Chuck Bryant

Bryant said the pair once had to use the block and tackle 18 times in a single day to pull themselves out of ditches, rivers or mud.

“I think the record was 18 times in a day. They had to use that block and tackle”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: The First Road Trip (Jul 11, 2026) · Listen from 34:59

Bryant argued that routing north through Oregon to avoid the Nevada desert was the decision that ultimately made the trip successful.

“avoiding that desert, I think, is what ultimately made them successful”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: The First Road Trip (Jul 11, 2026) · Listen from 30:20

Bryant emphasized that Jackson's trip was unsponsored and assembled in four days, in contrast to corporate teams with advance supplies and mechanics.

“He put this together in four days, including buying the car”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: The First Road Trip (Jul 11, 2026) · Listen from 25:48

Bryant said Hughes tried to cancel the Desert Inn tennis tournament because Arthur Ashe would compete, and Ashe went on to win.

“he tried to cancel it because he found out that Arthur Ashe, an African-American, was going to be competing”

Stuff You Should Know: Howard Hughes in Las Vegas (May 28, 2026) · Listen from 37:57

Bryant said Maheu worked for Hughes for years without ever meeting him face to face.

“this is fairly shocking, but apparently never met him in person”

Stuff You Should Know: Howard Hughes in Las Vegas (May 28, 2026) · Listen from 22:47

Bryant said Hughes went to Las Vegas for tax-shelter reasons after selling his TWA stock, not out of interest in casinos.

“he heard about it being a great tax shelter. And he had sold a ton of stock, I guess all of his stock in TWA that year”

Stuff You Should Know: Howard Hughes in Las Vegas (May 28, 2026) · Listen from 10:24

Bryant described Songlin Fei's finding that eastern U.S. hardwoods are moving west and softwoods moving north at different rates.

“Different plants and trees are moving in different directions at different rates”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Plant Migration (Jul 25, 2026) · Listen from 22:14

Bryant noted that moving 500 meters upslope can give a plant a more hospitable climate faster than moving 90 to 100 miles north.

“a plant can find more hospitable climbs going up 500 meters than they might by going, let's just say, north like 90 to 100 miles”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Plant Migration (Jul 25, 2026) · Listen from 13:15

Bryant observes that cancers differ in public awareness, with breast cancer outpacing prostate cancer in marketing.

“prostate cancer has often lagged behind breast cancer. Like breast cancer does a bang-up job of marketing and press and PR and awareness”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Birthmarks: Probably Not the Mark of the Devil (Jun 20, 2026) · Listen from 31:46

Bryant says a family member's melanoma, now being treated successfully, showed him how serious the disease is.

“The treatment is going really well, but it has definitely opened my eyes to the fact that it's no joke”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Birthmarks: Probably Not the Mark of the Devil (Jun 20, 2026) · Listen from 31:12

Bryant cites a 2013 ACLU study finding much slower police response times in Chicago's Black Grand Crossing neighborhood than in white Jefferson Park.

“waited 11 minutes for a cop to come after a priority call, two and a half minutes for the predominantly white neighborhood of Jefferson Park”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: 911 Is Not a Joke (Jun 6, 2026) · Listen from 56:29

Bryant argues that the 'suspicious person' category is problematic because it depends on human perception, which can be racially biased.

“that's where it gets dodgy because that comes down to a human being's perception, which can be very tilted”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: 911 Is Not a Joke (Jun 6, 2026) · Listen from 11:31

Bryant thinks the female-authorship theory makes more sense than others because women had a clear motive to hide.

“I think this theory makes a lot more sense than a lot of the others. just by the sheer fact that women would not have been allowed to”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Did Shakespeare really write all that stuff? (May 30, 2026) · Listen from 47:03

Bryant agrees that elitism lies at the root of many anti-Stratfordian theories.

“what's at the root of a lot of these theories is what Ed, I think, rightly calls elitism”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Did Shakespeare really write all that stuff? (May 30, 2026) · Listen from 22:25

Bryant said the mob skimmed about $50 million from Hughes's casinos in under four years.

“in less than four years, the mob skimmed about 50 million bucks off of Howard Hughes”

Stuff You Should Know: Howard Hughes in Las Vegas (May 28, 2026) · Listen from 46:57

Bryant said Hughes envisioned Las Vegas becoming as respectable as the New York Stock Exchange rather than a mob town.

“he had a vision of Las Vegas to be, I think he said, as respectable as the New York Stock Exchange”

Stuff You Should Know: Howard Hughes in Las Vegas (May 28, 2026) · Listen from 31:18

Bryant disputes the idea that there is a consensus Mallory never reached the top, saying debate continues.

“I don't think that's true at all. I think there is still debate on whether or not they actually made it to the top”

Stuff You Should Know: Did Mallory Make it to the Top of Everest First? (Sep 6, 2022) · Listen from 48:43

Bryant considers whether Mallory reached Everest's summit to be an unsettled mystery.

“And the great mystery, to me, unsettled mystery, on whether or not he ever made it to the top of Everest”

Stuff You Should Know: Did Mallory Make it to the Top of Everest First? (Sep 6, 2022) · Listen from 1:50

Bryant noted that the Monterey pine is endangered in its native California but invasive in Australia.

“It's endangered in California. It is native to California. But they have introduced it in Australia”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Plant Migration (Jul 25, 2026) · Listen from 39:07

Bryant said researchers in Quebec found sugar maples migrating north cannot thrive in boreal forest soils because of differing pH and microbes.

“the soil pH and the microbe content in the soil is not what they're used to and not what they work well with”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Plant Migration (Jul 25, 2026) · Listen from 26:56

Bryant said Earth has warmed more than one degree Celsius since the Industrial Age began, with 0.37 of that since 2011.

“But 0.37 of that change over the past 200 years has come since 2011”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Plant Migration (Jul 25, 2026) · Listen from 18:59

Bryant explained that oaks in the British Isles traveled about 600 miles in roughly 10,000 years, a distance that ordinary dispersal would take about a million years to cover.

“They traveled about 600 miles and it would normally take about a million years to If the seeds were just dispersed in a typical way”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: Plant Migration (Jul 25, 2026) · Listen from 8:29

Bryant notes Cornelius's final episode was May 10, 1993, and the show ran until 2006 as the longest-running syndicated show.

“It went all the way to 2006 and became the longest running syndicated show in TV history”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: The Soul Train Episode (Jul 18, 2026) · Listen from 51:32

Bryant describes an awkward interview in which Cornelius largely ignored Chuck D in favor of Flavor Flav, suggesting he did not understand the group.

“It really came off as like, Don Cornelius doesn't understand this. I'm not dissing Flav, but like Chuck D was like, he was the leader of that band”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: The Soul Train Episode (Jul 18, 2026) · Listen from 49:29

Bryant criticizes Dick Clark for launching Soul Unlimited on ABC as a ripoff targeting the African-American market.

“But for him to go after the African-American market like that, I don't think was very cool”

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: The Soul Train Episode (Jul 18, 2026) · Listen from 43:33