Obscurarium

Obscurarium

History's weirdest, wildest, and most jaw-dropping moments—unpacked, dissected, and brought to life in ways your textbooks never dared. The audio companion to Obscurarium newsletter, where we crack open obscure tales with extra dirt, bonus chaos, and juicy details that didn't make the written piece. Forgotten inventors who changed everything. Bizarre events that sound like fiction. People who did unhinged things that shaped our world. We dig where others don't. Want stories that make you say "how have I never heard of this?" Let's get weird. www.obscurarium.com

Episodes

  1. 3 DAYS AGO

    The Dancing Plague of 1518

    July 1518. Strasbourg. A woman named Frau Troffea steps into the street and begins to dance. No music. No celebration. Just compulsive, uncontrollable movement. Within days, dozens join her. By month's end, 400 people are dancing in the streets—day and night, unable to stop. Feet bleed through shoes. Ribs crack from constant exertion. People die from heart attacks, strokes, and pure exhaustion. They scream for help while their bodies keep moving. The city's solution? Build a stage, hire musicians, and make them dance more. In this episode, we unpack one of history's most bizarre and terrifying events: how an entire city lost control of its own bodies, why the authorities' "cure" made everything worse, and what modern science tells us about mass psychogenic illness. Plus: the ergot theory, St. Vitus's curse, and why New York City banned dancing for 91 years. ------ Find all the show notes and transcript at obscurarium.com

    13 min

  2. 31 JAN

    Welcome to 1565: Population 500

    There's a place in Europe where no car has ever driven, where, until 2008, you needed permission from a feudal lord to get married or divorced, and where one man owned the entire island. This isn't a Renaissance faire. It's the island of Sark—a two-square-mile speck in the English Channel that somehow missed the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the invention of democracy. For 443 years, it operated under a contract signed by Queen Elizabeth I, frozen in the 16th century by legal paperwork nobody bothered to update. In this episode, we explore how an administrative glitch became a time capsule, why billionaires tried to modernize it (and spectacularly failed), and what it's like to live in a place where the year is still effectively 1565. Plus: the pigeon monopoly, tractor ambulances, and why preserving medieval stubbornness accidentally gave Sark the darkest skies in the world. Transcript and show notes available at https://www.obscurarium.com/p/podcast-episode-page-welcome-to-1565-population-500

    10 min

  3. 25 JAN

    The Great Emu War

    November 1932. Western Australia. The Australian military mobilizes with Lewis machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition to face a devastating enemy: 20,000 emus with an unfortunate taste for wheat. What followed was one of the most embarrassing defeats in military history—not because the enemy had superior tactics or firepower, but because they were six-foot-tall birds who refused to cooperate with being shot. This is the story of the Great Emu War: how World War I veterans armed with machine guns were systematically outsmarted by flightless birds, why the operation became an international laughingstock, and what it reveals about humanity's often disastrous attempts to wage war against nature. Spoiler: The emus won. Decisively.

    13 min

  4. 22 JAN

    The Pirates Who Looted The Reich's Pride

    Bartholomäus Schink was sixteen when the Nazis hanged him without trial beneath a railway overpass in Cologne. His body was left swinging for days as a warning. His crime? Membership in the Edelweiss Pirates—working-class teenagers who said no to the Hitler Youth and paid for it. But here's the twist: after the war ended, Germany still didn't want to call them heroes. While university students who distributed pamphlets got monuments and films, these street kids got erased. For sixty years, they were dismissed as delinquents and criminals. The question is: why? In this episode, we dig into the resistance Germany tried to forget and uncover what it reveals about class, memory, and who gets to decide which rebels become martyrs and which ones stay buried. Spoiler: history loves a clean story. The truth is a hell of a lot messier. Find out more at obscurarium.com

    14 min

  5. 22 JAN

    The Great Guano Madness | The Forgotten Scramble That Gave America Its Imperial Playbook

    Bird poop. That's what built America's empire in the Pacific. In 1856, while Europe was carving up Africa, the U.S. Congress passed one of the most audacious laws in American history: any citizen who found an island covered in seabird droppings could claim it for America. No diplomacy required. Just plant a flag, and the President would back you with gunboats. What followed was absolute chaos—nearly 200 islands claimed, naval standoffs over guano deposits, Supreme Court cases about sovereignty over rocks that vanish at high tide, and labor conditions so brutal they sparked deadly revolts. All for fertilizer that could triple crop yields and fuel the explosives industry. In this episode, we crack open the strangest gold rush in history and uncover the dark ironies nobody talks about: how America's territorial grab mirrored Europe's Scramble for Africa, how synthetic chemistry eventually made it all obsolete, and how the legal framework invented for bird-crap islands became the blueprint for American control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and beyond. Plus: the ecological devastation, the geopolitical absurdity, and why nine of these forgotten rocks are still U.S. territory today. Find out more on obscurarium.com

    14 min
  • 5 Episodes

About

History's weirdest, wildest, and most jaw-dropping moments—unpacked, dissected, and brought to life in ways your textbooks never dared. The audio companion to Obscurarium newsletter, where we crack open obscure tales with extra dirt, bonus chaos, and juicy details that didn't make the written piece. Forgotten inventors who changed everything. Bizarre events that sound like fiction. People who did unhinged things that shaped our world. We dig where others don't. Want stories that make you say "how have I never heard of this?" Let's get weird. www.obscurarium.com

Information

  • Creator
    Obscurarium
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Obscurarium
  • Show Website
    Obscurarium