In the summer of 1849, Patrick O’Connor, a prosperous London customs officer, vanished without warning. His trail ended in a quiet Bermondsey house, home to Frederick and Maria Manning—a married couple bound to him by secrets and suspicion. When O’Connor’s body was found buried beneath their kitchen floor, whispers of greed, betrayal, and hidden passions spread across London.

SOURCES

Buckley, Angela(2024) The Bermondsey Murder: Scotland Yard’s First Great Challenge and Dickens’ Inspiration. Pen & Sword, Barnsley, UK.

Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (1849) Murder In Bermondsey. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Sun 19 Aug 1849, p12. London, UK.

The Sun (1849) An Account Of The Alleged Murderer And His Wife, And Their Antecedents. The Sun, Mon 20 Aug 1849, p8. London, UK.

Newcastle Guardian & Tyne Mercury (1849) Trial of the Mannings. Newcastle Guardian & Tyne Mercury, Sat 27 Oct 1849, p8. Newcastle, UK.

The Tipperary Vindicator (1849) Trial Conviction And Passing Of Sentence Of The Mannings For The Murder Of Mr O’Connor. The Tipperary Vindicator, Wed 31 Oct 1849, p1. Tipperary, Ireland.

John Bull (1849) Execution Of The Mannings. John Bull, Mon 19 Nov 1849, p13. London, UK.

John Bull (1849) Confession Of Frederick Manning. John Bull, Sat 17 Nov 1849, p13. London, UK.

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at ⁠darkhistories.com ⁠

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: ⁠http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories⁠ or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories⁠

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: ⁠http://author.to/darkhistories⁠

Dark Histories merch is available here: ⁠https://bit.ly/3GChjk9⁠

Connect with us on Facebook: ⁠http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast⁠

Or find us on Twitter: ⁠http://twitter.com/darkhistories⁠

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Or you can contact us directly via email at ⁠[email protected]⁠

or join our Discord community: ⁠https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf⁠

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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It's that time of year where the sun is out for more than 10 minutes a day over here in England, so that must mean it's summer holiday! I'll be off for just a short two weeks, but until then, I thought I'd introduce a podcast to you. It's a great, Dark History podcast, which I shall leave to their own words:

Macabrium Lore & Legends

Subscribe here: https://podfollow.com/1695858163

“The 13th Child: The Jersey Devil”

In the New Jersey Pine Barrens, where the trees grow dense and the roads give way to tangled wilderness, something stirs. The locals say you can hear it on the coldest nights—a high-pitched shriek, something not quite human, not quite beast.

The stories go back centuries. Some say it was a curse, an omen of misfortune that slithered into this world on a storm-wracked night. Others claim it was the child of a mother who, in her desperation or her rage, called upon the Devil himself. The details shift with time, but the warning remains the same: stay out of the pines after dark.

Because if you listen closely, past the rustling leaves and the distant howl of the wind, you might just hear the beat of leathery wings.
And by then, it’s already too late.

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Welcome back to Dark Histories and Yesterday Today, where this week we're going all the way back to 1776 to have a quick look at the declaration of independence, before zipping ahead to 1947 and the weird reprts coming from Roswell of Flying Saucers!

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you pick up a dictionary and look up a word, have you ever stopped to consider who it was that compiled such meticulous work? Was it a scholar, or group of scholars, holed up in a musty backroom somewhere dedicating their lives to the task, or a wide group of volunteers, crowdsourcing an otherwise unthinkable workload? Or was it perhaps, a madman and murderer, working at leisure from the comfort of his asylum cell? In the case of the infamous Oxford English Dictionary, it was all of the above.

SOURCES

Wichester, Simon (2005) The Professor and the Madman. Harper Collins, London, UK.

Johnson, Samuel (1755) A Dictionary of the English Language. W. Strahan, London, UK.

Evening Mail (1872) Murder In Lambeth. Evening Mail, Mon 19 Feb 1872, p7. London, UK.

South Wales Daily Telegram (1872) The Late Shocking Tragedy At Lambeth. South Wales Daily Telegram, Fri 5 April 1872, p4, Wales, UK.

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back with another off-shoot episode of Dark Histories, this time digging up some old ghost stories, the Queen's coronation, and some rather solid advice from Beatrice Fairfax, an advice columnist from 1914.

