That’s one of the show’s great tricks. You sit down expecting to laugh, and twenty minutes later you realize you’ve become completely invested in someone who died 150 years ago. Awesome.

I understand that feeling very well.

There is also something wonderfully human about how these stories are told.

Academic history has its place, and good documentation matters enormously, but people have been passing history to one another around tables, fires, and drinks for a very long time. We don’t always begin with dates and footnotes.

We begin with, “You have to hear what happened to this woman.”

Then comes the story.

That’s the heart of Drunk History. And Now It’s Back

According to that account, John, Jean, and Patrick crossed the Atlantic in a sailing vessel, and the voyage did not go smoothly. Unfavorable winds prolonged the crossing to three months. Before they reached America, their water and provisions ran short. Patrick supposedly left Ireland wearing a new pair of buckskin breeches that fit him tightly. After three months at sea, with food running short, the breeches were considerably looser when he stepped ashore.