The Weird History Podcast focuses on obscure, horrible, and strange corners of history. New episodes appear roughly weekly.

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237 A Danger Shared with Bill Lascher

A Danger Shared: A Journalist’s Glimpses of a Continent at War is the latest book from Portland journalist and author Bill Lascher. Bill joined us to talk about WWII in Asia through the eyes of journalist Melville Jacoby, his own […]

236 Piracy in the South China Sea with Rita Chang-Eppig

By all reasonable metrics Shek Yeung, who raided the South China Sea in the early 1800s, is one of the most successful pirates of all time. In her new novel Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea author Rita […]

235 Shakespeare Versus Hedgehogs

William Shakespeare seems to have hated hedgehogs. We don’t quite know why, but it could have something to do with how the tiny animal is depicted by the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. Special Thanks to Jamie Jeffers of The […]

234 Lupercalia

Before Valentine’s Day, ancient Romans celebrated a festival of fertility in the shadow of the Palatine Hill. Lupercalia was a popular holiday that featured blood, goat sacrifice, and getting whipped by naked guys.

233 The Golden Fortress with Bill Lascher

During the Dust Bowl city officials in Los Angeles, fueled by anti-communist paranoia and xenophobia, were determined to keep migrants out of California. To that end, they dispatched the LAPD to remote border crossing points far outside the city in […]

232 Navigating the Asian Maritime World with Eric Tagliacozzo

Eric Tagliacozzo is a professor of history at Cornell University, and his new book In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds From Yemen to Yokohama outlines five centuries of maritime history in the Asian world. In this wide-ranging interview, we discussed how […]