History

Forgotten episodes and the stories behind famous ones.

9 rabbit holes

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  WarThe Christmas truce of 1914Christmas Eve, 1914, on the Western Front. German soldiers put candles on their trenches and sing. British soldiers sing back. The next morning, men who had been shooting at each other meet in no man’s land to shake hands, swap cigarettes and bury their dead.3 stages · 24 min
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  Climate & catastrophe1816, the year without a summerIn April 1815 a volcano in Indonesia explodes so violently that it changes the weather on the other side of the planet. The next year it snows in New England in June, harvests fail across Europe, and on a rainy evening by Lake Geneva, Mary Shelley starts writing Frankenstein.3 stages · 29 min
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  Industrial historyThe women who glowed in the darkNew Jersey, around 1920. Young women paint watch dials with glowing radium paint, and to get a fine point they shape the brush with their lips. They are told it is harmless. Then their jaws begin to crumble.4 stages · 55 min
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  Absurd episodesThe Great Emu WarWestern Australia, 1932. Thousands of emus are eating the wheat of struggling farmers, many of them war veterans. The government sends soldiers with two machine guns. The emus scatter, regroup, and keep eating.4 stages · 19 min
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  Strange epidemicsThe summer Strasbourg couldn’t stop dancingJuly 1518. A woman steps into a street in Strasbourg and starts to dance. She doesn’t stop for days. Within weeks dozens of people are dancing with her, and the city council’s answer is to hire musicians and build a stage.4 stages · 31 min
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  Strange disastersBoston’s great molasses floodJanuary 1919. A huge storage tank in Boston’s North End bursts, and a wave of molasses several metres high rolls through the streets at speed. It knocks buildings off their foundations, and people and horses are trapped in the thick, cooling syrup. Twenty-one people die.3 stages · 25 min
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  Wild WestThe town that hanged its sheriffBannack, Montana, a gold rush town in 1863. Robberies and murders are everywhere, and a secret vigilante committee decides the sheriff himself, Henry Plummer, leads the gang. In January 1864 they hang him without a trial. Historians still argue whether he was guilty.3 stages · 22 min
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  Media mythsThe panic that never happenedHalloween eve, 1938. Orson Welles broadcasts a radio drama about Martians landing in New Jersey. The next morning, newspapers report a nationwide panic: people fleeing their homes, jamming the phone lines. For decades this was proof of the power of mass media. The story is mostly false.2 stages · 22 min
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  Forgotten peoplesThe Cagots, France’s hidden outcastsFor about 800 years, a group of people in the Pyrenees were shunned by everyone around them. They had to use a separate, low door to enter church and were barred from most trades. They looked like their neighbours and spoke the same language. Nobody can say why they were hated.3 stages · 40 min