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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 down, both classes went down together.
Some more than others...
From the band that kept playing as the ship sank to the couple who refused to be separated even as the lifeboats loaded, this is the story behind the most famous disaster in maritime history.
Grab a life jacket and run for the lifeboats because this episode of The Darkives, it's going down.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
https://www.cruisemummy.co.uk/titanic-ticket-prices/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Titanichttps://mollybrown.org/building-the-titanic/https://www.titanicandco.com/https://www.biography.com/history-culture/famous-titanic-passengers-surviviors-victimshttps://nypost.com/2026/06/18/world-news/cause-of-titan-submersible-implosion-that-killed-five-revealed-in-damning-final-report/Diehl, Digby. Front Page: 100 Years of the Los Angeles Times. H.N. Abrams, 1981.Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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.
Nellie Bly spent ten days inside Blackwell's Island, witnessing and documenting abuse and neglect that most of the public had no idea was happening. When she got out, she wrote about all of it...
The story didn't just make her famous, it forced the city to change how it treated the people locked inside. This file of The Darkives is easy to get into but much harder to Leave.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/nellie-bly-0https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/11/nellie-bly-blackwells-island/https://www.nps.gov/places/blackwell-s-island-new-york-city.htmhttps://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.htmlTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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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 themselves, and searched for an attacker that nobody could seem to catch.
Was there really a phantom gasser stalking the streets of Mattoon? Or was the town experiencing one of America's earliest and most famous cases of mass hysteria?
We get into the reports, the investigation, the suspects, and the theories that surround the case.
Sometimes the most unsettling mysteries aren't about what happened...
They're about what people believe happened.
Lock your doors, keep an eye on the windows, and don't breathe too deeply. We're hunting for the Mad Gasser of Mattoon in this file from The Darkives.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
https://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/blog/the-mad-gasser-of-mattoon/https://nypost.com/2024/05/27/us-news/mad-gasser-of-mattoon-inside-us-first-case-of-mass-hysteria/https://thechiseler.org/home/the-mad-gasser-of-mattoonhttps://www.fdrlibrary.org/vrba-wetzler-reportTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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, electrocuted, and hanged. All of that on the same day, in front of a live audience...
Then a pig in 14th century France is arrested, dressed in human clothing, put on formal trial for the killing of an infant, found guilty, and hanged for her crimes. In 1386. Because that was apparently a thing that happened.
Two animals. Two executions. Centuries apart. Both completely true. Welcome back to the Darkives.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
https://www.topsytheelephant.com/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/topsy-elephant-was-victim-her-captors-not-really-thomas-edison-180961611/https://edison.rutgers.edu/life-of-edison/essaying-edison/essay/myth-buster-topsy-the-elephanthttps://allthatsinteresting.com/topsy-the-elephanthttps://www.bklynlibrary.org/blog/2014/12/12/theyll-say-aww-topsy-myhttps://www.ancient-origins.net/weird-facts/medieval-animal-trials-0016706https://medievaltorturemuseum.com/blog/strange-medieval-courts-animals-trial-middle-ages/Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 every measure, James Jameson had a life of extraordinary privilege and genuine curiosity.
Then he went to Africa.
In 1887, Jameson joined the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition as a naturalist. What happened in the forests of the Congo in 1888 would define everything he left behind. Who was James Jameson? What was the James Jameson Affair? And how do modern scientist feel about Jameson's actions? We'll explore all the sketchiness in this file from The Darkives.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Scramble-for-Africa.https://aaregistry.org/story/tippu-tip-entrepreneur-and-slave-trader-born/https://www.newspapers.com/image/20368390/?match=1&terms=jamesonhttps://allthatsinteresting.com/james-jamesonhttps://moltensulfur.com/post/henry-stanleys-convenient-deaths/https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/a-grisly-drop-of-history-1.755086Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 in the late 1600s. But everything changed after a daring attack on a wealthy Mughal treasure fleet in the Indian Ocean. The raid made Every infamous almost overnight.
The stolen riches were enormous. The political fallout was massive. And suddenly, governments across the world wanted him captured. What followed became one of history’s first global manhunts.
Did he escape with his fortune? Did he die broke and forgotten? Or was one of the most successful pirates in history eventually caught without anyone realizing it?
On this episode of The Darkives we tell the tale of a pirate who may have actually won.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
https://www.history.com/articles/henry-everys-bloody-pirate-raid-320-years-agohttps://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Henry-Avery-Every-King-Of-Pirates/Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 the Plague of Justinian, moving through the Black Death, and ending with lesser-known outbreaks in Hawaii in 1899, San Francisco from 1900 to 1907, and Los Angeles in 1924.
Along the way, we look at how the plague spread, why it was so deadly, and how communities responded when fear traveled faster than the disease itself.
