Jan 12, 2020 · 1 hr 18 min
DH
History
Dark Histories
Ben Cutmore
Fortnightly narratives on the unsolved and the unexplained, mysteries, historical true crime, touches of the paranormal and cultural peculiarities.
- 255 episodes
- Updated July 14
Episodes255
- DHDec 24, 2019 · 1 hr 9 min
Christmas Campfire Episode 2019
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! Thank you so much for all your support over the previous year! This years Christmas Campfire is a bumper one, full of diverse and fantastic stories. I thought it was a really great snapshot as to how weird and wonderful the world is and how diverse a range of people listen to the show. Putting it together was an absolute pleasure as always! I start the whole thing off with a short story from M.R James, titled "A School Story" from his 1911 compen
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Nov 25, 2019 · 38 minSeason 3 Finale Bonus
Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening this year! This is the season finale which I sort of didn't expect to do, so I'm releasing a bit of an intro that explains whats going to be happening throughout the Dark histories season break in December and what episodes will be coming out and included a patreon bonus episode for this weeks fix! I hope you enojoy it! Remember, if you'd like to get your story in for the Christmas Campfire episode this year, do go ahead and get your story in to me b
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Nov 10, 2019 · 57 minThe Yatton Demoniac: George Lukins
“Sir, When you can spare room in your Gazette, I think you will not be able to present your readers with an account so extraordinary and surprising, as the following.” So began the letter, written to the Printer of the Bristol Gazette, from the Reverend William Robert Wake in the Summer of 1788. The account he wrote of was one of possession and exorcism that would spark a controversy and ignite bitter debate over belief versus non-belief, enlightenment versus superstition and materialism versus
- DHOct 27, 2019 · 48 min
The Sarah Duckett Ghost Mystery & Other Stories
With Halloween on the horizon, I took time to cover some of the smaller stories that I've dug up over the previous year that weren't chunky enough to fill up a full episode. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!------For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistoriesConnec
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Oct 13, 2019 · 1 hr 2 minSadamichi Hirasawa & The Teigin Incident
Tokyo, Japan, 1948. A man walks into a bank, announces himself to the manager as an official of the local Government Health Department, instructs the staff to take an inoculation medicine and walks out leaving 12 of them dead from poison. Upon first hearing an overview, this might sound like a somewhat unique, but trivial bank robbery. But this is post-war Japan, a country with many secrets and a population with many grievances. SOURCES: Gold, H. (2011) “Japans infamous Unit 731: Firsthand Accou
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Sep 29, 2019 · 1 hr 13 minGraham Young: The Tea Boy
Graham Young was an unusual boy. Infinitely fascinated with chemistry, he devoted large amounts of his early life pouring over thick medical textbooks, educating himself on the properties of various chemical compounds. What stood Graham out from his peers more than his intellect was that his obsession with chemistry revolved almost solely around the usage of various poisons. Curiosity has always been inherently dangerous and this is infinitely more true in the case of Graham Young, when theory t
- DHSep 15, 2019 · 1 hr 49 min
Harry price & The Séance of Rosalie
On a cold December night of 1937, renowned Psychical Investigator Harry Price strode up the steps outside a large, Victorian house in a quiet, well-to-do London suburb. He’d come to the house to partake in a séance, invited by a woman known only as Mrs X whom in their communications leading up to the night, had guaranteed a spirit manifestation for him. Price had seen it all before, he had crafted a career from debunking such fraudsters and in all likelihood, this event was to be much the same.
- DHSep 1, 2019 · 1 hr 3 min
Death Raft: The Wreck of The Medusa
As The Medusa sailed from Rochefort in 1816, many aboard saw bright futures ahead for themselves. They were escaping a country torn asunder, harshly divided by war, revolution and eventual restoration. With the French Empire floundering and a band of Hard-Right ultra-royalists creating laws in France, the promise of a new start in a fresh land was enticing for many. Little did they expect to meet such a high degree of incompetency on their voyage, had they foreseen even a fraction of the horrors
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Aug 18, 2019 · 1 hr 13 minJames Dunham & The McGlincy Murders
Campbell, California. Lying in the heart of Santa Clara County, a periphery city of Silicon Valley and the birthplace of E-Bay. In 1896, 100 years before websites facilitating the auctioning of used underwear and haunted paintings had been dreamt up, Campbell was the scene for a gruesome family killing that saw posses of bounty hunters and bloodhounds, looking to cash in on the reward placed on the head of the murderer, embark on manhunt across mountains and valleys that would span years and eve
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Aug 4, 2019 · 1 hr 4 minWilliam Cragh: The Not So Hanged Man
William the Scabby was lead out to the scaffold on which he was to be hanged. A rebel against the Anglo-Norman rule, he had been sentenced to death on 13 counts of Homicide. Now it was time for him to meet his maker. Except, that is not how the story ends, for though William was hanged “until dead”, he was not to stay as such and later in the day, his miraculous resurrection was witnessed by a large proportion of the population of Swansea, including the highly experienced executioner himself.
