The Strange History Podcast

In ancient Rome, the government could not legally proceed without divine approval — and that approval often came from birds. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the real and legally binding practice of Roman augury, the ritual of watching the sky for omens before public assemblies, military campaigns, and major state decisions. We dive into how augurs marked sacred se...

March 3, 1878 — Congress quietly authorized a weapon most Americans never knew existed: underwater mines wired to shore, capable of detonating beneath enemy ships without warning. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy dives into the obscure history of 19th-century “submarine torpedoes,” the early evolution of underwater warfare, and the strange legal and ethical debates surround...

In the 1800s, one newspaper helped convince the world that civilization existed on the Moon, giants once ruled America, people could burst into flames without warning, mermaids swam the South Pacific, and entire cities lay frozen beneath polar ice. That paper was the New York Sun. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, we explore what really happened to the New York Sun—how it rose to fam...

March 2, 1836 — in a small settlement at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas declared independence from Mexico while war was already underway. In this deep-dive episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the Texas Declaration of Independence, the political tensions between Mexican federalism and centralization under Antonio López de Santa Anna, and the dramatic timing of the Convention...

March 1 wasn’t always the third month of the year. In ancient Rome, it was New Year’s Day. In this deep-dive episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the origins of March 1 as the beginning of the Roman calendar, its connection to the god Mars, the reopening of military campaign season, and the festival of Matronalia honoring Juno Lucina. We trace how early Roman timekeeping struc...

Before January 1 became New Year’s Day… before leap years were standardized… before calendars behaved themselves… ancient Rome treated time as a political tool. In this mini-episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy dives into the strange and chaotic history of the Roman calendar. From the original ten-month year that ignored winter entirely, to priests inserting bonus months for political...

February 28, 1933 — one day after the Reichstag burned, Germany’s democracy was dismantled through a single legal decree. In this super mega deep dive episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the Reichstag Fire Decree, signed by President Paul von Hindenburg at Adolf Hitler’s urging, and how emergency powers permanently suspended civil liberties across Nazi Germany. This episode e...

February 29 is the rarest date on the calendar — a day that only appears once every four years. But why does it exist, and what happens if we remove it? In this Leap Year special episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy dives deep into the strange history of February 29, from Julius Caesar’s Julian calendar reforms to Pope Gregory XIII’s calendar correction that erased ten days from histor...

Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history—and one of the most misunderstood. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, we cut through centuries of myths, Roman propaganda, and modern hot takes to uncover the real Cleopatra VII. Was she really a seductive manipulator, or a highly skilled ruler protecting Egypt from Roman conquest? Why did Roman writers work so hard to villainize he...

February 27, 1933 — flames engulfed the Reichstag in Berlin, and within hours Germany’s fragile democracy was on life support. In this super mega deep dive episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the Reichstag Fire, the arrest of Marinus van der Lubbe, the immediate political exploitation by Adolf Hitler, and the sweeping Reichstag Fire Decree that suspended civil liberties acros...

February 26, 1936 — Tokyo woke up under heavy snow and armed rebellion. In this super mega episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy dives deep into the February 26 Incident, the attempted military coup carried out by young Imperial Japanese Army officers who believed they were purifying their nation. Cabinet ministers were assassinated, government buildings seized, and for several days Jap...

February 25, 1956 marks a quiet but permanent turning point in modern history — the day fame stopped being a feeling and became something you could measure. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy tells the deeper story behind Elvis Presley receiving his first gold record for “Heartbreak Hotel,” and how that moment reshaped celebrity, music, and cultural obsession forever. More th...

February 24 looks like an ordinary date on the calendar — but it quietly changed the human mouth forever. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the surprising history of the nylon toothbrush, unveiled by DuPont in 1938, and how a simple change in bristle material transformed oral hygiene, reduced disease, and helped eliminate a once-terrifying condition known as trench...

February 23 marks the moment one of the strangest engineering ideas in history was officially approved — and nothing about entertainment was ever the same. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy tells the story of how an American engineer proposed a massive rotating wheel to rival the Eiffel Tower at the 1893 World’s Fair, and somehow convinced everyone it was a good idea. The re...

Long before modern debates about election fraud, American democracy had a darker, far more violent secret. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, we uncover the forgotten 19th-century crime known as cooping—a brutal form of election fraud where voters were kidnapped, drugged, disguised, and forced to vote again and again for political machines. This episode dives deep into how election fr...

February 22, 2014 was supposed to be just another polished Oscars moment — until it wasn’t. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy revisits the now-legendary Academy Awards moment when John Travolta walked onstage to introduce Frozen singer Idina Menzel and instead confidently announced the arrival of a brand-new celebrity: “Adele Dazeem.” What followed was instant internet histo...

Changelings weren’t just fairy tales — they were a crisis. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the chilling difference between how medieval villages and monasteries understood changelings, the fair-folk replacements believed to steal human children and adults. Drawing from monk-written chronicles, folklore, and real historical cases, this episode reveals how the same...

Florida has sunshine, beaches, alligators… and a law book that looks like it was written during a collective nervous breakdown. In this mega-episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy dives deep into the strangest Florida laws that are technically still on the books, from outdated morality statutes and hyper-specific crimes to regulations that only make sense if someone absolutely did that e...

In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the terrifying folklore of the Wild Hunt — a ghostly procession of dead riders believed to race across the winter sky during late February. Across England, Germany, Scandinavia, and France, February 20 was feared as a night when the boundary between the living and the dead weakened, and spectral hunters led by gods and spirits tore...

In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the bizarre and little-known story of a pagan serpent cult in Benevento, Italy, and the moment a Christian bishop allegedly destroyed a golden serpent idol that locals believed protected their city. Drawing from medieval church records, folklore, and historical accounts, this episode examines how myth, religion, and authority collid...

In 1966, two Brazilian electronics technicians were found dead on a remote hill near Rio de Janeiro — lying side by side, wearing crude lead masks, and carrying a notebook filled with cryptic instructions. There were no signs of violence. No clear cause of death. And no explanation that made sense. We dive deep into The Lead Masks Case, one of the most unsettling and overlooked mysteries in modern...

In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the forgotten medieval belief that dragons filled the winter skies. Drawing from monastic chronicles, folklore, and early historical records, this episode uncovers why late February — especially February 18 — was feared as a time when flying serpents, fiery worms, and winged beasts crossed the heavens as warnings of famine, plague,...

February 17th marks one of the strangest and most disturbing firsts in military history. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy tells the darkly bizarre true story of the H.L. Hunley — the Confederate submarine that became the first underwater vessel to sink an enemy warship, and then immediately vanished with its entire crew. On the night of February 17, 1864, the Hunley success...

February 16th is the day history stopped whispering — and started speaking up. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the powerful, disruptive events tied to February 16th, a date defined by voices that refused to be ignored. From the 1913 women’s suffrage march in Washington, D.C., where protestors were attacked but changed the national conversation, to the opening of K...

In October 1967, residents of a small fishing village in Nova Scotia watched a glowing object fall from the sky and strike the Atlantic Ocean. What authorities initially believed was a downed aircraft quickly became something far stranger. No wreckage was recovered, no planes were missing, and sonar detected an object moving along the ocean floor before disappearing completely. In this mega episod...