Podcasts about Victorian

July is here and we are turning warts into wine with our ParaPods Network pals Rach and Jeri from the podcast For Better and Worse! Today we're sharing a batch of wild and slightly terrifying stories about skeptic partners, featuring bedside EMF detectors, ghost fingerprints, several woman spirits that will haunt our dreams, and even one encounter that left a skeptic with a whole new perspective on the afterlife. And does anyone else have partners that sleep like Victorian children or is that just us? …and that's why we drink!Want to hear more from Rach and Jeri? Listen to For Better and Worse wherever you get your podcasts, or you can find them before they find you on Instagram @forbetterandworsepodcast, on TikTok @forbetterandworse, or on YouTube at: @forbetterandworsepodcast___________________Go to https://quince.com/drink for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada.To explore coverage, visit https://www.aspcapetinsurance.com/DRINK . The ASPCA® is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. For terms and conditions visit: https://www.aspcapetinsurance.com/more-info/state-documents-and-sample-policies/ . Products are underwritten by either Independence American Insurance Company (NAIC #26581), or United States Fire Insurance Company (NAIC #21113) and distributed by PTZ Insurance Agency Ltd.Find Angry Orchard near you at https://angryorchard.com/ and use the cider locator. Please drink responsibly.Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to https://wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less.Head to https://factormeals.com/drink50off and use code DRINK50OFF to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only, while supplies last until 09/27/2026.Go to https://helixsleep.com/drink for the latest offer: 20% off sitewide. 25% off Luxe Mattresses | 30% off Elite Mattresses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Hell month continues with a visit to San Francisco, where Carter Hayes is wreaking havoc on a Victorian home in ‘Pacific Heights' starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. Producers: Craig Hoelbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Matt Pevic The Ringer is committed to responsible trading. Please visit https://fanduel.com/predicts to learn more about the resources and helpline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At first, it seemed like ordinary childhood fears.A young boy refused to sleep in his room. He spoke about things his parents couldn't see and described scenes far too disturbing for a child his age. As the years passed, the family began experiencing strange activity throughout their Victorian home—voices, unexplained movement, and the sound of children's footsteps racing across the attic long after everyone was asleep.What made the haunting especially unsettling was how often it seemed to center around the children.Even after the family finally moved away, the stories didn't stop. Neighbors still reported hearing footsteps in the empty house, and the next family who moved in soon found themselves dealing with experiences of their own.#Paranormal #HauntedHouse #GhostStories #VictorianHouse #RealGhostStories #ParanormalActivity #Haunting #Supernatural #UnexplainedMysteries Love real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

Love them or hate them, there are few things that feel as quintessentially American as fireworks, the favorite way to celebrate during every unhinged national birthday party. For part one of this two-part semiquincentennial series on their history in America, I demonstrate to Sarah Marshall of You're Wrong About the ridiculousness of modern consumer fireworks, and then we look at the rumored use of these explosives that came over from England during colonization, our early raucous national traditions, the theatrical “pyrodramas” of the 1800s, and the dramatic Victorian pushback against what they called the "noise devil," leading to the widespread bans we know today. ⁠⁠Become a Patron⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get some of our new merch at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠americanhysteria.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, all profits go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group who are on the ground in Gaza delivering food and supplies to displaced families. Leave us a message on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Urban Legends Hotline⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Producer and Editor: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Miranda Zickler⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Associate Producer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Riley Swedelius-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Additional editing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kaylee Jasperson⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After escaping an abusive relationship and moving back home, she quickly fell for a man who shared her interests and seemed to understand her. The only strange thing was the shadow she occasionally saw in the hallway of his supposedly haunted apartment.At first, it stayed at a distance.After they moved into an old Victorian house together, the figure began appearing more often—and each time it seemed closer than before. What started as an unsettling presence soon became footsteps, laughter, voices, objects moving on their own, and a growing sense that something unwanted had entered their lives.As the relationship unraveled and her boyfriend's behavior became increasingly disturbing, one question remained: Was the darkness in the house feeding off what was happening... or had it been there all along?#RealGhostStories #ShadowFigure #HauntedHouse #ParanormalPodcast #GhostStory #DarkEntity #SupernaturalEncounter #TrueParanormal #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries Love real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

Spoilers Ahead!!!For this month's BONUS EPISODE it's Book Club time, weirdos! This time  we're joined by bestselling horror author Paul Tremblay for a conversation about one of our favorite recent reads: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito! We dive into everything that makes this deliciously deranged novel so unforgettable, from its razor-sharp dark humor and gloriously unhinged protagonist to the gothic atmosphere and jaw-dropping moments that had us audibly gasping. So grab your beverage of choice, settle in, and join us for a delightfully creepy conversation with one of horror's finest. And if you haven't read Victorian Psycho yet... consider this your sign, and join the bookclub discussion once you've devoured it! Check out Paul Tremblay's newest book Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep by preordering now, or grabbing it at your local bookstore next Tuesday June 30th! And DEFINITELY check out his other incredible books that are available wherever books are sold!     Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A group of Victorian childcare centres recently conducted a "digital detox", removing screens, cameras, Spotify, YouTube, and other technology from classrooms. What happened next surprised even the educators involved. In this episode, Justin talks with early childhood expert Anna Russell about the remarkable changes they observed: calmer classrooms, more engaged children, increased language development, stronger relationships, and even better sleep routines. If you've ever wondered whether young children really need so much technology in their early years, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into what happens when educators return to the basics of connection, conversation, play, and presence. KEY POINTS Why one childcare organisation removed all classroom technology for two weeks The surprising fears educators had before the experiment began How children's behaviour, engagement, and communication changed Why teachers reported feeling more fulfilled despite being more tired The unexpected response from parents What families can do if they want less technology in their child's early learning environment Why relationships matter more than digital documentation QUOTE OF THE EPISODE "What I need from you is to send my child home happy, healthy, and knowing more than they did when they walked in this morning." — Anna Russell RESOURCES MENTIONED National Model Code for technology use in early childhood settings Happy Families Membership ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS Ask your childcare service how technology is used throughout the day. Focus on your child's wellbeing and learning rather than receiving constant photos and updates. Spend a few minutes connecting with educators at drop-off and pick-up. Encourage more face-to-face interaction, storytelling, reading, and singing in your child's daily routine. Advocate for connection-based learning experiences over screen-based activities. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Solve crimes with the great detective in "Sherlock Holmes Short Stories." Featuring classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, this podcast brings you the brilliant deductions and thrilling adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the world of Holmes, these timeless mysteries will keep you captivated.

