1963 looks polished in the photos. Pastel dresses, church picnics, men in suits who definitely smell like cigarettes and bad coffee. Underneath, it is a year of civil rights marches, Cold War nerves, televised grief, and housewives being told a vacuum is the ultimate romantic gesture.

In this episode of Barely Historical, Jo and Amanda walk through 1963 like a yearbook you are not sure you actually want to sign. We cover the March on Washington, JFK’s assassination and the national gut punch that followed, the space race energy at NASA, zip codes, lava lamps, tab soda, and why teens were about to turn music into a full personality. Along the way we drag vintage magazine ads, side eye “for the woman who has everything” appliances, and peek at the pressure building behind those picture perfect suburban lives.

You will get: civil rights, Cold War tension, pop culture, politics, and a NASA engineer vs radio DJ “day in the life” that makes it painfully clear who is saving the world and who is just spinning vinyl and vibes. At the end we tease our Patreon deep dive on “Mother’s Little Helper” and why 50s and 60s housewives were not just “tired,” they were medicated.

If you like your history accurate, opinionated, and slightly disrespectful to bad design and worse men, you are in the right place.
Follow us wherever you ruin history.

Instagram: @barelyhistoricalpodcast

TikTok: @barelyhistoricalpodcast

Patreon:

Contact: ⁠oops@barelyhistorical.com⁠

Credits Hosts: JoLynne and Amanda

Produced by Barely Historical

Theme music: Licensed track

The year is 1986, and Pripyat is about to become the most famous ghost town on Earth. In this Patreon preview, Jo and Amanda break down the real story of the Chernobyl disaster in a way only a dark history podcast could. This is the partial main feed cut. The full episode lives on our Patreon.

In this episode, we cover the true events behind the Chernobyl explosion, the evacuation of Pripyat, the firefighters who faced the nuclear core, and the families who lived through one of the worst disasters in modern history. We talk about what the Soviet government hid, how radiation spread, and why Chernobyl still matters today.

This preview includes:
• What happened in Pripyat the morning after the explosion
• How the Chernobyl firefighters were exposed
• The truth behind the evacuation and Soviet cover up
• Real stories of the babushkas who refused to leave
• How a thriving city became an abandoned radioactive zone

For the full Chernobyl deep dive, join our Patreon.
Tier Two and Tier Three get every episode in our “History But Make It Worse” series, including the complete four part Chernobyl story.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barelyhistorical
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barelyhistoricalpodcast
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@barelyhistoricalpodcast
Email: oops@barelyhistorical.com
Hosts: JoLynne and Amanda
Barely Historical. A dark history podcast for people who ruin timelines.

Let's Ruin the Past

The year is 1997. The internet screams, Leo floats, and everything smells like Cucumber Melon and regret.

Jo and Amanda ruin the year that gave us Titanic, Princess Diana, boy bands, Heaven’s Gate, and the first online red flag named Brad_420.

They break down the world before Wi-Fi, when malls were cathedrals, feminism came in shampoo commercials, and the internet felt like both salvation and slow death by dial-up. It’s consumer culture, cult mentality, and coming-of-age chaos wrapped in glitter and grief.

Through humor and nostalgia, they look back at how 1997 shaped pop culture, connection, and the weird sense of identity we’re still trying to escape.

Listen wherever you ruin history.

Follow us
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube: @barelyhistoricalpodcast
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/BarelyHistorical
Contact: oops@barelyhistorical.com

Keywords: 1997, nostalgia, internet, pop culture, Titanic, Princess Diana, Heaven’s Gate, boy bands, consumerism, feminism

Takeaways
• 1997 was a pivotal year in pop culture and technology
• The internet was mysterious and mildly dangerous
• Princess Diana’s death created global collective grief
• Leonardo DiCaprio became the face of teenage obsession
• Consumerism and feminism got a glossy makeover
• The 90s set the stage for the digital revolution

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to 1997
04:24 The World Before the Load Screen
17:39 America’s Consumer Culture
38:13 Revolution and Rejection
58:26 The Cult of Connection

Let's Ruin the Past

Welcome to Barely Historical, the funny history podcast where two lifelong friends pick a year, dive in, and instantly regret it. In this first episode, meet Amanda and JoLynne, best friends for 25 years, failed Russian princesses, and self-appointed historians of chaos. They share how the podcast started, what’s coming next, and why the past was just as unhinged as the present. Expect pop culture, scandal, and stories from 1692 to 1997 that prove history has always been messy and hilarious.

