Mick Sullivan
143 episodes listed below
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A History Podcast for Kids! Parents love us, Teachers love us, and most importantly, kids do too! History can be amazing, inspiring and relevant to anyone. We love to share the stories of Spies, funny foods, George Washington's foibles, early advancements in cartooning and ballooning and much more! A professional music score and important songs accompany nearly every themed episode. Proud Kids Listen Member @pastandcurious
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Mick Sullivan makes history approachable through vivid human stories, careful uncertainty, playful quizzes, and meaningful contributions from young listeners.
Mick Sullivan builds narrative history around the details that make the past strange, consequential, and easy to picture. A poisonous plant enters the food supply through cows. Peter the Great returns from his travels determined to change Russian beards.
A cat survives Niagara Falls in a barrel; your history quiz suddenly has stakes.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A funny Arctic search story turns a frozen ship into a kid-friendly lesson on the Resolute desk and diplomacy.
This election-season kids history episode takes a sideways path into politics, following the hunt for Franklin and the Northwest Passage until HMS Resolute becomes tied to a desk with presidential meaning.
A rotten meal becomes a sharp warning about wealth that outlives its owner.
Misers centers on John Elwes, a wealthy man remembered through the grimly comic image of fighting a rat over a bird, then taking it home for a servant to cook.
Two 1917 hoaxes lead to a fairy prank and a sharp question about belief.
An April Fools frame gives this history episode a tidy hook: why do people keep trusting a hoax once the clues begin to wobble? It connects two hoaxes from 1917, then spends most of its time with the stranger, more revealing one: girls, fairies, wet shoes, and a prank that…
A focused wartime art-recovery story about Rose Valand's records, a broken train, and stolen art making its way back.
This episode frames a stolen-art train as a taut wartime story about records, patience, and the fragile work of restitution. Rose Valand quietly tracks works taken by the Nazis, then helps the Allies find them after a broken train, placed by the French resistance, slows the…
Handwriting leads into Peanuts history, a presidential quiz, and a loose but friendly round of trivia.
Handwriting gives the episode its organizing idea, then opens into a broader pass through history, memory, and quick factual play. Mick Sylvan begins with a quotation about the "better angels of our nature" before the show shifts into a brisk You Have 30 Seconds segment on…
A warm bridge episode built around book news, a Kickstarter, and Wojtek the Polish army bear.
The episode uses its time to lay out the next book, another animal-history project headed for Heart Ally Press, and the Kickstarter meant to help bring it out.
A lively origin story for electricity that turns a parlor trick into science history.
The episode follows Stephen Gray, a fabric dyer with no formal education, as he edges toward one of the earliest breakthroughs in electricity.
A rivalry-driven dinosaur story that stays clear, brisk, and just messy enough to stick.
The rivalry between two paleontologists gives this episode an easy hook. Ambition, publish fast or lose, and the odd way science can turn into a grudge match all come through clearly.
Multi-part dramatized retellings of scandals like OceanGate's Titan and the Lehman Brothers collapse.
A season-by-season history show pairing dramatized Rasputin and Salem narratives with historian interviews.
Greg Young and Tom Meyers explain how New York City's streets took shape.
Fashion historians April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary dig into garments, letters, and the people who wore them.
The Past and The Curious episode 103 connects Arizona camel lore with Elijah Otis and the elevator, using the Red Ghost sightings, the U.S.
Two paleontologists turn dinosaur hunting into a race.
Mick starts with listener mail and a quick look at what’s happening on the 10 News podcast before moving into quiz mode.
Mick Sullivan opens by cheering for libraries.
Mick Sullivan finally gets to the lens story.
Mick Sullivan opens with a thank-you to the Boston crowd, a WBUR shout-out, and a warm hello to listeners.
Mick Sullivan tells the story of Tori Murden-McClure, who became the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
It opens with a haircut joke.