Centuries before Hollywood dressed it in a nun's habit, the demon Valak prowled the pages of forbidden grimoires as a winged boy astride a two-headed dragon, commanding legions of serpents to do his bidding.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources):https://weirddarkness.com/valekREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/24s8nzb9FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Although Valak is depicted in the films "The Nun" and in “The Conjuring 2” as a habit-wearing spirit, the real demon appears as a child riding a two-headed dragon — at least according to a 17th-century demon-hunting manual. (The Reality Behind The Demon, Valak) *** The Vatican is one of the most well-guarded areas in the world. But if rumors are to be believed, all that security isn't only to protect the pontiff… but some dark, disturbing secrets… and a machine that could change everything we know to be true. (The Vatican's Secret Machine) *** We'll look at that time a force field was accidentally created at a 3M plant. (3M's Accidental Force Field) *** In 1872 George Wheeler met and married May Tillson in Boston. He made a home for May and her younger sister Della, first in New York, then in California. Along the way, George fell in love with young Della and when she planned to marry someone else he was faced with a dilemma: he could not marry her himself and he could not bear to see her wed to another. The solution he chose pleased no one. (Thus She Passed Away) *** In the 1800s scientists and doctors needed cadavers to study human anatomy and practice their skills. To help accommodate the need, it was made legal to sell dead bodies. What could possibly go wrong? (The Unsettling Anatomy Act)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:01:16.547 = Show Open00:03:31.777 = The Reality Behind The Demon Valak00:11:37.807 = The Unsettling Anatomy Act ***00:24:33.689 = 3M's Accidental Force Field00:34:11.149 = Thus She Passed Away ***00:44:01.086 = The Vatican's Secret Machine00:53:13.339 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“The Reality Behind The Demon, Valak” by Gina Dimuro for All That's Interesting:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/43vu356n“3M's Accidental Force Field” by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3vvnwbpv“Thus She Passed Away” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder By Gaslight: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yyztmnat“The Unsettling Anatomy Act” by SM for ListVerse: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8vdns9“The Vatican's Secret Machine” by Ellen Lloyd for Ancient Pages: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8kxxz8(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: December, 2021This episode of Weird Darkness moves from a centuries-old demon mistaken for a nun, through the Victorian trade in stolen corpses and a force field that appeared inside a 1980 factory, to a San Francisco trunk murder and a Catholic priest who claimed to have built a machine that could film the past.It opens with the demon Valak, who reaches modern audiences through The Nun and The Conjuring 2 as a pale, nun-robed figure but appears in the 17th-century grimoire Clavicula Salomonis Regis, or The Key of Solomon, as the 62nd spirit: a boy with angel's wings riding a two-headed dragon, commanding a legion of serpents and an army of thirty demons while hunting snakes and hidden treasure. The nun costume was the invention of director James Wan, who reshaped a vision the medium Lorraine Warren described to him — a swirling hooded figure carrying female energy — into a holy icon turned against her Catholic faith. Warren and her husband Ed, the demonologists who rose to fame after the 1976 Amityville investigation, reportedly met a spectral hooded figure at the Borley church in southern England, where lore held that a nun had been bricked alive in the convent walls after an affair with a monk. The Key of Solomon, which lists the seventy-two demons King Solomon was said to have vanquished, sat on the Vatican's Index librorum prohibitorum until the Church abandoned that list of prohibited books in 1966, though copies kept turning up in the hands of Catholic priests.From there the episode turns to the Anatomy Act of 1832, the British law that legalized dissecting unclaimed bodies from workhouses and hospitals to end the grave-robbing of the resurrectionists, yet instead built an organized corpse trade across Victorian England. The twelfth-century St. Bartholomew's left wicker baskets beneath its King Henry VIII gate for body dealers to fill, while a Liverpool Street express known as the "dead train" carried sealed funeral wagons of stacked corpses toward Cambridge. Deepening the trade, the New Poor Law of 1834 confined the destitute to workhouses whose officials profited from selling the dead, and in 1858 the master of St. Mary Newington workhouse, Alfred Feist, was caught funneling pauper bodies to Guy's Hospital through the undertaker Robert Hogg, who staged fake funerals and collected double payment. Anatomists prized the bodies of fetuses and children, keeping their skulls intact — only one of fifty-four specimens in a Cambridge collection had received a craniotomy — and the public's dread boiled over in Manchester in 1832, when a grandfather opened the coffin of a three-year-old who had died at the Swan Street Cholera Hospital and found a brick where the boy's head should have been.Next comes a stranger kind of dread, set in the summer of 1980 at a 3M plant in South Carolina, where workers slitting twenty-foot-wide polypropylene film at a thousand feet per minute walked into an invisible wall they could not push through. The static-charged field, which one worker measured past the limit of a 200-kilovolt handheld electrometer, pulled people toward it so strongly they had to back away on foot, swallowed a passing fly, and by one account could have held a bird in its grip before vanishing as abruptly as it formed. Managers reproduced the effect the next morning under lower humidity, and the plant production manager reportedly said he didn't know whether to fix it or sell tickets; later accounts claim a researcher who published on the phenomenon was contacted by NASA and federal agencies before the grounding fault was corrected and the field never returned.The episode then moves to a true-crime case in San Francisco, where around midnight on October 20, 1880, George A. Wheeler walked into a police station and confessed to strangling his sister-in-law Della Tillson and packing her body into a trunk in their room at 23 Kearney Street. Wheeler had fathered two children with Della, both of whom died, while her sister — his deaf wife, May — lived across the hall posing as his sister-in-law, and the arrival of the miner George Peckham, who hoped to marry Della and take her to Sacramento, drove Wheeler to kill rather than let the two leave together. He told reporters that Della sat in his lap and asked him to end her life, that she died with her head on his shoulder, and his defense of hereditary insanity failed across two trials, the second forced by a California Supreme Court ruling over improperly admitted testimony from a book on medical jurisprudence. On January 23, 1884, five thousand people gathered outside the jail, entrance tickets sold for ten dollars apiece, and Wheeler — newly drawn toward Catholic conversion under Father Cottle — kissed a crucifix, commended his spirit, and dropped to a broken neck.The episode closes inside the Vatican with Father Pellegrino Ernetti, an Italian priest, exorcist, and musical scholar who claimed in the 1950s to have helped build a device called the Chronovisor that could see and hear the past. Ernetti said a team of twelve anonymous scientists, among them the physicist Enrico Fermi and the rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, tuned the machine to a speech by Mussolini, then Napoleon, a Roman market under Emperor Trajan, a Cicero oration, and a 169 B.C. performance of Quintus Ennius's lost tragedy Thyestes, which he said let him publish its full text. When the magazine La Domenica del Corriere printed a Chronovisor image of Christ's face on the cross on May 2, 1972, it was soon matched to a mirrored photograph of a wood carving by the sculptor Cullot Valera, and Ernetti — who said the machine was too dangerous to exist and had been dismantled and hidden — left behind no device, no named living witnesses, and a 1993 presentation to four cardinals whose contents were never disclosed.

An Oligarchy of Landlords and Forced Enslavement. Guest: Patrick Scanlan. The conversation highlights the staggering concentration of land ownership in the Victorian era, where a mere 4,000 people owned 80% of Ireland. Batchelor characterizes this as a form of "forced enslavement," noting that the Irish people never voted for this arrangement; it was imposed through historical conquest. Scanlan explains that while the UK's electorate was growing, it remained an oligarchy dominated by aristocrats and rising industrialists. The Irish landscape, though appearing ancient and low-tech, was systematically disadvantaged by its political structure. This segment emphasizes that the political and legal frameworks of the British Empire were responsible for the vulnerability of the tenant farmers. The systemic extraction of rent by absentee landlords ensured the peasantry had no financial buffer when crop failures struck. This historical "backstory" explains why the famine was so catastrophic for the millions who were eventually driven to emigrate. 41847

Malthusian Logic and the "Check" of Hunger. Guest: Patrick Scanlan. Scanlan discusses the influence of economist Thomas Robert Malthus on Victorian policy, noting his argument that population growth would inevitably outstrip food production. Malthus viewed famine as nature's "last most dreadful resource" to restore balance. For Victorian policymakers, this logic justified a refusal to provide direct aid to the poor, fearing it would encourage "imprudent" reproduction and laziness. They believed that without the "check" of hunger, the Irish would refuse to work for low wages. Malthus specifically viewed the potato as "too generous" because it allowed the poor to survive with minimal labor, bypassing the "civilizational checks" on population seen in other societies. Consequently, many British officials viewed the famine as an inevitable consequence of Irish behavior and population growth. This ideological framework heavily influenced the British Empire's preoccupation with maintaining a "work ethic" even amidst mass starvation. 51868