This episode is a special main feed drop that normally lives on our Patreon. Think of it as our little Thanksgiving gift to you.

We are taking you back to the very first Macy's Day Parade in 1924. The modern parade sparkle was not there yet. Instead, it featured real animals, stiff costumes, uneven planning, and a crowd that witnessed the earliest version of a tradition that eventually became a holiday giant.

In this episode we look at the odd choices, the behind the scenes mess, the questionable logistics, and the strangely charming energy that carried the parade from a simple idea to an annual event millions now watch.

It is festive, strange, and full of the kind of history that makes you wonder how any large public event ever survived its early years.

Enjoy the full episode and Happy Thanksgiving from Barely Historical.

Instagram: @barelyhistoricalpodcastTikTok: @barelyhistoricalpodcastPatreon: patreon.com/barelyhistoricalContact: ⁠oops@barelyhistorical.com⁠

CreditsHosts: JoLynne and AmandaProduced by Barely HistoricalTheme music: Licensed track

Jo arrives in late 1986 as a six pound ball of chaos while Amanda watches from the cosmic waiting room and together they drag you through one of the wildest years of the eighties. In this Barely Historical episode, we talk Challenger, Chernobyl, Reagan era politics, chaotic 80s parenting, working moms in oversized sweaters, teenage boys saving for cars, mall culture, Aqua Net addictions, Top Gun, Ferris Bueller, Aliens, Madonna and Sean Penn drama, Run DMC, Crocodile Dundee, and the general emotional instability of 1986.

If you love dark comedy history podcasts with heavy 80s nostalgia, big hair energy, VHS memories, and extremely medium research, this one is for you. Listen to Jo and Amanda mix gossip with real events as they turn Challenger trauma, nuclear fallout, Iran Contra hearings, and neon consumerism into a messy scrapbook of 1986. Hit follow, rate and review on Spotify, and check out our Patreon for the Chernobyl deep dive plus upcoming episodes on 1924 and the first Macy’s Day Parade.

Let's Ruin the Past!

Listen wherever you ruin history.

Credits

Hosts: JoLynne & Amanda

Produced by Barely Historical

Curtains, Corpses, and Control

The year is 1945.
Evil is tidy, cruelty is domestic, and someone’s polishing silver while the world burns.
JoLynne and Amanda ruin the story of Ilse Koch, the “Bitch of Buchenwald”, a woman who proved that order without empathy is just horror in heels.

This is a sneak peek from our Patreon series History But Make It Worse, where we dig into the stories that are too dark, too messy, or too cursed for the main feed.

In this episode:
• A bookkeeper becomes a monster
• Karl Koch gets fired by Nazis for ethics violations (imagine)
• “Reveal the Sins” — real crimes, absurd punishments
• Bed, Wed, or Behead: 1940s edition

To hear the full story, including the part where it somehow gets worse, join us on Patreon.

Chapters

00:00 Cold Open
02:00 Reveal the Sins
07:45 Fact or Folklore
10:30 The Making of Order
15:00 The House Next to Hell
17:00 Bed, Wed, or Behead
20:30 Cruelty is Couture
25:00 The Reckoning
31:00 The Debrief

Credits

Hosts: JoLynne Kohl & Amanda Collaso

Produced by Barely HistoricalContact: oops@barelyhistorical.com

Let’s ruin the past.

🎧 Listen wherever you ruin history.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/BarelyHistorical

Welcome to Barely Historical, the podcast where accuracy is debatable, but enthusiasm is eternal.

This week, JoLynne and Amanda take you back to 1692 Massachusetts, where the air smelled like goat, the beer was safer than water, and paranoia was the hottest trend in town. From moldy bread and mass hysteria to “piss cakes” and paper money that melted in the rain, we’re unpacking how a bunch of Puritans turned neighborhood drama into the most infamous witch hunt in history.

Featuring:

🧙‍♀️ “Fact or Folklore” (colonial gaslighting edition)

🐐 “A Day in the Life” of unwashed Puritans

💸 America’s first inflation problem

💀 And one very innocent Good Boy

Join us as we ruin 1692, one goat joke at a time.

