The Weird History Podcast

238 In the Garden of Monsters with Crystal King

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 Ch...

237 A Danger Shared with Bill Lascher

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 t...

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

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

235 Shakespeare Versus Hedgehogs

01 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 b...

234 Lupercalia

13 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Before Valentine’s Day, ancient Romans celebrated a festival of fertility in the shadow of the Palatine Hill. Lupercalia was a popular holiday that ...

233 The Golden Fortress with Bill Lascher

09 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During the Dust Bowl city officials in Los Angeles, fueled by anti-communist paranoia and xenophobia, were determined to keep migrants out of Californ...

232 Navigating the Asian Maritime World with Eric Tagliacozzo

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Eric Tagliacozzo is a professor of history at Cornell University, and his new book In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds From Yemen to Yokohama outlines fiv...

231 The History of Archaeology with Ann R. Williams

23 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Archaeology has changed considerably over the past century. In this episode, we spoke with Ann R. Williams of National Geographic about the new book L...

230 The Adventures of Mussolini’s Corpse

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 po...

229 Douglas Wolk on All of the Marvels

12 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

228 The Mustache Strike

06 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1907 French waiters went on strike, and won the right to wear facial hair.

227 The Rasputin Disclaimer

11 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly every English-language movie has a disclaimer in the credits that says something like “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual pe...

August 2021 Announcement

02 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

226 Sara and Jack Gorman on Denying to the Grave

15 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Covid-19 has killed and sickened hundreds of thousands of people, and transformed our economy, how we work, and how we relate to each other. Even in t...

225 Los San Patricios

17 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Mexican-American War was not fought for good reasons. The war was one of imperial and expansionist ambition and territorial expansion, and even in...

224 Carlton F.W. Larson on Treason in the U.S.

24 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Treason is the only crime specifically defined in the U.S. Constitution, and talk of treason has been in the air for the last four years. Carlton F.W....

223 Grand Guignol Part Two: Tales of Terror!

31 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It’s not enough to just talk about the history of the Grand Guignol. We also want to bring you a little bit of what it was like to take in a night o...

222 Grand Guignol Part One: Theater of Horror!

25 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Grand Guignol was a small Parisian theater which regularly produced original works of horror. The theater, which operated from 1897 until 1962, sh...

221 Sasha Abramsky on Lottie Dod

18 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Sasha Abramsky is a journalist and author whose new book Little Wonder tells the story of Lottie Dod, the modern world’s first female sporting celeb...

220 Michel Paradis on Last Mission to Tokyo

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s show is a conversation with Michel Paradis, attorney and author of Last Mission to Tokyo. Early in WWII the U.S. launched the Doolittle Raid...

219 Patient Zero

11 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1987 journalist Randy Shilts chronicled the early years of AIDS in North America in his book And the Band Played On. Shilts’ reporting was mostly...

218 Juneteenth

19 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery in the United States did not end all at once. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in 1863, the last enslaved persons in...

An Update From Joe

26 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Hello everyone. We’re all dealing with a lot right now. This is an update on how I’ve been doing, and the state of the show.

217 The War of 1812 Part Two: Other Causes

22 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

British impressment of American sailors and restrictions on maritime trade are only part of the story in the run-up to the War of 1812. Another major ...

216 The War of 1812, Part One: Surface Causes

01 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

America doesn’t talk much about the War of 1812. In the historical narrative that the U.S. likes to construct for itself, its first official, declar...

215 Vortex One: An Excerpt From Storied and Scandalous Portland, Oregon

16 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1970 Oregon governor Tom McCall had a problem: An American Legion convention was descending on Portland in August of that year, with a potential vi...

214 In Which Loki Ruins a Dinner Party

26 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Poetic Edda is one of our main sources for Norse mythology, and the poems in it feature tales of gods, heroes, giants, and (of course) Ragnarok. H...

Bonus: A Visit From the Spirit of Vengeance or Ghost Rider Saves Christmas

24 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Happy Holidays, everyone!

213 Where Does Santa Claus Come From?

23 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Santa Claus is the result of cultural crossover and exchange. Historical and folkloric figures like St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, and Father Christmas co...

