It has been the habit of kings throughout the world to hire tasters to test their food, on the off-chance some oppressed mass had poisoned it. But Henry VIII cast a wider net with his paranoia. He wanted to be certain no one was going to poison him transdermally,...

A content advisory before we begin. This episode contains a homophobic slur, in its original context. The history of the human being is divided into two major epochs, the dividing line between them being the first written record. If you were asked to name the greatest...

In 2003, Oprah Winfrey used her daytime television platform to warn millions of people that teenage girls were attending parties wearing wild shades of lipstick and performing oral sex on boys. The boy with the most colors of lipstick smudges would win the accolades...

You say potato, I say a dangerous tuber that people will only eat in the face of actual starvation. You say tomato, I say a poison apple from the mysterious new world that’s killing the aristocracy. We can hardly imagine a salad without tomatoes or trip to the...

When president Teddy Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act into law in 1906, manufactures of foods, beverages, and drugs had to scramble to remove ingredients the government just banned and update their labeling. The law hampered sales of things like Coca-Cola,...