Our Fake History

In the 19th century there were few Americans more famous than P.T Barnum. Long before he founded the circus that would bear his name, Barnum made a name for himself by pulling off elaborate hoaxes. Barnum's so-called "humbugs" walked the line between charming practical jokes and cynical frauds. How much should we believe about a man who lied for a living? Tune in and find out how fake news, George...

The Crimean War cavalry action known as "the charge of light brigade" was immortalized by the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson . The poet described a glorious charge into the mouths of Russian cannon carried out by men who would sooner die than disobey their orders. But is any of this actually true? What was the real charge of the light brigade? Why has one of history's biggest military blunders been rem...

When Tsar Nicholas II was executed in 1918 the Bolsheviks pumped the Russian media full of misinformation. The official story was that the Tsarina and the Prince had been spared and moved to a safe location. Absolutely nothing was said about the four imperial princesses. This would give rise to one of the most robust historical myths of the twentieth century--- that the Princess Anastasia had esca...

If there is anything stranger than the life of Grigori Rasputin, then it has be his unbelievable death. As Rasputin's influence at court increased the rumours about his debauched personal life became even more intense. Could it be that he had actually seduced the Tsarina? His meddling in the Tsarist government eventually earned him powerful enemies who were happy to put the peasant out of his mise...

There are few twentieth century figures as mysterious as Grigori Rasputin. The Siberian mystic has been portrayed as a scheming dark magician who seduced the Russian Queen and made a cuckold of Tsar Nicholas II. He's been blamed for everything from the First World War to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. But how much should we believe about this strange Russian peasant? Is there anything to the le...

The deeper you dig into the claims made in 1421: The Year China Discovered America the weirder the story becomes. The author Gavin Menzies boldly asserts that the fleets of the Chinese Admiral Zheng He managed to circumnavigate the globe some 100 years before Europeans. But he is not content to stop there! By the end of his controversial book Menzies has the junks of Zheng He accomplishing feats o...

One of the most controversial historical theories to emerge in the last 15 years is the so-called "1421 thesis". The theory was originally formulated by the former British submarine commander Gavin Menzies. He contends that during the Ming Dynasty the Admiral Zheng He led an impressive fleet of Chinese junks on an unprecedented journey of discovery. According to Menzies this journey took them to t...

Our Fake History is celebrating its one year anniversary! In honour of this milestone we have turned the show over to the listeners. In this episode Sebastian does his best to answer as many of your questions as he possibly can! Tune in and find out how Fender Telecasters, know-it-all students, and the young Julius Caesar all play a role in the story. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out...

Ty Cobb has been remembered as one of baseball's greatest villains. Despite being universally recognised as one of the game's most talented players, Ty Cobb is mostly remembered as violent racist who was hated by all who knew him. However, a new biography is claiming that Ty Cobb's reputation was unfairly tarnished by an unscrupulous biographer looking to make a name for himself by exposing the "r...

It has been nearly six hundred years since Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake in Rouen. Since that time there have been no shortage of conspiracy theorists and armchair psychologists who have tried to explain the girl who stubbornly resists explanation. This episode we dive deep into the weird theories about France's favourite Saint. Tune in an find out how LSD experiences, the plot of Star Wars,...

If Joan of Arc's rise to fame was unexpected, then her success on the battlefield was completely flabbergasting. Joan would score a series of impressive victories over the English and clear a path to Rheims so her Dauphin could become King of France. But what's a girl to do when her mission from God wraps up more quickly than anticipated? How should a modern lover of history make sense of a life s...

An historical myth managed to get loose and pass itself off as a fact in Episode #21! In this "Mini-Episode" Sebastian does his utmost to wrangle the loose myth and banish it to the pit. What results is a brief history of the most obscene gesture in the western world. Tune in and find out how Socrates, The Boston Bean Eaters, and the namesake of the "Charlie Horse" all play a role in the story!  S...

