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 hu...

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 wor...

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 el...

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 cam...

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 th...

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 ho...

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 wa...

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) stree...

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 huma...

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...

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 transforma...

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...

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 T...

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 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 fo...