High Crimes and History

The Montana Vigilantes have all the evidence they need to convict Henry Plummer and his deputies. But what happens when the vigilantes become the very villains they set out to stop? The result is the bloodiest lynch mob in American history.

What happens when the law that's supposed to protect you turns criminal? That was the question that the miners of Alder Gulch, Montana faced in the 1860s. When they suspected that the sheriff and his deputies were part of a stagecoach robbery ring, they took the law into their own hands.

What if a real-life Sherlock Holmes wrote a how-to book for determining how someone died? A similar situation gave history its first forensics book, written for bookworms thrown into field forensics with no former knowledge and severe punishments if they botched up an investigation. The catch? The book was written in medieval China almost a thousand years ago – and still holds up today.

Three voices echo within its halls. Three narratives -- a murder, a robbery, and and an escape -- woven together not by time, but by place. For this is the Tower of London, where many have been sent to rot and die. These three vignettes are exceptions to that rule.

Welcome to Renaissance Florence, where in order to be anybody citizens had to “dress for success.” Spending on fashion was out of control, teetering on an economic crisis. Fearing financial ruin and rampant immorality, city officials drew up a set of laws prohibiting certain styles of clothing. In order to enforce these laws, special policemen hunted down fashionistas in the name of the law. That’s right: Florence had itself a “Fashion Police.”

H.H. Holmes: “The Devil in the White City.” “America’s First Serial Killer.” Convicted of nine killings and admitting to twenty-seven, he operated a murder castle at the Chicago World’s Fair and luring tourists to their death. All of that is false. Holmes murdered nine people, but the narrative of Holmes in the American public is the “greatest swindle” he ever pulled. This is the true story.

Welcome to the Spanish Inquisition -- the attempt to expel all non-Christians from Spain by force. When a group of Jews is accused of having murdered a Christian boy in a secret blood ritual, it gives the Inquisition the motive it needs to punish the entire Jewish people.

How does a billionaire knight turn from Savior of France to serial killer? That is a story that requires walking through the life of the man some historians have dubbed “The Evilest Man in the World:" Gilles de Rais.

Note: There is a growing group of non-historians who believe Gilles crimes were fabricated in a conspiracy by the state. I am doing professional historical research on this subject for a conference in February. After the conference I will release a bonus episode on this minority movement and the medievalist response against it in the near future.

Most pirates died as they lived. One, however, got away with the largest armed robbery in history. Britain named him Public Enemy Number One. Pirates named him the Pirate King.

The Affair of the Poisons has reached the King’s court, and chaos ensues. But the hardest part about a conspiracy is figuring out what’s truth and what’s fiction. The best conspiracies – like this one – have a bit of both.