PODCAST · history
Dark Histories
by Ben Cutmore
Fortnightly narratives on the unsolved and the unexplained, mysteries, historical true crime, touches of the paranormal and cultural peculiarities.
Episodes
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The Strange Disappearance of Rudolf Diesel
SOURCES Brunt, Douglas (2023) The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel. Atria Books, London, UK. Edinburgh Evening Dispatch (1913) The Missing Inventor. Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, Thurs 2 Oct 1913, p2. Edinburgh, UK. New York Times (1913) Dr Diesel Vanishes From A Steamship. New York Times, Wed 1…
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Philip: The Ghost That Never Was
In the early 1970’s a small group of Canadians making up the Toronto Society for Psychical Research set out to prove the existence of ghosts and poltergeists. Such an investigation was sure to need a highly controlled experiment if it were to hold any integrity at all, and the Toronto group felt...
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The Willie Starchfield Murder Mystery
On a cold, grey January afternoon in 1914, a railway carriage travelling through north London shuttled along its route, carrying a grim secret. Beneath a third-class carriage seat lay the body of five-year-old Willie Starchfield, strangled and carefully concealed from view. Earlier that day…
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Early America & The Savage Crimes of the Harpe Brothers
In the years following the American Revolution, when the country was still uncertain of itself and the frontier was still a place of violence, two brothers carved out a story of fear across the wilderness. When their story was first published in 1824, many people thought it was so terrible it...
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The Grafton, The Invercauld and the The Multiple Wrecks of the Auckland Islands
In the winter of 1864, two ships met their fate on one of the most remote and unforgiving stretches of the Southern Ocean. The Grafton and the Invercauld were wrecked thousands of miles from civilization, leaving their survivors stranded on the desolate Auckland Islands. What followed was a...
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Summer Break - Charlotte Riddell: The Open Door
Hey Everyone! here is a little episode to tide us over til next week when I'll be back to the usual posting schedule. I took a short, mid-season break to sort some bits and pieces out and enjoy a bit of the summer weather, but I do love a good ghost story, so here's one for the time being! The…
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William Heirens & The Lipstick Killer
In the early twentieth century, Chicago was a city already familiar with violence and corruption, but in 1946, a new case hit the headlines that introduced a whole new level of shock and scandal to the hardened city residents. Savage murders, a message scrawled across the wall in lipstick at one…
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The Miracle Cures of Doctor John Brinkley
In an era when medicine was still finding its footing, John Romulous Brinkley built an empire on impossible cures, relentless ambition, and astonishing lack of a moral compass. In a shocking display of charm and manipulation, he managed to sell his patients on a cure for diseases they didn’t even...
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Folk Exorcism & The Cornish Ghost Layers
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,...
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The Unsavoury Tale of the Maryland Snallygaster
In the fall of 1909, a strange fear settled over the hills and farms of Maryland. Newspapers carried reports of a monstrous winged creature said to stalk the countryside with a host of bizarre descriptions pouring out from witnesses, including glowing eyes, huge claws, and boiling brimstone...
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Mary Pearcey & The Hampstead Tragedy
In 1890, the murders of Phoebe Hogg and her infant daughter in Hampstead became one of the most widely reported criminal cases of the Victorian period. The investigation quickly centred on Mary Pearcey, whilst the public eyed Phoebe’s husband with suspicion. Evidence found at Mary’s home, along...
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Amazing Stories & The Shaver Mystery
In 1945, the end of the second world war was approaching, atom bombs were on the way, and science fiction felt more like speculative prophecies than adventure stories. In the pages of pulp magazine, claims that ancient civilizations lived beneath the surface of the earth, armed with forgotten...
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BONUS: 10 Year Q+A
Hey everyone! Here is there first of the bonus episodes I have lined up to go along with the 10 year anniversary of Dark Histories! Thanks so much if you asked a question, and I hope you find something interesting enough in the answers! Cheers! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...
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The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDui
High in the mist-shrouded Cairngorms, where the winter wind bites like a vice, lies the domain of a long-spoken, unsettling presence. For over a hundred years, the climbers of Ben Macdui have told stories of a towering figure pacing just beyond sight and of booming footsteps lost in the fog.…
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The Ghost Ship Carroll A. Deering
In January 1921, a five-masted schooner was discovered run aground off the coast of North Carolina with no crew aboard and no clear signs of struggle. Personal belongings, navigation equipment, and the ship’s lifeboats were missing, leaving investigators with more questions than answers and a…
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The Witches of Warboys
In the late 16th century, in the small village of Warboys, just outside Cambridge, everyday life was unsettled by growing fear and uncertainty, when family members of the local gentry began suffering from strange illnesses. Suspicion of witchcraft quickly spread amongst the community, and one...
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The 19th Century West Ham Vanishings
The East London district of West Ham might be best known globally for the football team of the same name, but in the late 19th century, the area became famous for something much darker. West Ham, and in particular, a single road within the district, became the scene for a series of unusual...
