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How Curious
Tuesdays

Exploring Oklahoma legends, tall tales, oddities, and conundrums. Heard something you're curious about? Submit questions and suggestions for future episodes to curious@kgou.org.

Latest Episodes
  • In this month’s How Curious, host Rachel Hopkin looks into how, when, and why the parking meter was invented here in Oklahoma City back in the 1930s. In the course of her investigation she learns about the polymath behind it, inventive reactions to its installation such as tying a horse to the meter post and paying for the metered spot for a game of bridge, and some beautiful women in golden bikinis.
  • Every year, the Asthma and Allergies Foundation of America puts out an Allergy Capital report which ranks the top 100 large US cities if you suffer from pollen-based seasonal allergies. Oklahoma City and Tulsa regularly make the top ten. In this episode, Rachel Hopkin looks into what makes the Sooner State so challenging for the seasonal allergy afflicted.
  • Nestled in the heart of Bricktown is a remarkable tribute to some of the most innovative and influential figures -- and instruments -- in music history. Join How Curious host and producer Rachel Hopkin in her exploration of the world-class American Banjo Museum.
  • This month's How Curious explores how the work of two African American property developers and entrepreneurs proved ground-breaking both within Oklahoma City and beyond on both a literal and metaphorical level.
  • A few months after How Curious host/producer Rachel Hopkin moved to Oklahoma, she was given a barite rose rock by two of her dear neighbors. It came in a box with a short text attached which stated that to hold it was “literally like holding a quarter billion years of history in the palm of your hand.” That gift provided the impetus for this episode, in which Rachel finds out more about this geological bloom and why it's unique to just one part of the Sooner state.
  • It's almost impossible to imagine life without the shopping cart today. However, it was invented less than a hundred years ago. Rachel Hopkin explores how it came about, its pervasive impact, and the role that the Oklahoma inventor/entrepreneur/philanthropist Sylvan Goldman played in its success.
  • How Curious host/producer Rachel Hopkin the world's largest institution that’s solely dedicated to revealing and exploring the form and function of the skeletal system and which is based right here in OKC.
  • Seventy years ago, a landmark psychological study that has been described as a real life Lord of the Flies took place in an Oklahoma state park. But although the Robbers Cave Experiment, like the novel, focused on a bunch of schoolboys, it offered a very different perspective on human nature.
  • Which Oklahoman Got a Hippopotamus for Christmas? Today’s story features a local girl with a belter of a voice, several hippopotamuses, some zoo history, and a hit song.
  • Which of Oklahoma's cities was designated "America's Model City" in 1951? And how did the diminutive Shetland pony help that city to grow?