A decent, hard-working reformer walks into the 1850s, discovers spiritualism, and decides electricity can save the world. That’s not a metaphor. We’re telling the true story of John Murray Spear, a Universalist minister and outspoken abolitionist who believed people and systems could be redeemed, then took that same hope and aimed it at building a literal mechanical messiah.

We talk through why spiritualism was so contagious in mid-19th century America: the Fox sisters, seances as social events, automatic writing, and the idea that invisible forces might be “science” when electricity itself still feels magical. We also get into why the movement created a rare platform for women, since mediumship let them lead gatherings and speak with authority in a culture that regularly denied them power.

Then it gets truly wild. Spear claims a spirit collective called the Association of Electrizers, featuring famous dead minds like Benjamin Franklin, telepathically sends him blueprints for a device called the New Motive Power. His followers build it from batteries, copper wires, and metal parts, perform rituals to charge it with life force, and stage a full labor-and-delivery reenactment with a chosen “New Mary” to help “birth” the machine into the world. The reaction outside the group is swift and brutal, and the ending raises a question that still matters today: when new technology arrives, how easily can hope turn into belief, and belief into something dangerous?

Listen now, then subscribe, share the episode with a fellow history nerds, and leave us a rating and review. What modern “miracle tech” do you think people are treating like a religion right now?

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Ninety-six people die at a football match, and the first story many hear is that the fans caused it. That tension between what happened and what powerful people claimed happened is why we finally sat down to tell Part 1 of the Hillsborough disaster with the care it deserves.

We start with the Hicks family, lifelong Liverpool FC supporters traveling to Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield for the 1989 FA Cup semifinal. Through Jenny Hicks’s account, we track the day’s key failures in crowd management and stadium safety: congestion at the Leppings Lane turnstiles, the decision to open Gate C, and a narrow tunnel that funnels thousands into already-packed pens behind the goal. We break down how a crowd crush works, why “stop pushing” doesn’t help when movement becomes involuntary, and how metal fencing and crush barriers turn pressure into tragedy.

From there, we follow the aftermath that families had to survive: delayed and disorganized emergency response, loved ones searching without information, and the dehumanizing treatment that compounds grief. Then we confront the media and institutional backlash, including The Sun’s infamous “THE TRUTH” headline and the attempt to frame Liverpool supporters as drunk and violent. Finally, we walk through the Taylor Report, what it proves about South Yorkshire Police and stadium design failures, and why legal accountability still doesn’t arrive, setting up the long fight ahead as inquests narrow the story and return an “accidental death” verdict.

If you care about public inquiry, justice for Hillsborough, and how crowd control failures become national trauma, press play, then subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review so more listeners can find the story.

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This website contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and purchase a product, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of this website and allows me to continue providing valuable content. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I believe in and have personally used or researched.

Kate’s running on a cold, Bradley’s trying to fill in, and somehow that turns into one of our most chaotic History Buffoons hangouts yet. It starts with a Wisconsin detour to Rebellion Brewing Company in Cedarburg, where we meet great people, taste a lineup of beers, and fall hard for a vanilla porter that has no business being that smooth.

Then we flip the switch into a rapid-fire “would you rather” game pulled from our weird history catalog, and the questions get uncomfortably real. Would you rather be Ignaz Semmelweis trying to convince doctors to wash their hands, or be a patient before anyone believes him? Would you rather survive the Tunguska event only to sound insane afterward, assist Robert Liston during a speed surgery, or try to clear a town like Centralia while the mine fire burns underground?

We keep pushing through big, famous stories and darker corners of history: Operation Mincemeat and wartime deception, Andersonville Prison and moral compromise, the Oregon Trail and leadership blame, the Belgica expedition and psychological collapse, Howard Carter opening Tutankhamun’s tomb, the Children’s Blizzard of 1888, Elizabeth Bathory’s legend, the 1925 serum run to Nome with Balto and Togo, Dyatlov Pass theories, the Black Sox scandal, Nero’s performances, and the Radium Girls tragedy. It’s funny, messy, and weirdly revealing, because every choice forces one question: what would you do to survive?

Subscribe for more weird history, share this with a friend who loves impossible questions, and please rate and review us so more curious listeners can find the show.

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This website contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and purchase a product, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of this website and allows me to continue providing valuable content. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I believe in and have personally used or researched.