As we endure surreal celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the United States, we hear the same Disneyfied history being told over and over again. Rebecca Nagle is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the host of the podcast This Land as well as a new investigative series called First America, a show that unveils how the treatment of Indigenous nations and the Native resistance that followed shaped US democracy in profound and surprising ways. For this episode, Rebecca tells us about the history of white colonizers "Playing Indian," from the costumes of the Boston Tea Party, to the Victorian-era summer camps, the symbolic 19th century political cartoons, the names and logos of sports mascots, and even a new mascot of a recent insurrection. We talk about what the history of both indigenous peoples themselves as well as colonizers' idea of Indigenous peoples has to do with American identity, freedom, and envy, and how we can look to the past not just to find the roots of the present, but also to learn about potential paths to resistance. Listen to Rebecca's new podcast First America: Apple / Spotify / Website Check out more of Rebecca's work here ⁠⁠Become a Patron⁠⁠⁠⁠ to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ Get some of our new merch at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠americanhysteria.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, all profits this month go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group. Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠americanhysteria.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Producer and Editor: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Miranda Zickler⁠⁠⁠⁠ Associate Producer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Riley Swedelius-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠ Additional editing by ⁠Kaylee Jasperson⁠ Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Resolute Desk is arguably the most famous desk in the world. It is certainly the most iconic of the six desks that have been used by sitting presidents in the Oval Office. Stewart McLaurin, President of the White House Historical Association, traveled to England in order to learn more about the history of the desk which was gifted in 1880 to President Rutherford B. Hayes from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom as a sign of goodwill between the two nations. Though it was used throughout the White House since President Hayes, the desk was first used in the Oval Office by President John F. Kennedy. It has also been used by Presidents Carter, Reagan, and every president since George W. Bush. The episode begins at The Historic Dockyard Chatham where the British ship HMS Resolute was docked before it was decommissioned, broken apart, and its timbers turned into various items - including a desk for the U.S. President. Almost 30 years earlier, the HMS Resolute had been part of an Arctic rescue expedition in search of a British explorer who went missing on the hunt for the Northwest Passage to Asia. The rescue expedition got stuck in the ice, and after a few seasons, the crew abandoned the ships. It was an American vessel that eventually found the Resolute which had broken free of the ice. The U.S. Congress appropriated the funds to refit the ship and return it to England's Queen Victoria.  Stewart and Paul Barnard, Deputy Chief Executive at The Historic Dockyard Chatham, tour the dockyard and climb aboard a Victorian naval sloop called the HMS Gannet, a similar ship that was introduced into service around the time the Resolute was decommissioned. As we'll learn, the Gannet also has its own tie-in to White House history. Then they visit the space that was once the shop where the Resolute Desk was built. Stewart and Paul are joined by Paul Wright, Interpretation Officer at The Historic Dockyard Chatham, who talks about the skills and craftsmanship of the people who once worked in the yard.  Then Stewart heads to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London and meets with Senior Curator, Dr. Claire Warrior, for a special look at several items not on public display, including an actual piece of wood from the HMS Resolute, as well as proposed designs for the famous desk. During his State Visit in April 2026, King Charles III gifted President Donald Trump a framed, high-quality reproduction of these same plans.  Join us for this fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the most recognizable desk in the world.  

The Resolute Desk is arguably the most famous desk in the world. It is certainly the most iconic of the six desks that have been used by sitting presidents in the Oval Office. Stewart McLaurin, President of the White House Historical Association, traveled to England in order to learn more about the history of the desk which was gifted in 1880 to President Rutherford B. Hayes from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom as a sign of goodwill between the two nations. Though it was used throughout the White House since President Hayes, the desk was first used in the Oval Office by President John F. Kennedy. It has also been used by Presidents Carter, Reagan, and every president since George W. Bush. The episode begins at The Historic Dockyard Chatham where the British ship HMS Resolute was docked before it was decommissioned, broken apart, and its timbers turned into various items - including a desk for the U.S. President. Almost 30 years earlier, the HMS Resolute had been part of an Arctic rescue expedition in search of a British explorer who went missing on the hunt for the Northwest Passage to Asia. The rescue expedition got stuck in the ice, and after a few seasons, the crew abandoned the ships. It was an American vessel that eventually found the Resolute which had broken free of the ice. The U.S. Congress appropriated the funds to refit the ship and return it to England's Queen Victoria.  Stewart and Paul Barnard, Deputy Chief Executive at The Historic Dockyard Chatham, tour the dockyard and climb aboard a Victorian naval sloop called the HMS Gannet, a similar ship that was introduced into service around the time the Resolute was decommissioned. As we'll learn, the Gannet also has its own tie-in to White House history. Then they visit the space that was once the shop where the Resolute Desk was built. Stewart and Paul are joined by Paul Wright, Interpretation Officer at The Historic Dockyard Chatham, who talks about the skills and craftsmanship of the people who once worked in the yard.  Then Stewart heads to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London and meets with Senior Curator, Dr. Claire Warrior, for a special look at several items not on public display, including an actual piece of wood from the HMS Resolute, as well as proposed designs for the famous desk. During his State Visit in April 2026, King Charles III gifted President Donald Trump a framed, high-quality reproduction of these same plans.  Join us for this fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the most recognizable desk in the world.  

In June 1997, the disappearance of 13-month-old Jaidyn Leskie from the small Victorian town of Moe captured the attention of the nation. What began as a frantic search for a missing toddler soon became one of Australia's most heartbreaking and controversial criminal investigations.As police worked to piece together Jaidyn's final hours, conflicting stories, unanswered questions, and a lack of clear evidence complicated the search for justice. Decades later, the case continues to provoke debate, with many believing key questions remain unresolved.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.

Solve crimes with the great detective in "Sherlock Holmes Short Stories." Featuring classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, this podcast brings you the brilliant deductions and thrilling adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the world of Holmes, these timeless mysteries will keep you captivated.

On this episode of the Hunting Connection Podcast, I'm joined by Nathan, the creator of Sambar Tracker—an innovative app built by hunters, for hunters. Sambar Tracker is designed to help hunters get more out of every trip to the bush. From integrated Victorian hunting maps and trip planning tools to harvest logging, weather data, freezer management, and sharing hunts with mates, it's an all-in-one platform created specifically for Australian deer hunters. Nathan shares how he got started hunting, the inspiration behind developing Sambar Tracker, and how the app has grown into a valuable tool for hunters looking to stay organised, track their success, and build a detailed history of their time in the field. We also chat about sambar hunting in Victoria, technology in hunting, and how collecting and analysing hunting data can help hunters learn, improve, and make the most of every opportunity in the bush. A great conversation about hunting, innovation, and giving hunters the tools they need to hunt smarter.

3AW Mornings host Tom Elliott described a new detail that had been revealed about the filming of the Victorian machete ban ad campaign as “a bit strange”.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Monday Headlines: National Cabinet to meet today to lock in fuel excise cut extension JD Vance says ‘great progress’ made as Iran talks kicks off in Switzerland UK Prime Minister could resign in next 24 hours Auction clearance rates hit lowest levels since the pandemic Socceroos 90% likely to reach next stage of World Cup Deep Dive:Last month, Australian neo-Nazi group White Australia, also known as the National Socialist Network, became a prohibited hate group. That means it is now illegal: it’s a crime to join, fund, or support the group. The NSN is challenging the government’s declaration, with a showdown scheduled in the High Court for September. In the meantime, it’s been revealed a $2.5m Victorian property the neo-Nazi group is currently using as their headquarters has been paid for by a millionaire backer. And it’s not just one millionaire, but a network of rich and influential sympathisers. In this episode of The Briefing, Sacha Barbour Gatt speaks with journalist Sherryn Groch from The Age, who has followed the money to find the neo-Nazis' mansion and the millionaire-backers supporting them. Follow The Briefing: TikTok: @thebriefingpodInstagram: @thebriefingpodcast YouTube: @TheBriefingPodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Solve crimes with the great detective in "Sherlock Holmes Short Stories." Featuring classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, this podcast brings you the brilliant deductions and thrilling adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the world of Holmes, these timeless mysteries will keep you captivated.

Send us a message!In this episode of Shadowed Past, we explore the remarkable life of James Barry, one of the most fascinating figures in medical history. Rising from humble beginnings to become a celebrated military surgeon and hospital reformer, Barry challenged the limitations of the 19th century and left a lasting impact on medicine throughout the British Empire.Known for a fiery personality, groundbreaking surgical achievements, and relentless advocacy for better healthcare, Barry's accomplishments were extraordinary. But following Barry's death in 1865, a discovery shocked Victorian society and sparked a debate that continues among historians today.Join us as we uncover a story of ambition, resilience, medical innovation, and one of history's most enduring mysteries. Was James Barry simply a brilliant doctor living behind a necessary disguise, or does Barry's life tell us something more complex about identity, opportunity, and the hidden stories lurking within the past?Shadowed Past shines a light on the forgotten, mysterious, and misunderstood figures who shaped history from the shadows. Music is by Alexander Nakarada.Support the show

Solve crimes with the great detective in "Sherlock Holmes Short Stories." Featuring classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, this podcast brings you the brilliant deductions and thrilling adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the world of Holmes, these timeless mysteries will keep you captivated.

