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PODCAST

Wait! That Actually Happened?

Daniel P. Douglas

Podcast about history"s most unbelievable true stories. From wars against birds to dancing plagues, discover the absurd events your teacher never mentioned. authordanielpdouglas.substack.com

history documentary

All Episodes

13:13

Podcast - The War of Jenkins’ Ear

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/12/03

In 1731, Spanish coast guards boarded British Captain Robert Jenkins’ ship, tortured him, and sliced off his ear before telling him to “take it to your king.” Jenkins did something even better. He pickled the ear, carried it around for eight years, and eventually showed it to Parliament, where his testimony sparked public outrage that forced Britain into a nine-year war with Spain. The War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-1748) saw one of the largest naval invasions in history fail spectacularly at Cartagena,

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13:33

Podcast - The Radium Girls of the 1920s

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/11/11

In the 1920s, hundreds of young American women were hired to paint watch dials with radium paint that made them glow in the dark. Their employers told them it was completely safe, even encouraged them to lick their brushes to create fine points, while company executives used lead shields and protective equipment when handling the same material. The women, thinking it was harmless fun, painted their nails and teeth with the glowing paint for parties.Within years, their teeth fell out, their jaws

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13:53

Podcast - The Tulip Mania of 1637

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/10/29

In this episode of “Wait, That Actually Happened?” we explore Tulip Mania, the world’s first recorded financial bubble that gripped Holland from 1633 to 1637. During the Dutch Golden Age, tulip bulbs became so valuable that single bulbs sold for ten times a skilled worker’s annual salary, and people traded entire houses for just three rare bulbs. The market operated through taverns turned into flower exchanges, where merchants and craftsmen traded futures contracts on bulbs that hadn’t even grown

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11:14

Podcast - The Bal des Ardents, or “Ball of the...

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/10/16

This Party Was Fire!On January 28, 1393, King Charles VI of France and five nobles dressed as “wild men” for a masquerade, covering themselves in pitch (tar) and flax to look hairy and savage, then chaining themselves together for a group dance. When the king’s brother arrived late with a torch and got too close to investigate the costumes, the highly flammable outfits instantly ignited, creating human torches chained together. Four nobles burned to death while the king only survived because his

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12:38

Podcast - The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/10/09

On January 30th, 1962, three girls at a mission school in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) started giggling and couldn’t stop, triggering one of history’s strangest epidemics that would last 18 months and affect over 1,000 people. The uncontrollable laughter spread from Kashasha School to nearby villages, forcing 14 schools to close as students laughed continuously for days or even weeks, experiencing pain, fainting, and terror rather than joy. The epidemic primarily affected young women and students in

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13:10

Podcast - The 1904 Olympic Marathon

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/10/02

When the Olympics Decided Water Was Bad and Poison Was GoodThe 1904 Olympic Marathon in St. Louis remains the most catastrophic Olympic event ever held, when organizer James E. Sullivan deliberately withheld water from runners in 90-degree heat as a “scientific experiment” to study dehydration. Of 32 starters, only 14 finished the dusty 24.85-mile course that wound through traffic on dirt roads. Thomas Hicks “won” after his trainers fed him multiple doses of strychnine sulfate (rat poison) mixed

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13:12

Podcast - Victorian Fern Fever

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/09/25

When Ladies Fought in the Mud for PlantsIn the 1850s, Victorian Britain experienced “Pteridomania” or Fern Fever, when the entire nation became obsessed with collecting ferns to the point of ecological disaster. Wealthy women abandoned society events to crawl through mud hunting rare specimens, single ferns sold for months of working wages, and collectors hired teams to strip entire valleys bare of every fern they could find. The mania was so intense that people built special glass buildings just

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12:21

Podcast - Emperor Norton I

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/09/17

When San Francisco Crowned Its Own KingIn 1859, a broke businessman named Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor of the United States, and amazingly, the entire city of San Francisco just went with it. For 21 years, Norton I issued decrees (like ordering a bridge to be built exactly where the Bay Bridge stands today), printed his own money that stores actually accepted, and was treated like real royalty by everyone from police officers to Mark Twain. When he died in 1880, 10,000 people attended his

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11:37

Podcast - The Kentucky Meat Shower of 1876

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/09/11

On March 3, 1876, chunks of fresh red meat fell from a clear Kentucky sky for several minutes, covering an area the size of a football field around Mrs. Allen Crouch's farm in Bath County. The meat appeared fresh enough that two men tasted it raw (declaring it mutton or venison), and samples were preserved and sent to scientists who couldn't agree whether it was horse lung, bear muscle, or even human infant cartilage. The leading scientific explanation, published in medical journals, was

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10:45

Podcast - The War of the Oaken Bucket

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/09/03

Yes, you read that correctly.In 1325, medieval Italy witnessed one of history's most ridiculous wars when Modena stole a wooden bucket from Bologna's city well. What should have been a minor prank between rival city-states escalated into full-scale warfare, with Bologna sending 32,000 soldiers to reclaim their bucket while Modena defended it with just 7,000 troops. The Battle of Zappolino resulted in over 2,000 deaths, proving that medieval honor was apparently worth dying for—even when it involved

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11:07

Podcast - The London Beer Flood of 1814

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/08/28

On October 17, 1814, a 22-foot-tall vat containing 135,000 gallons of beer exploded at London's Horse Shoe Brewery, triggering a catastrophic chain reaction that released 388,000 gallons of porter into the streets. The resulting beer tsunami raced through the St. Giles slum at 25 miles per hour, demolishing houses, drowning eight people including children, and creating surreal scenes of human nature at its worst—locals arrived with buckets to collect free beer from streets where people had just

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10:13

Podcast - The Dancing Plague of 1518

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/08/28

In July 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing in the streets of Strasbourg and couldn't stop. Within days, dozens had joined her in this compulsive, uncontrollable dancing; within a month, up to 400 people were dancing themselves to death. The city's authorities, consulting the best medical minds of the time, prescribed the worst possible solution: more dancing, complete with hired musicians and constructed stages to "help them dance it out of their systems." This catastrophically bad

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9:42

Podcast - The Great Emu War

Wait! That Actually Happened? ·

2025/08/28

In 1932, farmers faced an invasion of 20,000 emus devastating their wheat crops in Western Australia. Their solution? Call in the military with machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. What followed was one of history's most absurd "wars"—a month-long campaign where trained soldiers with automatic weapons failed spectacularly against large, flightless birds. Despite multiple operations, strategic adjustments, and thousands of bullets fired, the military managed to kill perhaps 200 emus out of

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13 results

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