- DHJul 21, 2019 · 50 min
Lost & Found: The Mysterious case of Pauline Picard
When Pauline went missing in 1922, all hope was initially lost of her return, until a month later, when she showed up 200 miles away. Her parents collected her, took her home and lived with her for several weeks before a body showed up just 800 metres from their house. The body alone was shocking enough, but quickly became doubly so as it was identified as the body of the lost & found Pauline.SOURCES:‘Whose Child?’ (1922, May 27), The Pall Mall Gazette, London. P.8.‘Killed & Stripped by Foxes’ (
- DHJul 7, 2019 · 1 hr 31 min
Belle Gunness: Lady Bluebeard & The Murder Farm
When the Altic Farm House, on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana burnt down in 1908, locals thought it a tragedy that claimed the lives of three children and their heroic mother, who had died trying to protect them from the flames. During the excavation of the debris, the story flipped on its head as far more than the 4 bodies expected were eventually found. Butchered and cast into pits they were victims of Belle Gunness, a woman the newspapers would come to call the La Porte Ghoul, The Indiana
- DHJun 23, 2019 · 1 hr 29 min
The Dodleston Messages: Ghost in the Machine
On Dark Histories, we hear the words of people lost to history, echoing through the writings of labourers, servants, judges, juries, maids and mistresses exactly as they were written in decades and centuries past. This one way communication with history is always limited by it’s very definition and no matter how much we dig, we can never ask the writers what were they feeling as they wrote each line, and whilst we judge them by the information they give, we can never invite them to ask what they
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Jun 9, 2019 · 1 hr 22 minThe Curious Case of Not Townsend
Getting away with murder has always been a difficult, and ultimately, unlikely affair, even in the 19th Century, before DNA analysis, fingerprint databases, or even any real, proper detective agencies, it was still a challenge that many criminals tried and failed. There were some however, that did manage to achieve the feat, whether it be through cool calculation, or dumb luck, there was always opportunity for the enthusiastic murderer willing to think outside the box. In Canada during the mid-1
- DHMay 26, 2019 · 1 hr 28 min
Detective Whicher & The Road Hill House Mystery
The events that took place in the village of Road during the year 1860 would seem straight out of Victorian detective fiction. The characters played their roles as the family, the live in staff, the day staff and all with their own lives and their own secrets entwined inside the gated middle class household of Road House, one of them guilty of a shocking murder. With all its twists, turns and bombastic, final unravelling, the Murder of Road Hill House is the original whodunnit.Sources:Summerscal
- DHMay 12, 2019 · 1 hr 18 min
Terror in Gévaudan: The Beast
In 1764, France was a tumultuous place. On the eve of Revolution, the peasant farmers of the remote region of Gévaudan were suffering from decades of difficulties, brought about by war, poverty, poor agricultural conditions and plague. As the Summer brought about favourable weather and life for the population of the barren and sparse region should have begun an upswing in fortune, a series of attacks marked the beginning of a reign of terror that would last almost three years, headed by a monste
- DHApr 28, 2019 · 1 hr 26 min
The Balham Mystery: The Death of Charles Bravo
In April, 1876, Charles Bravo took to his bedroom, rubbed a dose of laudanum into his gums and poured himself a glass of water from the jug on his nightstand. Within minutes of retiring to bed, Charles Bravo fell desperately ill. Within two days, he would be pronounced dead, the victim of Antimony poisoning. Suicide, manslaughter and murder have been cast forward by amateur historians and famous crime writers alike. 145 years on, some have claimed to have solved the mystery of the death of Charl
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Mar 31, 2019 · 1 hr 1 minWaverly Hills: The History & The Hauntings
A much requested episode on the history of Waverly Hills, a Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Kentucky. These days, it features in just about every bad cable TV show on ghosts all around the world, but whats the reality behind the decrepit walls that are left standing today? And how much truth is there to the ghosts that allegedly walk the halls? Sources: Thomas, C. C. (2007) With their dying breaths: A history of Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium. C C Thomas, 2007 Opening of Waverly Hill Sanatori
- DHMar 17, 2019 · 1 hr 7 min
Lurancy Vennum & The Watseka Wonder
This week, we have a story of a 19th Century spiritual possession, when 14 year old Lurancy Vennum began suffering from fits that eventually led her to visiting heaven, speaking with angels and finally, taking in the spirit of deceased 19 year old Mary Roff, the daughter of local spiritualists.