ABOUT THIS PODCAST 🔗

Update frequency:
bimonthly
Average audio length:
25 minutes
Guest interviews
Has sponsors
English
United States
21 episodes
since Dec. 3, 2019
episodic

LATEST EPISODE 🔗

We humans have always been fascinated by the things that frighten us. In this episode of Weird Historian, Marc Hartzman speaks with psychologist Coltan Scrivner, author of Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away (Penguin Books), about why we are drawn to horror films, haunted …

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Meet George “The Giant” McArthur, a sideshow performer who swallows swords, eats fire, pounds nails into his nose—and collects oddities. Oh, and he was also in Tim Burton’s wonderful film, Big Fish. We first met more than 20 years ago at showman Bobby Reynold’s home while I was writing American Si…
Is there life outside of Earth? More than a hundred years ago, there was widespread belief that intelligent Martians were an advanced civilization and contact with our interplanetary neighbors was inevitable. Science journalist and author David Baron explores this early fascination with Martians i…
Tim O’Brien is a photojournalist, publicist, and author who’s covered the odd and unusual throughout his career, from sideshows and carnivals to roller coasters and roadside attractions—and during his time with Ripley’s, just about everything in between. In this episode, you’ll hear about his stran…
The Rev. Dr. David Adamovich is better known as The Great Throwdini—the world’s fastest and most accurate knife thrower. In this episode of Weird Historian, you’ll hear how he discovered his unusual talent for throwing knives, how he developed the Veiled Double Wheel of Death, how he gets through a…
If you watched Season 15 of America’s Got Talent, you probably remember Brett Loudermilk—the guy with the pink hair who made Sofia Vergara freak out on stage when he asked her to pull a sword from his throat. Find out how Brett got started in the world of sideshow and how his talents took him on a …
In the late nineteenth century, a visit to a dime museum would offer all sorts of wonders, from magicians to sword swallowers to various human oddities. And if you were lucky, you might've seen Evatima Tardo get nailed to cross and bitten by poisonous snakes. Talk about entertainment. Tardo felt …
When we take our next giant leap and put boots on Mars, or launch space tourism, we’ll want to raise a glass and toast to the achievement. Hear about the last, present and future of alcohol in space from author and Explore Mars CEO, Chris Carberry.
In this interview with Lee Speigel, co-producer and co-writer of The Phenomenon, Weird Historian looks to the sky for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Recorded on Nov. 2, 2020.
Bruce Haack was an innovative musician in the ‘60s & ‘70s who created some far-out music for children. His record label, Dimension 5, was all about the dimension of imagination. Twenty years ago, I tried contacting him from another dimension — a dimension beyond the veil. Hear the story, as tol…
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