Tales of History and Imagination

Hey all the next episode is likely to be delayed by a week or so… as you can hear I'm getting over a bit of a nasty cold/ case of flu - and my voice is still pretty ragged..  But in the meantime, here's a little something I've had lying around collecting dust for, I guess years now?? I have actually forgotten what I was writing it for, but can think of a few places I can take this to…. What do you reckon, should I write an episode around this for some time in the second half of the 2025 season? Will be back soon all…  

This week we travel to Australia for a game of Marn Grook, to discuss origin stories; perhaps the archetypal troubled sportsman - and horrific massacres.     Trigger warnings: Murder, suicide, colonialism, and to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people listening to this episode - I discuss some of your origin legends as best I can, and play a brief excerpt of a speech from an Aboriginal elder.  Sources Include: Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories by Jim Haynes This University of Newcastle Article on Aboriginal massacres, quoting studies by Professor Lyndall Ryan This NSW State Library piece on The ‘First Fleet' This article on Edward Wills First Contact by Anita Heiss This piece on the Dreamtime. The deplorable (alleged) Neo-Nazi interruption of tribal elder Mark Brown, care of the Guardian Speeches from Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese on election night 2025, care of SBS News.                Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.      Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |        

The American actress Ilda Orme knew a thing or two about being cancelled, a long, long time before social media put the cancel button in the hands of the public at large. Her cancellers, she suspected were two hateful former in-laws and a theatre manager in their pocket.  Her cancellation was nearly literal - culminating in an assassination attempt.   What does one do when cancelled? If you're Ilda Orme, you seek revenge in the most public way possible.  Trigger warnings: Gun violence and false accusations leading to incarceration.  Note: This fortnight's episode is a little shorter than usual in the hope that doing a quick firebreak episode will get me back on a two-weekly schedule. Next fortnight should be back to around half an hour again.  Sources Include: The Battered Body Beneath The Flagstones and Other Victorian Scandals by Michelle Morgan  The Madness of Ilda Orme by Dr Nell Darby     Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |      

On, or around 11th June 323 BC Alexander the Great died in Babylon. While there are mysteries surrounding his passing - did an Indian holy man prophesy his passing a year prior while self immolating in Alexander's presence? Was he poisoned? Did somebody entomb him while still alive? - He is just a cameo in this Tale.  This week we travel to Athens - then chafing under the Macedonian yoke - as they make a bid for freedom.  Trigger warning: some swearing, talk of three suicides. We discuss the fall of two mighty empires and one despot.  Sources Include: Ghost On The Throne by James Romm A History of Greece To 322 BC by N.G.L Hammond Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination has ‘X-it-ed' from Musk's hellsite, sorry Twitter folk. But I can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |        

On May 18th 1926 the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson took a trip to Santa Monica Beach, California to work, seek inspiration and have a little fun in the sun. However, the day would end in tragedy when Aimee disappeared without a trace.  Was her disappearance all it appeared? Sources Include: The Vanishing Evangelist by Lately Thomas   Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination has ‘X-it-ed' from Musk's hellsite, sorry Twitter folk. But I can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |      

Hi all, welcome back (again) - sorry it's a week later than planned… a few ongoing voice issues from the cold. This week we conclude the tale of Sidney Reilly and the ‘Red Terror.'  Sources Include: R.H. Bruce-Lockhart ‘Memoirs of a British Agent' Sidney Reilly + Pepita Bobadilla ‘ Adventures of a British Master Spy' James Palmer ‘The Bloody White Baron' Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination has ‘X-it-ed' from Musk's hellsite, sorry Twitter folk. But I can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |      

Hi all, welcome back - sorry it's a week later than planned… I had a nasty cold. This week we're in Russia just after the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks have taken over, plunging the nation even further into disarray. They're determined to exit the First World War.  Britain, knowing this would be disastrous for their war with Germany need a hero to go in there and upset the apple cart - the kind of talented, yet completely amoral man Ian Fleming would draw on years later when crafting his best known invention - James Bond.  This week, part one of two: Who was Sidney Reilly, and how did Russia find herself in this mess?    Sources Include: R.H. Bruce-Lockhart ‘Memoirs of a British Agent' Pepita Bobadilla & Sidney Reilly ‘ Adventures of a British Master Spy' This ‘Spycraft 101' episode Featuring Giles Milton   Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination has ‘X-it-ed' from Musk's hellsite, sorry Twitter folk. But I can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |    

