History Episodes

This week, we're celebrating all kinds of mums - but no, that isn't in observance of America's Mother's Day holiday this upcoming Sunday! No, the collection of mums we're discussing are of a decidedly drier type: mummified human remains. And these aren't the millennia-old corpses of ancient Egyptian Pharoahs; no, all the mummies we're discussing come from the last century (and change) and all across the world. From a drag queen's closet in New York City to a musty Sicilian catacomb to Moscow's...

Last week we shared the first half of the dramatic tale of one of America's so-called "Crimes of the Century" - the kidnapping, and tragic murder, of Charles Lindbergh Jr., toddler son to one of the most famous men in the world: aviator Charles Lindbergh. In this, our 2nd and final part, we detail the painstaking investigation that eventually led to the arrest of German immigrant Richard "Bruno" Hauptmann for the murder of little Charles. The years-long search for the kidnapper and killer invol...

On the night of March 1st, 1932, little Charles Lindbergh Jr. was tucked into his crib for a good night's sleep. Mere hours later, the family nurse discovered that Charles Jr. was no longer in his bed...nor was he anywhere else to be found. The disappearance kicked off the beginning of one of America's so-called "crimes of the century", and one of the world's earliest international true crime sensations. Because Charles Jr. wasn't just any toddler - he was the son of megastar aviator Charles Li...

The raison d'etre for our whole series on Hannibal and the Punic Wars is here this week, and that's very bad news for 50,000 Roman soldiers. After being beaten and humiliated by Hannibal for two years straight, the Romans came out swinging in 216 BC with the largest army the Republic had ever raised. Nearly 100,000 men chased the Carthaginian army to the small town of Cannae, which would become the site of the greatest military disaster in Rome's history - and one of those times and places in h...

Welcome back to the dusty horrors of ancient warfare, in part 2 of our rapidly expanding series (well, to 3 episodes, anyway) on Hannibal and the Second Punic War! It's 218 BC, and Hannibal just marched a whole army across the Alps to surprise the Romans in Italy. The next move is Rome's, and they've got all the wrong ones. We step into the shoes of Roman infantry as tens of thousands of our buddies are slaughtered on the field at the Trebia and Lake Trasimene, before Fabius the Delayer steps i...

Sean has the podcast reins for two weeks of HANNIBAL. No, not the cannibal - the Carthaginian general who made himself the worst nightmare of the Roman legions. Take a trip with us back to the third century B.C., where new horrors wait around every corner - from children sacrificed to ancient gods, to sieged cities starving behind their walls, to armored men tumbling off high alpine peaks. Oh, and a crapload of elephants. Settle in for next week, because Hannibal is saving the worst for the Ro...

Our two-part jaunt into murder, madness and 19th century elections continues (and ends) this week, as Sean finishes the heartbreaking tragic story of the death of James Garfield — followed by the slapstick comedy romp that was the trial of Charles Guiteau. Convinced he was destined to play a role in history and spurned in his several half-assed attempts to earn it, Guiteau turned his efforts toward eliminating the man most emblematic of the system that rejected him...and also waved his arms aro...

James Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, just a few months into his tenure as 20th President of the United States. The man who shot him, Charles Guiteau, was a lifelong loser who had previously tried his hand at (manic) street preaching, lawyering and insurance sales - and who had made James Garfield a sworn enemy without the President ever giving him a second thought. In this first of a two-part series, we learn about the lift and times of the incredibly annoying Mr Guiteau, and introduce Jame...

Inspired by a viral video on TikTok, Carrie takes us on a journey underground this week into the spooky history and unsolved mysteries of the Paris Catacombs, the world's most famous ossuary - or final resting place - of human skeletal remains. From the hygienic horrors that forced Parisians to relocate their centuries of dead beneath the streets of the City of Lights to those who have wandered into the hundreds of miles of uncharted tunnels branching off of the ossuary and disappeared, we take...

To mark the 150th episode of the podcast (OMG), we're going back to one of our earliest subjects! At the very start of the pod we investigated the Halloween urban legend of the stranger poisoning trick or treat candy, and how the tale actually originated in the true-life crime of Ronald Clark O'Bryan, the "Real Candy Man" who killed his son with a poisoned Pixy Stick for insurance money. This time around, we're looking into another Halloween-related urban legend: Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary ur...

First published in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula laid the foundations for what would become horror fiction, and set up most of the vampire tropes you know on one fell swoop. Crosses and sunlight? That's a Stoker. Bat transformation? That's a Stoker. Sleeping in dirt from your homeland? You know that's our guy Bram. So what better way to cap off our bloodthirsty trilogy of vampire episodes than with a look at the inspirations for - and lasting impact of - everyone's favorite count who's a dirty do...

The second week of this spooky season's vampire series stars Erzsebet AKA Elizabeth Bathory, the famed Blood Countess of Hungary! Born in 1560 to one of Hungary's wealthiest families, Elizabeth made herself even more powerful through marriage and soon was soon owner of a personal estate the size of a small country. But rumors of the Baroness's cruel tendencies and baroque tastes spread through the countryside, until she was arrested and imprisoned for the remainder of her life on dozens of char...

