Macabrepedia: A Marriage of True Crime and the Truly Bizarre

P.T. Barnum certainly made a name for himself with the bizarre. We're touching on Joice Heth, General Tom Thumb, Commodore Nutt, Grizzly Adams, Cheng & Eng Bunker, and other famous sideshow acts. Inspired by our own recent trip to an Oddities expo, we talk about some of what inspired these expos and trends.

Reference: 
Karn Evil 9- Emerson, Lake & Palmer

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Typhoid Mary was a woman named Mary Mallon. Mary infected 50 people and was responsible for killing 3 by infecting them with typhoid fever while working as a cook, but she was innocent of everything except carrying germs... the first time. The second time, Mary was guilty of murder.

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There have been 266 popes, but some of them weren't the best role models. During the Cadaver Synod, Pope Stephen VI dug up one of his predecessors to stand trial. Find out more about the absolute worst popes in history.
 
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Mary Ann Cotton murdered 3 husbands, a mother, a friend, a lover, and many children. She's the subject of a children's nursery rhyme, and she was so despised.. that the newspapers used one of the first instances of airbrushing to make her look more like a monster. 

How many husbands and babies did Mary Ann Cotton have, and did she have any descendants? Who were here victims and why? Join us as we add another entry.

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Martin and Susan Defoor are found nearly decapitated in their bed in July of 1879. The axe is found in the house, but the murderer proves hard to pin down. This entry discusses this unsolved murder in 1800s Atlanta, GA.

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If you can think of it, someone has died that way. From a daredevil who slipped on an orange peel to death by molasses, history is littered with people who have died strange and unexpected ways. We'll talk about just 10 of these in this entry.

Ref.:

• Bryant, C. W. (2009, March 9). 10 bizarre ways to die. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved January 31, 2022, from https://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/10-ways-to-die.htm#pt9 
• The London Beer Flood of 1814. Historic UK. (n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2022, from https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-London-Beer-Flood-of-1814/ 
• Sohn, E. (2019, January 15). Why the great molasses flood was so deadly. History.com. Retrieved January 31, 2022, from https://www.history.com/news/great-molasses-flood-science 

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When beauty goes missing, people notice. In the early 1840s, Mary Rogers worked as a cigar girl. Her beauty brought customers in, making this the most popular cigar shop in NYC. But when she went missing... and a body turned up a few days later... speculation ran wild about who killed this beautiful cigar girl. Join us as we add another entry.

Stashower, D. (2007). The beautiful cigar girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the invention of murder. Berkley Books.
Welcome! NYS Historic Newspapers. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/ 

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Georgia Tann was the director of the Tennessee Children's Home Society in Memphis, TN. While there, she stole kids from the poor to sell to the rich... forging records and leaving devastated families along the way. Join us as we add another entry into our Macabrepedia.


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Petronilla de Meath was the first woman to be burned for witchcraft in Europe in 1324, taking the blame for her employer Alice Kyteler. Centuries later in 1895, Bridget Cleary was the last woman burned to death from superstitions involving witchcraft, faeries, and a changeling... but hers has a sad, dark twist that comes from her family trying to help her in a world of superstition. Listen and find out more. 

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References:  
Riddell, W. R. (n.d.). The first execution for witchcraft in Ireland - JSTOR. JSTOR. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1133665 

Beresford, D. (n.d.). Le Poer, arnold. le Poer, Arnold | Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://www.dib.ie/index.php/biography/le-poer-arnold-a4734 
 

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Bathsheba Spooner was the first woman to be executed in the United States after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. She was five months pregnant when she was hanged along with three men she conspired with... to murder her husband. Listen and find out more.

Bathsheba Spooner: A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy: https://www.amazon.com/Bathsheba-Spooner-Revolutionary-Murder-Conspiracy/dp/0578835428

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