Hi all, Happy Holidays! This year I've got a ghost story for you all. Today we travel to Greenbrier County, West Virginia in 1897.  Sources Include: Again this week I've gone from a handful of online articles, a few online genealogy pages - and a couple of podcast episodes.  Including… ‘How The ‘Greenbrier Ghost' Helped Convict a West Virginia Murderer in 1897' by Joey Rather.  This website on ghosts in West Virginia. ‘Can We ‘See' Dead People?' By Mark Shelvock. ‘The Greenbrier Ghost' by Brian Dunning.  Zona Heaster Shoe's ‘Family Search' genealogy page. Erasmus Stribbling Shoe's listing on Find a Grave.              Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.      Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination has made our ‘X-it' from Musk's hellsite (and will be deleting my profile in the new year,) but I'm still on   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |     

This week we travel to Tana Island, Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides) in the midst of World War Two. God has returned - and not a moment too soon. Having abandoned them decades earlier, just as bad men with awful intentions arrived to steal their land - and send their people off to far away locales to be worked to death - he was back, as an American soldier named John Frum.   Sources Include: This week a lot of articles (which I had saved in tabs - when my iPad crashed and needed a restore…This is as best I remember it.) In John They Trust by Paul Raffaele This explainer in the Guardian This Guardian article by Christopher Lord Archiving a Prophecy: An ethnographic history of the ‘John Frum files' (Tanna, Vanuatu, 1941–1980) by Marc Tabani This short piece on the NZ History site (that confirms my memory NZ too had blackbirded labour) How Blackbirding Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders into Slavery After the Civil War by Shoshi Parks Blackbirding and Indentured Labour in 19th Century Queensland by Sue Thompson From the Islands by Scott Hamilton (everyone should go and follow Scott on Twitter, if you're still on there… I miss not seeing him in my feed, now I've X-ited) Hunting the Blackbirder: Ross-Lewin and the Royal Navy by Doug Hunt   There were a handful more, including pages of old newspaper clippings on the Daphne Slave-ship bust, and a couple of articles specific to Blackbirding in Peru - I apologise for not backing these sources up somewhere as I went…                    Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |         

This week, how do I sum this up? I was freewheeling a little today, but have I got a tale of resistance, and a weird little man for you all. Anthony Comstock was a weird, joyless guy - and his ‘Comstockery' ruined many ordinary lives - but hell hath no fury like Margaret Sanger and Katharine Dexter McCormick - our heroines this week.  Sources Include: I was free associating things I knew this week, rather than going off a script - but Andrew Marr's A History of the World was where I first came across this tale. Tyler Mahan Coe's episode of Cocaine and Rhinestones on Loretta Lynn's The Pill is definitely in the mix on this one too… Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |  Come over and follow me there - it's better than hanging out on X with Elon… I'll be deleting my profile over there in the coming days.        Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. 

Hi there all, just dropping a quick note, before I return to the writing desk… USA I'm aghast… and worried, and saddened by recent turns of events.  And tonight I just wanted to send you all my love (well, obviously not all of you… some of you voted for a fascist) and just explain why I'm pulling an upcoming episode… hit play, spoken me explains it all better…  No ‘Sources Include' tonight - unless you're in fight back mode - in which case no specific recommendation, but I'll be looking round for a good book on the French Popular Front movement who formed in 1936, and destroyed the ascendant French fascist party, the Croix De Feu. Paul Mason's How to Stop Fascism is as good a place to start as any…  Hang in there USA… 

This week, it's Halloween! So, naturally I've got a tale of… well, historic hotel rooms in Kansas City, Missouri… And a notorious murder carried out in Room 1046 of the Hotel President..    Sources Include: This fantastic article by John Horner, which appears the font of a dozen or so other articles I read through. This post by the ‘Murder She Told' podcast This article on Tom Pendegast by K.C. Yesterday And a handful of things found in online newspaper archives and genealogy sites.  Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. 

This week we return to Cuba to conclude our miniseries on the Cuban Missile Crisis. This week we discuss arctic explorers, nuclear test sites, saboteurs, spy planes gone awry, submarines and why I think having such power out there in an age where a ‘mad king' could come to power is still very disconcerting.     Sources Include: One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |        Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. 

