The Darkives: Serious history. Told not so seriously

This week Jamie and Leo dig into the full story of the Britannic, her construction, her brief life as a hospital ship, and the disaster that put her on the ocean floor. Along the way, meet the crew members who somehow had to survive a sinking twice. Violet Jessop was there for the Titanic and showed up again for the Britannic, so did Arthur Priest. Archie Jewell survived both ships and then didn't...

In this episode Jamie tells Leo a story involving a...umm...well, lets just say a 'messy' situation. King Henry VI, King of Germanic Europe during the Holy Roman Empire, did a slick job covering up a debacle involving a couple of 'turds' in a land dispute. Many men met their untimely end while attempting to settle the dispute due to the 'throne', but not the one the king rests on. Welcome to a dir...

This week, Jamie and Leo dig into the construction of the Titanic, the staggering gap between how her passengers lived on board, and the night everything went wrong. In 1912, the most luxurious ship ever built sank on its maiden voyage, taking more than 1,500 people down with it. A third-class ticket cost the equivalent of roughly $1,000 today. The best suite cost over $130,000. When the ship went...

This week, Jamie and Leo dig into one of the boldest undercover investigations in journalism history, the woman behind it, and what she found on the other side of those asylum doors. In 1887, a 23-year-old journalist walked into a boarding house, convinced doctors she had lost her mind, and got herself committed to one of New York's most notorious mental asylums. She wasn't sick. She was working....

In 1944, a small Illinois town found itself at the center of one of the strangest mysteries in American history. This week we investigate the story of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. A mysterious figure allegedly prowling through the night, leaving victims reporting strange odors, paralysis, nausea, and fear. As reports spread across town, panic quickly followed. Residents locked their doors, armed the...

This week, Jamie and Leo cover two stories that prove that history has never been particularly kind to animals in the most unbelievable ways possible. First Topsy the elephant. Shipped across the world, worked to exhaustion as a circus animal, and ultimately sentenced to death after killing a man. What followed was one of the most disturbing executions in recorded history. She was fed cyanide, ele...

This week Jamie and Leo dig into the life, the expedition, and the event that made sure James Jameson would be remembered for something much more sinister than being a naturalist. He was the grandson of the Jameson whiskey founder. He was the uncle of the man who invented the radio. He traveled the world, hunted big game, and was the first person to scientifically describe a species of bird. By ev...

A stolen fortune. A global manhunt. And a pirate who may have gotten away with it all. This week, Jamie and Leo sail into the chaotic world of Henry Every, the man often called the pirate who pulled off the greatest sea heist in history. Before becoming one of the most wanted men on Earth, Every lived a murkier life serving in the navy, working aboard slave ships, and eventually turning to piracy...

Rats. Fleas. And one bacterium that just would not take the hint. This week, Jamie and Leo trace the long and deadly history of the plague, from the ancient world to outbreaks in the modern United States. We start with the different forms of plague, bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic (all caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis) . From there, we follow the disease across centuries, beginning with...

Words carved into a tree. A colony gone. And a mystery that still hasn’t been solved. This week, Jamie and Leo head back to early colonial America to unpack the disappearance of the Roanoke colony, one of the most enduring mysteries in U.S. history. Backed by Sir Walter Raleigh, remember him from The lost city of Z/ Eldorado? In the late 1500s the English attempted to establish a permanent settlem...

Poison. Alcohol. Exposure. And somehow… he just kept going. This week, Jamie and Leo head to Prohibition era New York to tell the unbelievable story of Michael Malloy, better known as “Iron Mike.” In the early 1930s, a group of men came up with what they thought was a simple plan: take out a down-on-his-luck bar regular, collect on a life insurance policy, and split the payout. What followed was a...

This week, Jamie and Leo head to London to explore the long and unsettling history of Bethlem Royal Hospital, better known as “Bedlam.” Originally founded as a place of care, Bethlem one of the most infamous institutions in history. Over the centuries, it moved locations, and developed a reputation for conditions that were as chaotic as the name it inspired. Reports of neglect, public viewing of p...

This week on The Darkives, we have a whale of a tale. Let's sail out to sea in 1819 aboard the whaling ship Essex, a voyage that would turn into one of the most unbelievable survival stories in history. When a massive sperm whale attacked and sank the ship, the crew was left stranded in the open ocean with only three small boats and barely enough supplies to survive. What followed was a series of...

