A Popular History of Unpopular Things: Recent Episodes
Kelli Beard
Join Kelli for another weird episode where she looks at the Great Moon Hoax of 1835.
For six days straight in 1835, the New York Sun (not the same publication as the one that exists today) published a fantastical story about life on the moon. The scientific series of articles talked about witnessing lumbering bipedal moon-bison, crystal spires, temples, men with wings, and more. It was captivating... and although it was complete fiction, many believed it to be fact.
In today's episode we go over the story, how it was received, and how this whole affair fits into the historical context of penny press newspapers in the early- to mid-nineteenth century.
Sources:
- Text of the original newspaper articles
- The Moon Hoax, 1859. https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/moonhoax00lock
- Stephanie Hall, “Belief, Legend, and the Great Moon Hoax,” Library of Congress, 2014. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2014/08/the-great-moon-hoax/
- ““The Great Moon Hoax” is published in the “New York Sun”” History Channel. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/august-25/the-great-moon-hoax
- Sarah Zielinski, “The Great Moon Hoax Was Simply a Sign of Its Time.” Smithsonian, 2015. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/great-moon-hoax-was-simply-sign-its-time-180955761/
- Sierra Laddusaw, “Life on the Moon in Two Acts.” University of Michigan. https://clements.umich.edu/publication/the-heavens/life-on-the-moon/
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Join Kelli as she finally starts tackling the impact of westward expansion on indigenous populations in the United States. In this episode, we focus on the Navajo, or Diné, who were forcibly removed from their homeland starting in the winter of 1863.
Get ready for a nice, long historical context! :)
Sources:
Books
- Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides
- Diné: A History of the Navajos by Peter Iverson feat. photographs by Monty Roessel
- Navajo Stories of the Long Walk Period, publ. By Navajo Community College Press
Articles
- Hwéeldi - The Long Walk - https://Dinélanduse.org/hweeldi/
Documentaries/Videos
- The Long Walk: Tears of the Navajo (2009) on PBS
- Sisnaajini: A Navajo Story - Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve on YouTube
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Join Kelli as she talks about a serial killer out of Kansas in the post-civil war era. Taking advantage of westward expansion and a tense climate, the Bender family - Ma, Pa, John, and Kate - were responsible for the murders of at least 11 people... including an 18-month-old baby girl.
Today we explore their dark, dingy, bug-infested cabin to find out what happened to these weary travelers on the Great Osage Trail, looking for a homestead plot and a better life, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sources:
- Slavevoyages.org
- Hell's Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier by Susan Jonasus
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Join Kelli as she goes over a very stinky situation that happened in 1184 in Erfurt, part of the Holy Roman Empire and home base of King (and later Emperor) Henry VI.
As Henry gathered some squabbling nobles to deal with a petty land dispute, the building they were in collapsed under the weight of 60+ people. And two stories below, in the basement of the building, was a cesspit full of... well, you know.
It was a putrid predicament, a malodorous mess, a nauseating nightmare. Get ready for another gross episode with lots of tangents and, somehow, yet another reference to the Protestant Reformation.
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Join Kelli in this shorter history on the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, an early Renaissance-era book written in a made up language (dubbed Voynichese) with strange diagrams that seem... out of this world.
I love a good history mystery :)
Sources
- Dave Roos, “Why the Voynich Manuscript May Be the World’s Most Mysterious Book” History.com. https://www.history.com/articles/voynich-manuscript-mystery
- Cipher Manuscript, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002046
- “Emperor Rudolf II: Prague's Patron of Arts and Science.” Czech Center Museum of Houston. https://www.czechcenter.org/blog/2021/7/1/7q9enwx9t33fqnij3qqswfpo8p07a7
- The Voynich Manuscript. Edited by Raymond Clemens. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, in assoc. With Yale University Press. 2016.
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Join Kelli as she goes over the story of a feral boy found in the woods outside of Hamelin, Germany. He was brought to King George I's court in England and named Peter, and he entertained curious onlookers for months. He had strange mannerisms and was an oddity, until he fell out of favor and "retired" to a farm, where he lived peacefully until his 70s.
But what was really going on with Peter? Was he really feral as people thought? Did he clamber around on all fours like a beast? Or was he just tragically misunderstood in a time before medical science could diagnosis him with an intellectual disability?
Sources:
- Daniel Dafoe, “Mere Nature Delineated: or, A body without a soul. Being observations upon the young forester lately brought to town from Germany. With suitable applications. Also, a brief dissertation upon the usefulness and necessity of fools, whether political or natural.” 1726. https://archive.org/details/merenaturedeline00defo/page/n12/mode/1up
- Jonathan Swift, “It Cannot Rain But It Pours, Or, London Strewed With Rarities.” 1726. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_the_Rev._Jonathan_Swift/Volume_17/It_Cannot_Rain_But_It_Pours
- Michael Newton, Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children. 2002. https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Girls-Wild-Boys-Children/dp/0312423357
- “Peter 'the Wild Boy' from Hanover: The Boy on the Staircase” Historic Royal Palaces. https://www.hrp.org.uk/blog/peter-the-wild-boy-from-hanover/
- “Peter the Wild Boy” History Today. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/peter-wild-boy
- “The Tragic Origins of Peter the Wild Boy” Ripley’s. https://www.ripleys.com/stories/peter-the-wild-boy
- Lucy Worsley, “Peter The Wild Boy” Public Domain Review, 2011. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/peter-the-wild-boy/
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Join Kelli as she goes over a strange event from the 17th century Dutch Republic - the time a political leader was killed, strung up, dismembered, and then cannibalized.