On 16th October 1962, American President John F Kennedy was presented with three indistinct photos taken of several tubes laid out in a field in Cuba. Kennedy at first took the scene for a football field. His brother Robert, on viewing the scene, wondered if it depicted a farm house in mid construction.  It was, of course, a nuclear missile site in mid construction, and the following thirteen days brought humanity closer to nuclear war than any time before of since.  This fortnight, and next we're looking at the Cuban Missile Crisis, primarily from the perspective of three potentially inciting incidents - one involving two saboteurs, another a spy plane, and the third a Foxtrot submarine.  Sources Include: One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs And Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen     Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Patrons get bonus content, and an Ad-Free feed… usually a day or two early.  |Patreon| Or, if you're looking to support us other ways - please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen, and/or share Tales with a friend. Creative projects like Tales grow best by word of mouth, and higher star ratings etc also make it easier for folk to find us.  Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |    Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly - with one credit I needs must acknowledge today. I stole the melody for the marimba music that plays under the Miguel Orozco parts from the verses of Jimmy Soul's ‘If You Wanna Be Happy.' Soul, in turn, had stolen that melody from the Trinidadian Calypso great Roaring Lion's ‘Ugly Woman' - no commentary meant on either artist, Mrs Soul or Mrs Lion - just needed a melody from that general location…   

Hi everyone, this week we're doing things a bit different. I'll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks' time. In the meantime we're running a pledge week for the Patreon channel.  Tuesday through Friday I'll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today, after visiting the set of the Donohue Show, we ask the question… Is a Nude Horse a Rude Horse?  Check out my Patreon! For just $2 a month* you get a minimum of one tale every month  (we're committed to 20 a year there this year, and will start releasing two a month every month when we hit the first stretch target.)  As a patron you are helping to keep independent creators like me keep going. This includes occasionally putting down a month's membership on some paywalled newspaper or other. This episode was penned a long time ago, and I've since lost the bibliography - but am pretty sure it grew out of something paywalled I found in the Washington Post.  Unsure if you want to join up yet? Try a 7 day free trial.  *Dollars quoted in USD…

Hi everyone, this week we're doing things a bit different. I'll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks' time. In the meantime we're running a pledge week for the Patreon channel.  Monday through Thursday I'll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today we're going to meet a now obscure, but terrifying General named Uqba Ibn Nafi.  Check out my Patreon! For just $2 a month* you get a minimum of one tale every month  (we're committed to 20 a year there this year, and will start releasing two a month every month when we hit my first stretch target.)  As a patron you are helping to keep independent creators like me keep going, in my case Patreon money helps me buy books to research these tales, like the main source in this tale  Francois-Xavier Fauvelle's ‘The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages Unsure if you want to join up? Try a 7 day free trial.  *Dollars quoted in USD.   

Hi everyone, this week we're doing things a bit different. I'll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks' time. In the meantime we're running a pledge week for the Patreon channel.  Tuesday through Friday I'll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today we're discussing one of history's stranger What if's. Thomas Johnson was a renowned smuggler, a talented escape artist - and it is rumoured he had a submarine - in 1820. Was he hired to bust Napoleon Bonaparte out of St Helena? Check out my Patreon! For just $2 a month* you get a minimum of one tale every month  (we're committed to 20 a year there this year, and will start releasing two a month every month when we hit my first stretch target.)  As a patron you are helping to keep independent creators like me keep going, in my case Patreon money helps me with the rental costs of the blog page - Speaking of blog pages, though I used half a dozen texts for this Tale - I first read this tale on the incomparable Mike Dash's A Blast from the Past.   Emilio Ocampo's The Emperor's Last Campaign And F.W.N Bayly's Scenes and Stories by a Clergyman in Debt were also very useful… book based resources.  Unsure if you want to join up? Try a 7 day free trial.    *Dollars quoted in USD.   

Hi everyone, this week we're doing things a bit different. I'll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks' time. In the meantime we're running a pledge week for the Patreon channel. Tuesday through Friday I'll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today we visit Milan, the year 1630. A comet blazing across the sky spooks the people. Augurers spoke, the comet portends death - in one form or another. Then people started dying. This reminded the folk of an ancient legend… That one day, The Devil himself would come to Milan.    Check out my Patreon! For just $2 a month* you get a minimum of one tale every month  (we're committed to 20 a year there this year, and will start releasing two a month every month when we hit the first stretch target.) As a patron you are helping to keep independent creators like me keep going. This includes occasionally putting down a month's membership on some paywalled newspaper or other. This episode was penned a long time ago, and I've since lost the bibliography - but am pretty sure it grew out of something paywalled I found in the Washington Post.  Unsure if you want to join up yet? Try a 7 day free trial.  *Dollars quoted in USD…

Hey all I'm on holiday, though I've got a few things programmed to drop while I'm away… including this; a re-upload of this episode from October 2021.   “On 9:14 pm, 22nd November 1987, Chicago's WGN TV was ‘zipped' by a mysterious attacker - a figure wearing a rubber Max Headroom mask. The attacker would strike again, upsetting Whovians in the Windy City.  In this short Tale we discuss the Max Headroom Incident.” Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |    Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. 

