24 Apr / 2018

H2-OhWait…

What happened? This isn’t the regularly scheduled Horrific History Podcast episode! Both your co-hosts are currently dedicating their energy to recovering from a seasonal bug that took over our offices and are getting ready for public outreach this weekend. Find out where can you go, this Saturday or Sunday, to meet all three of Horrific History’s co-hosts (Eric, Curtis & Jordan) as they offer Knights of Veritas programming at an event in Washington state! Hear about all the fun activities and services they’ll be offering throughout the weekend.

Next week, assuming Eric and Jordan have recovered, we’ll release Part 2 of H2-OhNo! Until then, no squeam allowed.

Slideshow photo credit: wuestenigel Cold Medecine on a White Background via photopin (license)

Blog post photo credit: marcoverch Elektronisches Thermometer via photopin (license)

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17 Apr / 2018

H2-OhNo! Part 1: Raw Water

Α reconstructed appearance of Myrtis, an 11-year-old girl who died during the plague of Athens and whose skeleton was found in the Kerameikos mass grave, National Archaeological Museum of Athens

Just how pure is your raw water source? Do you trust it? Would you drink it? Join your Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they take several trips in the Horrific History time and space machine to look at cases in history when trusted water supplies turned deadly and how some earlier societies handled water quality concerns. Learn how waterborne diseases can help determine the outcome of a war, encourage societies to develop regulations on industry and even kill already starving settlers in a new (to them) land. We’ll also take a brief look at how people have viewed and measured water quality through history (hint: up until recent history water quality was assessed only by human senses), and natural contaminants which can be harmful (or deadly) when you’re drinking water to achieve that healthy glow.

How did scientists prove that typhoid helped determine the outcome of the Peloponnesian War between the Spartans and the Athenians around 430 BCE, and what conditions allowed it to help wipe out an estimated 1/3 of the population in Athens? Is it true that people in the middle ages only drank beer instead of water because the quality was so bad? What made the water so toxic […]

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10 Apr / 2018

Time to Float

Would you drink raw water? Listen to your co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, give you a special preview of our upcoming raw water episode. While our nonprofit had to briefly pull our volunteers from the podcast to do a week of programming for Knights of Veritas and this delayed our scheduled release, we’re on-track to release our new episode next week. Hear some things you can look forward to learning more about in the new episode, what ate up their time and how you have an opportunity to be included in an upcoming episode! Come back next week for raw water but in the meantime, you can listen to Eric Slyter do his Pennywise the Dancing Clown impersonation… just remember, no squeam allowed!

If you want to prepare yourself for our raw water episode, we recommend listening to our Season 1 episodes: For a Healthy Glow & Too Much of a Good Thing. Don’t get caught floating in the sewers while you wait, and we’ll catch you next week!

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Blog post photo credit: pavlinajane Winter puddle via photopin (license)

Slideshow photo credit: Curtis Gregory Perry Puddles via photopin (license)

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27 Mar / 2018

The Starvening, Pt. 2: Winter Cannibalism 2

A facial reconstruction of “Jane of Jamestown” is seen during a news conference at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Scientists announced during the news conference that they have found the first solid archaeological evidence that some of the earliest American colonists at Jamestown, Va., survived harsh conditions by turning to cannibalism presenting the discovery of the bones of a 14-year-old girl, “Jane” that show clear signs that she was cannibalized. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

From the last episode, we know Jamestown’s English settlers got their colony off on the wrong foot; this week, join your Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they get to the meat of the subject and explore both the period accounts of cannibalism in addition to the recent related archeological finds. What led the Jamestown colonists to experience such desperation that they would themselves engage in murder, grave-robbing, and the eating of human flesh? Which famous person from the colony wrote a book to profit off those same horrors?

We’ll also explore the more recent historical accounts of the 1972 Andes Flight Disaster, also referred to as the Miracle of the Andes, when 45 people aboard a small aircraft crashed atop an unnamed mountain (later named Glaciar de las Lágrimas, or Glacier of Tears) which straddled the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. When the remaining survivors heard on the radio that the search parties had called off the rescue efforts, they had to give up hope or find a way to survive. Hear about the lengths they went to survive the crash and the journey to, without provisions or equipment, climb down a mountain to let the world know they were still alive and needed help. Could you go to the same lengths, eating your deceased family, friends, or even your wife? […]

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13 Mar / 2018

The Starvening, Pt. 1: Winter Cannibalism 2

Have you ever felt your body wasting away? Most of us know what it’s like when we forget to eat for too long, often described as the physical sensation of the stomach “eating itself.” But, what occurs in the body and mind when it’s true over a prolonged period? What more horrible stories from history can still be told about winter cannibalism? Join your Horrific History Podcast co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, for the debut episode of Season 2 as they explore the gruesome effects of starvation and the events which would lead up to cannibalism in Jamestown!