212 St. Nicholas

12 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Saint Nicholas is not Santa Claus, but he’s now inescapably bound up with Santa’s story and identity. Nicholas was the bishop of Myra, a town in w...

211 Stonehenges

26 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

World monuments get replicated all the time. There are no shortage of Statues of Liberty or Eiffel Towers, for instance. However, the world monument t...

210 Soviet Pepsi

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1959 a Pepsi executive successfully showcased his product at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, an event created to foster cultural exchan...

209 The Ribbon Around Her Neck

31 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Alvin Schwartz is best known for traumatizing children with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. However, one of Schwartz’s most terrifying tales for ...

208 Nosferatu

26 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today Dracula is one of the most ubiquitous public domain characters in popular media. However, in the 1920s German filmmakers had to get permission f...

207 Les Klinger on H.P. Lovecraft

20 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Les Klinger is an editor, Sherlock Holmes expert, and annotator of classic fiction. He joined us to talk about his newest book The New Annotated H.P. ...

206 The Adventures of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Severed Head

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Franz Joseph Hayden was a brilliant composer and one of the most important figures in European classical music. He inspired luminaries such as Mozart ...

205 Live at Rose City Comic Con: Roy Lichtenstein, Comics Stealer

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Roy Lichtenstein was one of the most successful American artists of the 20th century, and the figure most associated with pop art after Andy Warhol. L...

204 The Life and Lies of George Psalmanazar

10 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the first decade of the 1700s a visitor to London claimed to be from a far-off land: Formosa. He described it as being an idyllic paradise, albeit ...

203 Iran-Contra Part, Four: Fallout

26 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Iran-Contra affair was a failure. It didn’t topple the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, nor did it improve U.S. relations with Iran. And yet, the...

202 The Solitude of Michael Collins

20 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Most people remember Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but fewer remember Michael Colli...

201 Duncan Ryuken Williams on American Sutra

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Duncan Ryuken Williams’s new book, American Sutra, explores Japanese Internment with a focus on Buddhism. Most Japanese immigrants and Japanese Amer...

200 Q&A Dinosaur Party Extravaganza!

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve hit two hundred episodes! To celebrate we’re taking your questions. Designer, photographer, and all-around superhero Sarah Giffrow joined Jo...

199 Melissa Kwasny on Putting on the Dog

16 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Humans are the only animals to wear clothing, and much of that clothing is made out of other animals. In Putting on the Dog: The Animal Origins of Wha...

198 Iran-Contra, Part Three: Secret Wars

04 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Congress had made its view clear with the Boland amendments: The United States government would not support the Contras in Nicaragua. However, the Rea...

197 Joshua Specht on Red Meat Republic

24 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Beef occupies a unique place in American culture. In his new book Red Meat Republic Joshua Specht examines the history of the American beef industry. ...

196 Iran-Contra Part Two: The Boland Amendments

10 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1980s the Reagan administration changed how the U.S. engaged with Communism abroad. Instead of following a policy of containment, the U.S...

195 Iran-Contra, Part One: Revolution in Nicaragua

03 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Cold War defined geopolitics for much of the 20th century, often turning local conflicts and regional politics into large, proxy battles between t...

194 Shakespeare Was Shakespeare

26 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Since the late 1800s numerous figures such as Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, and Malcolm X have expressed doubt about the authorship of Shakespeare’s pl...

193 The Many Lives of Notre Dame

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Notre Dame Cathedral, the world’s best-known example of Gothic architecture, was partially destroyed in a fire. The church requires extensive restor...

192 False Alarm

11 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1983 a Soviet satellite system erroneously detected five incoming American nuclear missiles. Stanislav Petrov, the man tasked with reporting the al...

191 The Black Paintings

04 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Francisco Goya is one of the first modern artist, and toward the end of his life he painted his most well-known works, the Black Paintings, into the w...

Very Important Announcement

01 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The show is going in a new direction. Listen to find out why.

190 Faro, the Hottest Game in the West

27 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The image of cowboys playing poker has shown up again and again in Westerns. However, if you walked into a saloon in the late 1800s, you likely wouldn...

189 Thom Wall on The History of Juggling

18 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Thom Wall is a professional juggler and who’s known both for his feats of dexterity and his enthusiasm for old-style vaudeville performance. His new...