In tonight's dead letter, listener Dean takes us to his grandmother's old Victorian house in a region of Scott's home state of North Carolina known as the Sandhills. His family has traded strange stories about the family home for generations, from slamming doors in an empty house to a lady in white under the apple tree. He spent years as the family skeptic, right up until he started helping his aunt sort through the massive Americana collection left behind by her late husband we'll simply call  ‘D', a mechanic with a passion for old gas pumps, slot cars, and vintage toys. A series of events that were too strange to chalk up to coincidence finally convinced Dean that something unexplained was going on, and frankly…we agree.Reference LinksMr. Machine from Ideal (1960) — Toy TalesMr. Machine — WikipediaHorikawa Robots and the Space Explorer "TV Robot" — Fab Tin ToysHouse in the Horseshoe — NC Historic SitesThe Coastal Plain and Sandhills — NCpedia"Haint Blue" — Historic New EnglandBlack Shuck — WikipediaThe Beast of Bladenboro — North Carolina GhostsWhat a Hospice Physician Can Tell Us About End-of-Life Visions — Discover MagazineEp 209: The Phantom Horse of Greensboro — Astonishing LegendsWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!This episode is sponsored by Firstleaf. Take a quick quiz, and Firstleaf matches premium, award-winning wines to your taste and delivers them right to your door — with tasting notes and pairing tips in every box. You control the schedule, skip shipments anytime, and every bottle is backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Go to TryFirstleaf.com/dlo for 50% off your first box PLUS free shipping for a whole year.

Solve crimes with the great detective in "Sherlock Holmes Short Stories." Featuring classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, this podcast brings you the brilliant deductions and thrilling adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the world of Holmes, these timeless mysteries will keep you captivated.

Today's headlines include: Counter-terrorism police have charged a third man over the firebombing of a Victorian synagogue. Australia’s work health and safety regulator has recommended the Defence Force be prosecuted over a fatal army helicopter crash. Around 300 students and teachers have been rescued after a fire tore through a primary school in Tokyo. And today’s good news: An all women referee crew has officiated a match at the men’s World Cup for the first time this tournament, taking charge of the one all draw between South Africa and Czechia. Hosts: Zara Seidler and Lucy TassellProducer: Rosa Bowden Want to support The Daily Aus? That's so kind! The best way to do that is to click ‘follow’ on Spotify or Apple and to leave us a five-star review. We would be so grateful. The Daily Aus is a media company focused on delivering accessible and digestible news to young people. We are completely independent. Want more from TDA?Subscribe to The Daily Aus newsletterSubscribe to The Daily Aus’ YouTube Channel Have feedback for us?We’re always looking for new ways to improve what we do. If you’ve got feedback, we’re all ears. Tell us here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest public version of ChatGPT can be made to generate sexualised images or depict scenes of graphic violence with a simple prompt, researchers have told the BBC. British AI security startup Mindgard figured out how to make ChatGPT create graphic pictures by slightly altering a widely-shared instruction, or prompt, which was originally designed to produce humorous results. To find out more, Anita Rani speaks to Technology correspondent Chris Vallance and Mindgard's Peter Garraghan. A spokesperson for Open AI said: "We take these reports seriously. After investigating this trend, we've introduced additional safeguards against this type of prompt. Our safety systems are designed to block potentially harmful images that are uploaded to ChatGPT and we analyse whether the AI generated image violates our policies before we show the image to the user. We also combine automated systems and human review to identify and block harmful material.”Jon Snow, the lead presenter of Channel 4 News for 32 years, has revealed he has Alzheimer's disease. During his career, he reported on stories including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the release of Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama's inauguration, receiving numerous awards including the BAFTA Fellowship in 2015. In a new Channel 4 documentary, made in conjunction with the Alzheimer's Society, Jon Snow: A Last Big Story, he is seen uncovering an environmental disaster in Zambia. In her first broadcast interview since the diagnosis was announced, Jon's wife, Dr Precious Lunga, joins Anita to talk about how they are navigating life now. Testing the microbiome of your vagina is increasing in popularity, with direct-to-consumer companies offering at-home tests and claiming that this information is critical to women's health. Anita speaks with Dame Lesley Regan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Imperial College London, and Dr Caroline Mitchell, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School, to discuss what we know about the vaginal microbiome and the recent surge in private testing. New novel Mrs Dickens by Emily Howes, tells the imagined story of Kate Hogarth, wife of the writer and journalist Charles Dickens. She is much loved at first, but as Charles finds fame and the family rise through the ranks of Victorian society, Charles's attitude towards Kate changes and she is devastated. Emily talks to Anita about how she pieced together and embellished the invisible life of Kate, a woman who bore Charles 10 children during a 22-year marriage and had an unparalleled view of one of the world's greatest writers.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

The Glasgow Necropolis is a Victorian cemetery in Glasgow, Scotland. It is on a low but very prominent hill to the east of Glasgow Cathedral (St Mungo's Cathedral). The cemetery is in an area bordered by the Townhead and Dennistoun districts to the north east of the modern city centre. Fifty thousand individuals have been buried here. Typical for the period, only a small percentage are named on monuments…and not every grave has a stone. Approximately 3,500 monuments exist here!!!https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EI4eJgqRpZg&ra=mhttps://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/glasgow/necropolis.shtmlhttps://www.myhighlands.de/en/glasgow-necropolis/https://thelittlehouseofhorrors.com/glasgow-necropolis/https://brocarde.com/glasgow-necropolis-ghosts-haunted-statues-and-the-legend-of-the-gorbals-vampire/https://vocal.media/horror/the-real-haunted-story-of-glasgow-hotel

