Dark Histories

Dark Histories episodes:

• 04.14.2024

  Story Time: Dark Rituals & Pagan Rites

  Hi everyone, something a little different this week, but I'll be back as usual with next episode. Thanks as always! ------- For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign...

  
• 04.02.2024

  Counterfeiting, Undercover Agents & The Abduction of Abraham Lincoln

  The ingenuity of the criminal class has rarely been criticised for lacking in imagination. One of the finer examples of this concept was put on full display in America, on the eve of the presidential election in 1876, When a...

  
• 03.19.2024

  The Mysterious Murder of Mary Jane Bennett

  In Victorian England, the press were never shy of calling a crime the “sensation of the century” or a murder, “the most astonishing the world had ever seen.” When the body of a young woman showed up on the beach...

  
• 03.04.2024

  Prophecy, Second Sight & John Barker’s Premonitions Bureau

  “As to the divination which takes place in sleep, and is said to be based on dreams, we cannot lightly either dismiss it with contempt or give it implicit confidence.” These were the words of Aristotle, written in 350 BCE,...

  
• 02.19.2024

  The Druce-Portland Affair: The Duke That Never Was

  Cases of stolen, mistaken and fraudulent identity were not an entirely uncommon thing in Victorian Britain. Somewhat more unusual was the bizarre allegation that an English aristocrat, the 5th Duke of Portland, had lived a double life and eventually faked...

  
• 02.11.2024

  Zsuzsanna Fazekas & The Angel Makers of Nagyrév

  Hungary during the first world war was a difficult place to live, especially if you happened to live in one of the many rural villages, far away from the grand city of Budapest, where the harsh conditions imposed on a...

  
• 01.23.2024

  The Saltwood & Hythe Mothman

  Sightings of winged creatures flying through the sky have long been a staple of folklore, mythology and legend across the world and across time and cultures. In the ancient world, Gods and monsters were depicted with enormous, scaled and feathered...

  
• 01.12.2024

  May Blackburn & The Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven

  Since the 1960s California has always been a place associated with alternative beliefs, countercultural movements and alternative lifestyles. The hippy movement, with it’s summer of love, fueled by the west coast psychedelic music scene will always be a highlight from...

  
• 12.30.2023

  Christmas Campfire 2023 (Part 2)

  Part two of this years Christmas Campfire is here! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and wishing you a very happy and healthy New Year!

  
• 12.24.2023

  Christmas Campfire 2023 (Part 1)

  Merry Christmas everyone! Thank you so much for your kind support throughout the year, to wrap us up for Christmas, here is this years campfire stories episode. There were loads of great submissions again this year, certainly enough for two...

  
• 12.11.2023

  Stories for the Winter Solstice

  For the final episode of this season, at least until the Christmas Campfire episode, here's a little extra from the Patreon bonus feed, originally recorded around Halloween. Thanks so much for all your support this season, here's to season eight...

  
• 11.27.2023

  The Dalby Spook: Gef the Talking Mongoose (Part 2)

  Having risen to the status of international newspaper sensation, The Dalby Spook, or Gef the talking mongoose to those that knew him, was now poised to meet some of the world’s most infamous psychical researchers. Unfortunately, Gef was as shy...

  
• 11.20.2023

  The Dalby Spook: Gef the Talking Mongoose (Part 1)

  In the 1930s a peculiar story began filtering out from the towns and villages surrounding a small farm on the western coast of the Isle of Man. Reports of a talking animal, a local spook that could sing the Manx...

  
• 10.30.2023

  Thames Torso Mysteries: London in the Shadow of the Ripper

  For over a century, 19th century criminal history has been dominated by a single name. With his murders so violent, his acts so senseless, his victims so vulnerable and his legacy so profound, Jack the Ripper is as synonymous with...

  
• 10.17.2023

  Listen Now: MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries

  Follow MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge the first 8 episodes, early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. The human body is a miracle. But when it’s not working, it can...

  
• 10.17.2023

  The Ratcliffe Highway Murders of 1811

  In 1811 a series of brutal murders on the Ratcliffe Highway in the east end of London shook the locals to the very core with their unrivalled brutality and seemingly random, everyday targets. The murders exposed a fear in the...

  
• 10.01.2023

  The Lancashire Seven: Possessions, Exorcisms & Executions

  In the late 1500s, Britain was, spiritually speaking, in something of a confusing place for the average citizen. With the protestant reform in full swing, many old traditions were being unceremoniously cast aside by the officials, whilst still being clung...