As always, we set up the history surrounding this event to get a good understanding of the Rampjaar - the disaster year - and why the Dutch people took out their frustrations on Johan de Witt. And we also look into the alleged cannibalism that took place. What does it all mean? What is the bigger picture? What in the world was happening in 1672?!
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Join Kelli as she goes over the popular legend of Boudica, the short-lived queen of the Iceni peoples in Iron Age Britain.
Much of what we know about Boudica comes from heavily-biased Roman sources, written decades or over a century after the events they describe. So how much of her story is fact, and how much is fiction?
And was Boudica even a real person?
Let's dive into the available written and archaeological sources and analyze why the Romans might have written about her the way they did to try to understand Boudica's role in history.
Sources
- Andrew Roberts, “Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes” English Heritage. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/cartimandua/
- Dr. David Musgrove, “The Romans Were Blamed For Massacring These Iron Age Warriors. But Did They Actually Murder Themselves?” History Extra, 2025. https://www.historyextra.com/period/iron-age/the-romans-were-blamed-for-massacring-these-iron-age-warriors-but-did-they-actually-murder-themselves/
- Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars. Book 5. Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn. https://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.5.5.html
- Martin Smith, Miles Russell, and Paul Cheetham, “Fraught With High Tragedy: A Contextual And Chronological Reconsideration Of The Maidencastle Iron Age ‘War Cemetery’ (England)”, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2025. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ojoa.12324?domain=p2p_domain&token=UJWNRVZC4WDFI35RBKYM
- Natasha Sheldon, “The Evidence for the Historical Boudica” 2022. https://historyandarchaeologyonline.com/the-evidence-for-the-historical-boudica%EF%BF%BC%EF%BF%BC/
- Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen. 2006. https://www.amazon.com/Boudica-Iron-Age-Warrior-Queen/dp/1852855169
- “The Revolt of Boudica according to Cassius Dio” University of Warwick. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/warwickclassicsnetwork/romancoventry/resources/boudica/sources/cassiusdio/
- “The Revolt of Boudica according to Tacitus” University of Warwick. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/warwickclassicsnetwork/romancoventry/resources/boudica/sources/tacitus/
- Vanessa Collingridge, Boudica: The Life of Britain’s Legendary Warrior Queen. Kindle Edition, 2019. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RQX45PR/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
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Join Kelli as she talks about Rome's first ever Black Banquet, hosted by Emperor Domitian in 89 CE.
Today's episode covers some Roman history including the creation of the Colosseum, the Flavian Dynasty, Cynicism and Stoicism, Memento Mori, and Domitian's spooky banquet - so scary, his guests fled in terror, fearing for their lives!
Happy early Halloween, APHOUT fans <3
Referenced Sources:
- C. Suetonius Tranquillus, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, first composed in 121 CE. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Titus*.html
- Cassius Dio, Roman History. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/67*.html
- https://dailystoic.com/stoicism-cynicism/
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Join Kelli as she looks into the weird world of European animal trials, focusing on the French Pig Trial at Savigny in 1457, where a sow owned by Jehan Bailly was put on trial for the murder of 5-year-old Jehan Martin.
That's right - the pig was put on trial for murder. Not her human owner.
But where does the legal precedent for animal trials come from? Let's find out!
Sources Referenced:
- Alexander Lee, “Pigs Might Try,” 2020. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/natural-histories/pigs-might-try
- Esther Cohen, Law, Folklore, and Animal Lore. 1986. https://www.academia.edu/66540937/Law_folklore_and_animal_lore
- E. P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution And Capital Punishment Of Animals. 1906. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43286/43286-h/43286-h.htm#Page_138
- J. J. Finkelstein, The Ox That Gored. 1981. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1006346.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A9eca8c357bbe59ed8b98754ab5426357&ab_segments=&initiator=&acceptTC=1
- Paul Schiff Berman, Rats, Pigs, and Statues on Trial: The Creation of Cultural Narratives in the Prosecution of Animals and Inanimate Objects. 1994. https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1241&context=faculty_publications
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Join Kelli as she goes over the mystery of the Eilean Mòr lighthouse.
In December of 1900, the three men keeping the lighthouse on the Flannan Isles - James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, and Donald McArthur - vanished without a trace. The light was out for about two weeks. When a fourth keeper came to relieve one of the men and bring more supplies, he stumbled upon a dark island with an empty lighthouse - and no signs of distress.
Let's go over the history of the Eilean Mòr lighthouse, the primary sources of those who were there to see it, and some of the theories as to what happened. Then, we'll apply Occam's Razor and determine the most likely scenario.
Sources referenced in the episode:
- Primary Sources from the NLB website: https://www.nlb.org.uk/history/flannan-isles/
- Christopher P. Nicholson, Rock Lighthouses of Britain. 1983. https://archive.org/details/rocklighthouseso0000nich/page/179/mode/1up?q=flannan+isles
- Keith McCloskey, The Lighthouse: The Mystery of the Eilean Mor Lighthouse Keepers, 2014. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HSFUK1S/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
- The Vanishing (2019 film)
- The Lighthouse (2019 film)
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Join Kelli as she goes over the history surrounding Typhoid Mary. We'll go beyond the typhoid-laden peaches and fresh ice cream! When we take a step back and look at her whole story in context, we get a different view of what it must have been like to be "Typhoid Mary," a strong, no-nonsense, Irish immigrant making a living as a cook in NYC and surrounding areas.
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Join Kelli as she goes over the Congo Free State, owned not by Belgium, but by its King - Leopold II.
During the 19th century in Africa, seven European countries - Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, met to divide up Africa; they had already encroached on about 10% of it, mostly the coasts, but now they wanted more. In this episode we discuss why, and what happened to the Congolese men, women, and children who were suddenly under the control of King Leopold.