The Scott brothers saw opportunity when the ‘Crapper’ started to become a household name. Thank you Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [Kooler Garage Door Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple and Steve just whispered the name of the next episode and we were chatting about it just as the recording started. But the theme is Scott Paper. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: And immediately I went to the office for some reason, like Dunder Mifflin. Stephen Semple: I guess because they sell paper, but yeah. Dave Young: Yeah. Well, and Michael Scott. It’s like, okay, but Scott, so this is toilet paper. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Yeah. And probably some other things, but toilet paper primarily. Stephen Semple: Well, toilet paper and paper towel. Dave Young: Paper towels. Yeah, Scott. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: I’m guessing some of the things we’re going to be talking about, trees and bathroom kind of stuff. Stephen Semple: Mainly bathroom kind of stuff. Yeah. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: They became a big business in 1995, they were acquired by Kimberly Clark for $9.4 billion. And at the time that they were acquired, they were doing 3.6 billion in sales and basically they’re the inventor of basically toilet paper and paper towel as we know it today. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: They kind of got the whole thing going. They were founded in Philadelphia, two brothers, Clarence and Irwin Scott in 1879. And to really understand the birth of this company, we need to understand the world in the late 1800s. Dave Young: Well, yeah. I mean, corn cobs and I guess a handful of poison ivy leaves. Stephen Semple: Moss, grass, hay. Dave Young: Yeah, all of those things. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And this is the time that’s actually considered America’s second industrial revolution. So while things are modernizing and the country’s changing with electricity, factories and roads and stuff along that lines, modern plumbing, especially in homes, was definitely not there yet. And hygiene was like primitive, man. Cities were bad smelling and full of animal and human waste because if you think about it, animal was still the primary mode of transportation, right? Dave Young: But yeah, the streets are full of it. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Most homes lacked indoor plumbing. It was chamber pots and things along that lines. And like you were talking about, in terms of personal cleaning, it was grass. The one that got me the most was corn cobs. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And really things had not changed much from the times of early Rome really. I mean, it was pretty primitive. Dave Young: The only way to get rid of it is get rid of it. Stephen Semple: Now there was the introduction of the flush toilet, which was starting to be popularized by an English plumber by the name of Thomas Crapper. Dave Young: Crapper, right. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Yeah. Which I always find sort of funny because when people say, “I’m going to go use the crapper,” it’s not an insult. You’re actually talking with the guy who made it… He didn’t invent it, but he popularized it. Dave Young: I wonder, without being vulgar, I wonder if the phrase “take a crap” is shortened for… It was crapper before anybody called it crap. Stephen Semple: Yes, it was. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: I think there’s pretty good etymology for that. Dave Young: Yeah. Heading to the crapper. Yeah. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yep. Dave Young: It just occurred to me. I’m slow on the uptake. Stephen Semple: Yeah, no, absolutely. I expected us to go there. So the toilet was starting to come into homes of wealthy Americans, but this created a need for a new type of product because they need something that was good for cleaning but was also flushable. These old methods would clog these expensive new systems. Dave Young: Sure. Yeah. You don’t want to throw a corn cob down crapper. Stephen Semple: Right. So here’s this whole idea of an emerging new technology that’s changing the world and how often in this podcast have these empires been developed right at these times where there’s a new technology coming and that new technology presents new opportunities. And the reason why I’m harping on this is we’re there today. There’s a new technology emerging and there’s all this debate about is it going to be good? Is it going to be bad? Let’s think about what are the opportunities it presents. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: Because we’ve seen over and over again in this podcast emergence of unimagined companies because of these issues. It’s a time of change. So in Philadelphia, there’s the two brothers, Clarence and Irwin. The paper company is actually struggling. It’s a paper converting business. Basically what they’re doing is they’re bringing in large industrial rolls of paper and cutting it down to sizes for clients. Now their business is struggling, but they see this new opportunity because of the rise of indoor toilets. So they create a bold idea of selling paper specifically for bathroom use. And let’s face it, it’s a significant upgrade from the course alternatives. Dave Young: Absolutely. Stephen Semple: One of the things that amazed me is that even magazines were being used and it was so well known that the Farmer’s Almanac even put a little hole in the corner- Dave Young: So you could hang it in the outhouse. Stephen Semple: … so you can hang it in the outhouse. Dave Young: Sure. You don’t want to go forward. You used yesterday’s pages, not next week’s. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah. Sears, Roebuck catalogs, all of those things. Stephen Semple: So well recognized that when they were printing them, they were like, “Okay, we need to print this so that it gets used for this.” Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Anyway, sorry to go backwards, but it’s just something that just jumped out at me. So they decided that they were going to create a paper specifically for bathroom use, which was way better than the alternative. So they initially cut the paper in the small stacked squares. That was how they did it. Now there was a challenge because of the prudishness of the Victorian era made it taboo to even discuss bathroom related products. So if you can’t discuss it- Dave Young: And you still feel that echo today. Stephen Semple: Yeah. If you can’t discuss it, how do you promote it? So what the brothers did, they pioneered this idea of a private labeling strategy because again, that was new. It wasn’t really being done in that day. So instead of putting their own name on the product, they branded the toilet paper with the names of the local drugstores and merchants. This allowed a customer to purchase the product discreetly. They could just put it on a list to a clerk and the trusted store name basically provided the stamp of approval. Dave Young: Gotcha. You could get someone to prescribe it. Stephen Semple: Basically. And somehow, even though they didn’t promote it, the word of mouth got out there and the strategy was a success and the business boomed, but they had another problem. Dave Young: Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this. [Using Stories To Sell] Dave Young: Let’s pick up our story where we left off and trust me you haven’t missed a thing. Stephen Semple: And somehow, even though they didn’t promote it, the word of mouth got out there and the strategy was to success and the business boomed, but they had another problem. They had a bottleneck because this cutting of the sheets was really time and labor-intensive. So they need a better way to produce the product. And what they saw was an innovation that was done by the post office. In the 1850s, the post office started to use perforated stamps. Dave Young: Okay. So you buy a roll- Stephen Semple: You’d get a roll of stamps and it was perforated, right? Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: So Irwin Scott took this idea and applied it to paper, put the paper on a roll with perforations allowing the customer to tear off sheets. Dave Young: Beautiful. Stephen Semple: Basically the modern day toilet roll. Dave Young: Yeah, love it. Stephen Semple: So this was the 1890s that invention basically was brilliant in terms of saving time, cutting costs. By the turn of the century, the company had about 100,000 in capital, which is like three million today. The stigma around toilet paper faded and they began marketing it under their own name and transforming the company into this mass market enterprise. Dave Young: This answers the age-old question to me of which came first? The toilet roll holder or the toilet roll. Stephen Semple: The toilet roll came first. Dave Young: So roll came first. Stephen Semple: Yeah, because basically sales pretty quickly got to about $500,000 a year, which is like 16 million today. So it’s 1907 and they have a fortuitous accident happens. A train car load of paper arrives that’s too thick to be used for toilet paper. Dave Young: Oh, no. Stephen Semple: So what do you do with the product? Here’s what they observed. Around the same time there’s a Philadelphia school teacher who’s cutting up paper for students to use to dry their hands instead of a shared cloth to help spread germs during a flu outbreak. So there’s an influenza outbreak going on. So the Scotts realized they could use this thick paper for this purpose. They already knew how to do the perforations. They already knew how to put the stuff on a roll. Dave Young: And the paper towel. Just make it wider. Yeah. Stephen Semple: The paper towel was born. By 1910s they were doing over a million dollars in sales and the further boost adaption, they started giving away paper towel holders. So the first thing they did was paper towel holders and then the toilet roll came holder came later. Dave Young: So let me write this down. The correct chronology is the toilet paper roll, then the paper towel roll, then the paper towel roll holder and we haven’t even got to the toilet roll holder yet. Who would’ve guessed? Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: But now- Dave Young: Keep going. Stephen Semple: You know the answer to that. You could sleep well tonight, Dave, if you’ve got that answer. Dave Young: Absolutely. Like a baby. Stephen Semple: So within two decades, Scott Paper is basically doing like 83 million rolls of toilet paper and 200 million rolls of paper towels in America every day. Dave Young: Oh, wow. Stephen Semple: Just grew like crazy. And for 70 years they were the leader in the toilet paper industry. Eventually they were surpassed by Procter & Gamble’s Charmin, who overtook it as the leading brand. Don’t squeeze the Charmin. Dave Young: Well, that’s probably just good marketing on Procter & Gamble’s part. Stephen Semple: Yes. Yeah. Dave Young: Right? Stephen Semple: Yeah. And then again, in 1995, Kimberly Clark buys them for $9 billion. Dave Young: Were they private or were they still- Stephen Semple: They were private up until that point. Dave Young: No kidding. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Wow. And been around a long time. So there’s a lot of Scott multimultimillionaires out there. Stephen Semple: I’m sure there are. But the thing I found that was interesting, again, it’s this whole idea that we talked about this emergence of a new technology creating gaps. And every time there’s emergence of new technology, it creates these gaps and they saw the gap and filled it. And then the next thing is when they ran into a production problem, they didn’t look around the paper industry for the solution. They saw the solution with the US Post Office. Dave Young: Yes. The application of business topology. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Somebody solved this problem already in a different form of paper, so let’s apply that. Stephen Semple: Yes. But again, this is what we see over and over again. And then when they had the mistake happen with the paper, what do we do with this paper? They saw what the school teacher was doing, which tells me they didn’t start looking in that moment. These were two guys that were constantly looking out at the world and seeing what was going on before. Dave Young: Being aware. I think especially being aware of somebody using your product or something like it in a different way. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: So a good reason to not just focus inward when you’re in business, right? Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Look what you can learn elsewhere. Look at the post office, look at the school teachers, look at anybody that’s doing something different with something related to what you’re doing. Stephen Semple: Right. And it’s that looking outside of the industry. I find so many people, it’s just like all they do is go to industry events. So the only time they turn their brain on is when they’re at an industry event rather than constantly being curious about everything in the world around them. Dave Young: Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Stephen Semple: It was interesting because when you don’t think about something as dull as the toilet paper industry actually being born because of the advent of a new technology. Dave Young: No, and it was definitely a problem that needed solving. Stephen Semple: Absolutely. Dave Young: There’s only so much corn you can grow. Stephen Semple: And it wasn’t going to work in the new toilet. Dave Young: No, no, you can’t. The new flushable corn cob. That’s not a good idea. I’m full of not good ideas. Anything else about Scott? Stephen Semple: That’s it. That’s it. Dave Young: All right. Well, I got to go. Not there. Thank you for bringing the toilet paper saga to the Empire Builders Podcast. Stephen Semple: And answering your question about holders. There you go. Dave Young: Yeah. All right. Yeah. We’ve solved that one for the ages. The question of the ages has been solved. Thank you, Stephen. Stephen Semple: All right. Thanks, David. Dave Young: Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave us a big, fat, juicy five star rating and review at Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to schedule your own 90-minute Empire Building session, you can do it at empirebuildingprogram.com.

