This week, we’re joined by Nikki Brueggeman for a discussion of two horrific hate crimes in early 20th century America.…
This Italian family’s secret recipe requires a special ingredient: a fatal dose of arsenic. Join us for a story of murder most foul, corrupt priests, saleswomen with pockets full of poison, secret cabal of witches moving through European courts, a ceiling alligator, and Santa Claus’s special bone juice.
Did an ancient Greek party girl get off on a capital charge because she flashed the judge? Or was this story just an excuse for artists to get away with painting bare breasts? This week, we dig into trial records, archeological evidence, and ancient gossip to try to get a sense of the woman behind one of history’s spiciest trials.
We’re heading back to the wild west to meet one of America’s smoothest criminals. Let Charles “Doc” Baggs teach you the art of stealing from the rich, giving great speeches, and staying one step ahead of the law. What do we learn when we listen to a criminal telling his side of the story? Who shaped our understanding of the moral landscape of the American west? How cool is this dude, seriously?
It’s Pride month, and you know what that means: It’s time for a deep dive into the structural oppression of queer people in America, the exploitative underbelly of New York’s mob-owned gay bars, and the night those tensions boiled over in 1969. What exactly was banned by sodomy laws and other laws used to target queer New Yorkers? Why was the mafia paying the police to keep gay bars open? And why was the movement that came out of Stonewall so different than what came before?
This week, we cover one of the most shameful war crimes in American history–and the shockingly light sentence of the only man successfully convicted for it. What happens when business tactics are applied to warfare? Why did it take so long for William Calley’s crimes to come to light? And why did so many Americans, including the president, believe he was justified in murdering hundreds of civilians?
This week, we bring you a story about a suspicious suicide, a vengeful spirit, and the wrath of the emperor. Why was a ghostly accountant out for revenge? How good was the Qing dynasty CSI team? And how did one of the most regimented legal systems in history end up with such a weird, orientalist misrepresentation in the English-speaking world?
In our first court case from the Islamic world, we meet one of history’s greatest bureaucrats. Midhat Pasha was fantastic at taking control of troubled territories and coming up with grand new legal ideas, but he wasn’t so great at playing politics. Meet the scholar who rose to be the Grand Vizier of an empire before he became the defendant in an unwinnable show trial.
Meet the woman who claimed to be a German princess, scammed a handful of husbands, palled around with pirates, and played her scandalous self on the stage. Why were so many English men so easy to dupe when a stranger showed up claiming noble heritage? How did a con artist become a celebrity? How much do we really know about Mary as a person, and how much did this self-made woman construct herself as a character?
This week, we’re covering the strange, sad case of Mary Mallon, one of America’s most notorious killers—who never technically committed a crime. When is it illegal to spread a disease? Why did the Health Department have the power to detain people indefinitely? Does Mary deserve her infamy, or was she a victim of a system that was stacked against her from the start?