The 1950s and 60s looked cute on the outside.
Pastels. Casseroles. Aprons.
Inside the house?
Mid-century America was held together with Valium, denial, and whatever advice Dear Abby tossed into the newspaper that week.

In this sneak peek of our Patreon-only dark history episode, JoLynne and Amanda dig into the real story behind Mother’s Little Helpers.
Tranquilizers marketed to exhausted housewives.
Doctors handing out pills like parade candy.
Don Draper levels of dissociation.
And the cultural pressure that shaped women’s lives in 1950s and 1960s America.

This preview stops right before things get darker, messier, and too honest for the main feed.
To hear the full deep dive into women’s history, mid-century medicine, and the ghosts patriarchy left behind, join us on Patreon for History But Make It Worse.

Patreon:
Email: oops@barelyhistorical.com

Let’s ruin the past.

New York in 1924 looks glamorous until you tap it with your fingernail and hear pure hollow chaos underneath. In this episode, Amanda and JoLynne drag you through the smells, the sweat, the speakeasies, the Harlem Renaissance, the class divide, the crime, the corruption, the glitter on top, and the rot beneath. This is not the postcard version of the Roaring Twenties. This is the real one.

Inside this episode
• What everyday life actually felt like in 1924 New York
• Why the entire city smelled like ambition, garbage, and bathtub gin
• Harlem’s art scene bursting into history
• Prohibition, speakeasies, crime families, corruption, and survival
• A rich lady vs worker day in the life at Macy’s
• Fact or Folklore
• Cost of Chaos
• A tease of the first Macy’s Day Parade

Instagram: @barelyhistoricalpodcast
TikTok: @barelyhistoricalpodcast
Patreon: patreon.com/barelyhistorical
Contact: oops@barelyhistorical.com

Credits
Hosts: JoLynne and Amanda
Produced by Barely Historical
Theme music: Licensed track

Were we too young to watch Titanic when we did? Yes. Did that stop our parents from handing us grape-flavored lip gloss, greasy popcorn, and a front row seat to lifelong emotional damage? Absolutely not.

In this episode, we skip the door debate and head straight for the real Titanic. The ship of dreams, the floating ego, the coal fire no one mentioned, the lifeboats that left half empty, and the seven deadly sins dressed in white tie. First class tips sailors to keep rowing, third class gets locked behind gates, a wireless operator ignores iceberg warnings to send rich people’s gossip, and a very drunk baker accidentally becomes a science experiment in human insulation.

We talk class, cowardice, scapegoats, inquiries, band kids playing through the apocalypse, and why humanity never gets tired of building new “unsinkable” things just to crash them into the same old ocean.

Plus, Smash or Pass: Titanic Edition, where we apply no science, no dignity, and entirely too much Leo energy to historical figures who absolutely did not consent to this.

Credits

Hosts: JoLynne & Amanda

Produced by Barely Historical

Contact: ⁠oops@barelyhistorical.com⁠

Let’s ruin the past.

🎧 Listen wherever you ruin history.

Patreon:

The year is 1945, world leaders are running on caffeine, cigarettes, and denial while the planet burns and everyone’s pretending it’s fine. From lobster feasts in bombed out Crimea to victory haircuts and ration book romance, JoLynne and Amanda unpack the year the world “won” and immediately started breaking again.

We’ve got Yalta drama, Churchill’s champagne problem, Roosevelt’s exhaustion arc, and the birth of the UN (aka the “please behave” club). Grab your chicory coffee and emotional support typewriter, it’s time to relive peace on paper, grief in practice, and a few questionable fashion choices along the way.

🎧 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/BarelyHistorical

📩 Contact: oops@barelyhistorical.com

Website:

Let’s ruin the past!

The year is 1692. Massachusetts is cold, paranoid, and running on bad carbs. Two girls start convulsing, the town loses its collective mind, and suddenly everyone’s a witch — or about to be.

This is the chaotic half you’re allowed to hear. We cover the gossip, the bad science, and the first sparks of hysteria that made Salem the messiest small town in history.

In this episode: • The girls, the fits, and the fungus theory • The witch court that made ghosts into witnesses • The hangings that changed everything

To hear the rest — including the aftermath, the real legacy, and “Guess That Sin: Puritan Edition” — head to our Patreon for the full, unhinged version.

🎧 Patreon:

📩 Contact: oops@barelyhistorical.com

Let’s ruin the past.