Time & Tales Podcast

On January 15, 1947, the bisected body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was discovered in a vacant lot along South Norton Avenue in Leimert Park. Within hours, tabloid circulation wars, contaminated crime scenes, and yellow journalism transformed a real young woman into the myth of the "Black Dahlia ." Joined by horror writer Tristan Zelden , we cut through decades of tabloid sensationalism, debunk...

In August 1785, Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan was arrested in full liturgical vestments inside Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, accused of defrauding the crown for an astronomical diamond necklace worth 1.6 million livres. The scandal that followed pitted the court against the church, destroyed the public image of Queen Marie Antoinette, and exposed a brazen con orchestrated by an impoverished descen...

In this episode, we cover the evolution of Halloween from ancient autumn fire rites to North American street riots and organized trick-or-treating. Starting with the Celtic festival of Samhain, the episode follows how carved turnips, spirit offerings, and disguised travelers evolved into mumming and souling before crossing the Atlantic into a much harsher climate. We trace how rural pranks escalat...

In this episode, we cover the real history and dark folklore behind Castle Frankenstein and the 18th-century alchemist who inspired modern horror. Centered in Germany's Odenwald mountains, the story follows Johann Konrad Dippel —a rogue theologian, physician, and alchemist born within the fortress walls who spent his life chasing metallic transmutation, distilling foul animal bone oils, and attemp...

In part two of our deep dive into Purdue Pharma, we examine the legal and financial fallout of the opioid crisis. Despite a 2007 guilty plea for misbranding OxyContin, Purdue continued operations while the Sackler family transferred billions of dollars into private accounts. We break down the 2024 Supreme Court ruling in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma , the subsequent $7.4 billion national settlement...

In this episode, we cover the Sackler family, Purdue Pharma, OxyContin, and the start of America’s opioid crisis . The story begins with medical advertising, museum prestige, and the doctor-focused marketing that helped turn a Brooklyn family of physicians into one of the most powerful names in pharmaceuticals. We trace OxyContin’s 1995 approval, Purdue’s push into chronic pain treatment, the misl...

In this episode, we cover the Erfurt Latrine Disaster of 1184 , a medieval catastrophe that brought the politics of the Holy Roman Empire crashing into a literal cesspit. King Henry VI had gathered nobles, bishops, and rival factions in Erfurt to settle a feud between Louis III of Thuringia and Archbishop Conrad of Mainz, but the monastery hall beneath them was already under strain. What followed...

Why do people, planes, and search teams keep disappearing in the Alaskan Triangle ? We follow the lost C-54 military transport, the Hale Boggs and Nick Begich plane disappearance, Erin Marie Gilbert, Mount Marathon runner Michael LeMaitre, and George Smith Sr., whose remains were identified after 17 years. We also break down the science behind the Alaska Triangle mystery, from sudden weather shift...

This Time and Tales episode explores the Alaska Triangle , the remote region between Anchorage, Juneau, and Utqiagvik where missing people, lost aircraft, glaciers, storms, forests, and empty miles of wilderness have fed one of Alaska’s strangest mysteries. We look at real Alaska missing-person cases, including the high number of unresolved Indigenous disappearances and the search challenges creat...

This episode explores the legend of Ragnar Lothbrok , the famous Viking warrior whose story blends saga, folklore, and real ninth-century conquest. From dragon fights and magical wives to the snake pit death that supposedly brought his sons to England, Ragnar’s life is almost impossible to separate from myth. We trace the history behind Ragnar Lothbrok, including the Paris raid of 845, Ivar the Bo...

The Amber Room was once one of the greatest treasures in Europe, a chamber of Baltic amber, gold leaf, mirrors, and mosaics inside Russia’s Catherine Palace. In 1941, Nazi troops tore it from the walls, packed it into 27 crates, and sent it into the heart of the Third Reich. This episode follows the disappearance of the Amber Room during World War II, from Catherine Palace to Königsberg Castle, th...

Aqua Tofana was a clear, nearly tasteless poison sold to women in 17th-century Italy. Linked to Giulia Tofana and later Geronima Spana, it became the center of a deadly Roman poisoning scandal involving abused wives, wealthy noblewomen, secret couriers, and papal investigators. This episode follows the rise of the Aqua Tofana poison network, the 1659 Spana prosecution, the executions at Campo de’...