The story of how Joan of Arc, an unassuming peasant girl, became the leader of French armies is one of the most dramatic in all of European history. In many ways Joan's biography can read like a fairytale, or like the classic hero's journey. As you might imagine it is a story that is coated in a healthy layer of mythology and exaggeration. Parsing the legends from the verifiable historical facts c...

There are few expeditions from the so-called "age of discovery" as harrowing as Ferdinand Magellan's attempted circumnavigation of the globe. The journey was plagued by storms, scurvy, starvation, and mutiny. By the time the expedition was over only one leaky boat and 18 traumatized sailors managed to make their way back to Spain. What became of the man who has so often been celebrated as the firs...

Famous historical "firsts" tend to be controversial as a rule, and the world's first circumnavigation is no exception. Ferdinand Magellan is often celebrated as the first person to sail around the world, but is that actually true? In many ways the expedition that is given credit for completing the first circumnavigation may have actually been one of the era's most disastrous sea-voyages. Who reall...

The story that a woman disguised as man was once elected Pope has been floating around since the 1200's. In fact it was widely believed for hundreds of years that there had once been a real female Pope. But during the tumult of the Protestant Reformation the story was rejected by the Catholic Church, and it has subsequently been scoffed at as a myth. Was Pope Joan just a strange medieval legend, o...

We have explored the myth of Trojan War and we have sung the Ballad of Heinrich Schliemann. All that's left is to answer the question that has inspired this entire trilogy of episodes. To determine whether or not the Trojan War was based on a verifiable historical event we are going to have to scour the Iliad for clues, peruse ancient Hittite clay tablets, and examine all the archaeological eviden...

In our quest to discover if the Trojan War was a verifiable historical event we have to grapple with the amateur archaeologist who first tried to solve that mystery. Heinrich Schliemann believed that he had found real proof that the city of Troy actually existed. His discoveries were some of the most celebrated archaeological finds of the late 19th century, which earned him the moniker "the father...

The story of the Trojan War is one of humanity's oldest tales of armed conflict. For the Ancient Greeks the war represented the bloody end of an historical epoch. The fall of the city marked the end of the so-called "Age of Heroes", and heralded a new era where superhuman demi-gods would no longer walk the earth. But is the Trojan War just a myth, or was there a real conflict that provided the ins...

The Pacific Ocean is the most expansive body of water on planet earth. Despite this fact ancient people managed to venture forth into its immensity and create a civilization of incredible sophistication. The question of how the ancients managed to settle the Pacific perplexed academics for generations. This left the door open for some pretty wild theories about the origins of the Polynesians. Chie...

The Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace is so deeply enveloped in mythology that finding the real man can seem almost impossible. His life story has doubled as both entertainment and propaganda since it was first recounted by the minstrel Blind Harry in the 1400's. The film Braveheart brought the larger-than-life myth of William Wallace to a whole new generation, and also managed to add a few...

William Wallace is not only one of Scotland's best loved national heroes, he's also one of the most internationally well-known. His role as a leader in Scotland's medieval wars of independence against the English made him famous, but the poetry of an obscure minstrel named Blind Harry would make him a legend. Blind Harry's epic poem, "The Wallace", would double as Wallace's official biography for...

The spear that pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross has been one of the most fabled holy relics in history. The so-called "Spear of Destiny" is said to possess incredible supernatural powers that can make its carrier unbeatable in battle. But the spear also carries a terrible curse: lose it and you're dead. Legend has it that the "Spear of Destiny" has passed through hands of Europe's...

The story of the war between the Aztec (Mexica) empire and the Spanish conquistadors is one of the most dramatic in world history. The accounts of the conquest are diverse and, at times, contradictory. Some sources claim King Montezuma truly believed the conquistador Hernan Cortés was the god Quetzalcoatl. But can these sources be trusted? Tune in and find out how psychedelic flute concerts, the W...

Before the Spanish arrived in the early 1500's, the Aztec, or Mexica, people had built an impressive civilization. Their empire was composed of bustling cities that were larger, cleaner, and more architecturally sophisticated than most cities in Europe at that time. The arrival of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés would prove so disastrous for Aztec society that supernatural explanations did not...