Our co-hosts needed a few more days to finish editing your newest Horrific History Podcast episode, so we’re giving you a small teaser from our recent Patreon-exclusive episode! Listen to Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender tell you about the exciting non-profit program, Haunting Ellensburg, to which they’ve been dedicating so much of their free time!

This ten minute excerpt is just part of the entire 60-minute episode wherein Eric and Curtis talk about how they met and started working together, other programs that they work together on and more!

Check back at the end of this week to hear […]

Have you ever had the experience of waking up but being unable to move? Did you feel the sensation of “the intruder” in your room restraining you? At least 40% of the population has had this experience and people from different times and places have had different explanations for it. Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender, your Horrific History co-hosts, explore folklore and the paranormal as they dig into the history of sleep paralysis through the ages.

 

Discover how these “waking hallucinations” have taken the form of witches, demons, vampires, fairies, ghost children and more (as well as which new theme only appeared after the space race)! Nightmares such as these have been connected (usually erroneously) to all sorts of things in the waking hours, from the Salem witch trials to UFOs and alien abductions! It all depends upon which dream interpretation (or doctor!) you choose! But, if you see in your life the expected result after such an encounter in your waking dreams, would it be a case of causation or correlation?

 

When people from all parts of the world from all across time have similar experiences but see or interpret it differently depending upon their cultural background and time in history, could it be that it’s all the same thing? If you’re religious you’re likely to experience demons or possession. If you like horror movies, sci-fi or conspiracy theories it might be aliens or monsters. And, those with exposure to fantasy or fairy folklore may see goblins or […]

Listen to our co-hosts describe how they bit off more than they could chew (but thankfully they avoided wolfsbane from our Toxic Plants episode)! As volunteers for the Horrific History Podcast, we suppose we can give them a little leeway. They are, after all, doing a lot of work at the moment for our non-profit’s other programs like Haunting Ellensburg and Knights of Veritas, in addition to maintaining their day jobs! You’ll be able to learn more about them and all that they do in the upcoming behind the scenes Patreon-exclusive episode scheduled to be released at the end of this month.

Come back next week for our sleep paralysis episode and then we’ll go back to our usual publishing schedule and release the regularly scheduled episode the following week! Meanwhile, listen to Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender give you a special preview of what you can look forward to in our next episode… just remember, no squeam allowed!

If you’d like to hear the upcoming Patreon-exclusive episode and receive other great perks, become a patron of our podcast on Patreon!
Become a Patron!

 

Blog post photo credit: col_adamson Brokenness via photopin (license)

Slideshow photo credit: macabrephotographer Parts via photopin (license)

19 Sep / 2017

Historical Incest

In Horrific History’s Inbreeding episode we talked about several cases of incest in history, many of which resulted in horrible results in the genetic lottery for offspring (especially after multiple generations). For your reading enjoyment, we found an article which talks about some of the cases we discussed, as well as several you may not be familiar with… just remember, no squeam allowed!

To read the article, click here.

 

Slideshow photo credit: sea turtle Ancient Faces (5) via photopin (license)

Not Your Garden Variety Episode: Toxic Plants

Can you identify all the plants in your yard or garden pots? After hearing this episode, you may never look at them (or honey products) the same way again! Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender, your Horrific History co-hosts, explore some pretty (and highly toxic)  plants from across the globe. From nightshade to wolfsbane, and rhododendron to barbasco, this episode will have you questioning the biological warfare applications of your garden plants… just remember to watch how much you use!

 

Discover which invading armies might have thought of new territory as the “Lands of Tainted Honey.” While Xenophon weighs in with his thoughts on the matter, discover the awful side effects of the wholly natural (but toxic to mammals) “mad honey” which had a history of being used as a tool of violent conflicts long before Draco Malfoy thought to lace a mead with poison.