Intro and Outro music credit: @nedricmusic
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Sources
Books
- Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost. https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
- David Van Reybrouck, Congo: The Epic History of a People.
Articles/Websites
- Germany officially recognises colonial-era Namibia genocide - BBC, 2021 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57279008
- Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” 1899 | https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_burden.htm
- George Washington Williams, “An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo By Colonel, The Honorable Geo. W. Williams, of the United States of America” as found on BlackPast | https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/primary-documents-global-african-history/george-washington-williams-open-letter-king-leopold-congo-1890/
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Join Kelli as she goes over the history of the English Peasant's Rebellion, 1381.
The Black Death had severely impacted England - not just in high mortality rates, but also its ability to function within its strict feudal order. To help compensate for the drop in workers, and to try and get the economy back on track, Edward III passes the Statute of Laborers in 1351. But what this did was set in motion a rage against feudalism, government intervention, and inequality that manifested as the Peasant's Rebellion, led by men like Wat Tyler and John Ball, in 1381.
The Peasant army would meet King Richard II in London, and it was an absolute bloodbath.
Let's go over the historical context that leads us to the Rebellion, then the event itself. It's a fascinating story that shows us how far the common folk are willing to be pushed before they break.
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SourcesBooks:
- Dan Jones, Summer of Blood (2009)
- Elizabeth Kimball Kendall, Source-book of English History (2015)
- Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death Medieval Sourcebook (1994)
Articles/Online Sources:
- “Ordinance of Laborers, 1349” Fordham University Medieval History Sourcebook https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/seth/ordinance-labourers.asp
- “Tales from Froissart: Beginning of the English Peasant Revolt” Nipissing University https://uts.nipissingu.ca/muhlberger/FROISSART/PEASANTS.HTM
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Join Kelli as she goes over the history behind the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic, an event that started with three schoolgirls in late January 1962 and spread to nearby villages. It took roughly 18-24 months for the epidemic to finally stop, and luckily, nobody died.
It was determined that this was a case of mass psychogenic illness - the more modern name for "mass hysteria."
But how did it start? Why schoolgirls in Tanganyika in early 1962? Let's look to the historical context to get an understanding of what happened here and why.
And a special thanks to one of my cannibal patrons, Zack, for recommending this episode!
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Join Kelli as she goes over another case where the US government experimented on humans - but this time, they purposefully infected Guatemalans with syphilis, taking what happened with the men of Tuskegee a whole step further.
So today we'll do some historical context to figure out why Guatemala - what happened in history that led to such a level of interventionism that the US government would conduct medical experiments on the Guatemalan people?
Once that's squared away, we'll briefly go over syphilis so we have a complete understanding on what the infected Guatemalans faced. Then, we'll talk about the event itself - and how we only just learned about it.
I really hope I run out of examples of the US doing this.
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Join Kelli as she goes over Stonehenge. We'll start with the basics - what stonehenge is, what it's made of, who might have built it, how they built it, what a henge even is... before talking about some of the more recent explanations for some of its mysteries.
We'll also talk about its purpose - a gathering place to celebrate the summer and winter solstices? A burial ground? Both? And does it have a connection with nearby Durrington Walls, only two miles away, and a henge complex that might have the evidence needed to understand who built Stonehenge, and why.
Sources referenced:
Stonehenge―A New Understanding: Solving the Mysteries of the Greatest Stone Age Monument by Mike Parker Pearson and the Stonehenge Riverside Project
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Join Kelli as she goes over a tale of a Scottish incestuous cannibal family - the Beans.
As legend goes, they lived in a cave in southwest Scotland, only venturing out to kill passersby and loot them for good - and meat. Over 25 years, it's said they killed over 1,000 people.
But how much truth is there to this grisly tale? It sounds a little too gross to be real.
Let's dive into the history to find out where the Sawney Bean story comes from, how credible the sources are, and whether there's any truth we can corroborate from the story.
From James I and his bloodhounds to the Jacobite Rebellion and Battle of Culloden (I see you, Outlander fans), let's see how much history we can attribute to this gory story.
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Join Kelli as she goes over yet another example of US doctors experimenting on their own people.
Starting in the 1950s, dermatology Dr. Albert Kligman came to the Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia and experimented on its prisoners. What started as a simple cure for an athlete's foot outbreak turned into a decades-long series of experiments, ranging from testing lotions and cremes to hallucinogenic drugs to the toxic compounds found in Agent Orange.
Though the experiments eventually stopped in 1974, it was more or less swept under the rug, despite prisoner/victims filing lawsuits. But thanks to the work of men like Allen Hornblum, and the victims and their families who never gave up, the horrors at what happened at Holmesburg are coming to light.
Source referenced:
Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison by Allen Hornblum
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Happy holidays, APHOUT fans! Join Kelli as she goes over a Welsh Christmas Day Massacre! In 1175, William de Braose committed a massacre against some rival families in Gwent, southeast Wales.
De Braose, a Norman who was given control of Abergavenny Castle after his uncle Henry Fitzmiles was killed, decided to seek retribution against the man responsible - Seisyll ap Dyfnwal. Seisyll, his son, and many of his men, came to have a peaceful Christmas dinner at de Braose's Abergavenny keep. Once inside, de Braose locked the doors and slaughtered them all - a scene that no doubt inspired Game of Thrones' Red Wedding.
De Braose then went out to slaughter the rest of Seisyll's family, including his wife and 7-year-old son Cadwalladr.
He got vengeance for his Uncle's death, but worsened tensions between the Welsh noble families and the invading Normans.
So let's take a look at this story and place it in historical context - what was this massacre really about?