This week on The Darkives, we’re digging into one of the strangest rivalries in scientific history… and yeah, it gets way more chaotic than you’d expect. In the late 1800s, two paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, basically went to war over dinosaur bones. What started as competition quickly turned into full-on sabotage; stolen fossils, destroyed evidence, and some very...

A city of gold. A ritual in a sacred lake. And a legend that refused to die. This week, Jamie and Leo head deep into South America to unravel the story of El Dorado. The myth of “the gilded one" and the enduring mystery of the Lost City of Z. The legend begins with indigenous rituals at Lake Guatavita, where stories of gold-covered rulers and offerings sparked centuries of obsession. What followed...

Hollywood has always had secrets. This week on The Darkives, we step into the golden age of film, where the studios didn’t just make stars… they controlled the narrative. At the center of it all was Edgar “Eddie” Mannix, the powerful MGM general manager whose real job wasn’t just running a studio… it was making problems disappear. Alongside publicist Howard Strickling, Mannix became Hollywood’s ul...

This episode is hot! flaming!... sticky? This week, Jamie and Leo dive into three bizarre disasters where history proved that sometimes the most dangerous floods don’t involve water at all. First, we head to 1814 London and the infamous London Beer Flood, where a massive vat at a brewery burst open and unleashed a wave of beer that tore through the streets. Then we travel to the Dublin Whiskey Fir...

This week on The Darkives, we’re heading to one of the most infamous prison colonies in the British Empire, Port Arthur Historic Site in Tasmania. Established in the 1830s, Port Arthur became a destination for some of Britain’s most hardened convicts. The prison developed a reputation for harsh discipline, psychological punishments, and a strict system of control. From silent confinement to brutal...

Before there were Cajuns cooking in Louisiana, there were Acadians trying to survive in a colony caught between two empires. This week, Jamie and Leo head to early North America to unpack how a quiet French settlement called Acadia (in what is now Nova Scotia) became a political tug-of-war between France and Britain (and how ordinary families ended up paying the price). As control of the territory...

Inês de Castro’s love story didn’t just end in tragedy... it ended in execution… and then a coronation. In this episode, Jamie and Leo dive into one of the most dramatic and bizarre royal scandals in European history. When Portuguese nobleman Pedro fell in love with Inês, it sparked political tension, royal panic, and an ultimately a murder ordered by the king himself. But that wasn’t the end of i...

She reduced a city to ashes… and history eventually called her a saint. This week, Jamie and Leo travel back to Viking Age Eastern Europe to unpack the unbelievable rise of Olga the ruler, widow, strategist, and one of the most calculating figures of the medieval world. After her husband was murdered by the Drevlians, she didn’t just seek revenge, she engineered it. From burying emissaries alive t...

They wanted a shortcut to California. Instead, they found themselves trapped in the Sierra Nevada during the winter of 1846 — snowed in, starving, and running out of time. This week, Jamie and Leo unpack one of the most infamous disasters in American history: the Donner Party tragedy. What began as a hopeful wagon train on the California Trail quickly turned into a brutal fight for survival after...

They shot him. Embalmed him. Then forgot to bury him. This week, Jamie and Leo dive into one of the strangest true crime stories in American history the bizarre afterlife of outlaw Elmer McCurdy. After a failed robbery in early 1900s Oklahoma ended with a bullet, McCurdy’s body didn’t exactly rest in peace. Instead, he was embalmed, displayed, toured, propped up in carnivals, passed around by show...

Treasure fleets. Naval battles. Billions in gold and silver sitting at the bottom of the ocean. This week, Jamie and Leo set sail into one of the most legendary maritime mysteries in history, the story of the Spanish galleon San José. In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, a heavily loaded Spanish treasure galleon left the Americas carrying enormous wealth from the New World. But off t...

Serial killer. Noblewoman. Legend. This week, Jamie and Leo dig into the chilling story of Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous “Blood Countess” of 16th-century Europe. For centuries, Báthory has been remembered as one of the most brutal figures in history. Stories claim she tortured and murdered dozens (possibly hundreds) of young women inside her Hungarian castles, earning a reputation as one of hist...