Discover what scientists learned about prolonged semi-starvation through a World War II study called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment […]

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13 Feb / 2018

There’s Something in the Air at Hanford

Hello Squeamers!

The home state of Horrific History Podcast’s co-hosts got into the news today, and the reasons are terrible. Our Hanford Nuclear Reservation made headlines with the on-going drama of radiation leaks of plutonium particles not only detected in 45 workers (so far) but also found outside the safety zone. Is it a case of profits over people at this key facility for the development of the first nuclear weapons? To learn more about the new developments in this compelling situation, read this article. Just remember, no squeam allowed!

Slideshow photo credit: Andras, Fulop Radiation Area 9606_814 via photopin (license)

Blog photo credit: NagasakiOsada civildefenseradiationmeter via photopin (license)

31 Jan / 2018

Once in a Super Blue Blood Moon….

VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA – JANUARY 31, 2018: A red supermoon rises over hills in the city of Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East. Yuri Smityuk/TASS (Photo by Yuri SmityukTASS via Getty Images)

Welcome back Squeamers!

This morning marked the occasion of the super blue blood moon, an occurrence last seen about 152 years ago! Did you miss it? We’ve not seen any catastrophic events in our social media news feeds, so we’re betting it’s safe to say there are no celestial prophesies we need to worry about foretelling doom on the world. Although, humanity is funny when it comes to historical accounts and remembering the difference between causation vs. correlation. There’s a rich history of humans retroactively attributing credit to unrelated celestial events when horrible or unexpected things happen. Nonetheless, there are still those which assign apocalyptic meaning to the entirely predictable clockwork of the universe; for an example, read this article.

If you missed the lunar event, you can find some fantastic images online; here are some of the sources we found:

23 Jan / 2018

Super Blue Blood Moon… of doom?

Hello Squeamers!

Are you expecting the end times to arrive at the end of the month? As you may remember from our Harbingers of Doom episode, even stranger superstitions have developed around celestial events and we’re expecting a rare one on January 31st, 2018! The super blue blood moon, which last appeared in March 1886, seems to be an exception to this trend however. We weren’t able to find any record of associated panic or concern. Apparently a red blue moon isn’t noteworthy enough… or maybe it the masses don’t care if the name implies that it will only impact “blue-bloods?”

To learn more about this rare event (it won’t come around again for 150 years!), you can read this article from ScienceAlert.com.

Photo credit: JDB Sound Photography Lunar Eclipse With Stars – 2010 December 20 2:58am via photopin (license)

9 Jan / 2018

Gonorrhea be Gone?

Hello Squeamers!

It seems whenever we check our news feed or Facebook we always find contemporary articles which relate to the horrible things from history we cover in our episodes; often those articles talk about still awful things can be… but today we found a recent one which talks about hope for the future! If you liked our debut episodes, One Night with Venus, Part. 1 & Part 2, then you might like this article from the BBC about new developments in finding a gonorrhea vaccine!

Slideshow photo credit: Government of Prince Edward Island Administering Flu Vaccine via photopin (license)

Blog post photo credit: Government of Prince Edward Island Administering Flu Vaccine via photopin (license)

2 Jan / 2018

A Squeam-Filled New Year

A Belated Squeam-Filled New Year for the Squeamers!

Traditionally, the time entering a new calendar year is spent reflecting on the year past and goals for the new year beginning. In February 2017 we were proud to bring the Horrific History Podcast, a passion project of two of our non-profit’s most valued and esteemed volunteers, Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender, to the public. It was a year for gory, disgusting fun while learning about historical subjects. We laughed, we squeamed… and so much of our enjoyment came from sharing our love of history with you. Thanks to you, our loyal listeners, we broke into 50 countries and 47 of the United States without a penny spent on promotion! We also got our first two Patreon supporters!

In 2018 we’re bringing to you “Season 2” of our Horrific History Podcast. As with any new program we’re growing, we’re morphing and adapting to our circumstances. Our growing pains may be inconvenient, but we’ll continue to publish the gooey, putrid squeam-filled content you love and stay true to our morbid roots until (hopefully) our stinking corpses rot into the earth. Stay tuned for our upcoming Season 2 trailer… but in the meantime, thank you for helping us grow! Here’s what you’ve helped give us to celebrate….

2017 Reach Milestones (as categorized by our hosting provider and in order of listenership in each category):

Countries: United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Canada, […]