We're more than halfway through September, and in this house that means it's basically Halloween! Sean kicks off our spooky series on vampires with a look at the man who gave his name to the most famous vampire of all: Vlad Tepes Dracula, AKA Vlad the Impaler. While the 15th century Wallachian noble wasn't an undead monster, he was certainly...bloodthirsty, to say the least. Join us this week for backstabbing, drama and gore worthy of Game of Thrones as Vlad and his dad fight for control of the...

In late July 1945, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis had just conducted a top-secret mission, delivering a sealed metal box to a small island in the Pacific. Unbeknownst to the crew aboard, that box held the final pieces of the atomic bomb that would be detonated over Hiroshima in the coming weeks - but that's not the story we're telling today. On the way back to base in the Philippines from that fateful delivery, the men aboard Indianapolis would undergo one of the most horrifying incidents i...

The American Revolutionary War spanned 8 bloody years of war, brutality, and conflict. When the America of today looks back on it now, we tend to look back with reverence and even idolization - but we don't think about the foul hygiene, wretched conditions, and ethical atrocities that occurred for even longer than the 8 years of war leading up to America's hard-fought freedom. This week, in honor of the July 4th holiday, Carrie takes us back in time to the stinking rooms in Independence Hall, f...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a penchant for achieving milestones early: he composed his first pieces by age 5, his first symphony by age 8, and tragically, even died young at the age of 35. Since immediately after the seminal musical genius's sharp health decline and painful demise, rumors have swirled about the medical - or murderous - culprit. After an overview of Mozart's life and times, we run down the list of suspects, from bad pork and kidney disease to poison plots by Freemasons and caba...

We're back at it after a 2-week break to travel abroad and move house! And we're chatting another house...of worship, that is. Catholicism is a mysterious religion based in millennia of faith and worship, and of course in those hundred years, conspiracies have developed around the seat of Roman Catholic power: The Vatican. Inspired by our Patron Kate's request and a trip to Vatican City itself, Carrie takes us through some of the biggest conspiracy theories in Vatican history, from prophecies ...

In second of a two-parter on the Roman Empire's most hated rulers, Sean illustrates the *colorful* life and times of Nero, Rome's fifth emperor, who got up to a lot more than just fireside fiddling. Join us for a twisted tale of matricide, fratricide, parricide, arson, plain ol' torture murders and more forced suicides than you can shake a centurion at. But above all the violence, Nero considered himself something much scarier than a mad emperor...he considered himself an artist. Come for the ...

We're going back to ancient Rome for a two-part look at the most notoriously evil emperors the empire ever had! This week, Sean gets us warmed up with Caligula, the man whose name has become a byword for madness and sexual depravity. Rome's third emperor ruled for less than four years, so what could this guy have done to get this kind of reputation? Was Caligula assassinated for being a violent madman, or was he just sleeping with the wrong guys' wives? And did he really try to make his horse a...

In this 4th and final part of the Lizzie Borden story, we round out the rest of the sensational Borden Murders trial, hear the final verdict, and learn what Lizzie Borden did with the rest of her life after her (spoiler alert) acquittal in June 1893. Meet the witnesses that added quite a bit of color to the case, including skull-boiling doctors, confusing and contradictory policemen, a lollygagging ice cream salesman, and more; see the defense's star witness Emma Bordan take the stand against...

Screw it, we're doing 4 parts! The tea is too scorching and the drama too intense to not give Lizzie's case room to breathe, so we're dedicating all of Axe Murder March to Miss Borden herself. This week: Lizzie is charged, arrested, and brought to trial. The press continues their field day with Lizzie's story, hounding her at every turn, insulting her looks, and even falsely reporting a pregnancy. Multiple important witnesses take the stand, including housemaid Bridget Sullivan, Doctor Seabury ...

Axe Murder March plunges on, Part 2 is coming in hot, and we're making it a 3-parter for the story of the Borden Murders and the accusations levied against Lizzie Borden, she of "40 whacks" fame. This week, we explore the pre-forensic era investigation into who could have killed Andrew and Abby Borden, and the official inquest into the crime itself. Witness a cavalcade of Fall River locals, Borden family members, and frustrated District Attorneys go back and forth attempting to establish a fact...

Axe Murder March is back, and this time, the ladies are doing it for themselves! That's right, after our fan-favorite series last year covering the Axeman of New Orleans, the Villisca Axe Murders, and the Man from the Train, we're heading back to the chopping block with stories of women who, well...took matters into their own hands. First up is one of the biggies in American history: the story of Lizzie Borden, who may or may not have taken an axe, given her mother 40 whacks, and when she ...

On October 13, 1972, a chartered Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying 40 passengers, including a local amateur rugby team on its way to an exhibition match in Chile, collided with a mountain and crashed into a glacier, losing both wings and its whole flight crew in the process. For the mostly young, inexperienced travelers who survived the crash, it was only the beginning of a 10 week fight for survival in the most inhospitable conditions imaginable. This week, Sean apologizes for his Spanis...