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George Psalmanazar, The Man From Formosa
In the early 1700s, when maps still had blank spaces and “here be dragons” felt like a reasonable warning, a stranger arrived in Europe with a fantastic story to tell. Calling himself George Psalmanazar, and claiming to be a native of far-off Formosa, where people lived in underground houses and...
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George Joseph Smith: The Case of the Brides in the Bath
At the turn of the twentieth century, a pattern of unusual deaths began to surface, when three unrelated women were found drowned in their bathtubs, following a fit or a feinting. The cases seemed unconnected, scattered across towns and surnames, until the similarities grew too precise to ignore....
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The Curious Case of Edgar Vandy
In 1933 when a young, London inventor died under suspicious circumstances, his two surviving brothers turned to the talents of spiritualist mediums in the hopes of finding some answers to the many questions they had following the wholly satisfying inquest. Over a period of six months, the two men...
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Christmas Campfire 2025 (Part 2)
Happy New Year! Here is part two of the Christmas Campfire for 2025, though I guess it's more of a New Years Campfire! I hope you enjoy it, it's been another great year for the Christmas Campfire and a huge thank you for everyone for taking part and being brave enough to put there stories out…
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Christmas Campfire 2025 (Part 1)
It's Christmas Eve, so it must be time for the Christmas Campfire! Thank you so much to everyone that submitted their stories this year, it's been another great year for entires and there's plenty enough for two episodes. I'll release the second part sometime after Christmas and before the New…
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The Spirit of Old Jeffery: John Wesley & The Epworth Poltergeist
Over the Christmas of 1716, during a time of political tension and uncertainty in England, strange events began to trouble Epworth Rectory. After nightfall, the home of Reverend Samuel Wesley was disturbed by unexplained sounds. Soft footsteps thumped in hallways, as dull thuds knocked on the…
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The Whaleship Essex & The Real Life Story of Moby Dick
In the summer of 1819, the whaleship Essex set sail from Nantucket, chasing fortune across the vast and indifferent Pacific. What began as a routine whaling voyage soon veered into a nightmare, however, when the hunted became the hunter, and the ship, until now known as one of the luckiest…
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Flying Carrots & Little Divers: The French UFO Wave of 1954
In the autumn of 1954, France found itself gripped by a strange and unnerving spectacle. From quiet rural villages to bustling towns and cities, witnesses reported everything from flying discs, cigars and carrots, to little creatures in diving gear waddling beneath a glowing sphere. Newspapers...
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Yesterday Today - 09/11
In this week's episode of Yesterday Today I had a bit of a dive into teh murder of Mary Jane Kelly and how it was presented in the London papers, along with a few other oddities, like Barnaby and Burgho the bloodhounds and the insistence of drunk people to pretend they were a heavily hunted…
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The Martins Croft Poltergeist: The Devil of Ylöjärvi
In the frozen landscape of Finnish winter, 1885, the quiet croft of Efraim Martin in Ylöjärvi became the center of local attention thanks to a series of unexplainable events that saw almost the entire neighbourhood crowd into the small farmhouse. Rumours of the devils and demons wound through the...
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The Paris Bluebeard: The Life & Lies of Marcel Petiot
In the shadows of war-torn Paris, a charming young doctor lived a double life. Physician by day, and resistance fighter by night, his underground network promised salvation to those desperate to escape the Nazi grip. But in a time where trust was at a premium, the truth was not necessarily as it...
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Yesterday Today - 05/10
This week we continue to look into the press around the time of Jack the Ripper and dig up a extremely peculiar story that's never really explained at all, about mysterious disappearing bread. Yep. ------ For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the...
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A Time Slip in Versailles: The Moberly-Jourdain Incident
On a warm, overcast summer’s day of 1901, two English school mistresses strolled through the gardens of Versailles, unaware they were about to step into a defining moment in their lives. One minute in the present and the next in the past, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain claimed to…
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Ringcroft of Stocking & The Mackie Poltergeist
In 1695, a small rural, farming community of southwest Scotland was shaken by strange events at the farmhouse of Ringcroft of Stocking. What began with the shuffling around of livestock, soon escalated into unexplained noises, stones thrown through the air and voices that no one could trace....
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Yesterday Today - 07/09
This week we look into some of the press reports from the second Jack the Ripper Murder, as well as some highlights of Hitchcock's Psycho release, from 1960. There's also sea serpents, haunted houses, and wise words that mean absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell... ------ For almost anything,...
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A Boy’s Best Friend is his Mother: The Horrors of Ed Gein
Behind the doors of an isolated farmhouse on the outskirts of Plainfield, Wisconsin, a trove of macabre secrets were stashed out of sight of the locals that blurred the line between reality and nightmare. Unearthed in 1957, the world of quiet, shy farmer, Edward Theodore Gein, revealed a bizarre...
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Introducing: CONSPIRACY THEORIES, CULTS, AND CRIMES
From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, to the Octopus Murders and the Waco Siege, the world is full of deception, manipulation, and destruction. Listen to Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes every Wednesday as we explore the real people at the center of the world’s most shocking secrets and…
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The Literary Miracles of Patience Worth
In 1913, a St. Louis housewife named Pearl Curran sat down at a Ouija board and claimed to make contact with a spirit called Patience Worth—a seventeenth-century Englishwoman who spoke in archaic language and spun tales with uncanny speed. What began as a parlor amusement soon erupted into a...