If you enjoy gothic fiction, Victorian mysteries, haunted houses, ghost stories, and true crime from the gaslight era, we invite you to check out our new podcast, Gaslight Ghost Stories and Victorian Murders on AudioIron.com.Each week, we bring you chilling tales of restless spirits, dark secrets, notorious crimes, and mysterious happenings from the Victorian age. Some stories are inspired by real events, while others are original works of gothic horror and suspense.Recent and upcoming episodes include The Gallows and the Glittering Watch, Burke and Hare, Mutton Stew, Wandering Spirits Part One and Part Two, The Horror of Rabie Hall, The Confession of the Cursed Mrs. B, and The Haunting at Aston Abbey.New episodes are added every week, so there is always a new mystery to uncover and a new ghost story waiting in the shadows.If you love atmospheric storytelling, Victorian crime, supernatural suspense, and dark historical fiction, search for Gaslight Ghost Stories and Victorian Murders on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe today. You can also visit AudioIron.com to find the new podcast and many others. We hope to see you there.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our eightieth episode, we go to a new continent for the podcast (Australia) with Joan Lindsay's 1967 horror-mystery, Picnic at Hanging Rock. We do a combination Valentine's Day, summer, and Halloween episode as we talk about various teen lusts, revolting late-Victorian food, more revolting nature, and most revolting fake Australian accents.Cover art © Catherine Wu.Episode Theme: Royalty-Free Didgeridoo Music, courtesy of YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Caroline and Liz talk with artist and product designer Susan Hable. Susan is the co-founder of the Athens, Georgia-based design studio Hable Construction, which she runs with her sister, Katherine. Celebrating 27 years in business, Susan's work spans lighting, furniture, fine art, textiles, and jewelry, all rooted in her bold, hand-painted patterns and joyful sense of color. Susan joins the show to discuss her 20-plus-year partnership with lifestyle brand Garnet Hill, her artistic origins, her approach to building an intentional art collection, and the story behind her historic 1905 home. Key Takeaways from the Episode The Power of Small Patterns: While large expressions are artistic, small, tightly repeated patterns—like Hable Construction's iconic, best-selling "Beads" print—have a unique, calming effect that anchors a space. Small patterns add excellent grounding texture on everything from seat cushions to linens. Trust the Emotional Value of Art: When collecting art, buy pieces that speak directly to your heart and make you feel a specific emotion, rather than shopping for what is trendy. If original art is out of your budget, high-quality prints, art books, and local school or community art auctions are excellent alternatives. Design with Out-of-Print Inspiration: Rather than relying exclusively on the internet, Susan builds a personal library of physical books, estate sale finds, and historical reference materials to inform her custom textile patterns and landscape aesthetics. Building a Historical Garden: For her 1905 home, Susan designed a garden mirroring traditional Victorian landscapes, prioritizing an organic mix of loose, "floppy" movements (like anemones and Gaura) bordered by clean, tight lines. Episode Timeline 00:34 – Introduction to Susan Hable and Hable Construction. 01:54 – Susan's artistic childhood, early mentors, and grandmother's influence on her style. 06:17 – The accidental textile breakthrough after a trip to India that led to their first major retail order with Barneys. 09:35 – How a dream inspired the sisters to pivot to screen printing and scale production. 12:12 – The history of the signature "Beads" print and how it functions as design's "white shirt and jeans". 18:12 – Sourcing creative inspiration from physical books, libraries, and out-of-print collections. 34:56 – Moving from New York to Athens, Georgia, and renovating a historic 1905 home through the 2008 market shift. 42:13 – Susan's philosophy on collecting art, avoiding trends, and shopping without friend interference. 52:13 – Artists Susan loves, including Rose Wiley, David Shrigley, Leanne Shapton, and Martha Rich. 59:36 – Tips for collecting local art through local auctions and charity events. 01:02:24 – Designing the latest Garnet Hill collection: Portuguese linens, deconstructed tossed florals, and custom rickrack details. Mentioned in This Episode The "Beads" Print: Susan's number-one-selling organic linear-circular pattern utilized across multiple product categories. Garnet Hill Latest Collection: Features an apparel debut, high-drape Portuguese linen duvets, shams, and pajama sets trimmed with custom pale yellow rickrack. Susan's Art Show: Currently on display at the Spalding Nix Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. Susan's House Tour: Available to watch on the Ballard Designs YouTube channel. Artists Mentioned: Rose Wiley, David Shrigley, Leanne Shapton, Martha Rich, Louise Belcourt, Christie Bush, and Otis Jones. Where to Find Susan Hable Instagram: @HableLand Website: Hable Construction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Books at Bedtime, brought to you by Calming Anxiety. If your mind is racing with the demands of the day, or if you are struggling to transition into a peaceful night's rest, let the soothing, steady rhythm of classic science fiction guide you into a deep sleep. Tonight, we begin our third literary journey with Chapter 1 of H.G. Wells's masterpiece, The Time Machine.Step into a cozy, dimly lit Victorian dining room where a group of friends gathers after dinner. Listen as the enigmatic Time Traveler expounds on the comforting paradox of the fourth dimension, explaining how time is simply a pathway through space that our consciousness moves along. As the fire burns brightly and the room fills with the soft, hypnotic hum of philosophical debate, you will witness the demonstration of a delicate model mechanism made of ivory, brass, and translucent crystal. Read with a slow, calming cadence designed to lower your heart rate and soothe an overactive nervous system, this bedtime story podcast episode acts as a gentle anchor for your evening routine. Dim your screen, settle deep into your pillows, and allow the fading echoes of shuffling slippers and crackling fires to lull you into an uninterrupted night's sleep.Episode Chapters00:00 – Introduction: Settling In for Books at Bedtime00:45 – An After-Dinner Atmosphere: The Fire and the Glowing Hearth01:41 – The Geometry of School: Questioning the Paradox02:45 – Length, Breadth, Thickness, and Duration: Defining the Fourth Dimension04:24 – The Mind's Drift: Recalling Memories Vividly06:13 – A Vision of a Machine: Debating Travel Through Time08:05 – Slippers Shuffling: A Visit to the Cold Laboratory Corridor08:44 – The Glittering Framework: Examining the Delicate Model11:17 – Setting the Table: Candles, Lamps, and Brass Sconces12:46 – Pressing the Lever: The First Model Voyage13:13 – A Breath of Wind: The Swirl of Paint and Disappearance15:33 – Invisible Flights: The Analytical Analogy of the Spinning Wheel17:01 – A Glimpse of the Full-Size Prototype & Sleepy OutroStorybook Highlights for SleepAllow your focus to soften as your imagination drifts through these tranquil, atmospheric settings:The Crackling Hearth: The warm, flickering light of a roaring fire catching the tiny, passing bubbles dancing in the dinner glasses.The Gentle Demonstration: The soft, comforting click of a small white lever being pressed down on an octagonal table illuminated by a single shaded lamp.The Fading Corridor: The rhythmic, comforting sound of the host's slippers softly shuffling down a long, quiet hallway toward his peaceful workshop.If this evening's journey through time helped quiet your thoughts and ease you into a state of rest, please subscribe to the show and share this premiere episode with someone who needs a gentle voice to help them sleep tonight. Sharing our episodes is how our little community of stillness reaches the beautiful souls who need it the most.For target-focused support with daytime panic, chronic worry, or nervous system regulation, remember to explore our Anxiety Breaker course at calminganxiety.fm.Let your breathing become slow and easy, release the day entirely, and be kind to your beautiful soul. Sleep well, my friend.