  
• 09.17.2023

  The Haunting of Hinton Ampner

  In an old estate situated just outside Chichester, on the South coast of England sits the HInton Ampner manor house. Rebuilt several times over its 1000 year existence, its current iteration is an innocuous brick building with little in common...

  
• 09.06.2023

  Hypnotism & Murder: The Bloody Trunk of Eyraud & Bompard

  Amid the opulence of Belle Époque France, a trial took place that threatened to unravel the very meaning of human legal justice. Michel Eyraud and Gabrielle Bompard, two French citizens living their lives quietly in Paris were launched into the...

  
• 08.22.2023

  The Assassination of Orléans: The Rise & Fall of a Medieval Detective

  On the eve of the worst winter for over a century and with France on the brink of war with the English, the 1400s in Paris were a tumultuous period. With a mentally unstable king and a collection of dukes,...

  
• 08.08.2023

  Mary Ellen MacDonald & The Haunting of Caledonia Mills

  In the winter of 1922, a bizarre series of events fell across an isolated Nova Scotian farmhouse, leaving the locals grappling with a set of mysteries that were as terrifying as they were exciting. Unseen forces braided horses' tails and...

  
• 07.26.2023

  Mina Crandon, Scientific American & The $5000 Psychical Challenge

  In the 1920s as the world reeled from the first world war and the great flu pandemic, people in their collective grief turned to alternative systems of belief. Spiritualism, already making a new rise, was launched into the spotlight as...

  
• 07.11.2023

  The Bussey’s Woods Ghost Mystery & The Murders of Franklin B. Evans

  Hi everyone! Thanks for bearing with me over the short summer break! It's good to be back and I've got a cracking episode to launch into the second half of the season. This one has it all, ghosts, murder... well...

  
• 06.26.2023

  The Horror of M.R. James: Lost Hearts & A School Story

  It's time for a mid-season summer break and to tide us over I've got a couple of tales for you from the genius of M.R. James. I've picked two of my favourites to read, I hope you enjoy them! ------- This episode...

  
• 06.12.2023

  Cocos Island & The Lost Treasure of Lima

  Deep in the Pacific Ocean, 350 miles off the coast of Central America sits a small, unimposing island, surrounded in natural beauty. One of the island's lesser known claims to fame is that its tropical climate and lost-world appearance were...

  
• 05.31.2023

  Sarah Hart: Murder on the Telegraph Cables

  When a young woman was found lying on her hearth rug, foaming at the mouth on New Years Day of 1845, few would have guessed that the winding path leading up to her death would result in a mystery that...

  
• 05.17.2023

  Russel Colvin’s Return from the Dead

  In 1812, in the Manchester settlement of Vermont, a local man named Russell Colvin mysteriously vanished, and despite extensive searches, no trace of him was found. Years later, rumours began to circulate that Russell had been murdered and buried in...

  
• 05.08.2023

  Rhynwick Williams & The London Monster

  19th century London saw two of the most sensational public scares in its long history when the enigmatic Spring Heeled Jack stalked the alleyways of the capital city and in 1888, when Jack the Ripper enacted his reign of the...

  
• 04.19.2023

  Escape From Yozgat: The Spooks of Jones & Hill

  During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire established a wide network of camps to house prisoners of war from the allied powers. Like most, the conditions were often poor, the treatment often harsh and the complexes often established in...

  
• 04.04.2023

  Object No. 22542: The Unlucky Mummy

  Almost thirty years before the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun and the fabled “curse of the pharaohs” was unleashed upon an excitable population, rumours and stories of another curse, attached to an ancient object, had been weaving its way...

  
• 03.22.2023

  The Mount Stewart Farm Murder Mystery

  In 1866 a gruesome murder on a rural farm in the centre of Scotland shocked the local community. With little clues to go on outside of a bloody axe, a boiled egg and a missing door key, the police would...

  
• 03.14.2023

  Introducing - Cover Up: Ministry of Secrets

  Cover Up is a series of investigative stories that take us on a journey into a world of subterfuge and secrecy - a world where the truth is concealed under a blanket of lies. From corrupt individuals to clandestine institutions,...

  
• 03.08.2023

  Hugh & Mary Parsons & The Springfield Witch Trials

  Forty years before the infamous witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, Hugh Parsons stepped out of his dirty, disease ridden prison cell in Boston and was carted off towards the courthouse in order to stand trial as a witch. He’d come...

  
• 02.24.2023

  Dr Buck Ruxton & The Jigsaw Murders

  By the 1930s forensic police work had just begun to come into its own. The late 1920s had introduced advancements that had seen investigations using more than simple fingerprint evidence to solve crime and in America the FBI’s technical crime...