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Join Kelli as she goes over the Ball of the Burning Men, an event during King Charles VI's reign in France where 6 men - charivari dancers dressed as wild men in very flammable costumes - caught fire. And one of the men was the King himself - Charles VI.
In today's episode, we go over the historical context of the time, including the Hundred Years War. Then, we look into Charles VI, sometimes called Charles the Mad, to understand how he ended up in a flammable costume on fire at a ball.
And don't worry - the King survived. But not everyone was so lucky.
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Join Kelli as she goes over the history of the Wicker Man!
The Wicker Man was popularized first by the Christopher Lee movie from 1973, and later with Nicholas Cage's remake. The first was folk horror, the second more action suspense. But was the Wicker Man a real thing?
Let's go back into the primary sources to read the first ever mention of a Wicker Man in the historical record - Julius Caesar's Commentary of the Gallic Wars. Once we get all the facts, analyze the sources, and take note of the context, we'll figure out if the Wicker Man was a real, Celtic/Gallic method of human sacrifice, or if it's simply just fiction.
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Join Kelli as she goes over New Jersey's most famous cryptozoological son - the Jersey Devil. Though the Jersey Devil was the devil-born son of the Leeds Family, not much is known about it; it lives in the Pine Barrens, it looks like a weird, winged amalgamation of animals, and it was once "caught" and put in a Philly museum in 1909 (spoiler: they painted a kangaroo with stripes).
But beneath the myth is a real history - who were the Leeds family, and why is there a story about them birthing a devil? What did they do - and who did they annoy enough - to warrant this story?
So let's dive back into colonial-era New Jersey history to hear how what politics, the Quakers, almanacs, and Ben Franklin have to do with the myth of the Jersey Devil.
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Join Kelli as she goes over the mythology of the Headless Horseman. Most of us associate the headless horseman with Washington Irving's book, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. But the idea of a ghostly rider looking for his head, or perhaps a decapitated ghost haunting local villages, goes all the way back to medieval Europe, perhaps even deeper into ancient Celtic mythology.
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Join Kelli as she goes over the Pendle Witch Trial of 1612, England's most infamous trial. 12 people from the Pendle Hill Area in Lancashire were accused of witchcraft in James I's England, a monarch who hated all-things witches and demons. Of the 12, eleven were put on trial, and ten were hanged.
But, like we saw with Salem, two of the main sources of evidence came from hearsay and children's testimonies. Worse still, a nine-year-old girl helped get most of her family convicted!
What happened at Pendle helped pave the way for the Salem Witch Trials. So for the 2024 spooky APHOUT season, let's take a look at one of the most well-known witch trials in English history.
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Join Kelli as she goes over the ORIGINAL Dracula- Vlad Dracula, the Impaler. Although the fictional character is only loosely based on Vlad, the two are inextricably linked forever because of Bram Stoker's Dracula. So today, we'll go over the real Vlad Dracula - who is he, what did his world look like, and how did he earn the moniker "the Impaler?" Then, we'll look at the connections between the real Vlad and his Hollywood counterpart.
Happy 2024 spooky APHOUT season! 🎃👻💀
The translation for the German "Prince Dracula" pamphlet:
https://web.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/prince.dracula.html
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Join Kelli as she goes over the legend of Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a torturess from New Orleans who tortured, mutilated, and killed at least 20 slaves at her mansion on 1140 Royal Street.
But like we saw with the Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory... is LaLaurie's story grossly exaggerated? How much is fact, and how much is fiction?
Let's dive into the mysterious world of New Orleans legend to find out what really happened in Delphine LaLaurie's Murder Mansion.
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Join Kelli as she goes over ANOTHER shipwreck that ended in cannibalism - that of the Mignonette, a sailing yacht that went down in the South Atlantic. But the Mignonette wasn't really seaworthy, and should never have been out that far... so when a rogue wave destroyed it, and the four men on board had to take their chances on a small dinghy with essentially no supplies... it didn't end well for one of them.
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Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Join Kelli as she goes over the history behind the Spanish Inquisition. How and why did Spain hunt down heretics to purge the country of non-Catholics?
And there will be a LOT of medieval torture devices in today's episode!
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Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Murder and Mimosas Podcast
A true crime podcast with a focus on lesser known crimes and the background of those...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she goes over the Great Plague of London, 1665-1666, which ended in part thanks to the Great Fire of London, 1666.
These are two big events that killed off a good chunk of London's population and destroyed four-fifths of the city. The new London that was built was better suited to withstand fires and plague, and though it still had some sanitation problems, the days of plague-infested roofs and damaging fires was over.
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Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Join Kelli for her fiftieth episode where she explores her favorite topic - The Black Death!
It's an all-out disease fest, where she goes over the symptoms of plague, how it spread, who it impacted, what it was like for people living with it, and how it impacted the Medieval world.
Thank you for helping APHOUT come so far - and this is only just the beginning!
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Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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What It's Like To Be...
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she goes over the Hindenburg Disaster. On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg Zeppelin exploded and caught fire as it was landing at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. 36 of the 97 people on board died - some in the initial explosion, some from jumping off the airship at height, and some from some horrific burns once they escaped the flaming vessel. It had huge ramifications for the airship industry and the popularity of blimps, zeppelins, and other dirigibles.
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Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Join Kelli as she goes over the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, where a massive 9.0/9.1 earthquake 80 miles off the eastern coast of Japan triggers a tsunami that killed tens of thousands and caused millions in damages. But the earthquake and tsunami also knocked out power to the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which had terrible, terrible consequences...
In this episode, we briefly revisit what happened with Chernobyl so we can compare it to Fukushima, as both disasters received the same nuclear "disaster" rating. But what really happened with Fukushima, and what lessons can we learn from this most recent nuclear scare?