188 Swingin’ on the Flippity-Flop

04 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Find out what a badly-sourced article in the Toronto Sun, a fake list of grunge slang in the New York Times, and an oft-repeated anecdote about a floa...

187 Presidential Pets

14 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week we look at the animal companions of America’s chief executives, including opossums, eagles, and very good dogs.

186 Crystal King on The Chef’s Secret

04 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Crystal King is the author of two novels about Italian food history. Her first book Feast of Sorrow delved into the world of food in ancient Rome, and...

185 The Georgia Guidestones

27 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1980 a mysterious benefactor who only identified himself as “R.C. Christian” commissioned a granite monument in rural Georgia bearing advice on...

184 Is Taiwan a Country?

10 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Taiwan’s status is a matter of debate. In this episode we get into its history and try to suss out whether it’s part of China or an independent co...

Big News for 2019

20 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

I’m doing a big thing in 2019, and I need to tell you about it.

183 Krampus and Friends

16 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past decade or so the Krampus, a demonic figure from German folklore, has become something of a Christmas staple in the United States. Howeve...

182 Atlantropa, the Plan to Drain the Mediterranean

03 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1920s German architect Herman Sorgel had a plan: Solve nearly all of Europe’s social, economic, and environmental problems by partially drain...

181 Thanksgiving Mummery

20 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Thanksgiving, at least in New York City at the end of the 1800s and early 1900s, used to look a lot like Halloween. Traditional trappings like turkey ...

180 Lucy Bellwood on Sailor Tattoos

04 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Lucy Bellwood is a cartoonist and author in Portland, Oregon. Last year her illustration of sailor tattoos went viral. We talked about nautical tattoo...

179 Buried Alive!

31 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Being buried alive was one of the most common phobias of the Victorian era. Fear of premature interment in a coffin inspired the creation of the Londo...

178 Wendigo

23 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Cannibalism is one of the the most prevalent taboos across human societies, and people who practice cannibalism have frequently been demonized through...

177 How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Be Okay With Ghost Tours

09 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Some reflections on giving tours, ghost tours, and how the Philip experiment is kind of like Dungeons and Dragons.

176 The Cadaver Synod

01 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In 897 Pope Stephen VI put the corpse of one of his predecessors, Formosus, on trial. The current pope ordered that the former pope’s dead body be d...

175 Approved by the Comics Code Authority, Part Two

24 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

From 1954 until 2011 the Comics Code Authority exercised control over what could and couldn’t be in comic books. The first version of the code was o...

174 Approved by the Comics Code Authority, Part One

14 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

From 1964 until 2011 comic books were nominally approved by a content regime called the Comics Code Authority. The Authority grew out of anti-comic bo...

173 Roanoke

29 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The disappearance of the Roanoke colony is one of America’s oldest mysteries. However, the story of the Roanoke colony was only a major pillar of Am...

172 Live at the Steep and Thorny Way to Heaven, The Tempest and the New World

20 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Shakespeare’s Tempest is a fantasy, but it’s backgrounded by European encounters with the New World. When the play was written in 1610 or 1611 Eur...

171 Live at Floyd’s, The Mythical Geography of the Pacific Northwest

02 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Pacific Northwest was one of the last areas to be accurately mapped by European and American cartographers. At various times mapmakers thought tha...

170 Phreak Out!

23 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Hacking predated personal computers. From the 1960s until the 1990s early hackers known as “phreaks” learned how to hack into phone lines, make lo...

169 The Telharmonium

09 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the first decade of the 20th century you could pick up a phone in New York City and listen to the world’s first ever electronic synthesizer. The ...

168 Dorothy and Friends

30 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1980s the US Navy was determined to uncover a secret gay subculture at the Great Lakes Naval Base just outside of Chicago. All of the men...

167 North Korea Part Fifteen, How North Korea Ends

23 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

This week we close out our look at North Korea with three different scenarios for the future: War, reform, and reunification. None of the these future...

166 North Korea Part Fourteen, How to Escape From North Korea

05 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Escaping North Korea is difficult, but it can be done. Notable escapees include Choi Eun-Hee and Shin Sang-Ok, a South Korean actress and director who...