Hey all I'm on holiday, though I've got a few things programmed to drop while I'm away… including this, my short ode to the astronomer Tycho Brahe.   Sources include: Apologies all, this is from an old blog post where, now very much to my shame - I never noted my sources. If I'm recalling correctly I first heard the story of the moose/elk on a cracked.com video on YouTube (which I couldn't find to link.) I think several of the posts I used have been taken down since, or paywalled?  Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |       

This week we conclude our mob Tale. With the bosses banged up, the Morello family must do their best to navigate a rapidly changing world - and several vicious wars. How will they deal with upstarts, Kings, The Camorra, prohibition - and the arrival of a Fifth Family? Admin Note: Apologies for the messy scheduling of late. I've been a little worn out from everyday job stuff, a number of recent current events have been adding to the drain… and I'm well overdue a week of ‘me time' away from the 9 to 5. I think I'm on the upswing, finally…  Also, I normally try to give myself a mid-season break after episode 10, where I'll drop a couple of episodes I've prepared earlier. Cause this one ran to three parts I'm taking that break now, at episode 12. I'll have a re-upload of 2021's The Max Headroom Incident to drop in a little over a week's time; a biographical piece on the Astronomer Tycho Brahe to drop two weeks after that, and a Patreon Pledge week (thanks to the Patrons for this one) where I'll drop four minisodes from 2023 into the feed over four days… I'll be back, all rested and good to go - two weeks after that.    Sources Include:  The First Family; Terror, Extortion and the Birth of the American Mafia by Mike Dash Five Families by Selwyn Raab The Black Hand by Stephan Talty The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury Support the show on | Patreon | for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  I haven't yet made my X-it from X, but am very close to it… If Twitter was your thing come hand out with me on Threads.       Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. 

This week, (sorry all, please bear with me- day job's running me a little ragged, but I should be on track again in August) we're returning to our mobsters - Giuseppe ‘The Clutch Hand' Morello and the 107th Street Gang. In part two of this three parter we discuss the rise of the professional hitman, the first Capo de Tutti Capi - and the ballad of an ambitious young man named Antonio Comito.                       Sources Include:  The First Family; Terror, Extortion and the Birth of the American Mafia by Mike Dash Five Families by Selwyn Raab The Black Hand by Stephan Talty The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. 

This week, (apologies for the delay all, I've been an absolute wreck the last couple of weeks) we're returning to Little Italy; the year 1903. In part one of this two parter we discuss the early life of America's first Capo di Tutti Capi, Giuseppe ‘The Clutch Hand' Morello.                     Sources Include:  The First Family; Terror, Extortion and the Birth of the American Mafia by Mike Dash Five Families by Selwyn Raab The Black Hand by Stephan Talty Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |      Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. 

This week, we take a magic carpet ride into the wilds of the Central Asian Steppe - timeframe? the mid 12th Century. Today we're taking a (rather hagiographic) look at the early life of a young man named Temujin…                  Sources Include:  Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford Empires of The Steppes by Kenneth Harl The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan     Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.           

This week - we travel to the British Seaside town of Hartlepool. The date?? Sometime around the Napoleonic Wars. A French ship has run aground, leaving bodies strewn across the beach. Legend tells one survivor was found - a small, hairy man - subsequently hung by the locals. Did the people of Hartlepool really hang a monkey, mistaking the animal for a French sailor?                Sources Include: (I think these were the sources when I wrote this in 2020…) The Hanging of the Hartlepool Monkey by Ben Johnson  Was a Monkey Really Hanged in Hartlepool? By Duncan Leatherdale This article on Ned Corvan by Tony Henderson And online articles containing the full text of the Monkey Barber, and an article on Simian impersonator Monsieur Goffe I could no longer find (thanks for the AI Google

This week - Adrian Carton de Wiart was a lifelong soldier; acknowledged for his bravery across the 2nd Boer War, the Somaliland Campaign, Poland's several wars for independence - and both World Wars. The man started out with a cavalry sabre, and was still writing reports back to high command in the Atomic Age - advising of the risk of a war in Vietnam. He also had the aura of invulnerability - having survived eleven life-threatening injuries, several plane crashes, and single-handedly tunnelling out of a Prisoner of War camp.  Today I just felt like telling his story.             Sources Include:  Happy Odyssey by Adrian Carton de Wiart And The Life and Times of Lieutenant General Adrian Carton de Wiart… by Alan Ogden Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Quick Admin note: sorry for the lateness all, I've been a bit run off of my feet of late… and the episode following this one will more likely than not be three weeks' from now. After that we should be back on track again…. Sorry all.     Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |          Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter | 

