Fantastic History

It is time we talk about the duck who joined the US Marine Corps and waddled to war against the Japanese. Yes, this is our second episode about animals fighting in World War II. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com Fantastic History Stickers available Here ! and 'Y2K Compliant'...

A pope, a corpse, and the entire Catholic diocese walk into a bar… Join us this week as Sarah tells the extremely macabre tale of Pope Formosus and his posthumous criminal trial. [short description of episode] Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com New Fantastic History Stickers a...

It's the end of the world! Apocalyptic radio broadcasts, computer bugs and an alien invasion! Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com New Fantastic History Stickers available Here ! Please subscribe and leave a review! Sources Infographic: https://i.redd.it/cfw4acjeskc91.png W: htt...

Part 3 is a real gas! Chock full of spooky clowns, vampires and witches! Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com Please subscribe and leave a review! New Fantastic History Stickers available Here ! Sources: Infographic: https://i.redd.it/cfw4acjeskc91.png P: https://historycollecti...

Was it hyperthyroidism or maybe polyphagia that drove Charles Domery and Tarrare to eat anything they could get their hands on? Or, better yet, were their stories even true? This week, Sarah shares two tales so wild that they're difficult to believe, despite scientific documentation of their unusual eating habits. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @Fantastic...

The panic's keep coming this week as we cover Oujia boards, disappearing penises and Lisztomania! History sure has had some great panics. Let's talk about 26 or more of them in this multi-part series! Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com Please subscribe and leave a review! New...

History sure has had some great panics. Let's talk about 26 or more of them in this multi-part series! Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com Please subscribe and leave a review! Sources: Infographic: https://i.redd.it/cfw4acjeskc91.png A: http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/...

It's another double-decker episode! This time, I share two stories of people who disappeared under bizarre circumstances, but reappeared alive. However the details of what happened to them are still unknown. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com Please subscribe and leave a revie...

Come along with us as Sarah shares some little known but fantastically interesting facts about a handful of America’s early leaders. From wine stains to possum dinners, this episode has it all! Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com Please subscribe and leave a review! Sources: ht...

In 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. But a third bomb was planned and prepared to be dropped as well. After the Japanese surrender and the end of World War 2, the plutonium core of this bomb was used in tests that physicist Richard Feynman described as like “tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon”. The events that followed would earn the item its well known nickname - the demon core. F...

It’s been too long since we’ve done an episode about stunts fit for Jackass. In this episode, Sarah gives Clay the rundown on the people who have survived the 187-foot drop over the edge of Niagara Falls. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggestions at FantasticHistoryPod@gmail.com Please subscribe and leave a review!...

As war abruptly began between Russia and Japan in 1904, Russia found itself unprepared to face the naval might of the Imperial Navy. Tsar Nicholas II summoned the Baltic Fleet to hastily make way to the East to support the Pacific Fleet, but this would be a monumental challenge. The Baltic Fleet would have to traverse 18,000 miles from the Baltic, down across the tip of Africa and across the India...

It's our first double header episode! First, Clay shares the story of the incredible micronation of Sealand. Located just off the coast of Suffolk in Great Britain, Sealand sits on a 1-acre platform and has existed there for over 50 years. Next, Sarah shares the incredible story of Judith Love Cohen. Starting her life as a little girl who loved dancing and mathematics, she grew into one of the mos...

This week, Sarah takes Clay on a journey to the oil fields of Oklahoma in 1911 where an unlikely heroine began her incredible journey. The amazing life story of Sarah Rector is a rags to riches tale in every sense of the word, with twists and turns and good triumphing over evil. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod Email us with questions/suggest...

It's a double-decker true crime episode! This week I share not one, but TWO stories of people who disappeared under bizarre circumstances and met tragic fates. Both men lived fairly normal lives, but something happened that cause them to vanish, only to later show up dead with no good explanation as to how or why. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @Fantastic...

For as long as there have been storytellers, there have been vampire stories. Join us this week as Sarah shares some of those stories with Clay, including the first recorded vampires in England, a vampire pandemic in nineteenth century America, and various vampiric myths and legends from all around the world! Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticHPod...

Today we discuss America’s most infamous hoarders - Homer and Langley Collyer. Long before television shows brought compulsive hoarding into the limelight were the Collyer brothers, who amassed an incredible collection of stuff in their four-story Harlem brownstone throughout the 1930s and 40s. But it was the manner in which they died that shocked the nation and solidified their names in newspaper...

What happens when a brilliant man of science has a brush with the metaphysical? More than just the legendary creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also a prominent champion of the Victorian spiritualist movement. Join us as Sarah discusses his experiences with seances, phantoms, and even fairies. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @FantasticH...

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to a dwarf planet. This was pretty humiliating for Pluto to lose its designation as the 9th planet, but what if I told you that Pluto was not the first 9th planet? Eighty years prior to Pluto's discovery, astronomers thought they had discovered the 9th planet of our solar system. The discovery was held as a triumph, but why have you never...

Before there was Captain Marvel, Xena, or even Eowyn there was Woman Chief. This week Sarah regales Clay with the story of a White Clay turned Crow Two-Spirit warrior who never met a glass ceiling she couldn’t shatter. Part incredible true tale, part enduring myth, and all badass - this is the story of Woman Chief. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @Fantasti...

Who doesn’t love a good prank? Well  Horace de Vere Cole didn’t just love pranks - he lived for them. In the early 1900s, Cole managed to pull successful hoaxes on Cambridge and the British Royal Navy, but although they are his most famous antics, there are many more that are contributed to him that I have the pleasure to tell you and Sarah about this week. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for...

In Part Two of Sarah’s John Dillinger deep dive, hear how a baseball player from small town Indiana earned his place as the FBI’s first ever Public Enemy Number One; the thrilling tale of the shoot out at Little Bohemia; the true story behind Dillinger’s most enduring legend; and how Clark Gable lured Dillinger to his doom.  Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re...

We’re celebrating our tenth episode of Fantastic History with a two-parter! This week, Sarah tells Clay about one of her favorite historical figures: Depression Era bank robber, John Dillinger. In Part One, hear about the train heist Dillinger pulled off with his childhood gang, his ridiculous first attempts at robbery, and his time in the Indiana prison system. Follow us on Instagram & Twitte...

The town of Skidmore, Missouri faced a problem: a man named Ken McElroy. He had terrorized them for decades, robbed them, threatened them and even tried to murder them. The law would not help - Ken was able to slip his way out every time. Until one day, the town of Skidmore decided to deal with Ken themselves. Their actions have become one of the most bizarre and unique true crime cases I've ever...

Amidst an already miserable summer plagued with a scorching heat wave and a polio epidemic, visitors to the New Jersey seaside were given yet another worry to keep them up at night: a man-eating shark who claimed five victims over a twelve-day period. Tune in to learn more about the harrowing true tale that inspired Jaws. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for extra content and updates! We’re @F...