How many forms of plague are there? What caused the Black Death? And how did outbreaks continue well into the 20th century?
From emperors, quarantines, and some very unlucky rats, this is the story of one of history’s most persistent killers.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/event/plague-of-Justinianhttps://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17782-plaguehttps://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/san-franciscos-plague-years/https://www.aai.org/About/History/History-Articles-Keep-for-Hierarchy/How-Honolulu%E2%80%99s-Chinatown-Went-Up-in-Smoke-The-Fihttps://www.history.com/articles/black-deathhttps://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death/Effects-and-significancehttps://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps-statistics/index.htmlTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 settlement on the coast of present day North Carolina. Things didn’t go as planned...
Later John White would return from a supply trip to England only to find the colony completely abandoned. No bodies. No signs of a struggle. Just a single clue left behind.
From there, the questions only multiply.
Did the settlers integrate with nearby Indigenous groups? Were they driven off, murdered, relocated, or lost to something else entirely?
We'll walk through the history, the theories, and the evidence in this unsolved moment in history brought to you by The Darkives.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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firstcolonyfoundation.orgnps.govhistory.comTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 series of increasingly desperate (and increasingly ridiculous) attempts to make that plan work.
Drink after drink. Toxic cocktails. Freezing nights left out in the cold. Even food that absolutely should have done the job.
And somehow… it didn’t.
How did Michael Malloy survive so many attempts on his life? And how does a story this bizarre actually end?
Find out in this episode of The Darkives.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
irishcentral.comsmithsonianmag.comTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 patients, and questionable treatments turned the hospital into something far darker than its original purpose.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Figures like William Battie and competing institutions started challenging the way patients were treated, pushing for reform and a more humane approach to care.
How did Bethlem become “Bedlam”? What were conditions actually like inside its walls?
Find out with us this week on The Darkives.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
historicengland.orghistoryextra.commuseumofthemind.orgmuseumofthemind.org2historicengland.org2bbc.comqmro.qmul.ac.uklatimes.commuseumofthemind.org3museumofthemind.org4Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 desperate decisions... Drinking seawater, choosing whether to stay on a remote island or risk the open ocean, and eventually, facing choices no one ever thinks they’ll have to make.
We get into what really happened after the Essex went down, how the crew tried to survive against impossible odds, and how this story would go on to inspire Moby-Dick.
This isn’t just a shipwreck story… it’s what happens when survival pushes people past their limits.
So how did it all go so wrong? And what do you do when there are no good options left?
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Essex-whaling-shiphttps://www.americanheritage.com/essex-disasterhttps://www.gutenberg.org/files/61931/61931-h/61931-h.htmhttps://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/history-whalinghttps://essex.nha.org/the-whaleship-essex/https://essex.nha.org/the-aftermath/Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 public attempts to ruin each other’s careers.
And the wild part? This wasn’t happening in secret. The feud played out in newspapers, in the field, and across the growing world of American science… dragging in other figures like Joseph Leidy, who at one point just wanted no part of the chaos.
We get into how this rivalry started, how bad it actually got, and how two brilliant scientists managed to push dinosaur discovery forward while also actively making each other’s lives worse.
Because somehow, in the middle of all this pettiness… they helped shape everything we know about dinosaurs today.
Serious history. Told not so seriously
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Sources:
ebsco.compbs.orgebsco.com 2coloradoencyclopedia.orgebsco.com 3paconservationheritage.orgarchives.upenn.eduTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 was a wave of expeditions into the jungle, each one chasing a fortune that may have never existed.
Among them was Gonzalo Pizarro, whose spectacular journey through the jungle gave the Amazon it's name. Years later, Sir Walter Raleigh helped fuel the legend while chasing it himself. Then there was Percy Fawcett, whose final expedition into the jungle became one of history’s most famous unsolved disappearances.
As the story unfolds, the line between myth and reality starts to blur.
Was El Dorado ever a real place? What actually happened to Percy Fawcett when he vanished into the Amazon?
Sit down with us as we pull another file from The Darkives.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
forbes.comnewspapers.combritannica.comlivescience.comnationalgeographic.comnationalgeographic.com 2history.compenn.museumhistoryextra.comTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 ultimate fixer, quietly handling scandals that could have destroyed careers and exposed the industry’s darker side.
We get into Mannix’s rise at MGM, the system that gave him that kind of power, and the stories that still raise questions decades later. Stories like the death of George Reeves, the fallout surrounding Thelma Todd, the hidden pregnancy of Loretta Young, and the disturbing Patricia Douglas case.
And then there are rumors like Nils Asther’s career troubles, and Joan Crawford’s alleged stag film, rumors that never quite went away.