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Yesterday Today - 10/08
This week we're taking a quick look at the end of the second World War in teh Pacific, as well as rummaging through a host of summer ghost stories from the 19th century. There's also a small story that would go on to foreshadow the "autumn of fear" in London, 1888. ------ For almost anything…
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The Murderous Mannings & The Bermondsey Horror
In the summer of 1849, Patrick O’Connor, a prosperous London customs officer, vanished without warning. His trail ended in a quiet Bermondsey house, home to Frederick and Maria Manning—a married couple bound to him by secrets and suspicion. When O’Connor’s body was found buried beneath their...
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Summer Holiday & Introducing: Macabrium Lore & Legends
It's that time of year where the sun is out for more than 10 minutes a day over here in England, so that must mean it's summer holiday! I'll be off for just a short two weeks, but until then, I thought I'd introduce a podcast to you. It's a great, Dark History podcast, which I shall leave to…
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Yesterday Today - 06/07
Welcome back to Dark Histories and Yesterday Today, where this week we're going all the way back to 1776 to have a quick look at the declaration of independence, before zipping ahead to 1947 and the weird reprts coming from Roswell of Flying Saucers! ------ For almost anything, head over to the...
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Murder, Madness and The Unusual Life of William Minor
When you pick up a dictionary and look up a word, have you ever stopped to consider who it was that compiled such meticulous work? Was it a scholar, or group of scholars, holed up in a musty backroom somewhere dedicating their lives to the task, or a wide group of volunteers, crowdsourcing an...
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Yesterday Today - 22/06
Back with another off-shoot episode of Dark Histories, this time digging up some old ghost stories, the Queen's coronation, and some rather solid advice from Beatrice Fairfax, an advice columnist from 1914. ------ For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the...
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The Judica-Cordiglia Brothers & The Lost Cosmonauts of the Cold War
In the murky-corners of Cold War history, beneath layers of radio static, the chilling tale of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers emerges. Armed with makeshift radio equipment and relentless curiosity, they claimed to capture ghostly transmissions from doomed Soviet cosmonauts, voices never…
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Yesterday Today - 08/06
This week, I'm back with another episode of Yesterday Today. We have storiesmarking the original publication or Orwells 1984, the strange resurrection of a murderer and the bizarre concept of mailing babies. ------ For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support…
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The Strange Incident of the Coogee Aquarium Shark
In the 1920’s and 30s, shark attacks off the coast of New South Wales, Australia were not an especially uncommon event. In 1935, however, Sydney’s peaceful coastal charm was shattered by a grotesque discovery at the Coogee Aquarium that was anything but normal. A captured tiger shark, put on…
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Yesterday Today - 18/05
Hi everyone, I'm back with another mini-episode of Yesterday Today, where this week we dig into the first ever non-stop Transatlantic Flight, the first ever sightings of the Loch Ness Monster and a delightfully weird romance story from teh pages of yesterdays papers. Learn more about your ad...
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The Woman in Black & The Cheltenham Ghost Scare of 1886
In the quiet elegance of 1880s Cheltenham, a spectral presence stirred unease in a grand old family mansion in the centre of town. The ghost—described as a tall, veiled woman in black—appeared repeatedly to the daughters of the Despard family, moving silently through the house and vanishing…
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Yesterday Today - 04/05
Back with another episode of Yesterday Today, the shoot off podcast for Dark Histories. ------- For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for...
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The Strange Discovery of the Hexham Heads
In 1971, in the quiet town of Hexham, England, two small stone heads were unearthed — and with them, a series of strange and unsettling events began to unfold. Shadows moved where none should be, and visitors spoke of an unseen presence lingering in the air. Were the heads simple curiosities,...
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Yesterday Today - 20/04
Back with another episode of Yesterday Today, the shoot off podcast for Dark Histories. This week we're looking at one of the more epic boxing matches of the past, a few adverts for wind pills and hair tonics, and a couple of ghost stories dug from deep in the19th century. ------- For almost...
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The Poisoned Prince: The Germ Murders of the British Raj
In 1933, within the quiet corridors of the palace of the Pakur Raj, a death of the young Raja stirred more than grief—it raised suspicions. What seemed at first a tragic illness soon unraveled into one of India’s most chilling and unusual murder cases, when the Raja’s own, elder half-brother was...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Fortnightly narratives on the unsolved and the unexplained, mysteries, historical true crime, touches of the paranormal and cultural peculiarities.
HOSTED BY
Ben Cutmore
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Dark Histories have?
Dark Histories currently has 260 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Dark Histories about?
Fortnightly narratives on the unsolved and the unexplained, mysteries, historical true crime, touches of the paranormal and cultural peculiarities.
How often does Dark Histories release new episodes?
Dark Histories publishes regularly with 260 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Dark Histories?
You can listen to Dark Histories on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Dark Histories?
Dark Histories is created and hosted by Ben Cutmore.
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