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!We've got a brilliant episode this week: we've turned to history to find the worst jobs we can. We've got tanning (leather, not the sun beds), bridge painting, and the Victorian workhouse.. and take our word for it, they are all absolutely awful.Elsewhere, Elis' grandad had tools for a career down the mine whilst Elis has 3x microphones for his career down the audio mine. If you've got anything to send us, please do it here: hello@ohwhatatime.comAnd from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you'll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at

GART is less than two weeks out and Ashe has a dedicated laundry basket for Deadwood outfits because Brian wants her to think about the weight of her suitcase. The ladies kick things off recapping UFC at the White House, the dripping with corporate sponsorships narrative swap the left tried after the taxpayer dollars argument fell apart, fighters walking out of the Oval Office down the Hall Of Presidents and giving glory to God, and Ashe's bicentennial memories of 1976 making the case that this is what the run up to 250 should feel like. Adriana takes the floor for a forty minute college lecture on the Salem witch trials, including the wildly underappreciated detail that it started with an illness, the catch 22 of confess and walk or deny and hang, ergot fungus on rye as a likely LSD precursor poisoning, and how the whole thing reads exactly like a 1692 mass formation psychosis. Christy closes out with saved by the bell, which has both a fun safety coffin origin (Victorian anxiety did not believe in doing anything halfway) and a boring boxing origin, plus the small detail that no safety coffin ever saved anyone. Photo challenge submissions, GART golf cart plans, and a battle of the sexes event teaser for next week.

The early modern period was a rocky time for religion across Europe, fundamental pinnings of everyday life were being questioned and changing, as the reformation shifted authority away from the church. Thoughts on death and the afterlife were turned upside down, and in villages across England, restless spirits were making a comeback. To confront these supernatural intruders, communities turned to their local clergy to carry out the practice of ghost-laying, an exorcism ritual that sought to bind and banish the dead. At least, that's what Victorian authors would have liked to believe. Part religion, part folklore, and part fear, the subject of ghost-laying is fairly well complicated, and defining just how much of it is actually true, even more so. SOURCES Walsh, Brendan C. (2023) ‘He Could Raise and Lay Ghosts at His Will': Victorian Folklorists and the Creation of Early Modern Clerical Ghost-Laying. Folklore, 134:3, 281-303, DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.2023.2187157 Bottrell, William (1870) Traditions & Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall. Beare & Son, Penzance, UK. Hawker, Robert Steven (1870) Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall. James C. Commin, Exeter, UK. Andrews, William (1898) The Church Treasury of History, Custom, Folk-Lore, etc. London, UK. Bond, Thomas (1823) Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe, in the County of Cornwall. J. Nichols & Son, London, UK. Hunt, Robert (1865) Popular Romances of the West of England, Or, The Drolls, Traditions and Superstitions of Old Cornwall. John Camden Hotten, London, UK. Courtney, Margaret Anne (1973) Cornish Feasts & Folklore. EP Publishing Ltd. UK. ------ For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠darkhistories.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support the show by visiting our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://author.to/darkhistories⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dark Histories merch is available here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3GChjk9⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with us on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Or find us on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://twitter.com/darkhistories⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Or you can contact us directly via email at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠contact@darkhistories.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or join our Discord community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This conversation between host BT and returning guest Eleanor, delves into the intricate relationship between gothic literature, supernatural themes, and cultural anxieties, particularly focusing on the evolution of monsters as reflections of societal fears. The discussion spans various topics, including the Victorian obsession with death, the moral implications of creation as seen in Frankenstein, and the portrayal of women in gothic narratives. The conversation also touches on the impact of the industrial revolution on human identity and the ongoing struggle between faith and progress.(Ghostbuster movie reference was Revelation 6:12, this was an error that made it into the final script, but was fixed in Ghostbuster's Afterlife)Eleanor's Website

We've got a brilliant episode this week: we've turned to history to find the worst jobs we can. We've got tanning (leather, not the sun beds), bridge painting, and the Victorian workhouse.. and take our word for it, they are all absolutely awful.Elsewhere, Elis' grandad had tools for a career down the mine whilst Elis has 3x microphones for his career down the audio mine. If you've got anything to send us, please do it here: hello@ohwhatatime.comAnd from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you'll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at

Everyone in town knew the stories about the old Victorian house on the hill.Guests talked about footsteps in empty hallways. Employees reported doors slamming on vacant floors. And for decades, people claimed they occasionally heard a man's voice calling from somewhere inside the building.When Emily started working there during high school, she dismissed the stories as local folklore. Then she heard the voice herself.The more she learned about the house's history, the stranger the experiences became. Because the voice never sounded threatening. It sounded familiar. Almost as though someone was wandering the halls, expecting to find people who were no longer there.And after years of hearing the same question echo through the house, Emily finally decided to answer. #RealGhostStories #HauntedVictorian #GhostlyVoices #ParanormalExperience #HauntedBoardingHouse #TrueGhostStory #SpiritsAmongUs #HistoricHaunting #UnexplainedVoices #GhostStoryLove real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

Everyone in town knew the stories about the old Victorian house on the hill.Guests talked about footsteps in empty hallways. Employees reported doors slamming on vacant floors. And for decades, people claimed they occasionally heard a man's voice calling from somewhere inside the building.When Emily started working there during high school, she dismissed the stories as local folklore. Then she heard the voice herself.The more she learned about the house's history, the stranger the experiences became. Because the voice never sounded threatening. It sounded familiar. Almost as though someone was wandering the halls, expecting to find people who were no longer there.And after years of hearing the same question echo through the house, Emily finally decided to answer. #RealGhostStories #HauntedVictorian #GhostlyVoices #ParanormalExperience #HauntedBoardingHouse #TrueGhostStory #SpiritsAmongUs #HistoricHaunting #UnexplainedVoices #GhostStoryLove real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

Robert Browning (1812-1889) is often considered one of the greatest of the Victorian poets. Two developments established Browning as an indispensable figure in the history of literature: first, his early taste for Shelleyan knockoffs and lengthy, impenetrable historical narratives gave way to his use of the dramatic monologue, a highly successful and adaptable form he used to striking effect; and second, his marriage to fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett (Moulton-Barrett) Browning, which became one of the greatest literary love stories of all time. In this episode, Jacke offers some reasons to love the poet who gave us "My Last Duchess" and many other voice-driven poems. PLUS author and Washington Irving expert Elisabeth Paling Funk joins Jacke for a conversation about her book The Dutch World of Washington Irving: Knickerbocker's History of New York and the Hudson Valley Folktales, which tells an alternative origin story of American literary culture. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Help support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/literature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyofliterature.com/donate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did twenty-four rabbits released by one man for a "spot of hunting" in 1859 colonise an entire continent within thirty-five years — and why did a three-thousand-kilometre fence, a campaign of poisoning, and even the deliberate introduction of foxes all fail to stop them? Who was Dame Jean Macnamara, the doctor who had already helped defeat polio and then spent twenty years fighting institutional resistance to unleash a virus on 600 million rabbits? And what happened when that virus escaped from its island quarantine before it was officially approved?Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of Australia's great rabbit catastrophe — the Victorian acclimatisation societies, the biological arms race, and the invasion that still isn't over...----------In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business-----------Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community.Support us!Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review-----------Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more.-----------Instagram, TikTok, Threads:@historyoffreshproduceEmail: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com

You guys… we had a full-on Victorian tea party on the podcast and I am NOT okay about it.This week my girl Ashlynn (@ashneufit) came through and we literally could not stop talking.We're spilling anonymous tea from YOUR DMs — and some of it is absolutely unhinged. Weight clauses in prenups?A mom marrying her daughter's childhood best friend? A man who was secretly married, had a girlfriend of THREE years, AND was seeing escorts??The Dallas dating scene is cooked, y'all.We also get into skin struggles, sober girl summers, why your 20s feel like the great depression, and why showing up for your people is everything.This episode is chaotic, honest, and way too relatable. Send this to your group chat immediately.Subscribe, leave a review, and drop your tea in the comments