This week we travel to the Germanic Duchy of Hannover, the year 1694. Under cover of darkness, a dashing, aristocratic young soldier named Philip Christoph von Konigsmarck makes his way to an illicit meeting with his lover; the deeply unhappily married Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle. Before the night is done one of the lovers will disappear mysteriously.             Sources Include:  Great Mysteries of The Past - Readers Digest. Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics by Eleanor Herman This National Geographic article by Becky Little Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

Trigger Warning: Death by misadventure, and an execution by guillotine. I make no concessions for calling Aotearoa… Aotearoa. I mention this as in Aotearoa (New Zealand) news sites are having to shut down comment sections on Maori language, Maori achievement and Maori culture over racist morons getting upset by this news. If the use of Te Reo names over those of colonizers upsets you, this show really isn't for you… This week is a bit of a departure from my regular plan. I'm still working on the episode planned for this spot, so put a triptych of shorter tales together.  First, we meet Harold Davidson - the Vicar of Stiffkey. A man well known in Britain's newspapers in the 1930s, who, if he was remembered today would probably be known for something else entirely.  Then we briefly meet Polynesia's great navigators.  And finally we discuss Father of modern Chemistry Antoine Lavoisier's final experiment.             Sources Include:  Sorry all, I'm running late this week and will backfill this later. Harold Davidson's tale came to me years ago via Mike Dash's original blog site - and this is one of a number of pieces no longer up - but it is preserved on the Wayback Machine -so I'll link to it. Michael King's The Penguin History of New Zealand, and several articles on NZ History's site and Te Ara, the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand were used in The Navigators.  The Lavoisier piece is an old blog piece jumbled together from a bunch of sources, I don't recall all of them, but will take a shot at finding them on the weekend.     Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

Trigger Warning: Talk of executions, religious extremism and cannibalism. This week we return one last time to the city of Münster. With everything going to hell in Münster, Henry Gresbeck risks his life in a dash for freedom. The Prince Bishop has given orders to kill all men who show up at the wall - but Gresbeck has a secret that may just unravel the siege. How does this play out? Who will survive, and just what is a Wagenburg anyway?           Sources Include: There are very few book out there on this topic so I mostly worked from. The Tailor King by Anthony Arthur And Freaks of Fanaticism and Other Strange Events by Sabine Baring-Gould Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week we return to the city of Münster, in the Holy Roman Empire. Now we've got all the context out of the way - let's discuss the war between the Prince Bishop, and the city's new rogue Prophet - the Tailor, Jan of Leiden. This is Part Two of a Three Parter.        Sources Include:  There are very few book out there on this topic so I mostly worked from. The Tailor King by Anthony Arthur And Freaks of Fanaticism and Other Strange Events by Sabine Baring-Gould Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week we travel to the city of Münster, in the Holy Roman Empire. The year, 1534. Tensions have ratcheted up between the City's Prince Bishop, the City Council and a rogue preacher to the point where the people have gone rogue - having rebelled, locked the gates and set up the cannons for war. Over the following two episodes we'll break down what happened during the siege of Münster.. This is part one of a two parter.        Sources Include:  There are very few books out there on this topic so I mostly worked from. The Tailor King by Anthony Arthur And Freaks of Fanaticism and Other Strange Events by Sabine Baring-Gould   Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |    Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

Hi all, I'm technically still on holiday (Tales will be back for Season 5 on 1st February.) - but I was on the mic on Sunday, and had a little downtime … and a spare script or two. This week we meet Charles Lightoller, a remarkable sailor, on what I believe must have been his worst day ever?      Sources Include:  I wrote this to the blog in early 2020… so …. pass, sorry. But articles probably included.   This History Channel article - Author not listed.  This Encyclopaedia Titanica article looks very familiar… Author not listed … And this Dunkirk 1940 dot org article… Another anonymous piece.  AND I'm 100% certain I used an article from the Liverpool Museum website… But it appears they have taken that article down some time ago??  Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing normally yours truly. I probably unintentionally interpolated from Tom Lewis' ‘The Last Shanty' in the background music this week - so credit where credit is due.      Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