  
• 02.07.2023

  Electricity, Galvanism & The Resurrection of Thomas Weems

  In 1818 Mary Shelley published her infamous novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”. More than just a work of gothic fiction, it represented a host of fears and concerns that the public held after viewing experiments by the natural philosophers...

  
• 01.24.2023

  Early Cinematography & The Disappearance of Louis Le Prince

  In the 19th century moving images were everywhere. Illusionists cast tricks using mirrors and shadows, whilst flick books, magic lanterns and Zoopraxiscopes unveiled the hidden mysteries of motion to a wide-eyed audience. By the later part of the century, new...

  
• 01.09.2023

  The Black Dog of Bungay & Other Spectral Beasts

  From ancient origins, to Churchill, who popularised the Victorian phrase “The black dog on your back”, the concept of the spectral black dog as a portent of doom, death and catastrophe is one that has maintained, with a constant slow...

  
• 12.29.2022

  Christmas Campfire 2022 (Part 2)

  Hi everyone, I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas or at least a nice bit of time off work... Here's part 2 of the 2022 Campfire episode, which should hopefully be something to help pass the time in...

  
• 12.24.2022

  Introducing: The Last Resort

  What if California seceded from the United States? If it did, what would happen? The Last Resort is a new documentary podcast about the rise, fall, and rebirth of CAL-EXIT: the campaign for Californian Independence. Join our host Xiuhtezcatl (pronounced shoo-TEZ-kah)...

  
• 12.24.2022

  Christmas Campfire 2022 (Part 1)

  Hi everyone, Christmas Campfire is back for it's 6th year! A big thank you to everyone who wrote in and shared their personal stories. There were tons this year, so I've split it into two episodes and part 2 will...

  
• 12.15.2022

  Introducing The Evaporated: Gone with the Gods

  What if someone close to you just … vanished one day? That happens to tens of thousands of families a year in Japan, and it happened to Jake Adelstein, too, back in 2018 — when his accountant disappeared, just before...

  
• 12.05.2022

  Virginia Campbell & The Sauchie Poltergeist

  Despite the number of documented cases, the poltergeist has consistently been one of the most difficult forms of paranormal phenomena to define with very little consensus over what they are actually supposed to be. Spirits, invisible, unknown energy or childish...

  
• 11.16.2022

  Eliza Grimwood & The Lambeth Ripper

  In 1838 a violent murder took place in the Lambeth area of London that set a trend for the stories of the Victorian penny papers for decades to come. Inspiring Charles Dickens, who paid close interest to the case, supplying...

  
• 11.02.2022

  Amazon Music Presents MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories

  A hiker terrorized for days by two unknown figures… A man stalked through the woods while camping, who barely escaped with his life… two cops who quit their job at a local theater because of unexplained encounters with an alleged...

  
• 11.01.2022

  Amazon Music Presents: I Hear Fear

  Nothing is as terrifying as the sounds we hear in the dark. The slow creak of a door opening late at night... or a whisper in a room when you thought you were alone... or a distant scream in the...

  
• 10.31.2022

  Demonic Possession & Exorcism Through The Ages

  According to the late Father Gabrielle Amorth, co-founder of the International Association of Exorcists, Hitler, Stalin, ISIS, Harry Potter and Yoga were all, in one way or another, touched by demonic influence, This does perhaps go some way towards explaining...

  
• 10.17.2022

  The Debosnys Ciphers

  Whether it be hidden messages transmitted around the world from the hundreds of operating number stations, or the bizarre illustrations on the sheepskin pages of a medieval manuscript, unsolved ciphers and codes have been a compelling source of mystery for...

  
• 09.29.2022

  Madeleine Smith & The Dangerous Game of Dating in the 19th Century

  Dating in the 21st century can be a tricky path to manoeuvre, but in reality, the difficulties pale in comparison when compared to the complex etiquette and social pressures that one was doomed to follow in the Victorian period. One...

  
• 09.12.2022

  The Bizarre History of the Hollow Earth

  Far from being a modern, internet crackpot idea, hollow earth theory has walked a long and winding path, many centuries old. From the mythological pits of hell, to the pseudo-scientific theories of the enlightenment, right through to modern science fiction,...

  
• 08.25.2022

  The Thin Place: Netta Fornario & The Occult

  Widely mischaracterized in popular understanding, the early 20th century world of the occult has never failed to serve up a plethora of intriguing tales. From stories of new age magic, otherworldly realms, alchemy and psychic abilities, all practised in shady...