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his newest album, Sparrow Factory!
Source referenced: Fukushima - The Story of a Nuclear Disaster by David Lochbaum, Edwin Lyman, Susan Q. Stranahan, and the Union of Concerned Scientists
La Fayette, We Are Here!
French history podcast for Americans, by a Frenchman. Learn all about France's history.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she goes over the tragedy of the Medusa Shipwreck. When a French frigate bound for Senegal hits a sandbank and sinks, some get on the lifeboats, while a large portion are stuck on a hastily erected raft. The raft was too heavy and abandoned by the boats, and 147 people on board this flat wooden rectangle were left to try and survive without provisions, a compass, a proper sail, or a rudder. And it doesn't end well.
Special shoutout to my newest cannibal Patron - Joaquin! Thank you for your support!
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Join Kelli as she talks about Victorian-era hospitals in London, known as the Houses of Death because of their fatality rates. These were the most unsanitary of places, and today we'll go into all the nitty-gritty details of what they looked like. We'll also learn about some of the gross surgeries that went on inside Houses of Death before going over how they changed with the advent of anesthetics and antiseptics.
Buckle up, this one is pretty gross. But hey - at least you get a break from cannibalism this week. No promises for the next topic ;)
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Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his newest album, Sparrow Factory!
The Family Histories Podcast
A genealogy addicted guest, a Life Story, a research Brick Wall..... and a time machine.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she goes over the tale of Liver-Eating Johnson, a mountain man in the early 19th century American frontier who became legendary for how he avenged the murder and scalping of his Flathead indigenous wife. A book, called Crow Killer, really popularized his life - so much so that it was turned into a movie, Jeremiah Johnson, released in 1972 and starring Robert Redford.
But is this a true story? Or is it just an embellished legend of a mountain man?
Let's look at the (abridged) story, then look at some efforts at debunking this classic wild west tale of struggles, survival, murder, revenge, and liver-eatin' in the American frontier.
Only light cannibalism this time :)
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Join Kelli as she dives into the world of the Freemasons, Secret Societies, Religious Tension, Political Conflict, and... pugs?
In 1738, Pope Clement XII issued a papal bull denying any Roman Catholics from joining the Freemasons. It was a targeted hit at the religious and political tensions surrounding two sects of the Freemasons - the Jacobite Lodge and the Hanoverian Lodge - who argued over their main religious identity and political affiliations. But as a result of the papal bull, Catholics were no longer allowed to join any Freemason group.
So, to get around this, the Order of the Pug was formed - a para-Masonic group that allowed the elite of Europe to still engage in Freemason-esque rituals, fellowship, and life... but without the threat of excommunication.
But the Order of the Pugs operated as it sounds - it was very focused on dogs. Collars, barking, and all. And it got weird.
This episode doesn't have death, destruction, blood, gore, violence, or cannibalism... but it's certainly a strange story!
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Join Kelli as she tells the story of Levi Boone Helm, a frontiersman-turned-outlaw who committed murders across the West at the height of the California Gold Rush. But that's not all this serial killer did - he was also a cannibal. And he bragged about it.
It's another mid-19th-century tale of the dark side of western expansion. With lots of cannibalism.
So let's dive into the historical context of the time to see if we can place Boone Helm in his contextual place, the American West during westward expansion.
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Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Join Kelli as she goes over a trial from the peak years of Early Modern Europe's so-called werewolf panic - the trial of Peter Stumpp, the Werewolf of Bedburg. Peter confessed to all kinds of horrible, evil, depraved things. As a result, he was executed on the breaking wheel in a particularly gross and bloody fashion.
But was he actually guilty? Was he a murderer? Or was he tortured into confessing as a scapegoat for the times?
Let's dive into the historical context and available primary source data to learn about Peter Stumpp, the Werewolf of Bedburg Germany, and see how much truth there is to these heinous acts.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
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Join Kelli as she talks about the inspiration for the Silent Hill games and movies - the ghost town of Centralia! In 1962, a fire set the underground coal mines on fire, and they've been burning to this day. Experts believe that the fires will continue to burn underneath Centralia for another 250 years!
While Silent Hill and its scares don't exist, the horrors inflicted on Centralia may be even scarier...
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his newest album, Sparrow Factory!
Sources referenced:
Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire by David DeKok
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Join Kelli as she takes a look at a historic killer - Lizzie Borden - who was accused of killing her father and stepmother with a hatchet in 1892. But despite everything pointing toward her, she was acquitted by the jury. Kelli offers up an explanation as to why she was not found guilty of a crime she most likely committed, and it (of course) has to do with the historical context! What was life like in New England in 1892? And how did that contribute to her acquittal?
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his newest album, Sparrow Factory!
Sources referenced:
The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story by Cara Robertson
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Join Kelli as she talks about THREE expeditions to Antarctica in the Heroic Age of Exploration. The first, led by Roald Amundsen, was the first to reach the geographic South Pole. At the same time, Robert Falcon Scott was leading his own expedition to the South Pole, but Amundsen beat him there. Unfortunately for Scott, his expedition faced extreme weather and bad luck on the way back, and none returned alive. The third, led by Douglas Mawson, was an attempt to map out more Antarctic land, but that trip also suffered tragedies.
These are three epic tales of the lengths we go to to discover the unexplored, and the gross stuff that can happen in the process!
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his newest album, Sparrow Factory!
Sources referenced:
South with the Sun: Roald Amundsen, His Polar Explorations, and the Quest for Discovery by Lynne Cox
An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science by Edward J. Larson
Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration by David Roberts
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Join Kelli as she goes over the difficulties of the early years of the first successful English settlement in North America - Jamestown. From the bloody flux to survival cannibalism, brutal executions to starvation and madness, the foundation of what would later become the United States was built on all the gross, nasty stuff we love here on the APHOUT podcast.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his newest album, Sparrow Factory!
