A missing climber’s boot has reopened one of mountaineering’s oldest cold cases. In this Time & Tales dark history episode, we journey to Mount Everest through the story of George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, the 1924 British climbers who vanished high on the north side and may—or may not—have reached the summit decades before Hillary and Norgay. We trace the original expedition, Noel Odell’s last sighting in the storm, Conrad Anker’s 1999 discovery of Mallory’s body, and the recent boot find linked to Irvine that has revived the question: did they stand on the top of the world first, and what exactly happened up there?

If you’re drawn to Everest history, unsolved mountaineering mysteries, and the thin line between evidence and legend, this episode lives right on that ridge.

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Sources & Further Reading

• Wade Davis, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
• Walt Unsworth, Everest: The Mountaineering History
• Conrad Anker & David Roberts, The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest
• Jake Norton, reports and analyses on the 1924 Mallory & Irvine searches and recent Irvine-boot discovery
• Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (for later Everest context)
• “George Mallory” and “1924 British Mount Everest expedition” – Wikipedia
• “Mount Everest” – Encyclopaedia Britannica

A Celtic ruler nearly broke the Roman Empire in Britain. In 60–61 C.E., Boudicca of the Iceni went from Roman citizen to avenger after Roman officials seized her lands and assaulted her daughters—triggering a massive uprising that burned Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium to the ground.

In this Time & Tales episode, we dive into Boudicca’s life, the politics of Roman Britain, the assault that lit the fuse, Rome’s brutal response, and the archaeological burn layer that still carries the scars of her revolt beneath modern London and Colchester.

Sources & Further Reading

• Tacitus, Annals 14.29–39; Agricola Wikipedia
• Cassius Dio, Roman History 62 Wikipedia
• Richard Hingley & Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen Bloomsbury
• Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Boudica Britannia: Rebel, War-leader and Queen Routledge+1
• Martin Millett, Roman Britain (English Heritage) Amazon+1
• C. M. Bulst, “The Revolt of Queen Boudicca in A.D. 60,” Archaeological Journal JSTOR
• E. M. Vannan, “The Queen of Propaganda: Boudica’s Representation in Roman and Later Sources,” Arbutus UVic Journals
• [Article] “To Rule a Ferocious Province: Roman Policy and the Aftermath of the Boudican Revolt” ResearchGate

Between 1764 and 1767, the remote French province of Gévaudan was terrorized by a mysterious predator that parish records called La Bête—“The Beast.” More than 100 people were killed in daylight attacks that witnesses insisted were “like a wolf, yet not a wolf.” Royal hunters claimed victory, yet the killings continued until a local farmer brought down a creature whose proportions defied easy explanation.

This episode explores the attacks, the hunt, and the leading theories—from wolves to hybrids to possible human involvement—and why the legend endures as one of Europe’s strangest historical mysteries.

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Sources:

• Smithsonian Magazine — Lorraine Boissoneault, When the Beast of Gévaudan Terrorized France (June 26, 2017). Overview; attack range; “nearly 100 dead”; context of royal intervention and Chastel. Smithsonian Magazine
• Wikipedia (EN) — Beast of Gévaudan (last updated recently). Consolidated chronology with citations; Boulet entry; Chastel/Marin details; Bishop’s mandement; competing identity theories. Wikipedia
• Wikipedia (FR) — Bête du Gévaudan and Marie-Jeanne Vallet. Vallet’s 11 Aug 1765 counter-attack with bayonet on a staff; Antoine’s follow-up and blood on the blade (≈3 pouces); dated timeline; Chazes and Chastel entries. Wikipedia
• Wikimedia Commons (French National Archives image) — Procès-verbal d’examen du corps de la “bête du Gévaudan”, AE/II/2927, 20 June 1767 (notary Roch-Étienne Marin; post-mortem by Dr. Boulanger). Wikimedia Commons
• Wikipedia (FR) — François Antoine. Royal gun-bearer; the Chazes kill (21 Sept 1765); Versailles presentation; contested finality as attacks resumed. Wikipedia
• Margeride en Gévaudan (official tourism/history) — concise parish-based geography of early attacks (Les Hubacs, Mercoire, Langogne). Margeride en Gevaudan