 

The “queen of poisons,” derived from […]

In Horrific History’s most recent episode about some of the precursors to different labor movement across the globe in history, Eric covered some pieces of history contemporary to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. While we may never know exactly how many died and the ways in which they lost their lives (many deaths and details have been lost to history and/or gone unrecorded) in the construction of the bridge, we do know that some were crushed by falling stones, killed by cables, or fell from great heights. Most deaths, however, seem to have come from “the bends” which was covered in our decompression sickness episode.

 

We found a source of information for those who are interested in learning more about the unsung builders of “The Great East River Bridge and some of the working conditions which led them to later organize and strike. Just remember, no squeam allowed!

 

Slideshow photo credit: Kai Lehmann brooklyn bridge (NYC) via photopin (license)

Profits Before People: Assassinations, Disasters & Child Labor

What are the worst job conditions you have ever experienced or known about? What were your biggest concerns? Join Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender, as they scratch the surface on the long struggle for workers’ rights in human history when the profit margins of the rich and powerful have hung in the balance. From Venice to pre-Soviet Russia, Europe to the United States, the guys cover a lot of space and time in this episode while discussing some of the precursors to different labor movements and our modern Labor Day.

 

Learn about the Italian glass industry monopoly so coveted that the purchase of their work could have bankrupted a country. Its success, in large part due to its workers’ isolation in a “gilded cage” on the island of Moreno, allowed some to “marry up” while others feared a private police force which could carry out assassinations of themselves and […]

It was the solar eclipse!

Hello Squeamers!

Your next regularly scheduled and eagerly anticipated podcast episode from Horrific History was almost ready for publishing when we suddenly had some very unexpected technical difficulties. Since our last episode was about Harbingers of Doom: Celestial Events and Superstitions and two of our volunteer staff went to see the event in its totality…. we’re just going to go with the superstitions of old and say the eclipse somehow fried our hard drive. We’re in the process of trying to do data recovery so we can get you your episode as quickly as possible, but our best guess at the moment is that the Chinese dragon or dog that “ate the sun” also ate our latest episode.

So send us some positive vibes, tell us your favorite technological superstitions and give us your best recommendations for inexpensive data recovery programs online (when the computers won’t even recognize the bricked external drive) and we’ll get you your next episode as soon as we can. Or, if you’re feeling really generous, you can go to our Support Us page, click the donate button, and help us raise the funds to pay professionals to fix our equipment since we don’t have a computer guru on staff!

 

Keep squeaming! We’ll be back in your podcatcher just as soon as we can!

 

Slideshow photo credit: Ömer Ünlü Old Wehicle via photopin (license)

Blog post photo credit: Horrific History Podcast

22 Aug / 2017

Help Us Grow!

Help Us Grow!

Eric with his tektite!

We have so many ideas for what we want to be able to give our listeners: weekly (free) episodes, fun bonus visual content for our social media and website (like the original photos we were able to include with this post), swag and merchandise (including, eventually, gag gifts like Tzi-Clips-I-Pro Supplements), fun bonus audio content, and even some personalized items like ringtones and opportunities to communicate directly with Eric and Curtis! Unfortunately, we just don’t have the capability to expand to those areas quite yet.

 

Horrific History Podcast is still a passion project, brought to you by […]

Harbingers of Doom: Celestial Events and Superstitions

 

Aztec Sun Stone

What kind of superstitions or myths do you think of when you look up at the stars? Every culture has them; there have been stories developed all over the world to explain star constellations or natural phenomena like solar and lunar eclipses, comets, meteors and more. When the sun provides warmth to help the crops grow and night skies are used to measure the passage of time, it’s not surprising that any unexpected or unusual phenomenon is assigned meaning when the science isn’t sophisticated enough to distinguish between causation and correlation. Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender, explore beliefs related to celestial events from across the globe.  Hindu serpent demons, China’s dragons (or dogs) and modern conspiracy theorists watching for alien spaceships, we have a lot of “bad omens” for your enjoyment.

 

Lunacy and humours, werewolves and witches, […]