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
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"crime"
The weed of crime bears bitter fruit, or so we’ve heard. It certainly didn’t pay for any of the people featured in these episodes.
Space is the Place
Doctor York and the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors
The strange transformation of a Qu'ran study group into a UFO doomsday cult with a quick break in the middle for disco fever.
Categories: Eccentrics & Prophecies, People & Places, Series 13
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Make Insurance Double Sure
the incredible tale of the Blue-Eyed Six
Joseph Raber was "too lazy to live and too lazy to work" -- the perfect victim for six conspirators who insured him to the gills and murdered him.
Categories: People & Places, Series 13
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Gone Guy
how can a man vanish into thin air? simple: he can't
In 1809 Benjamin Bathurst vanished into thin air and was never seen again. We're still debating what happened to him some 213 years later.
Categories: Intriguing & Unsolved Mysteries, People & Places, Series 13
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520%
if something seems too good to be true, it probably is
William F. Miller promised a 520% return on your investment... and for many it was too good an offer to pass up. Too bad it was all a scam.
Categories: History, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Series 12
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Seven Minutes in Heaven
the misbegotten existence of William Dudley Pelley (1890-1865)
One man's horrifying journey from toilet paper salesman to famous author to spiritual guru to American Hitler to space brother.
Categories: Biography, Eccentrics & Prophecies, History, Series 12
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Kings of Pain
who gets the credit for an important discovery?
In October 1846, the world discovered surgical anesthesia. Four men would spend the next two decades fighting over which one of them deserved the credit.
Categories: History, Series 12, The Marvels of Science
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Independent by Accident
a brief history of Neutral Moresnet (1814-1918)
An ambitious Prince William Frederick, prince of Orange-Nassau, was an ambitious man. The House of Orange had been chased from Holland by French revolutionaries, so when the Napoleonic empire crumbled in the final months of 1813 he was determined to grab as much of the spoils as he possibly could. His ultimate ambition was to […]
Categories: History, People & Places, Series 11
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Your Heart’s Sorrow
the 1874 abduction of Little Charley Ross
In 1874 four-year-old Charley Ross was kidnapped in front of his family's Philadelphia home... and became America's first case of kidnapping for ransom.
Categories: Intriguing & Unsolved Mysteries, People & Places, Series 11
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An Arm Is Not Enough
a shark, a severed human arm, and a high speed boat chase; Australia's strangest unsolved mystery has it all
On Anzac Day 1935, a shark in a Sydney aquarium vomited up a severed human arm. The police investigation that followed went to some truly strange places.
Categories: Intriguing & Unsolved Mysteries, People & Places, Series 10
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With Both Hands
Where's Bum Farto?
Baseball, black magic, corruption, drugs, murder and poop jokes in the Florida Keys.
Categories: Intriguing & Unsolved Mysteries, People & Places, Series 10
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More Lovely and More Temperate
poor estate planning, a daring art theft, and a brief history of Anglo-Irish relations
In which two Irish art students commit a daring daylight museum heist with virtually no planning, and somehow get away consequence-free.
Categories: Arts & Culture, Series 7
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