An Ounce - For Your Consideration
Discover hidden stories from history—bite-sized, clever tales that challenge what you thought you knew. At An Ounce, we uncover the little moments that quietly changed everything, surprising truths, and fascinating facts you won’t hear elsewhere.
I’m Jim Fugate—retired firefighter, lifelong learner, and an outside-the-box thinker who loves sharing history’s hidden gems. These quick, engaging stories don’t take themselves too seriously, won’t steal your precious time, and might just make you feel a little bit smarter.
I hope you’ll join a community of curious minds who enjoy a fresh take on history—where conversation is always open and everyone’s invited.
An Ounce - For Your Consideration
The Warnings We Forgot — Even Though They Were Written in Stone
There's a powerful story behind a stone marker in Japan, offering a stark tsunami warning. This marker, a silent sentinel, speaks volumes about the enduring risk of the ocean. For generations, its message was heeded, but eventually, the warning was forgotten. When the next earthquake and tsunami struck, the stone stood firm, a poignant reminder of nature's power. Like, subscribe, and tell us your thoughts on this incredible piece of world history.
Long before modern data storage, humans carved their most important warnings into stone.
In coastal Japan, centuries-old markers warned communities not to build below a certain line. For generations, people listened. Then memory faded, confidence grew, and the boundaries moved—until the water returned.
This episode explores how warnings work, why they’re ignored once they succeed, and what happens when we forget why a line was drawn in the first place.
👉 If this made you think differently about rules, margins, or safety lines—like, subscribe, and share it with someone who might need the reminder.
You’ve Been Lied To! The Truth Behind History’s Biggest Myths
Why comforting stories outlive uncomfortable truths—and how forgetting the real lesson changes behavior. https://youtu.be/JpHTMQV-XPQ
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🧭 Chapters (Timestamps – adjust after final edit)
00:30 — A Line on the Hillside
01:44 — When the Warning Was Tested
02:34 — When Memory Outruns Experience
04:48 — Not All Stones Say the Same Thing
05:37 — Stone Was the Original Cloud
06:39 — The Warnings We Haven’t Identified Yet
07:04 — An Ounce
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1. Tsunami stones and Japanese generational memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami_stone Wikipedia
2. Collective memory fades over decades (~90 years): https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/coronavirus-covid-19-stay-prepared-with-collective-memory/ USC Dornsife
3. Flood memory fades within two generations: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09102-3 Nature
4. Remembering and forgetting disasters (Springer): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13753-020-00277-8 Springer
5. Flashbulb memory and traumatic events: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory Wikipedia
6. Memory bias & selective omission: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_omission Wikipedia
7. (Optional) A philosophical look at forgetting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Forgetting Wikipedia
Credits
Music: TORSION by Density and Time
Images: Wikimedia - Multiple CC images as noted, Picryl, iStock and Getty by subscription
10 second pre-roll promo for An Ounce Podcast on YouTube