Nuns on the Run

The Awful disclosures of Maria Monk

In 1835 Maria Monk claimed that Montreal's Hôtel-Dieu convent was a vice den. She was making it all up... but Americans desperately wanted to believe her.

Categories: History, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Series 13

Tags: anti-Catholicism Canada Catholicism Christianity civil law London, England Montreal, QC nativism New York State New York, NY Philadelphia, PA Presented by #13 Protestantism Quebec religion Samuel Finley Breese Morse United Kingdom United States of America

Published: May 29, 2023

Nuns on the Run

Six Months in a Convent

In August 1834 Bostonians burned down a convent full of nuns, thanks to religious prejudice and the suspicious testimony of a lazy teenager with a grudge.

Categories: History, Series 13

Tags: anti-Catholicism Boston, MA Catholicism Christianity civil law crime criminal law Massachusetts nativism Presented by #13 Protestantism religion Samuel Finley Breese Morse

Published: May 15, 2023

Spirit Princess

one woman, thirty aliases, forty years and too many crimes to count

The greatest and most notorious Spiritualist swindler of all time was a woman from Kentucky who looked a bit like Lola Montez (if you squinted).

Categories: Biography, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Series 3

Tags: "General" Joseph Hubert Diss Debar "Prince" Michael Keyfor Mills Ann O'Delia Diss Debar Baltimore, MD Boston, MA Canada Catholicism Chicago, IL crime cult David Livingston Mackay Detroit, MI dime museum Dr. Cyrus Reed Teed "Koresh" Florida Fort Myers, FL Freeman Bernstein Harmony Society Illinois Koreshan Unity London, England Massachusetts Michigan New York, NY Presented by #13 religion Spiritualism Theosophical Society Theosophy United Kingdom Windsor, ON

Published: March 23, 2020