80 episodes

This is After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal. The podcast that takes you to the shadiest corners of the past, unpicking history’s spookiest, strangest, and most sinister stories.
Join historians Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling, every Monday and Thursday to take a look at the darker side of history. From haunted pubs and Houdini, to witch trials and weird UFO sightings.
After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal - a podcast by History Hit, the world's best history channel and creators of award-winning podcasts Dan Snow's History Hit, Gone Medieval, and Betwixt the Sheets.
Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK - sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.
You can take part in our listener survey here.

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal History Hit

    • History

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

This is After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal. The podcast that takes you to the shadiest corners of the past, unpicking history’s spookiest, strangest, and most sinister stories.
Join historians Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling, every Monday and Thursday to take a look at the darker side of history. From haunted pubs and Houdini, to witch trials and weird UFO sightings.
After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal - a podcast by History Hit, the world's best history channel and creators of award-winning podcasts Dan Snow's History Hit, Gone Medieval, and Betwixt the Sheets.
Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK - sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.
You can take part in our listener survey here.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

    Last Witches of England

    Last Witches of England

    This is the dark history of the last people to be executed for witchcraft in England. In 1682, Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards, from the town of Bideford in the South-West of England, were tried and hanged as witches. They were convicted on the flimsiest of evidence under the cynical eye of uncaring authorities. Their fates encapsulates the turmoil of the seventeenth century and its deadly consequences.

    Our guest today is John Callow, author of "The Last Witches of England" and friend of the podcast - check out John's previous appearance on our episode about the Pendle Witches.

    Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Sophie Gee, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

    The ‘Genius’ Killer: Murderer with Largest Brain in History

    The ‘Genius’ Killer: Murderer with Largest Brain in History

    The so-called 'Genius' Killer was a murderer who seemed to be both philosopher and psychopath, whose brain was one of the largest ever recorded. But was Edward Rulloff really as smart as all that?
    Maddy tells Anthony the story of a husband who murdered his wife and child, killed an innocent shop clerk in a petty theft, and still somehow managed to convince the world he was a 'genius'.
    Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.
    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ 

    • 41 min
    Prison Hulks: Floating Hells for Convicts

    Prison Hulks: Floating Hells for Convicts

    Convicts, illegal dissections, disease, all taking place on ships described as "Wicked Noah's Arks" where conditions were even worse than in notorious prisons like Newgate. Transportation to Australia awaited those who survived, and they counted themselves the lucky ones. Today it's the dark history of the Prison Hulks.
    Our guest is Dr Anna McKay from the University of Liverpool who researches the lives and experiences of prisoners across the British maritime world. Her essay 'Allowed to die?' won the Royal Historical Society's Alexander Prize and her latest book proposal is shortlisted for the 2023 Ideas Prize. https://www.anna-mckay.com/ 
    Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.
    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/

    • 38 min
    Enfield Poltergeist: 1970's Suburban Horror

    Enfield Poltergeist: 1970's Suburban Horror

    The Enfield Poltergeist is Britain's most infamous haunting - set in the late 1970s on the outskirts of London, it continues to be told and retold. Most famously in the film The Conjuring 2.
    But this is a real piece of history about a real family and a young girl, Janet, who became the focus of newspapers, paranormal investigators and - if we believe what we're told - a malevolent poltergeist.
    Written by Anthony Delaney.
    Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.
    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ 

    • 46 min
    The Witch of New York: 1840's Murder Trials of Polly Bodine

    The Witch of New York: 1840's Murder Trials of Polly Bodine

    On Christmas night 1843 a mother and child were found murdered inside their burned out home. Suspicion fell on one Polly Bodine. Over the next three years, Polly became the most infamous person in America in a blockbuster series of murder trials that gave birth to a monster - tabloid justice.
    Our guest today is author Alex Hortis whose book The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice is out now.
    Edited by Freddy Chick, Produced by Charlotte Long & Freddy Chick.
    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ 

    • 41 min
    The Real Mutiny on the Bounty: Revenge in Paradise (Part 2)

    The Real Mutiny on the Bounty: Revenge in Paradise (Part 2)

    Mutineers, manhunts, uninhabited tropical islands and...SHIPWRECKS! The second part of the story of the Mutiny of the Bounty is even wilder than the first. This time we follow HMS Pandora as it hunts down the mutineers, and uncover the incredible story of how a group of mutineers and Polynesians escaped to the uninhabited island of Pitcairn.
    Written by Maddy Pelling.
    Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.
    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ 

    • 44 min

Top Podcasts In History

20th Century Revolutions
Matt Payne
This is History: A Dynasty to Die For
Sony Music Entertainment
The Curious History of Your Home
NOISER
Today In History with The Retrospectors
The Retrospectors
Rear Vision — How History Shaped Today
ABC listen
Mandela: The Lost Tapes
Richard Stengel

You Might Also Like

Not Just the Tudors
History Hit
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
History Hit
Gone Medieval
History Hit
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
The Ancients
History Hit
Talking Tudors
talkingtudors