How much of this was damage control… and how much was something darker? And how far will the movie industry go to protect an image?
This is the story of Eddie Mannix and the version of Hollywood the studios didn’t want you to see.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
theshot.comgrunge.comutterlyinteresting.comharlemworldmagazine.comgoldenglobes.com1900scrime.comatlasobscura.comhistory.comTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 Fire of 1875, where a whiskey warehouse blaze created a river of burning liquor flowing through the city. Finally, we arrive in Boston in 1919, where a storage tank collapse triggered the Great Molasses Flood. Millions of gallons rushed through the North End (moving faster than anyone thought possible) in one of the strangest industrial disasters in American history.
These are three moments when everyday goods turned into historical catastrophes.
What caused these disasters? How much damage did they actually do? Fill up a pint (or a boot) and find out.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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Sources:
historic-uk.comsmithsonianmag.comirishtimes.comwineenthusiast.comboston.govoldnorth.comTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 labor, authorities experimented with all kinds of methods they believed would reform criminals… or at the very least keep them in line.
For some prisoners, things got even worse. A number of convicts were sent to the nearby coal mines, where grueling work, miserable conditions, and a surprisingly creative list of punishments made life even harder. That said, even in a penal colony people still found ways to entertain themselves (sometimes in ways the guards definitely didn’t approve of).
Between the prison and the mines, Port Arthur became one of the harshest penal settlements in the colonial world.
But the site’s dark history didn’t end when the prison closed.
More than a century later, Port Arthur became the site of one of the most tragic events in modern Australian history, the Port Arthur massacre of 1996. The attack shocked the country and led to national gun law reforms across Australia.
In this episode, we look at the brutal punishments of the convict era, the harsh realities of the coal mines, and the modern tragedy that forever changed the legacy of Port Arthur.
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portarthur.org#1australianconvictsites.auhistoricalragbag.comcoalmines.orghistoryhit.comportarthur.org#2portarthur.org#3Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 shifted, loyalty oaths were demanded, trust evaporated, and in 1755 the British began forcibly deporting thousands of Acadians from their homes in what became known as The Great Expulsion or The Great Deportation. Families were separated. Communities dismantled. Ships sent in every direction.
Some of those exiles eventually made their way south to Louisiana, where their culture didn’t disappear. It adapted. It survived. And over time, it became Cajun. Shaping what we now recognize as Cajun history and culture.
How does a community rebuild after exile? What really sparked the decision to remove them? And how does forced displacement end up shaping American culture centuries later?
This isn’t just a story about borders changing on a map. It’s about what happens when empires redraw lines and people are caught in between.
Serious history. Told not so seriously.
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ebsco.comebsco.com 2ebsco.com 3ebsco.com 4cityofopelousas.comumaine.eduacim.umfk.eduperspectives.nsgc.orgTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 it.
According to legend, Pedro later declared Inês his rightful queen- after she was already dead, and forced the court to acknowledge her as royalty.
Yes. You read that correctly.
We break down the real history behind the story, what likely happened, what may have been exaggerated, and why this medieval tragedy still feels completely unhinged by modern standards.
If you like doomed romances, royal drama, political paranoia, and historical stories that sound made up but absolutely aren’t, this one’s for you.
History is messy. This one is downright chaotic.
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britannica.comartsandculture.google.comportugal.comlisbon.vip.algarvehistoryassociation.comTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 to the infamous pigeon fire story that allegedly set an entire city ablaze, her retaliation was deliberate, theatrical, and devastatingly effective. But the story doesn’t end in smoke...
The same woman known for one of history’s most ruthless revenge campaigns would later convert to Christianity, become the first Christian ruler of Kievan Rus, and lay the groundwork for the region’s religious transformation.
So. what is legend, what’s documented, and how does someone move from orchestrating fiery vengeance to being canonized?
We break down the myths, the medieval chronicles, and the political brilliance behind one of Eastern Europe’s most powerful rulers.
History is messy. This one left burn marks.
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Sources:
oldnorse.orgmedievalreporter.comwarfarehistorynetwork.comTheme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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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 the group chose to bypass the safer Oregon Trail and forge their own path west.
When early snowstorms sealed the mountain passes, rescue became nearly impossible. Supplies dwindled. Morale collapsed. And over the following months, the pioneers faced choices that would cement their place in survival horror history.
Why did the Donner Party resort to cannibalism? How many people actually died? What really happened in those frozen camps near present-day Truckee, California?
We break down what’s myth, what’s documented fact, and how a single decision during westward expansion spiraled into one of the darkest chapters of 19th-century America.
Grab a seat by the campfire. This one gets cold.
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Sources:
nps.orghighways.dot.govhistory.comhistory.com-2britannica.compbs.orghistory.com-3Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey
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- Visa fler