165 Happy Defenestration Day!

23 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Happy Defenestration Day! On May 23rd, 1618 a bunch of angry Bohemian nobles shoved some government officials out of a window. The Second Defenestrati...

164 North Korea Part Thirteen, How North Korea Got Nukes

22 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Even as its citizens starved, Kim Jong Il was able to assure that North Korea was able to obtain nuclear weapons. He did this by raising revenue with ...

163 North Korea Part Twelve, Kim Jong Il and the Arduous March of Famine

10 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The transition of power from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il was a gradual one. From 1980 until 1994, it’s probably that the younger Kim did most of the ...

162 Michael P. Daley on Bobby Bluejacket

01 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Michael P. Daley is the author of Bobby Bluejacket, a book about a man who, in 1948, was the subject of one of the most covered trials in Tulsa histor...

161 North Korea Part Eleven, The Tomb of the Eternal President

25 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The 1980s and early 1990s were a bad time for North Korea. The DPRK had to endure South Korea hosting the 1988 Olympics, the country sunk billions of ...

160 North Korea Part Ten, “Meanwhile, in South Korea!”

13 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

For years South Korea was a dysfunctional military dictatorship under leaders like Rhee Syngman and Park Chun Hee. Assassination, martial law, and pol...

159 Spaghetti Trees

01 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

On April 1st, 1957 a BBC One news program ran a straight-faced and ostensibly real report on Switerzerland’s spring spaghetti crop, and convinced so...

158 North Korea Part Nine, The DMZ, Assassinations, and the USS Pueblo

29 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

During the Cold War, North Korea primarily interacted with South Korea and the United States via building the DMZ, several assassination attempts on S...

157 North Korea Part Eight, Juche

20 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Juche is the animating principal of North Korea. It’s usually translated as “self-reliance,” but in fact it means whatever is good for the regim...

156 North Korea Part Seven, The Good Old Days

07 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Cold War was a good time for North Korea. For much of the mid 20th century it was relatively better off than South Korea, and North Korean citizen...

155 North Korea Part Six: War and No Peace

26 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Korean War was supposed to be over quickly. However, due to intervention from the United Nations, China, and the Soviet Union, what would have bee...

154 North Korea Part Five, The Spark of War

12 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Prior to the Korean War, both North and South saw themselves as the legitimate government for the entire peninsula. At the time, the North was conside...

153 North Korea, Part Four: Red(ish) Dawn

07 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

After WWII, the Korean peninsula was briefly united again as The People’s Republic of Korea. However, the unification wouldn’t last. American and ...

152 North Korea, Part Three: Collaborators, Resistors, and Kim Il Sung

29 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Japanese occupation changed North Korea, with various citizens either collaborating with or actively resisting it. One of those resistors was a guerri...

151 North Korea, Part Two: Japanese Occupation

22 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Japan’s occupation of Korea was a gradual process. As far back as 1876 Japan approached Korea with unequal treaties that attempted to economically e...

150 North Korea, Part One: The Peaceful Peninsula

15 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

This year, we’re doing a long-form series on North Korea. We’ll get into the history, culture, and ideology of the isolated, totalitarian country....

149 Sarah Fraser on The Last Highlander

08 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah Fraser is the author of The Last Highlander, which details the life of Simon Fraser, the 11th Lord Lovat. Fraser’s life was one of political i...

New Series Announcement

25 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

We’re on break for the holidays. The podcast will return on January 8th with an interview episode, and on January 15th with the launch of a new long...

148 In Which Your Christmas Decorations Are Wrong and Spain is Into Some Weird Stuff

18 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The Nativity scene is an iconic Christmas decoration, but it only has a tenuous biblical foundation. Christmas traditions are often varied and strange...

147 David Goldfield on The Gifted Generation

11 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

David Goldfield is an American historian and the author of almost twenty books. His latest, The Gifted Generation, chronicles the benefits that his pe...

146 The Lost City of Vanport

06 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a little different. It’s about a topic that I’ve previously written and spoken about, though not on the podcast. Vanport was one o...

145 Bonnie MacBird on Unquiet Spirits

27 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Bonnie MacBird (the co-writer of Tron) is writing new, novel-length Sherlock Holmes adventures. We talked about her experience with Conan Doyle’s s...