The Pirate Republic of Nassau reaches its end as Blackbeard is hunted down, Calico Jack Rackham returns to piracy with Anne Bonny and Mary Read, and Charles Vane loses everything. With Nassau under British control, the pirates no longer have a safe harbor, and the Golden Age of Piracy begins to collapse. Part three follows the deaths of Blackbeard and Charles Vane, the capture of Calico Jack, Anne...

The Pirate Republic of Nassau begins to fall when King George I offers a pardon to any pirate willing to surrender. Benjamin Hornigold accepts the deal. Charles Vane refuses, sets a captured ship on fire, and uses it to escape the British fleet. Part two follows Woodes Rogers as he takes Nassau back for the Crown, hires former pirates to hunt their old allies, and hangs the men who break their par...

The Pirate Republic of Nassau rose in the early 1700s after thousands of privateers were left without work at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. With no strong government, a defensible harbor, and wealthy Atlantic shipping lanes nearby, Nassau became the most important pirate stronghold in the Caribbean. Part one explores the rise of the Pirate Republic of Nassau through Henry Every, th...

In 1910, Mary Mallon walked out of quarantine under one condition: she could never work as a cook again. By 1915, she was back in a Manhattan hospital kitchen under the name Mary Brown, and a new typhoid outbreak had infected 25 people and killed two. This episode concludes the story of “Typhoid Mary,” the asymptomatic carrier whose choices turned a public health crisis into a legal and ethical ba...

In early 1900s New York, a cook named Mary Mallon moved from one wealthy household to another while typhoid followed in her wake. This episode begins the story of “Typhoid Mary”: the Irish immigrant cook who seemed perfectly healthy, the baffling outbreaks that struck rich families instead of slums, and the medical investigation that changed public health history by identifying one of America’s fi...

In this second part of our Caligula series, Rome’s young emperor stops pretending to be merciful. We follow the purge of rivals and family members, the humiliation of the Senate, the money drain of spectacles and forced taxes, the horse-consul insult, the Jerusalem crisis, and the escalating paranoia that turned the palace into a death trap. This episode covers Caligula at his most volatile: the s...

This episode follows Caligula from “Little Boots,” the adored son of Germanicus, to one of the most infamous rulers in Roman history: his rise under Tiberius, the illness that changed his reign, the deaths of rivals and family members, the war with the Senate, and the assassination that ended his dynasty. In AD 37, Rome welcomed a young emperor from one of its most famous bloodlines, the son of Ge...

In Prague’s Old Town Square, a skeleton pulls a cord, the apostles pass behind tiny doors, the rooster crows, and one of Europe’s most famous clocks marks another hour. This episode follows the dark history and folklore of the Prague Astronomical Clock , or Orloj: a medieval marvel tied to legends of a blinded clockmaker, ghostly warnings, broken gears, and the belief that Prague will suffer if th...

In the final chapter of this three-part series, Time and Tales examines the leading suspects in the Cleveland Torso Murders, including Dr. Francis Sweeney, Frank Dolezal, and Willie Johnson. LaNae and CJ break down Eliot Ness’ investigation into the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run , the evidence tied to the murders, the links between victims Florence Polillo and Rose Wallace, theories involving morph...

By August 1938, the Cleveland Torso Murders had left bodies across Kingsbury Run, the Cuyahoga River, the lakefront, and the city’s industrial edges. In this second part, the case escalates when two more victims appear near the East 9th Street lakefront dump, practically under City Hall’s nose, and the pressure on Eliot Ness becomes impossible to ignore. This episode follows the investigation as i...

In 1930s Cleveland, bodies began turning up in places most of the city tried not to see: Kingsbury Run, the river flats, rail lines, and waste ground crowded with poverty during the Depression. In this episode, we begin the story of the Cleveland Torso Murders —also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run case—and the nightmare that landed on Eliot Ness ’s desk when victims started appearing dec...

In 1892, in Exeter, Rhode Island, a grieving family exhumed the body of nineteen-year-old Mercy Brown in a desperate attempt to save her dying brother. This episode follows the real story behind one of America’s most famous vampire legends: tuberculosis, winter graves, folk belief, and the New England vampire panic that turned a family tragedy into a permanent piece of American folklore. We trace...

In the United States, abandoned mines still hide across deserts, mountains, forests, and public land: open shafts, flooded pits, collapsed tunnels, and unstable ground left behind by gold rushes, hard-rock mining, and coal extraction. In this episode, we trace the dark history of abandoned mines from California and Nevada to Colorado and Appalachia, and ask a harder question beneath it all: when p...