Born into a well-off family, he was left fatherless at a young age after his father died from the horrific long-term effects of being gassed in the trenches of WWI. He wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and be a fighting man, and so did his brother and sister. Well, she wasn’t a fighting man. She was a badass combat ambulance driver. He spent his early career in Her Majesty's Army over in India doing some wild shit, hunting tigers and spearing wild pigs. Then Hitler went and ruined his fun. He trained as part of the ultra elite SAS and wanted to jump out of planes. He also stole a plane for a weekend boys trip, but that’s not important. He would take part in one of the largest airborne assaults in world history: Operation Market Garden. Him and his guys landed waaaay off course in their glider and humped it like 7 miles across town. The good news was that there were also tons of unfriendly Germans there, didn’t matter; Digby is the main character. They got to the objective point and got their asses kicked but, he did some really fun stuff with the umbrella he had… He got captured by the Nazis but that wasn’t the end of his story. Not. Even. Close.

Get episodes a week early, and ad-free access to all episodes on Patreon: https://patreon.com/1159media

Our first toe dip into the world of the underworld. This is the kind of True Crime topic you can expect to see more of in the future of History Goon. Joe Barboza had a f**ked up childhood. His dad left because he was cheating on his mom; she sent little Joe to talk to him, and he kicked him out. After he bought him a pigeon. He bounced around youth and adult prisons (he spent time in a bunch of places that one of the most notorious possible serial killers in US history. He also could have been full of shit.) Joe would get recruited for his “skillset” by the biggest crime family in New England, where he terrorised the streets of Massachusetts. If you owed Joe money, he would find you. And when he found you, he was going to hurt you. Badly. The big reason I wanted to cover him is what he was responsible for, the creation of a Government program that is still in use today. Hang out for a bit and see how that worked out for him…

Get the show a week early, and ad-free on Patreon: https://patreon.com/1159media

The “War on Drugs” started back in 1971 under Richard Nixon with the intent of eliminating illegal drug use by making the fines and penalties so stiff that people would stop using them. It’s hard to say, but guys, I think drugs won. That being said, people have been doing drugs for a LONG TIME. People have also been going to war for a LONG TIME. Sometimes, the streams get crossed, and guys stuff handfuls of mushrooms into their mouths and attack the English. Or sometimes the 2 biggest super powers that fought in the European theater of WWII gave troops Meth. Maybe some guys get yakked out of their skulls on Meth and fight the Russians on skis. Maybe dudes got baked and fought off a billion Vietcong soldiers in the middle of the night. It’s hard to say. I’m not going to condone drug use, but this is gonna be a wild episode.

Get early, ad-free access to all episodes on Patreon: https://patreon.com/1159media