Sources referenced:
Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America by Benjamin Woolley
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Join Kelli as she goes over what happened to the USS Indianapolis, the ship that brought atomic bomb parts to Tinian Island so they could be assembled - and dropped - on Hiroshima. Though the ship completed her mission, making Oppenheimer's and the Manhattan Project's work come to life in the form of a nuclear bomb, the USS Indianapolis suffered a catastrophic - and fatal - blow when it crossed paths with a Japanese submarine.
This is the story of the ship. Kelli discusses its important cargo, gives context on WWII and why the ship was in the Pacific in the first place, and then details the sinking of the USS Indianapolis - and for those of you with thalassophobia, there was something in the deep that the men needed to worry about...
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit:Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his newest album, Sparrow Factory!
Sources referenced:
In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton
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Join Kelli as she talks about a prion disease called Kuru. Prion diseases occur when misfolded proteins duplicate and clog up the brain, and cause things like Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and Kuru. Kuru was specific to the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, and at its peak, killed 200 women and children people a year. But to get Kuru, they must have consumed the brains of the infected dead...
Let's dive deep into the Fore peoples, prion diseases and more cannibalism.
New year, same old me. Happy 2024!
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
Support the Show.
Join Kelli as she discusses the Inca Empire and their religious practices - including capacocha, the practice of sacrificing children and leaving them to mummify on mountain peaks.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonFollow the APHOUT YouTube channel!
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
Audio Credit: Carlos Carty, Pan Flute Solo
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Join Kelli as she discusses the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, an experiment on black men (without their consent) where the US Public Health Service and the CDC allowed them to live with untreated syphilis infections for 40 years - despite there being a cure: penicillin.
In this episode, Kelli goes over the scientific context of what syphilis is and how one contracts it, then ties it to the historical context of why the US government allowed 399 black men to suffer from late-stage syphilis when they could have given them the cure. It's racism, sure, but we'll dive deeper to expose what really happened here, and why.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
Sources Referenced:
Michael V. Uschan - Forty Years of Medical Racism: The Tuskegee Experiments
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Join Kelli as she discusses a Stalin Soviet-era plan to deport unwanted citizens and petty criminals to an island in the middle of Siberia - without proper shelter, supplies, or food. It only took a few days before the island's new inhabitants broke down and started to consume the flesh of their fellow prisoners.
In this podcast, we review the historical context of 1930s Stalin-era plans to starve the people in the name of progress and communism. Spoiler - it doesn't end well. In addition to discussing the Cannibal Island, more commonly known as Nazino Island, Kelli goes over the basics of the Ukrainian Famine/Holodomor and Stalin's collectivization policies.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
Sources Referenced:
Nicolas Werth - Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag
Music Credit:
Kevin MacLeod - Scheming Weasel
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Join Kelli as she explores the history that led up to the Waco Siege, where ATF agents conducted a failed raid against Branch Davidian leader David Koresh at his Mount Carmel compound in Waco, Texas. The result of this botched mission was a 51 day standoff. In the end, 4 ATF agents and 82 Branch Davidians were dead, and the whole place burned to the ground. It was a massive failure in communication between the ATF, FBI, Hostage Rescue Team, and negotiators - one of the biggest fumbles in our history. But it wasn't the first.
In addition to the history of his group and how they gained momentum in Waco, Kelli explores the roots of the growing divide between the government and right-wing militias, starting with Ruby Ridge, carrying through Waco, exemplified in the Oklahoma City Bombing, and that still exists today.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
Sources Referenced:
Jeff Guinn - Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage
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Join Kelli as she explores the Celtic roots of Halloween - from Samhain and Celtic mythology, to Puritan fun-sponges, to Irish immigration, and into Spirit Halloween stores, we'll learn the history behind the second biggest holiday in the US!
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
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Join Kelli as she goes over the biggest, manmade, non-nuclear explosion in history - the Halifax Explosion.
On December 6th, 1917, a French ship filled with explosives was heading into Halifax Harbor, in Nova Scotia, Canada. At the same time, the Norwegian ship Imo was leaving to pick up supplies from New York to ship over to Europe to help with WWI. Unfortunately for thousands of people at Halifax, both at sea and on land, the two collided. The ensuing explosion killed upwards of 1,600 people, injured over 9,000 more, demolished the town, and cemented itself as the biggest (non-nuclear) explosion.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
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Join Kelli as she goes over the deadliest mine explosion in history - the Monongah Mine Disaster of 1907.
In the industrial world of the early 20th century, there was little regulation over safety in the workplace or fair wages. The Monongah mine in West Virginia was no exception. Fine coal dust in the air, coupled with pockets of methane gas, made conditions incredibly unsafe. When the rail carting mine cars out of the mine snapped, 19 beds filled with coal went careening back into the deep Appalachian mine. Sparks ignited the coal dust and methane, and the result was a massive explosion, felt over 8 miles away, which killed somewhere between 362-500 men and boys.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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Happy First Birthday to the APHOUT podcast! It's been a wild ride full of cannibalism, adventures gone wrong, and all kinds of gore, and I can't wait to keep it going!
Join Kelli as she discusses the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, a test during WWII where 36 unpaid volunteers willingly starved themselves half to death to get concrete data on starvation and how to rehabilitate the starved.
