The Weird History Podcast

Sep 30 2024 255 ep. 21 mins 9k
The Weird History Podcast artwork

The Weird History Podcast explores the out-of-the-way, obscure, weird, and overlooked corners of history. New episodes appear every Thursday.

  History
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238 In the Garden of Monsters with Crystal King

Sep 30 2024 35 mins  
Crystal King is a long-time friend of the program, and has appeared previously to talk about her debut novel Feast of Sorrow, and her follow-up The Chef’s Secret. Her newest novel, In the Garden of Monsters, blends Greek and Roman mythology, the history of postwar Italy, and surrealism into a page-turning gothic romance. In our interview we talked about the unique setting of

237 A Danger Shared with Bill Lascher

Mar 26 2024 36 mins  
A Danger Shared: A Journalist’s Glimpses of a Continent at War is the latest book from Portland journalist and author Bill Lascher. Bill joined us to talk about WWII in Asia through the eyes of journalist Melville Jacoby, his own connection with Jacoby, and what he learned from going through an archive of images that included Macau, the Philippines, Vietnam, and beyond. Jacob

236 Piracy in the South China Sea with Rita Chang-Eppig

May 11 2023 29 mins  
By all reasonable metrics Shek Yeung, who raided the South China Sea in the early 1800s, is one of the most successful pirates of all time. In her new novel Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea author Rita Chang-Eppig tells a fictionalized version of the pirate queen’s life, her rise to power, and her relationship with powers both temporal and spiritual.

235 Shakespeare Versus Hedgehogs

Mar 01 2023 15 mins  
William Shakespeare seems to have hated hedgehogs. We don’t quite know why, but it could have something to do with how the tiny animal is depicted by the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. Special Thanks to Jamie Jeffers of The British History Podcast and Miles Stokes of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men for providing voicework for this episode.

234 Lupercalia

Feb 13 2023 14 mins  
Before Valentine’s Day, ancient Romans celebrated a festival of fertility in the shadow of the Palatine Hill. Lupercalia was a popular holiday that featured blood, goat sacrifice, and getting whipped by naked guys.

233 The Golden Fortress with Bill Lascher

Oct 09 2022 37 mins  
During the Dust Bowl city officials in Los Angeles, fueled by anti-communist paranoia and xenophobia, were determined to keep migrants out of California. To that end, they dispatched the LAPD to remote border crossing points far outside the city in order to keep out anyone who looked like they were fleeing blight or didn’t have work. Author Bill Lascher spoke with us about hi

232 Navigating the Asian Maritime World with Eric Tagliacozzo

Jul 11 2022 42 mins  
Eric Tagliacozzo is a professor of history at Cornell University, and his new book In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds From Yemen to Yokohama outlines five centuries of maritime history in the Asian world. In this wide-ranging interview, we discussed how China created trade routes that stretched all the way to Africa’s Swahili coast, the ocean-going history of Vietnam, and the ro

231 The History of Archaeology with Ann R. Williams

Jan 23 2022 55 mins  
Archaeology has changed considerably over the past century. In this episode, we spoke with Ann R. Williams of National Geographic about the new book Lost Cities Ancient Tombs, significant discoveries from the past century, and what it means to dig up the past.

230 The Adventures of Mussolini’s Corpse

Nov 08 2021 11 mins  
After his death in 1945, Mussolini’s corpse was autopsied and thrown into a pauper’s grave. But, that was just the beginning of the cadaver’s posthumous career. Eventually the body was stolen by neofascists, hidden away for over a decade, and used as a political bargaining chip in postwar Italy.

229 Douglas Wolk on All of the Marvels

Oct 12 2021 59 mins  
The Marvel Universe is massive. Marvel comics go back well over half a century, and span thousands upon thousands of pages. Reading all of them would be a Herculean undertaking. And one man, Douglas Wolk, did exactly that, and wrote a book about it. We talked his new release All of the Marvels, and about how one of the most well-known fictional universes in the world has dealt with