Happy Holidays all! This week we travel to Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950. It's four in the morning when a policeman comes across a young couple huddled together in their car. Like another young couple a few millennia before, they tell him they have come to town, only to find no room left at the inn. Little does the officer know, but he'd stumbled across a theft hundreds of years in the making.    Sources Include:  As I couldn't find any books for this one, there were quite a few online articles - including.  A copy of a news report two days after the theft.  This ‘The National' article on the Battle of Culloden, and the genocide that followed, by Hamish McPherson This Smithsonian overview of the Scottish Independence movement by Meilan Solly A Britannica entry on the Stone of Scone A BBC Article (no author listed) on Alexander III of Scotland. The Stone of Destiny (History UK) by Ben Johnson A My Heritage page listing Tea Tephi This ‘Tomorrow's World' article on the Prophet Jeremiah and his alleged arrival in Ireland.   This University of Glasgow article on Ian Hamilton and the Removal of the Stone of Scone Another religious article (author not mentioned) about Jacob's Ladder, his pillow, and his stupid claim God promised him Gaza. This BBC article by Steven Brocklehurst about the Removal of the Stone of Scone This Royal UK piece on James II Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |    Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.     Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter | 

Hi all apologies for the delay. I've been unwell for a couple of weeks, and am only just bouncing back now. This week, on what was originally planned for Transgender Day of Remembrance (two weeks ago) we continue my annual Trans history episode. In 2022 I started this series replying to a foolish claim Trans people were a recent phenomenon. My take, there have always been people we'd now recognise as Trans.  My list of examples veered from groups, like the Galli, to individuals - like Eleanor Rykener.  Society once had places for Trans people - more often than not religious orders - but the church dismantled a lot of this at the Council of Nicaea.  Or at least they did so for Trans women. How did the church react to history's Trans men? Today, with a little help from a couple of historical Trans cowboys and a few others, we take a look.  Sources Include:  The last six or seven minutes of this episode owes a huge debt to Nate Hale's The Conspirators episode ‘The Secret Life of Pope Joan.' Nate does this way better than I do, and in much greater detail. Go check his episode out.  Susan Stryker's ‘Transgender History' was invaluable. I used this English Heritage. Org article to fact check the Galli. This American Battlefields article on Albert Cashier  This NY Times article on Charley Parkhurst And this National Women's History Museum article on Deborah Sampson, written by Debra Michals. I'll add a handful of other articles later. Much of this episode was put together from leftover notes from the TDOR 2022 episode.  Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.     Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week we meet two prophets, separated by half a world, and three centuries. One is the self appointed son of God, the other talks with Aliens. What happens to prophets, and more importantly - their followers, when prophesies fail? (This episode is a re-do of 2021's Dorothy Martin's Flying Saucer.) Trigger Warning: I hadn't scheduled this with the current situation in Palestine/Israel in mind, but the episode discusses a claimant for the role of Jewish Messiah. I don't know if this needs a trigger warning, but better safe than sorry?  Sources Include:  I wrote this a long time ago, and can only say on polishing the old script, I reopened When Prophesy Fails  by Leon Festinger. and Madame Blavatsky by Marion Meade. Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing mostly yours truly.   Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week we travel to the Kingdom of Abkhazia, a Black Sea land nestled amongst the Caucasus. At a date lost to history, but believed to be around 1860 - hunters trap what they believe is a monster in their bear pit. The creature is shackled and brought to a nobleman named Edgi Genaba. This week is all about monsters - but the monster may not be who you are thinking of.  Trigger Warning: This Tale contains discussion of rape and dehumanisation.  Sources Include:  In The Footsteps of The Russian Snowman by Dmitri Bayanov. This DNA Explained article on Zana (author not listed.) This travelogue on Abkhazia. This Weird NJ article on Oliver the Humanzee by Mark Sceurman. I referred to Britannica to confirm several details that were already in my head And came around a dozen news articles from 2015 with much the same text one to the next…   Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.     Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week we travel to the Bagradas River, Tunisia in 256 BC. Rome are in the midst of the Punic wars against Carthage, and are in the process of launching an all out invasion on the Carthaginians. As 14,000 Legionnaires, led by Marcus Attilus Regulus make their way towards the capital, they encounter a foe they were not expecting. Just what was the Bagradas Dragon? Apologies all, this week came out around ten minutes shorter than I planned in editing. I had no plans of dropping a minisode this week, but it needed the cuts to make it flow. Also my voice was the worse for wear when recording and does sound a little strained...  Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |    Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.     Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week we return to medieval England for part two of our two parter. We finally get to Hereward, but first let's talk a little about William the Conqueror and the final years of Edward the Confessor's reign.  Welcome to Hereward the Wake: Part Two - The Confessor.  Sources this week include:  I promise I'll get this done in the coming days… A lot of info from these two episodes come from older blog posts I've taken down some time back, which I need to work back from… but the main newer sources were The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris   Femina, A New History of the Middle Ages… by Janina Ramirez The English and Their History by Robert Tombs   Cameos from English History from Rollo to Edward II by Charlotte M Yonge   And the following two are a bit odd…  A Book of Giants by Henry Lanier (mostly folk tales of mythical giants, but has a chapter on real world giants.)   And Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by Walter Pyle (There are a lot of near giant or legit giant men in this tale, so I fact checked their sizes as best I could through these two dusty old books.)     Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, AND an Ad-Free Feed… Try our 7 Day Free Trial today.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.     Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |     

