May Blackburn & The Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven

The technological breakthroughs of the 19th century were, to many people, both equal parts exciting and terrifying. Known as the black arts, the newly emerging techniques of commercial photography were often spoken about as though they were a mysterious or even supernatural process. Of course, there was nothing supernatural about the new technology, at least, not for most photographers. When William Mumler picked it up as a hobby, lured in by his attraction to a local studio owner and a propensity to tinker, he decided to lean into the mystery by offering a spyhole into the unseen world of the dead, shooting portraits of clients sitting alongside the spirits of their lost loved ones. SOURCES Manseau, Peter (2017) The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost. Houghton Mifflin, MA, USA Capron, E.W. & Barron, H.D. (1850). Singular Revelations: Explanation and History of the Mysterious Communion with Spirits, Comprehending the Rise and Progress of the Mysterious Noises in Western New York. 2nd ed. Auburn, NY: Capron and Barron. Nartonis, D. K. (2010, June 1). The Rise of 19th‐Century American Spiritualism, 1854–1873. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01515.x The London Evening Standard (1869) From Our Own Correspondent.  11th May, 1869 The Banbury Advertiser (1869) Spiritualistic Photography. 29 April, 1869 Elgin Courier (1863) Spirit Photographs. 6 February, 1863 ------ 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Kesä 20201h 9min

This week we go back to the Penal Colonies of Australia to visit a story of grimey adventure, with Alexander Pearce, a convict who escaped into the bush and then, naturally, ate all his friends SOURCES Knopf A., Alfred, (1987) The Fatal Shore: A history of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787-1868, Collins Harvill, UK Collins, Paul, (2004) Hells Gates, Hardie Grant Books, Australia  Boyce, James. “Return to Eden: Van Diemen’s Land and the Early British Settlement of Australia.” Environment and History 14, no. 2, “Australia Revisited” special issue (May, 2008): 289–307. Convict Life, libraries.tas.gov.au/family-history/Pages/Convict-life.aspx. Pearce, Alexander, talis.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fNAME_INDEXES$002f0$002fNAME_INDEXES:1424923/one. “The Land of the 'Free': Criminal Transportation to America.” The History Press, www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-land-of-the-free-criminal-transportation-to-america/. ------ 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

31 Touko 20201h 6min

In 1871, the seaside town of Brighton, England saw one of the more bizarre cases of the Victorian age play out when a lady of the town, Miss Christiana Edmunds, found her romantic feelings for a local doctor knocked back. As the pain of the unrequited love affair became too much, Christiana attempted and failed to commit murder and then in a perverse effort to clear her name, decided to carry out a mass poisoning campaign. SOURCES Wohl, Anthony S. (1983) Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain. Cambridge: Harvard UP Jones, Kaye (2016) The Case of The Chocolate Cream Killer: The Poisonous Passion of Christiana Edmunds. Pen & Sword History, Barnsley, UK Brighton Gazette (1871) Borough of Brighton, £20 Reward. 17 Aug, 1871. p.4. Brighton Gazette (1871) Alleged Wilful Poisoning. 24 Aug, 1871. p.6. Brighton Gazette (1871) The Alleged Poisoning By Sweets. 29 June, 1871. p.7. Brighton Gazette (1871) Mysterious Death Of A Child - Suspected Poisoning. 15 June, 1871. p.5. (1871) Poisonous Sweets. Clerkenwell News, 24 June, 1871. p.3 (1871) Summary Of This Mornings News. Pall Mall Gazette, 23 June, 1871. p.4. ------ 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Touko 20201h 23min

The witch trials throughout medieval europe have become renowned for their relentless, brutal torture and widespread execution. Whether floated as a form of class warfare, patriarchal dominance or religious persecution, the stories that remain are pitch black with their depictions of callous violence. Likewise, the legacy of The Medieval Inquisition, is too one of severe brutality and overzealous, corrupt authoritarians crushing those with differing beliefs and lifestyles. Despite this, there is one story from history of a group of individuals in Northern Italy that whilst crossing over with both The Inquisition and witch trials, somehow came out the other side with relatively few casualties. So unbelievable were the stories that came from the individuals involved, that The Inquisitors themselves wrote many off as simple fantasists in the face of their sincere admissions. Known as the Benandanti, this was a group of people whose story was truly one of the strangest in the myths, legends and lore of historical Witchcraft. SOURCES Ginzburg, Carlo. (1966) The NIght Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The John Hopkins University Press, MD, USA. Peters, Edward M. (1989) Inquisition. University of California Press, CA, USA ------ 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Touko 20201h 7min

