about surviving darkness together. Join us for a short, haunting history that makes your quiet, imperfect Christmas feel part of a long, strange tradition — and maybe a little less alone.”

In this captivating episode of Time Tellers, Dan and Renee delve into America's tumultuous history with the metric system—a tale filled with twists, turns, and unexpected drama. From the chaos of pirates intercepting metric shipments to the political maneuvers that stymied a full conversion, the duo unravels why the United States remains one of the few countries resisting the global embrace of the metric system.

They recount the peculiar past of measurement mishaps and missed opportunities, highlighting key moments like the Mars Climate Orbiter debacle that resulted from metric-imperial confusion. This isn't just a story about numbers—it's about national identity, inertia, and political chess games that have led to today's hybrid measurement chaos.

Join the hosts as they navigate this intriguing narrative, revealing how America's stubbornness in clinging to inches and pounds persists amidst a world dominated by the ease and logic of meters and liters. Tune in to explore whether the U.S. will ever fully transition to the metric system, the factors at play, and the humorous contradictions that define America's measurement story.

When Pearl Harbor shattered the nation, thousands of Japanese‑Americans were forced from their homes into horse stalls, fairgrounds, and hastily built camps surrounded by barbed wire. This episode follows families as they pack in hours, children say goodbye to pets, and communities try to build schools, gardens, and daily life amid fences and guard towers.

Through archival headlines, the shocking language of Executive Order 9066, the infamous loyalty questionnaire, and the courage of soldiers who fought abroad while their relatives were imprisoned, we trace how fear and racism overrode constitutional rights. From protest and tragedy at Manzanar to the resilience of the 100th/442nd Regiment, personal stories bring the human stakes into sharp relief.

Decades later, an official apology and reparations could not fully heal the losses—but the memory of these camps remains a warning: democracy can unravel when panic replaces principle. Listen as we unpack law, politics, resistance, and the long fight for justice that still echoes today.

Imagine its 3:45 a.m. in late November: a freezing parking lot, a lukewarm to-go coffee, and a line that snakes around the building. Hundreds of people wait for one sliding door to open and a chance at a discounted TV. That familiar chaos—camped-out shoppers, terrifying crowds, and fevered deals—was once tied to financial panic, presidential calendars, and annoyed police officers. In this episode of Timetellers, we trace the odd, surprising life of Black Friday: from a 19th-century Wall Street crash to Franklin Roosevelts Thanksgiving shuffle, from Philadelphia cops dubbing the day "Black" to retailers spinning it into a profit-making holiday, and finally to the internet-fueled, global discount season it is today.

Along the way, we meet retail workers who give up family dinners, communities protesting consumerism, and the grim realities behind viral stampedes. We weave together personal stories, media spectacle, and economic forces into a vivid narrative that shows how a phrase born in crisis became one of the worlds biggest shopping rituals. Whether youre standing in line at dawn or clicking deals in your pajamas, this episode reveals the strange history—and human cost—behind the modern Black Friday.

Pull up a chair as Time Tellers serves a short, spicy history of how global dishes were translated, watered down, and gloriously reinvented on American tables—from chicken tikka masala’s Glasgow epiphany to the gyro, fries, and pad thai that became something new on this side of the world.

Through lively anecdotes, immigrant voices, and kitchen confessions, this episode reveals the human stories behind every adaptation and asks: what do we lose — and gain — when food crosses borders?

It was the start of a new decade. America, still reeling from the 1929 crash, passed a single law meant to save its farmers and manufacturers — and instead helped plunge the world into deeper economic ruin. In this episode of Time Tellers, Renee and Dan trace the rise of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act: from a farm-focused bill to a 20,000-item tariff behemoth, the political fights that carried it into law, and the swift global retaliation that collapsed trade and devastated communities.

Through first-hand readings, lively banter, and expert context, the hosts take you behind the scenes of a legislative feeding frenzy, the economists who warned of disaster, and the international fallout that reshaped trade diplomacy for generations. By following the people caught in the policy — farmers, industrialists, presidents, and foreign leaders — the episode reveals how short-term protectionism can become long-term calamity, and how those choices still echo in today’s trade debates.

Step into the steeple and listen: this episode peels back the gleam to reveal the Liberty Bell's real life — a noisy workbell, a flawed casting, and a slow-creeping crack that history remade into meaning. From humble laborers and Quaker ideals to abolitionists, suffragists, and touring crowds, the bell's fracture becomes a story of contested liberty and hopeful reinvention.

We follow the bell from London foundries to Philadelphia crowds, myth-making tales of July 4th, and the abolitionists who christened it the "Liberty Bell." Join Renee and Dan as they stitch together invention, protest, and preservation into a compact, human story about how an object becomes a voice for a nation's promises — and its contradictions.