This week we go back to medieval, Anglo Saxon England for a two parter. I've got a Tale to tell of an outlaw, a resourceful Wolf's-head who leads a guerrilla war against a cruel, unjust King - a man some might say robbed from the rich to give to…. Well, we'll get to that - but before we do we have a Confessor, a Bastard… and a slew of other characters to deal with first.  Welcome to Hereward the Wake - Part one: where today we'll delve into the Wessexes.  Sources this week include:  I promise I'll fill this in tomorrow morning… The episode is already a day late, and it is a bit of a list. Sorry.  Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.     Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter | 

This week Tales goes true crime - as we travel West Point Military Academy, January 1950. Cadet Richard Colvin Cox receives a mysterious visitor identified only as ‘George.' A week later, Richard would disappear without a trace.   The investigation would uncover several intriguing scenarios, but ultimately are we any closer to knowing what happened to Richard Cox?   Sources this week include:  I started off with Harry J. Maihoffer's ‘Oblivion, The Mystery of West Point Cadet Richard Cox' And found two podcasts this week far more useful This episode of Robin Warder's The Trail Went Cold is excellent.  And this episode of Disappearances was decent.  Much of my information on West Point came from an old, unpublished blog post I've had saved to drafts for three years - I'll be releasing it as a minisode on The Eggnog Riots for my Patrons on Patreon in coming days. I referred to this LA Times article. And this article from Ohio Wesleyan University Jim Underwood's articles, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. This West Point Alumni article And God knows whatever book I first picked this tale up from more than twenty years ago…                                       Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales of History and Imagination a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.   Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter | 

This week, we travel to Baltimore's Gunner's Hall - the date October 3rd 1849. A disheveled man is found outside the bar “…in great distress and… in need of immediate assistance.” It turns out the man is none other than the horror and detective fiction pioneer Edgar Allan Poe.  Today we discuss Mr Poe's passing, and the case of the mysterious ‘Poe Toaster.'   Sources this week include:  I wrote this as a blog post to commemorate 50 posts on the blog, way back in 2020 - apologies, I never took down my sources at the time. Though in re-writing I ALSO referred to Josh Hrala's ‘The Man Who Defamed Edgar Allan Poe.' Several articles on The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore's website. This National Parks Service piece. Natasha Geiling's ‘The Still Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe' Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    | Patreon |   Please leave Tales of History and Imagination a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.     Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week on Tales we return to Infernal Machines and a shadowy merchant of death who sold them - a man who built a great fortune on the death and suffering of millions. What can we actually say on the life of the mysterious Sir Basil Zaharoff?   Sources this week include:  Man of Arms; The Life and Legend of Sir Basil Zaharoff by Anthony Allfrey This Time Magazine Article This Library of Congress article on J.P. Holland This Cecil Bloom article in Liberal History And Mike Dash's The Mysterious Mr ZedZed; the Wickedest Man in the World. I've got another dozen or so articles to share on Ottoman ‘firefighters' and submarines that I'll get up tomorrow.  Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Though I made a quick arrangement of ‘My Grandfather's Clock' (Henry Clay Work) this episode.    Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

This week on Tales of History and Imagination, we travel from The White House to Coney Island's Luna Park, from the jungles of Cameroon, to the Bosphorus Strait in the age of Justinian… to the battlefields of World War One - to tell five short tales of animals who also inhabit this world.  Sources this week include:  The Periplus of Hanno the Navigator Fortean Times World's Weirdest News Stories. Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Book 7 of Procopius' The History of the Wars This excellent blog post on Porphyrius. Stories to Wash Hands by, from Nate Di Meo's The Memory Palace Topsy the Elephant was a Victim of her Captors by Kat Eschner And This Smithsonian write up on Cher Ami Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  | Patreon |    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Instagram | YouTube |      Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.    Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |   

In June Tales of History and Imagination is on holiday… Well, technically I'm writing new scripts for the second half of the year. In the meantime I've recorded a couple of minisodes, the second on Charles Lennox Richardson and The Namamugi Incident. Sources? Honestly, I never noted them when I wrote this in 2019, sorry.   Support the show on Patreon for just $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content. Not sure if you want to invest? Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and review wherever you listen. The best way you can help support the show is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube |    Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly.  Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter | 