In 2015, LiDAR scans of the Honduran Mosquitia revealed plazas, earthworks, and ruins long linked to the “White City” or Ciudad Blanca. A joint team of scientists, archaeologists, and filmmakers went in—and came back with a parasitic disease that tabloids called a curse. This episode traces Indigenous origins of the legend, the expeditions and tech that finally pierced the canopy, and how archaeology, ecology, and sensational headlines now collide in one fragile corner of the Honduran jungle.

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Sources:

• Fisher, C. T., et al. “Identifying ancient settlement patterns through LIDAR in the Mosquitia region of Honduras.” PLOS ONE (2016). (peer-reviewed LIDAR + settlement analysis)
• National Geographic Adventure coverage of the 2015/2016 field confirmations and finds. (ground verification; object cache; valley scale)
• National Geographic: “Pernicious Parasite Strikes Explorers…” (2015). (post-expedition leishmaniasis cases)
• CDC Clinical Care of Leishmaniasis (updated 2024). (current U.S. clinical guidance)
• DNDi/PAHO 2022 recommendations. (Americas—liposomal amphotericin B adoption; access improvements)
• The New Yorker (Douglas Preston), “An Ancient City Emerges in a Remote Rain Forest” (2017). (popular overview; expedition narrative)
• The Guardian (2015), “Archaeologists condemn National Geographic over claims…” (open letter; “lost city” critique and clarifications)
• Archaeology Southwest (2015), “Reporting Archaeology: Lost and Found” (round-up of scholarly objections; citation of Rosemary Joyce’s critiques on sensational framing and Indigenous erasure).

Gilles de Rais, medieval noble and alleged serial killer, was once a war hero who fought beside Joan of Arc. In 1440, a missing boy in Nantes led investigators to the baron’s estates, where rumors of vanished children surrounded one of the richest men in France. This dark history podcast episode follows his rise from hero of Orléans to infamous killer, walks through the trials and testimony, and asks how his story helped shape the later Bluebeard legend.

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Episode Sources (No Order):

Primary records & contemporary compilations

• Ecclesiastical & secular proceedings (Nantes, 1440) – translated excerpts (indictment; Henriet & Poitou confessions). Famous Trials (Douglas O. Linder) hosts faithful English translations from published French editions:
  • “Indictment of Gilles de Rais.”
  • “Confession of Henriet (valet of Gilles de Rais), Oct. 23, 1440.”
  • “Confession of Poitou, Oct. 1440.”
  • Joan of Arc documentary corpus (for Orléans, Reims, and related 1429–31 material):
  • Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses, ed./trans. Régine Pernoud—English ed. (uses trial & chronicle testimony).
  • “Letter to the English” (22 Mar 1429), English translation from Quicherat, with notes; Joan of Arc Archive.
  • “Royal Financial Records for Twenty Harkebusiers at Orléans, 1429” (payments record translated from Journal du siège d’Orléans); Joan of Arc Studies – Primary Sources Series.
• Hundred Years’ War treaties
  • Treaty of Troyes (1420) – translation and analysis (Anne Curry, University of Southampton).

Scholarly syntheses & reference works

• On Gilles de Reis (biography & trial analysis)
  • Benedetti, Jean. The Real Bluebeard: The Life of Gilles de Rais (1971). English monograph; accessible via Internet Archive.
  • Ross, Lia B. “Deviancy in the Late Middle Ages: The Crimes and Punishment of Gilles de Rais.” In Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age (De Gruyter, 2012), pp. 359–402.
  • (For historiography & cultural afterlives) Brill chapter overview touching Gilles and late-medieval context.
• On Joan of Arc, Orléans campaign, and sources
  • Pernoud, Régine. Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses (reliance on primary testimony; context for 1429 campaign and Reims).