Mick Sullivan opens "Lost Bones" with Joseph Haydn’s tomb in Eisenstadt, Austria, which contains one skeleton and two skulls because phrenology fans stole his original skull after his 1809 death.
Stephen Gray takes center stage as the episode follows electricity's earliest experiments.
Mick Sullivan’s "The Past and The Curious" episode "Mountains To Climb" centers on Henri Dongeville’s 1838 ascent of Mont Blanc and Julia Archibald Holmes’s 1858 climb of Pikes Peak.
Mick Sullivan traces ice cream from George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson’s expensive tastes to Nancy Johnson’s 1843 patent for an ice cream maker.
Episode 115 of The Past and the Curious (a children's history podcast hosted by Mick Sullivan) explores three interconnected stories of people who saved lives.
Mick Sullivan traces how Frederick Tudor, born in 1783 in Boston, turned lake ice into a business after a trip to Cuba exposed him to heat, yellow fever, and the lack of any ice at all.
The Past and The Curious episode “Handwritten” ties Abraham Lincoln’s 12-day train ride to Washington, D.C., with Ely S.
Mick Sullivan’s The Past and the Curious episode 113, “Misers,” begins with Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and the claim that Dickens self-published the book on December 19th, 1843, in London.
Mick Sullivan’s 102nd episode of The Past and The Curious pairs Benjamin Banneker’s 1753 wooden striking clock with Richard Pearse’s early New Zealand airplane experiments.
Mick Sullivan traces the Resolute Desk back to the HMS Resolute, a British Navy ship that was left frozen in the Arctic and later found by the American whaling ship George Henry.
Mick Sullivan’s The Past and The Curious: A History Podcast for Kids and Families episode “One Year, Two Hoaxes” ties two 1917 pranks together: the Cottingley Fairies in England and H.
It starts with a freakish claim.
The Past and The Curious episode “Moving Water” connects the 1825 opening of the Erie Canal to the 1900 reversal of the Chicago River.
This episode explores the stories of animals who left their mark on history, featuring Clara the touring rhinoceros who inspired European fashion, Mozart's melody-mimicking pet starling, and the real-life aggressive whale that inspired Herman Melville's 'Moby-Dick'.
Mick Sullivan tells two World War II stories: Rose Voland at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris and the U-1206 submarine toilet failure.
This episode explores the strange historical tale of a woman who claimed to have received a complete novel, 'Jap Heron,' from the ghost of Mark Twain via a Ouija board years after his death.
Mick Sullivan tells the story of Minerva Hoyt and the desert land she helped protect.
Mick starts with a food he cannot stop thinking about.
Mick Sullivan tells the story of bad milk.
Mick Sullivan takes a food story and opens it up into a wider history lesson.
Mick Sullivan tells the story of the Field of Cloth of Gold as a big meeting of sports, parties, food, costume, and politics.
This episode explores the stories of three historically significant animals: Mrs.
This episode explores the origins of time zones and daylight saving time, including the fascinating 'day with two noons'.
This episode explores the lives of two free black men from the Revolutionary War era in Philadelphia, highlighting their contributions to business and art.
A history podcast for kids and families that explores the origins of toys in a New Year's episode.
This episode of The Past and The Curious explores the lives of Walt Whitman and Dr.
This episode tells two stories about underwear: one about the underwear company that made the moon spacesuit and another about Benedict Arnold's betrayal being exposed by something hidden in underwear.
This episode explores the life of Edgar Allan Poe, his frenemy Rufus Griswold, and the story behind 'The Raven' with a dramatic reading.
This episode explores two stories about books: librarians protecting valuable books from people, and a Paris library protecting people from a radioactive book owned by Marie Curie.
This episode explores great moments in communication, including the transatlantic cable and the invention of the telephone, presented in an engaging way for children and families.
A history podcast for kids that tells engaging, quirky stories from the past, like the 1876 meat shower and a Da Vinci painting theft.