The show simply has a way of taking what might be a dour or dry story and infusing life, humor and a weird sense of dignity into it through the comedians' portrayals. In the case of Inouye, he was played by Steven Yeun of “The Walking Dead,” immediately putting a very recognizable face for TV audiences into this position and engendering empathy for Inouye the war hero, a man who had his whole freaking arm blown off while taking German machine gun nests in Italy. Despite that, he never even received the Medal of Honor until the 1990s, as Inouye returned to an ungrateful nation that distrusted him because of his race. Vowing to improve things he began a career in politics, culminating in a 1962 election to the U.S. Senate, where he was reelected eight times. That is one astounding individual.

And that was just one guy in one episode! In this season alone, I've learned about the feud between Edgar Allen Poe and poetry editor Rufus Griswold, pioneering rock 'n roll disc jockey Alan Freed and Claudette Colvin, the young African American girl who was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Ala., a full nine months BEFORE Rosa Parks. Obviously, none of these are exactly documentary-quality pieces of information, but if you've never heard the story before, your liklihood of going on Wikipedia and reading more in-depth about that person's life has just risen exponentially.