Many mysteries accompany the revelations that Powers of Darkness, the Icelandic and Swedish versions of Dracula, are not direct translations of Bram Stoker's original, but stories that significantly differ in character names, plot and runtime. Like: did Bram Stoker write it himself, to publish some raunchy content that British censors would forbid? Was Powers of Darkness based on his early drafts? And did he really not copyright Dracula in the USA was that a deliberate ruse? Welllll... brace yourself for ole thrill-destroyer Zaltzman to pop your balloons of excitement. Searching for the truth among all the rumours and texts are producer Iris Ishichita of the Powers of Darkness podcast, and Will Trimble and Hans Corneel de Roos, who orchestrated English translations of respectively the Swedish and Icelandic Powers of Darknesses. This is the third episode of the Draculae miniseries. Before listening to it, check out the first and second episodes explaining the three versions of Dracula and why we are talking about them. And visit theallusionist.org/draculae3 for more information plus a transcript of the episode.Sign up at theallusionist.org/donate to fund the continuing existence of this independent podcast. In return, you can join me for regular livestreams where I read relaxingly from my ever-expanding collection of vintage dictionaries, plus behind the scenes info about every episode, membership of the Allusioverse Discord community, and watchalong parties for films and TV shows.Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… If I'm there, I'm there as @allusionistshow. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk compellingly about your product, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitudeshows.com/ads. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, your one-stop shop for building and running your online forever home. Go to squarespace.com/allusionist for a free trial, and get 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain with the code allusionist.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Victorian house seemed perfect for five college students. It was affordable, close to campus, and large enough that everyone finally had room to breathe.Then they started hearing someone else.Not a ghostly apparition. Not a shadow figure. Just the ordinary sounds of another person moving through the house. Footsteps in empty hallways. Doors opening and closing. Someone arriving home when nobody had arrived at all.At first, they assumed it was one of their roommates. Then they started keeping track.The longer they lived there, the more one strange pattern emerged: nearly every experience began when someone believed another person should be nearby.And after learning the house had once operated as a busy boarding house, they began wondering whether the building itself had simply never gotten used to being empty. #RealGhostStories #HauntedCollegeHouse #TheSixthRoommate #ParanormalExperience #HauntedBoardingHouse #GhostStory #TrueGhostStories #ResidualHaunting #CollegeGhostStory #UnexplainedEncountersLove real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

This is a Grave Talks CLASSIC EPISODE!Some places feel haunted the moment you step inside. The Old Paulding Jail in Paulding, Ohio, is one of them. Built in 1876, this Victorian-style landmark has stood for nearly 150 years, collecting not just history, but something else. Something unseen.Over the years, visitors have reported shadows sliding across the walls when no one is there, phantom footsteps pacing through the halls, and voices calling out from empty cells. Investigators have captured chilling EVPs, sudden equipment malfunctions, and unexplained cold spots that leave no doubt they're not alone. And then, of course, there's Charlie—the jail's most famous ghost. Said to be a former inmate who never truly left, Charlie is known for his playful pranks, sudden appearances, and the unsettling feeling that you're being watched.In this episode, we're joined by Shelly Robertson, owner of the Old Paulding Jail and first-hand witness to its many hauntings. Shelly takes us inside one of Ohio's most paranormally active locations. If you're brave enough, step beyond the bars and into the shadows of the Old Paulding Jail.#HauntedJail #OldPauldingJail #HauntedOhio #GhostHunters #ParanormalInvestigations #ParanormalActivity #TrueHaunting #EVPCaptured #GhostStories #HauntedPlacesLove real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

This is a Grave Talks CLASSIC EPISODE! PART TWOSome places feel haunted the moment you step inside. The Old Paulding Jail in Paulding, Ohio, is one of them. Built in 1876, this Victorian-style landmark has stood for nearly 150 years, collecting not just history, but something else. Something unseen.Over the years, visitors have reported shadows sliding across the walls when no one is there, phantom footsteps pacing through the halls, and voices calling out from empty cells. Investigators have captured chilling EVPs, sudden equipment malfunctions, and unexplained cold spots that leave no doubt they're not alone. And then, of course, there's Charlie—the jail's most famous ghost. Said to be a former inmate who never truly left, Charlie is known for his playful pranks, sudden appearances, and the unsettling feeling that you're being watched.In this episode, we're joined by Shelly Robertson, owner of the Old Paulding Jail and first-hand witness to its many hauntings. Shelly takes us inside one of Ohio's most paranormally active locations. If you're brave enough, step beyond the bars and into the shadows of the Old Paulding Jail.#HauntedJail #OldPauldingJail #HauntedOhio #GhostHunters #ParanormalInvestigations #ParanormalActivity #TrueHaunting #EVPCaptured #GhostStories #HauntedPlacesLove real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

The Victorian house seemed perfect for five college students. It was affordable, close to campus, and large enough that everyone finally had room to breathe.Then they started hearing someone else.Not a ghostly apparition. Not a shadow figure. Just the ordinary sounds of another person moving through the house. Footsteps in empty hallways. Doors opening and closing. Someone arriving home when nobody had arrived at all.At first, they assumed it was one of their roommates. Then they started keeping track.The longer they lived there, the more one strange pattern emerged: nearly every experience began when someone believed another person should be nearby.And after learning the house had once operated as a busy boarding house, they began wondering whether the building itself had simply never gotten used to being empty. #RealGhostStories #HauntedCollegeHouse #TheSixthRoommate #ParanormalExperience #HauntedBoardingHouse #GhostStory #TrueGhostStories #ResidualHaunting #CollegeGhostStory #UnexplainedEncountersLove real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

On The Literary Life today we continue our re-airing of a series from our "Summer of the Short Story" that originally aired way back in Season 1 of the podcast! This week's episode features Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins discussing G. K. Chesterton's essay "A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls." Angelina opens with a brief history of the Victorian era and the more prevalent availability of the novel to the masses. She also gives several examples of the "penny dreadful." Cindy and Angelina discuss why they agree with Chesterton that people need these simple, even formulaic stories. They remind us that childhood is a time for good books, not a time to worry about reading all the "Great Books." Another topic that Cindy and Angelina chat about is the importance of developing imagination. They talk about the truth that fiction and story-telling are necessary parts of human culture. Cindy highlights the importance of the heroic adventure stories for boys. Angelina brings out the point that the elite critic is out of touch with the masses who long for stories of good winning over evil. The penny dreadful should not be judged as art, since that was never what it was intended to be. If you want to find replays of the 2019 Back to School online conference referenced in this episode, you can purchase them in Cindy's shop at MorningTimeforMoms.com. You can also find out about all the current classes and summer events happening at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. For the full show notes on this episode, please visit https://theliterary.life/332. 

In the early 1990s, match.com debuted as the first major dating app on the world wide web, but it was far from the earliest way that people used technology to meet other hopeful singles. For this episode, we'll look at what came before the apps we know today, the video dating of the 1980s as well as the original computer dating of the 1960s, and we'll learn about the way that “dating” itself came to exist in the Victorian era when swiping left or right was done with proto-speed dating and analog opening lines. Then we'll look at the ways that the dating apps we know today have come under control of major corporations that seek to siphon our money away by manipulating our emotions, and potentially, to use our data for far more nefarious means. ⁠⁠⁠Become a Patron⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠@americanhysteriapodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ to see the videos that go along with this episode Get some of our new merch at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠americanhysteria.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, all profits this month go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group. Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠americanhysteria.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Producer and Editor: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Miranda Zickler⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sound Designer and Associate Producer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Riley Swedelius-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Voice Actor: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Will Rogers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In tonight's dead letter, our listener's family trades a rented place for an old Victorian villa tucked into the quiet border country between England and Wales. The previous owner had loved the house for more than half a century, and the neighbors were quick to say she'd have approved of the new arrivals. But the littlest member of the family keeps mentioning an old woman with white hair. We'll get into faceless figures, formidable women who hold a home together, and an old plaque that quietly says exactly what this whole story is about.REFERENCE LINKSWilliam Morris's Bed and the Kelmscott Manor Poem — Society of Antiquaries of LondonLucy M. Boston, the Green Knowe Books, and Memory in a House — BritannicaThe Manor at Hemingford Grey (the real Green Knowe)Folklore of the Stiperstones and the Devil's ChairThe Devil's Chair: The Story Behind the Shropshire Landmark — Shropshire StarThe White Lady of Ludlow Castle (Marion de la Bruyère) — Shropshire StarThe Phantom Funeral of Ratlinghope and Shropshire Ghost Stories — The History PressShropshire Folklore, Wild Edric, and the Long Mynd Black Dog — Shropshire StarWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!