In June Tales of History and Imagination is on holiday… Well, technically I'm writing new scripts for the second half of the year. In the meantime I've recorded a couple of minisodes, starting with the Tale of Frau Troffea and Medieval Dancing Plagues.    Support the show on Patreon for just $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content. Not sure if you want to invest? Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and review wherever you listen. The best way you can help support the show is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing normally all yours truly. This week I heavily borrowed from Toni Basil's Mickey (M. Chapman, N. Chinn, (T. Basil should have a co-write for the cheerleading bit) )       Visit Simone's  | About Me | Twitter |     

This week, Part Three of our Hollywood Trilogy -  we discuss the Feb 1st 1922 murder of pioneering film director William Desmond Taylor, and the Pandora's Box flung open in his wake.    Sources this week include: (Sorry all, I'll fill in later this week) The blog post of the episode is here. Support the show on Patreon for just $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content. Not sure if you want to invest? Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and review wherever you listen. The best way you can help support the show is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing all yours truly. This week I again used my arrangements of Moonlight Serenade (Glenn Miller) and Lullaby of the Leaves (Bernice Petkere, Joe Young.)   Simone's About Me. 

Hey everyone the following is a quick addendum to the episode on William Desmond Taylor. Just what happened to Norma Desmond to finally ruin her career? I glossed over it in the episode so… here it is.  Support the show on Patreon for just $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content. Not sure if you want to invest? Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and review wherever you listen. The best way you can help support the show is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube |    Music, writing, narration, mixing normally all yours truly. I'm burnt out but vaguely remember using Lullaby of the Leaves on this one? (Composers Bernice Petkere and Joe Young)  Simone's About Me. 

This week, part two of our Hollywood Trilogy -  we discuss the Fatty Arbuckle/ Virginia Rappe case. How did a mysterious death during a boozy Labour Day party change the public's perception of Hollywood forever? Hit play to find out…   Sources this week include: (Sorry all, I'll fill in later this week) The blog post of the episode is here. Support the show on Patreon for just $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content.      Please leave a like and review wherever you listen. The best way you can help support the show is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube |  Music, writing, narration, mixing all yours truly. This week I used my arrangements of Moonlight Serenade (Glenn Miller) and Lullaby of the Leaves (Bernice Petkere, Joe Young.)   Simone's About Me. 

For the next three episodes Tales of History and Imagination is going Hollywood, with three related - but separate Tales. In 1919, many of the folks who brought America Prohibition of alcohol turned their sights on a new ‘peril' - the Movie industry. These joyless wowsers were convinced Hollywood was an evil, decadent place that needed shutting down.  Hollywood took these people seriously, and by 1934 had bound itself to a restrictive morality code. Why did they do so? For one, Tinseltown was rocked by a number of serious scandals in the 1920s. We're looking at three of the bigger ones in the following weeks, the Fatty Arbuckle case, the murder of William Desmond Taylor - and first, the story of Olive Thomas - Hollywood's first scandal.  Sources this week include: (Sorry all, I'll fill in later this week) The blog post of the episode is here. Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  | Patreon | Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Instagram | YouTube | Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. Visit Simone's | About Me | Twitter |    

This week, we're going to ride the rails, in Colorado, USA - the year 1878. In the midst of a Railway boom in the USA, two tycoons go to war over narrow, twenty mile mountain pass. This week we're examining the Royal Gorge war. Sources this week include: From the River to the Sea, by John Sedgwick. Postcapitalism, A Guide to Our Future by Paul Mason Life of Tom Horn, Government Scout and Interpreter by Tom Horn Tom Horn, The Controversial Life and Legacy of One of the Wild West's Most Famous Gunslingers by Charles River Publishers. The blog post of the episode is here. Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  | Patreon | Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Instagram | YouTube | Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. Visit Simone's | About Me | Twitter |    

This week, three short tales of Medieval and Ancient people who - through circumstances way beyond their control - found themselves transported beyond the furthest extent of (to them at least) the known world. This episode we discuss Du Huan, Guillaume Boucher and Crassus' lost Legion.          Sources this week (sorry all, will need to work back through this. 2/3 of this episode comes from OLD blog posts. However I'm definitely drawing from): The Golden Rhinoceros by Francois-Xavier Fauvelle The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan Genghis Khan and The Making of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford (And a bunch of articles on the Academia and Jstor databases I'll link to later) The blog post of the episode is here.   Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  | Patreon | Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok | Instagram | YouTube | Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly. Visit Simone's | About Me | Twitter |