Mary Read and Anne Bonny are legendary female pirates from the golden age of piracy. Raised as boys, they sailed with captain Calico Jack and fought their enemies bare-breasted, if legends are to be believed. How much of it is true? How much piracy did they actually accomplish? And why do their breasts feature quite so often in this history?

Anthony and Maddy are joined by Francesca de Tores author of a new book Saltblood which tells the story from Mary Read's perspective and is published by Bloomsbury in April.

Edited by Ella Blaxill. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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In 1961 Betty and Barney Hill became the first people ever to be abducted by aliens. Their story of being taken and examined by extraterrestrials on board a spaceship became the blueprint that others would follow. Whether you believe it or not, their account would go on to change our world...

Maddy tells Anthony the story this week.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Citizens of Paris in the 19th century could stroll down to the Morgue to try to identify the unknown dead or to gawp at celebrity murder victims. Though its most famous resident of all was perhaps not dead at all...

Our guest today is the marvellous Cat Byers, who is a writer, photographer and historian based in Paris. She’s currently finishing a PhD on the nineteenth-century morgues of Paris and New York. Get ready for a story full of poignant humour, Donald Trump, and party hats. 

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ 

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Did you know Benjamin Franklin began his career reporting mermaid sightings? Or that there's a mermaid on every cup of Starbucks coffee?

Join us as we search the oceans for history's greatest mermaid stories. Anthony tells Maddy this story with special help from children from year 5 of Harris Primary Academy Coleraine Park.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ 

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The earliest evidence of human belief in ghosts comes from 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Who were these first ghosts? What was the underworld they lived in like? What do these most ancient ghosts tell us about today?

Maddy and Anthony's guest today, Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum and author of 'The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies'

Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long and Freddy Chick.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ 

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At the tender age of 23, Thomas Harris, author of The Silence of the Lambs, was sent to interview a convicted murderer inside a Mexican prison. What happened that day lived rent free in his mind for the rest of his life.

Anthony tells Maddy this story of murder and of love that blurs the lines between truth and fiction.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ 

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In a world before police, what happened when someone was murdered? How were murderers caught? How did the wheels of justice turn?

We talk to Steven Veerapen, author of Of Blood Descended, about murder under the bloodiest King of all, Henry VIII.

Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ 

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Two green children walked into the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, sometime in the 12th century. They said they were from a magic land where everything was as green as they were. What on earth was going on?

Maddy tells Anthony this story that has drawn in curious minds for hundreds of years.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK - sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.

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Take dinosaur bones, snake poison, volcanic lava, fear of the unknown. Mix it all together and you have a dragon!

Today we're finding out about the ancient origins of dragons and why there used to be a much wider variety of dragon types than we see today. Our guide is dragon expert Jasmine Elmer. Jasmine's new documentary "Dragons: Myth & Reality" is out now on History Hit.

Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK - sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.  

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In 1920 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published a story more explosive than any adventure of Sherlock Holmes. He claimed that photographic evidence had emerged that proved the existence of fairies.

The photos were taken by two young girls, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, in Cottingley, North Yorkshire. How did their charming art project end up fooling the creator of the greatest detective that ever lived?

Maddy tells Anthony the story.

Special thanks to James Carter as the voice of Conan Doyle.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe 

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