Though nobody died from starvation... the results were pretty shocking. And of course, cannibalism makes an appearance.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
Source referenced:
The Great Starvation Experiment by Todd Tucker
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Kelli, along with Anna and Paul of the Engineering History Podcast, do another joint episode on the Great Wall of China! Join us as we tackle how and why the Great Wall was built, starting with the Qin Dynasty and then tracing it through the Ming Dynasty. While Kelli muses on the legitimacy of dead bodies in the walls, Anna explores the engineering of sticky rice and Paul enthuses about the Mongols and the reasons for wall building in the first place.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things Patreon
Intro music: Nedric Music
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Join Kelli as she explores the myth of the mellified man, a medicinal candy made out of mummified, honeyed corpses. If you thought the Western Europeans were the only ones to consume their dead for medicine, well... get ready to hear what Li Shizhen has to say about mellification.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things PatreonIntro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
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Music Credit:
Local Forecast – Elevator by Kevin MacLeod | https://incompetech.com/
Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/
Creative Commons Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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Join Kelli as she explores the history of the Mongol Empire and how we go from Genghis Khan to Timur, a Turco-Mongol leader who is responsible for building an empire off of the deaths of 17 million people in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. His infamous calling card? Leaving pyramids and towers made of the skulls of the dead he killed at the entrance to each city, a powerful reminder not to cross him or his empire.
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things Patreon
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
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Join Kelli as she goes over the story of Alfred Packer, who was accused of killing and eating his five hiking companions in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado. He definitely engaged in cannibalism, but he disputed the murder charges. Was he a murderer? Or did he just eat his fellow man to survive in the harsh winters of the Colorado Rockies?
This is the story of the man who inspired Matt Parker and Trey Stone's 1993 cult classic Cannibal! The Musical. So get ready to be grossed out with this latest episode of wild west cannibalism!
Support me on my Patreon - your support helps keep this podcast going! You'll get exclusive benefits for being a historian, explorer, or cannibal on the APHOUT Patreon! Click the link below to join today!A Popular History of Unpopular Things Patreon
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
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Join Kelli as she explores Rainbow Valley, a place in the death zone of Mount Everest, high up above 8,000 meters (over 26,000 feet), where your body slowly dies off, cell by cell, because of the extreme cold and lack of oxygen. The Rainbow Valley is made colorful by the jackets of the dead climbers that you'll have to climb over on your way to the peak of our world, the summit of Mount Everest.
Oh, also, many other disgusting things litter the mountain other than body parts and corpses - TONS of trash and piles of human feces. And it only has one way to go from the top - down to the people living below.
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Find him on all streaming services and YouTube, and check out his debut EP, Yello Kake!
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Join Kelli as she explores the history of the Irish Potato Famine. We know that a fungal disease, blight, swept through Ireland in from 1845 to 1852, wiping out most of the potatoes. But where did blight come from? Did it only affect the Irish? If blight was elsewhere, why were they the ones so badly affected? Was it only potatoes affected? And if so, why were there not alternative food sources? How bad did it really get during the peak years of the famine? And what do the British have to do with all of this?
Follow the APHOUT podcast for more stories and to help support the show!
Sources referenced:
The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People by John Kelly
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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Join Kelli as she gives the history of the Radium Girls - young women who worked in factories painting watches and dials with paint containing RADIUM. The girls were encouraged to use their lips to keep the brushes pointy, and as a result, they were consuming alpha radiation particles from the radioactive radium. The result? Disintegrating bones, rotting necrotic tissue, and painful death.
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Sources referenced:
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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Join Kelli as she explores the history of late 19th century's East End of London, where Jack the Ripper made his infamous, and gruesome, killings of five women before disappearing into the darkness in the fall of 1888.
Though he was never found, his murders give us a chance to explore the lives of women, the poor, and the working classes in the gritty, industrial life of England's biggest city.
This episode is the second of a two-episode look into two late 19th-century murderers - Holmes and Jack the Ripper - and how they became integral parts of our histories as infamous killers.
Sources referenced:
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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Join Kelli as she explores the real history behind HH Holmes - born Herman Webster Mudgett - and how he became known as America's first serial killer. Was he the man we know him as today? Or is his story of a murder house and the deaths of tourists in Chicago just a legend?
This episode is part of a two-episode look into two late 19th century murdered - Holmes and Jack the Ripper - and how they became integral parts of our histories as infamous killers.
Sources referenced:
H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil by Adam Selzer
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Want to start your own podcast?
Click this link to get set up with Buzzsprout and you'll get a $20 credit to sign up!
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Join Kelli as she tells the story of two shipwrecks that took place on Auckland Island in 1864, at the same time, though neither knew the other was there. One wreck tells the tale of a group that banded together in the face of adversity and used their creativity and strength to survive. The other wreck is more like an adult version of Lord of the Flies; the situation quickly devolved into chaos, with most survivors dying of starvation. Let's find out how and why two shipwrecks, on opposite sides of the same island, had such vastly different outcomes.
Sources referenced:
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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In a special joint podcast, Kelli from APHOUT joins Anna and Paul from the Engineering History Podcast to talk about the history and engineering behind the Battle of Alesia, a decisive battle between Julius Caesar and his Roman forces against Vercingetorix and the Gauls in 52 BCE. Together we explore the intersection of history and engineering in Ancient Rome!
Follow The Engineering History Podcast wherever you listen, or click on the link below:
The Engineering History Podcast
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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Join Kelli as she explains how and why the French built their famous Catacombs, an Ossuary filled with the bones of possibly 6 million, anonymous people. Skulls and femur bones line the walls of this grotesquely beautiful, and immensely famous, Parisian attraction. But where did the bodies come from? And why were they put into the tunnels under Paris? Find out in the latest episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things!
