In the early 20th century, people across the country spent Halloween night cowering in terror, not from witches and ghosts and ghouls, but from roving bands of delinquent youth committing ever-more destructive and dangerous pranks. The town of Anoka, Minnesota, was no exception: buildings were burned down, windows shattered, outhouses tipped over, wagons were lifted onto rooftops, and a herd of cows led into downtown businesses.

But in 1920, Anoka's civic and business leaders decided to deal with this menace in a novel fashion: by becoming the first city in the United States to put on an official Halloween celebration and to promote a new trend called "trick or treating." Ever since, the town of Anoka has proudly promoted itself as "Halloween Capital of the World"— a title even affirmed by an official act of Congress.

Join us as we explore the complicated history of Halloween, and learn how this small Minnesota town helped transform it from a wanton spree of chaos and destruction into the fun and spooky holiday we know today.

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The Minnesota State Fair draws around 2 million fairgoers each year, more per day than any other fair in the nation. But how did it get started in the first place?

In this episode, we'll explore the origins of the Great Minnesota Get-Together and track the fair's growth and evolution over its first fifty years.

We'll see how a small territorial agricultural show grew into one of the state's most hallowed annual traditions in spite of repeated bankruptcies, a Civil War, a tornado, scandal and controversy, and how it was almost destroyed by the bitter rivalry between Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Along the way we'll meet giant produce, "female equestriennes," hucksters and hustlers, dueling state fairs, illicit gambling, problematic carnival games, and find out why the "Temperance Tent" at the 1904 fair was actually a covert den of iniquity.

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(Content Warning: Brief discussion of incredibly racist carnival attractions that may be disturbing to some. This occurs from about 01:00:00 until 01:02:30)

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At long last we come to the epic conclusion of our Prince mini-series! (We recommend listening to the previous two episodes if you haven't already.)

Picking up where we left off in the last episode, we follow Prince's quixotic quest to become a movie star, see how Prince was almost replaced in his own movie, track the unlikely success of the film and album Purple Rain, learn how Prince gave us that 'Parental Advisory' sticker on explicit albums, witness the building of a 65,000 square foot compound with microphones in every room, find out how Prince became a symbol (literally), and so much more.

(Content Warning: strong language, sexual content and innuendo.)

For detailed shownotes, links to related content, and a list of sources cited, head here.