The Lesser Stories

The Lesser Stories

History's least-important bits....from the funny to the completely insane, and everything in between! Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten Producer: Adam Azra'el

Episodes

S3E7: Covert Affairs

March 18, 2026 • 37 mins
This episode is extremely classified, so you have to promise not to tell anyone. Anthony cracks the file on Robert Hanssen, who sold info to the Russians in the 90s. Adam goes back a little further to Elizabethan England, and the sordid life of Christopher Marlowe....poet, playwright, and 100% probably also a long-term spy. 

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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Transcript

S3E6: Baby, You Can Drive My Car

March 11, 2026 • 44 mins
What has four wheels and has a history of being used for wild adventures? If you answered "automobile", you are correct because this was not a joke, it was an easy quiz and you passed....good for you. Anthony recounts a car race from New York to Paris (yes, he'll answer that question) and Adam shovels up the goods on the Snow Cruiser.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el

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Transcript

S3E5: Popes pt III

March 4, 2026 • 18 mins
The big G might just sit this one out as Anthony explores the immensely gross but memorable funeral of Pope Alexander VI, and Adam digs deep on a 350-year anti-dick crusade through the Vatican's art collection. 

We don't know if there's a particular number of euphamisms after which we have to give some sort of content warning, but if there is then we hit it....there's your warning. See you all in hell.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony St...
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Transcript

S3E4: Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions

February 25, 2026 • 26 mins
Ahoy, matey! Adam and Anthony both take you out to sea by total coincidence; Adam talks about the miraculous(ly awful) rebuilding of the Osbourne Reef, and Anthony talks about what you do with dead whales when they wash up....and what you don't do. Ever. Even if it sounds cool.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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Transcript

S3E3: Do A Barrel Roll

February 18, 2026 • 41 mins
Gamers of the world, take heed! Anthony talks about the Nintendo-Sony-Phillips love triangle that led to the PlayStation being created out of spite. Adam recounts the tale of Atari's spectacular corporate suicide surrounding the creation of E.T. - The Video Game.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el

Episodes, articles, stories, and more at www.TheLesserStories.com
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Transcript

S3E2: Fool Me Once

February 11, 2026 • 36 mins
Fraud, I say! Fraud! Adam explores the forgeries of Mark Hoffman, and Anthony lays out Carlos Kaiser's exciting and storied football career (kind of).

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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Transcript

S3E1: What Dreams May Dumb

February 4, 2026 • 36 mins
Question: What hibernates for three years without dying? Answer: The Lesser Stories and the two schmucks who host it! The Lesser Stories returns for a third season full of all the things you'd've learned in high school if your History teachers were allowed to drink and swear. 

Celebrating their first episode in over three years, the boys dig into some poorly-realized dreams! Anthony scans the skies for the Spruce Goose; Adam recount...
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S2E19: Pour Me Another

May 17, 2022 • 22 mins
Cheers to the end of another season! It's all about the booze this episode; Anthony talks about definitely-not-alcohol sold during Prohibition, and Adam talks about definitely-alcohol being accidentally set on fire and sent rampaging through Dublin. Clink 'em and drink 'em, and we'll see you in Season 3!

Hosts: Anthony Staten, Adam Azra'el

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E18: The Dogs of War

May 10, 2022 • 21 mins
It's WWII time! Adam digs into a unit devoted entirely to making fake armies; Anthony talks about Finland's deadliest sniper.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten.  

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E17: Doctor, You've Done It!

May 3, 2022 • 22 mins
Next stop: medicine! Anthony talks about a doctor who changed the world forever. Adam talks about one who didn't change the world at all. Warning: parts of this episode are *spectacularly* gross.

Hosts: Anthony Staten, Adam Azra'el

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E16: On The Border

April 26, 2022 • 27 mins
Anthony unpacks how Michigan and Ohio both wanted Toledo (for some reason). Adam talks about Nicaragua and Honduras, and how the wrong color green in a stamp re-ignited a century-old border dispute.   

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten
Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E15: Under The Sea

April 19, 2022 • 33 mins
Adam, Anthony, and special guest Davey Jones (no, not really, don't be an idiot) discuss some stuff that happens where the sun don't shine. Mostly we mean at the bottom of the ocean, but in this case we also partly mean at the bottom of a person.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E14: Two Headlines, One Day

April 12, 2022 • 22 mins
If a tree falls in a forest but a BIGGER tree falls in a DIFFERENT forest, did the first tree even fall? Adam digs into the most important (and least-known) pharaoh ever discovered, and Anthony explores three deaths....two of which went totally unnoticed.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten
Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E13: Death Of A Monarch

April 5, 2022 • 15 mins
It's not our last episode, but it was certainly theirs....Anthony closes the book on Charles The Bad, and Adam makes multiple attempts to kick Zog Of Albania's bucket. It's death, murder, mayhem, destruction....you know. Wholesome stuff.

Hosts: Anthony Staten, Adam Azra'el

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E12: The Pen Is Mightier

March 29, 2022 • 19 mins
Can a book save a cathedral from being demolished? Turns out....yeah. Do we have any idea what the Voynich Manuscript is? Turns out....no. Adam and Anthony sit down to very academically unpack two famous historical literary works.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten


Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E11: The Final Frontier, pt III

March 15, 2022 • 21 mins
Is it technically littering when a space station falls out of the sky and onto your town? Anthony thinks so. Meanwhile, Adam is busy unpacking the drama of The Corned Beef Sandwich Incident.

Hosts: Anthony Staten, Adam Azra'el

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E10: The Body Politic

March 8, 2022 • 18 mins
Anthony talks about that one time that Ireland accidentally made drugs legal and same-sex marriage legally required. Adam digs into Honest Abe's dirty trick to win an election and end slavery in the United States.
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S2E9: Tiny Little Wars

March 1, 2022 • 23 mins
Anthony blows the dust off the Football War (4 days). Adam gets competitive and rolls out the Anglo-Zanzibar War (38 minutes). May history judge us all harshly.

Hosts: Anthony Staten, Adam Azra'el

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E8: Manmade Disasters

February 22, 2022 • 31 mins
People are the WORST, and the lads can prove it. Adam talks about a suspicious flood in Missouri in 1993; Anthony got the extra-hot gossip (on account of it's been on fire for 50 years) from the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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S2E7: Popes, pt I

February 15, 2022 • 26 mins
Say three Hail Marys and get ready for some stories straight from the dude upstairs. Anthony talks about the death and subsequent troubles of Pope Formosus. Adam spills the beans on Pope John XII....and they're some spicy beans. If we're going to hell then we'll see at least one of these guys there.

Hosts: Adam Azra'el, Anthony Staten

Producer: Adam Azra'el
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