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Credited Sound Effects
"Splash, Jumping, G.wav" by InspectorJ
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Join Kelli as she explores the worst mass-murder suicide in history. Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple cult, brought more than 900 of his followers to a remote agricultural compound in the Guyanese jungle. As he started to lose control of his followers, and with the government investigating allegations of abuse, he directed (and in some cases forced) them to drink a cyanide-laced punch. In one day, 918 people were killed.
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
Sources referenced:
The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (documentary)
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Join Kelli as she explores the exhumation and re-killing of Mercy Brown, a girl suspected of being a vampire feeding off of her living relatives in a small town in Rhode Island, 1892.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Nedric
Sources:
Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England Vampires by Michael Bell
The Great New England Vampire Panic by Abigail Tucket for the Smithsonian
Insta: @beardwrites
Batting the Breeze
Batting the Breeze - stories for the infinitely curious. Light, informative, amusing.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she looks back at the dancing plague of 1518, when residents of Strasbourg all started to dance for days and weeks on end - and some of them danced to their deaths.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Nedric
Insta: @beardwrites
Drink O'Clock Podcast
Drinks may be involved and shenanigans may be had. Interview-style. Episodes every week!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she teaches you about a very common but forgotten medical practice in Europe during the Medieval and Early Modern Periods - consuming the skin, bones, and blood of corpses as medicine.
The history of cannibalism just got even more unpopular.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Nedric
Insta: @beardwrites
Sources referenced in the podcast:
Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians by Richard Sugg
Drink O'Clock Podcast
Drinks may be involved and shenanigans may be had. Interview-style. Episodes every week!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she tells the amazing story of Uruguayan Flight 571, where 45 people crashed into the snowy peaks on the Andes Mountains on the border of Argentina and Chile. After ten weeks, two of the 16 survivors emerged from the mountains. To survive, they had to do the unthinkable - they had to cannibalize the flesh of their dead friends and relatives.
This is a story of resilience, survival, and how far one will go to make it out alive.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Nedric
Insta: @beardwrites
Check out the Obscure Appalachia Podcast!
Sources referenced in the podcast:
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read
Courage and Cannibalism: Inside the Andes Plane Disaster by 7News Spotlight on YT
Drink O'Clock Podcast
Drinks may be involved and shenanigans may be had. Interview-style. Episodes every week!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
"The Black Man Talking Emotions Podcast" Starring Dom L'Amour
The Black Man Talking Emotions Podcast is just that. Dom; a black man talking emotions....
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Join Kelli as she explains what happened to the Terror and Erebus, the doomed ships of Captain Sir John Franklin's 1945 expedition, where all 134 men perished, most of whom were never found. The bones and artifacts left behind tell a chilling story of how far some men will go to survive - even if all hope is lost.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Nedric
Insta: @beardwrites
Sources referenced in the podcast:
The Terror by Dan Simmons
Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger
Drink O'Clock Podcast
Drinks may be involved and shenanigans may be had. Interview-style. Episodes every week!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
"The Black Man Talking Emotions Podcast" Starring Dom L'Amour
The Black Man Talking Emotions Podcast is just that. Dom; a black man talking emotions....
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Support the show
Join Kelli as she teaches how nuclear power plants work, and why the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded on April 26, 1986 - the worst nuclear incident in history.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Nedric
Insta: @beardwrites
Sources referenced in the podcast:
Illinois Energy Prof YouTube
Adam Higginbotham - Midnight in Chernobyl
Drink O'Clock Podcast
Drinks may be involved and shenanigans may be had. Interview-style. Episodes every week!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
"The Black Man Talking Emotions Podcast" Starring Dom L'Amour
The Black Man Talking Emotions Podcast is just that. Dom; a black man talking emotions....
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Support the show
Join Kelli as she discusses the roots of the Cholera epidemic in London in the 1850s, and how a particularly smelly year in 1858 known as the "Great Stink" forced Parliament to fix London's sanitation infrastructure.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Nedric
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Join Kelli as she discusses the history surrounding the lost Roanoke colony, the first English attempt at colonizing the New World. In addition to discussing what happened to the colonists, Kelli will look into the history of the period to understand why Roanoke failed in 1587, but Jamestown survived only 20 years later.
Intro and Outro credits: Nedric
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Join Kelli for this double-feature episode as she looks into two weird food stories - the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 and the Kentucky Meat Shower of 1876.
Music credit: Nedric
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A look at the mysterious disappearance of all ten crew members and passengers of the Mary Celeste in 1872. Halfway between the Azores and Portugal, a brigantine carrying alcohol bound for Italy was found floating adrift by another ship, completely empty of people - a Ghost Ship. Help Kelli solve the puzzle as she goes over the evidence to make sense of what happened to the Mary Celeste, one of the world's most enduring mysteries of the sea.
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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A look at the mysterious deaths of nine hikers in 1959. In Russia's northern Ural Mountains, the hikers went missing overnight and were found weeks later by search and rescue teams. Though we know the various causes of death, how and why they died remains a mystery to this day. Join Kelli as she goes over the evidence and the scene, using her historical thinking skills to understand what happened to the Dyatlov Pass hikers.
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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A look at the historical context and life of Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian Countess that was rumored to have bathed in the blood of young servant girls to stay young. It's also rumored she was a vampire... Join Kelli as she gives an overview of the event and looks into the history that separates fact from fiction.
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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A look at the historical context and events of the Salem Witch Trials, where 19 people were hanged and one pressed to death after being accused of witchcraft. Join Kelli as she gives an overview of the event and looks into the history that explains how this infamous event could happen in a small Puritan town in New England.
Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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A look at the historical context and events of the Donner Party, where a crew of 87 emigrants heading to California took a disastrous shortcut that forced them to engage in cannibalism to survive.