The world of the strange has always held a certain draw. The pull of a mystery, the intrigue of a natural obscurity or the exciting twists of the unexplained. This was a market that was heavily seized upon in typical bombastic fashion in America during the 19th Century when the art of the humbug was refined, polished and displayed on a grande stage by the likes of P. T. Barnham and his museum of magic, conjuring and social, cultural and natural oddities. In 1869, a new chapter in the pantheon of the strange was freshly penned with the discovery of a 10 foot tall petrified human giant on a farm in Cardiff, New York. As one might expect, all was most definitely not, what met the eye and the saga would, if nothing else, slot right in as suitably bizarre.   SOURCES   Dodge, J. Roy, (2018) Cardiff & its Environs, Lafayette, New York.    Barnham, P. T., (1865) The Great American Humbug, Lapham's Quarterly, Accessed Online: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/swindle-fraud/great-american-humbug   Murphy, J., (2012) The Giant & How He Humbugged America, Scholastic Press, NY, USA.   ------ 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Huhti 20201h 4min

In December of 1909, a few days before Christmas, the murder of a wealthy old woman in Glasgow sparked a cascade of events that would go on to write an incredible story of prejudice, conspiracy and eventual justice. Featuring a starring role by none other than the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it was then and remains still, one of the most fascinating, perplexing and straight confusing incidents of cause celebre in modern history.   SOURCES   Doyle, Arthur C. (1912) The Case of Oscar Slater. Leopold Classic Library. London, UK   Roughead, William. (1910) The Trial of Oscar Slater. William Hodge & Company, Glasgow, UK   Toughill, Thomas (2006) Oscar Slater: The Immortal Case of Sir Conan Doyle. The History Press, London, UK   Fox, Margalit. (2019) Conan Doyle for the Defence: A Sensational Murder, the Quest for Justice and the World's Greatest Detective Writer. Profile Books, London, UK.   ‘Glasgow West End Murder. Slater Trial Opened,’ Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette, Greenock, 04 May 1909, P. 4.   ‘Glasgow Flat Tragedy. Slater On Trial,’ Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette, Greenock, 05 May 1909, P. 4.   ‘The Slater Trial. Third Days Proceedings,’ Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette, Greenock, 06 May 1909, P. 4.   ‘Glasgow West End Murder. Slater Found Guilty,’ Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette, Greenock, 07 May 1909, P. 4.   ------ 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Huhti 20201h 41min

Something a little different this week, as you may have guessed from the title. All is explained at the start of the episode, but the long and the short of it is that the episode I completed for this week, seemed, in light of the current events, somewhat tasteless to me if I'd have released it right now. So... for now that episode is benched to return at a later date and instead, I put together a very quick episode introducing the genius of M R James and have narrated two of my favourite of his stories for your listening terror!   Normal service will be resumed from next episode, I appreciate the patience for bearing with me on this one and I hope you all understand where I was coming from in making this last minute switcheroo. Cheers! ---------------------- 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Maalis 20201h 19min

Stories of human-animal hybrids have existed for centuries, from the ancient Greeks, to modern Hollywood cinema, as humans, we have always held a fear and reject the idea of science meddling with genetics in uncomfortable ways. Creating wild stories of half human-half beast monsters, or conspiracy theories of hushed up, top secret laboratories operating on man made mutations, the fundamental fear of the hybrid has persisted. Our mythology, folktales and conspiracies have created fictional accounts which horrify some, and morbidly entertain others, but whilst the story of Stalin's desire to create a half man, half ape, super warrior army may be entirely fictional, the science behind stories such as these is far from made up. SOURCES: McNamee, Shane Patrick. (2015) Human-Animal Hybrids and Chimeras: What’s in a Name? European Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 6/1, No. 11. Rossianov, Kirill. (2002) Beyond Species: Il’ya Ivanov and His Experiments on Cross Breeding Humans with Anthropoid Apes. Science in Context, Vol XV. Fridman, E. P. & Bowden, D. M. (2009) The Russian Primate Research Center - A Survivor. Laboratory Primate Newsletter, Vol 48, Number 1. Etkind, Alexander (2008) Beyond Eugenics: The Forgotten Scandal of Hybridizing Humans and Apes. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Regal, Brian (2009) Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press Inc. CT, USA. Sykes, Bryan. (2015) The Nature of the Beast: The first genetic evidence on the survival of apemen, yeti, bigfoot and other mysterious creatures into modern times. Coronet, London, UK. McNulty, Timothy (1981) Chinese Aim To Implant Human Sperm in Chimps. Chicago Tribune, Feb 12 1981. Accessed Online 5 March 2020: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sbdaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rFgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6991%2C3347287 ------ 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/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Maalis 202059min