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the murky-corners of Cold War history, beneath layers of radio static,  the chilling tale of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers emerges. Armed with makeshift radio equipment and relentless curiosity, they claimed to capture ghostly transmissions from doomed Soviet cosmonauts, voices never acknowledged by any official record. Were these lost transmissions evidence of a buried truth, or the echoes of a grand conspiracy?

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, I'm back with another episode of Yesterday Today. We have storiesmarking the original publication or Orwells 1984, the strange resurrection of a murderer and the bizarre concept of mailing babies.

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1920’s and 30s, shark attacks off the coast of New South Wales, Australia were not an especially uncommon event. In 1935, however, Sydney’s peaceful coastal charm was shattered by a grotesque discovery at the Coogee Aquarium that was anything but normal. A captured tiger shark, put on public display, vomited up a human arm—severed, tattooed, and unmistakably out of place. What began as a curiosity quickly spiraled into a chilling murder mystery involving gangsters, betrayal, and a body that was never found.

SOURCES

Roope, Phillip & Meagher, Kevin (2020) Shark Arm. Allen & Urwin, Crow’s Nest, Australia.

Brown, Anthony M. (2020) The Shark Arm Mystery: The Million to One Murder. New Era of Communications, London, UK.

Castles, Alex (1995) The Shark Arm Murders. Wakefield Press, MA, USA.

The Sydney Morning Herald (1932) Meal For Shark At The Coogee Aquarium. The Sydney Morning Herald, Mon 11 April 1932, p12. Sydney, Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald (1935) Shark Eats Shark. The Sydney Morning Herald Sat 20 April 1935, p11. Sydney, Australia. 

The Sydney Morning Herald (1935) Arm In Shark pool. The Sydney Morning Herald, Sat 27 April 1935, p20. Sydney, Australia.

Truth (1935) Vital Clue. Truth, Sun 28 April 1935, p20. Sydney, Australia.

Truth (1935) What Sick Shark Revealed. Truth, Sun 04 May 1935, p1. Sydney, Australia.

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, I'm back with another mini-episode of Yesterday Today, where this week we dig into the first ever non-stop Transatlantic Flight, the first ever sightings of the Loch Ness Monster and a delightfully weird romance story from teh pages of yesterdays papers.

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In the quiet elegance of 1880s Cheltenham, a spectral presence stirred unease in a grand old family mansion in the centre of town. The ghost—described as a tall, veiled woman in black—appeared repeatedly to the daughters of the Despard family, moving silently through the house and vanishing without trace. Witnessed by multiple family members over several years, the haunting became one of Britain’s most documented supernatural cases, thanks to the efforts of the newly founded Society for Psychical Research, who jumped at the chance to study a haunted house, first hand.

SOURCES

Morton, R.C (1892) Record of a Haunted House. Proceedings for the Society of Psychical Research, Vol VIII, 1892. London, UK.

Mackenzie, Andrew (1970) The Unexplained. Abelard-Schuman. London, UK.

Abdy Collins, B. (1948) The Cheltenham Ghost. The Psychic Press. London, UK.

Underwood, Peter (1977) Hauntings: new light on the greatest true ghost stories of the world. J.M Dent, London, UK.

Cheltenham Chronicle (1875) An Assault By An Errand Boy. Cheltenham Chronicle, 16 Nov 1875, p2. Cheltenham, UK.

Cheltenham Examiner (1875) Fooling And Its Result. Cheltenham Examiner, 17 Nov 1875, p3. Cheltenham, UK.

Cheltenham Citizen (1886) Superstition. Cheltenham Citizen, Fri 27 Aug 1886, p4. Cheltenham, UK.

Cheltenham Chronicle (1886) Solution Of The Suffolk Street Ghost Mystery. Cheltenham Chronicle, Sat 4 Sep 1886, p2. Cheltenham, UK.

Gloucester Citizen (1886) The Cheltenham Ghost. Gloucester Citizen, Sat 25 Sep 1886, p5. Gloucester, UK.

Pall Mall Gazette (1886) Ghosts And Ghosts. Pall Mall Gazette, Fri 10 Sep 1886, p4. London, UK.

Rogerson, Peter (2001) Images of Imogen. Magonia Magazine, Issue 74, April 2001. London, UK.

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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices