The Strange History Podcast

On February 4, 1932, the Winter Olympics opened in Lake Placid, New York, at the height of the Great Depression — and nearly collapsed before they began. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the true stories behind the smallest Winter Olympics ever held: athletes who paid their own way, competitors housed in local homes, events delayed by weather shortages, controversial rule changes, and a town that held a global event together through improvisation and perseverance. This strange but true history reveals how one fragile Olympics quietly shaped traditions still used today.Become a supporter of this podcast: ht...

February 3 sits within a long tradition of winter reports involving ball lightning — glowing spheres of electrical energy that drifted through homes and defied explanation. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true history of ball lightning, why people tried to trap it, and how the phenomenon remains one of science’s most stubborn mysteries.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History Podcast<b...

In this chilling mega episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the dark, forgotten world of Anatole Le Braz, the Breton folklorist who preserved some of Europe’s most unsettling ghost stories and death traditions. Traveling to Brittany, France, this episode dives deep into Breton culture, oral history, and the eerie figure of Ankou, the Breton personification of Death who walks the roads at night collecting souls. Through rich storytelling and historical detail, we uncover how Le Braz recorded real eyewitness accounts of ghosts, death omens, funeral mistakes, and spirits returning to correct the living. From villages at th...

In this epic mega episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores the haunting and resilient history of the Bretons, a Celtic people whose identity survived exile, invasion, and cultural erasure. From their migration across the sea from Britain to Brittany, France, to the survival of the Breton language, this episode tells the story of a culture that refused to disappear. Through immersive storytelling, we uncover Breton folklore, ancient customs, standing stones, sea legends, and the powerful myths surrounding death, saints, and the supernatural. This episode dives deep into Celtic heritage, oral traditions, and the quiet resistance that allowed...

February 2, known as Candlemas, was once one of Europe’s most important midwinter prediction nights, when people used candlelight and shadows to determine how long winter would last. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true history of Candlemas, its pagan roots, its role in survival planning, and how fire became an early form of forecasting.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange...

On February 1, 1893, Thomas Edison opened the world’s first motion picture studio, the Black Maria, a rotating building designed to follow the sun for filming. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story of early cinema, why movies once depended on daylight, and how a spinning shed helped launch the film industry.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History PodcastFo...

January 31 closes out the quietest month of the year with one of history’s most unsettling mysteries: the Hum, a low-frequency sound reported by people around the world but rarely recorded or explained. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the history, science, and folklore behind the Hum and why some mysteries refuse to be confirmed — or dismissed.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange H...

At the height of the dot-com bubble, internet startups believed a Super Bowl commercial was the ultimate shortcut to legitimacy. Instead, it became a graveyard.In this mega episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy investigates the rise and spectacular collapse of dot-com companies that spent millions on Super Bowl advertising—only to disappear months later. From Pets.com and eToys to Webvan, Kozmo.com, and Boo.com, this episode explores how hype replaced sustainability, how visibility accelerated failure, and why the Super Bowl became the most expensive mistake in tech history.We dig deep into internal bu...

The dot-com bubble wasn’t the end of Super Bowl advertising disasters—it was only the beginning.In Part Two of The Super Bowl Startup Curse, host Amy investigates modern tech companies that followed the same dangerous path as their dot-com predecessors. From Quibi’s billion-dollar streaming failure to crypto companies like FTX collapsing under the weight of their own Super Bowl confidence, this episode explores how visibility continues to outpace viability in the startup world.This episode dives deep into venture capital culture, celebrity endorsements, crypto hype, metaverse ambitions, and pandemic-era overconfidence. It examines why massive Super Bowl e...

On January 30, 1925, inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated one of the first successful long-distance television transmissions, allowing a moving human image to be sent through the air for the first time. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story of early television, why it unsettled audiences, and how the future arrived flickering and unfinished.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History Podca...

On January 29, 1845, Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” was published, instantly becoming one of the most famous works in American literary history. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story behind the poem’s sudden popularity, its unsettling themes of grief and repetition, and how one haunting word reshaped poetry forever.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History PodcastFollow T...

On January 28, 1929, scientists presented early findings that would lead to radiocarbon dating, allowing historians to measure the age of ancient organic materials for the first time. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story of how science extended the timeline of human history and permanently changed how we understand the past.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History PodcastFollo...

On January 27, 1880, Louis Pasteur presented evidence supporting germ theory, the idea that microscopic organisms cause disease. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story of how bacteria were discovered as invisible threats, why the idea was initially rejected, and how one small realization transformed medicine, hygiene, and daily life forever.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History PodcastFollow The S...

On January 26, 1700, a massive earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone struck the Pacific Northwest, triggering a tsunami that crossed the ocean and hit Japan. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story of the “orphan tsunami,” the silent disaster with no Western eyewitnesses, and how scientists reconstructed the event centuries later using geology and Indigenous oral history.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The S...

Mushrooms have quietly altered the course of human history in ways most people never learn in school. In this mega-episode of The Strange History Podcast, host Amy explores true historical events where fungi and hallucinogenic mushrooms may have triggered mass hallucinations, religious visions, violent outbreaks, and social collapse. From ergot-poisoned bread linked to the Salem Witch Trials and the Dancing Plague of 1518, to ancient Greek rituals, Viking berserkers, and a French town that collectively lost its mind in 1951, this episode dives deep into the bizarre and unsettling role mushrooms have played in shaping civilization. Equal parts historical deep dive and...

On January 25, 1787, Shays’ Rebellion came to a violent end when armed farmers clashed with militia outside the Springfield Armory. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story of the uprising that nearly destabilized the young United States and directly influenced the creation of the U.S. Constitution.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History PodcastFollow The Strange History Podcast...

On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California, triggering the events that would become the Gold Rush. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the deeper history of John Sutter, James Marshall, the failed attempt to keep gold a secret, and how the discovery that reshaped America ultimately ruined the men at its center.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History...

January 23 is associated with centuries of strange reports involving objects falling from clear skies — from fish and frogs to massive unexplained blocks of ice. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the historical accounts, folklore explanations, and modern scientific theories behind these unsettling events, and why winter skies have a habit of misbehaving.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History PodcastFollow The Str...

During the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign of World War I, an entire British regiment was witnessed marching into a strange, stationary cloud—and never emerged. Observed by multiple Allied units and later confirmed by eyewitness statements, the soldiers vanished without gunfire, bodies, or prisoner records. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, we examine the battlefield accounts, postwar investigations, recovered remains that raised new questions, and why this disappearance remains one of the most disturbing unresolved mysteries of modern warfare.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love...

On January 22, 1896, experiments involving light and metal revealed behavior that classical physics could not explain, quietly laying the groundwork for quantum theory. In this episode of The Strange History Podcast, Amy explores the strange true story of the experiment that suggested reality was not continuous, solid, or intuitive — and how one unsettling observation changed science forever.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-strange-history-podcast--5773362/support.🎧 The Strange History Podcast Love bizarre true stories, forgotten scandals, and history’s most unhinged moments?Submit your ideas for The Strange History PodcastFollow The Str...