The story of the Donner Party is one of the most disturbing tales of western migration during the time of Manifest Destiny, the common 19th-century belief that the United States was destined to expand across the entire continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Well, the destiny of many of the members of the Donner Party was to spread their actual bones around a frozen Sierra Nevada mountain camp as they were eaten by other members of their party. That's what they manifested. Theirs is a ...
Jul 02, 2018•2 hr 44 min
Today we’re talking about the Aztecs! The Aztecs built a vast empire, one that outpaced, out-staged, and out-populated the likes of Paris at the time. They were a powerhouse warrior based society with an interesting obsession with human sacrifice. When did they show up? When did they build their empire? And what happened when the Spaniard Hernan Cortes showed up with 400 soldiers? An amazing city built on a lake, a prophecy falsely fulfilled, the worst ball game ever played, and a lot of violent...
Jun 25, 2018•2 hr
The Knights Templar fought their last stand in the Holy Land (their last proper stand) in Acre in 1291 and shit was epic. They went down, but, they didn't go down easy. And then, less than two decades later, a corrupt French King forced a weak Pope into ending the long reign of the Knights Templar. And by 1312, according to historians, the Order of the Knights of the Temple had been completely dissolved. Or were they!?! Conspiracy theorists say no. They say the Knights have done all kinds of shi...
Jun 22, 2018•2 hr 49 min
The Knights Templar was founded in 1119 CE on the principles of chastity, obedience and poverty - but they soon, ironically became immensely wealthy and obedient to almost no one but themselves and the Pope. The Templars financed wars, built castles, ran cities, raised armies, and so much more. From meager beginnings they became as mighty an outfit as existed during the later Middle Ages. They were more powerful, wealthier, and better armed than some entire medieval kingdoms. Today, more than se...
Jun 18, 2018•2 hr 52 min
The Ma Barker gang robbed bank, after bank, after drugstore, after hardware store, clothing store, Chevy dealership, jewelry store, and still more banks in the early 1930s. They committed more robberies and took more lives than the much more famous Dillinger Gang. The Dillinger Gang was active for less than one year. The Barker-Karpis gang was active from 1931 to 1935. FDR called them out on national radio during one of his famous fireside chats, referring to them as “an attack on everything we ...
Jun 11, 2018•2 hr 57 min
On Tuesday, April 24th, 2018, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was taken into custody by local police and FBI agents when he stepped outside his Citrus Heights home, a quiet suburb of Sacramento. The man believed to be the East Area Rapist, also known as the Golden State Killer, the Visalia Ransacker, and the Original Night Stalker had finally been captured, forty-four years after his crime spree began. He’d started ransacking over 100 Sacramento area homes in 1974. He’d progressed from burglary to ra...
Jun 04, 2018•2 hr 52 min
Edgar Allan Poe did more than write The Raven and look creepy. He also basically invented the modern detective story. He was America's first "master of suspense" according to Stephen King and many other modern authors. He changed the way American authors wrote scary stories. He changed the way authors in general approached their craft, both creatively and business-wise. And yet he died penniless after a lifetime of financial struggle. And he married his thirteen-year-old first-cousin and died a ...
Jun 01, 2018•2 hr 52 min
Joan of Arc was BURNED ALIVE on May 30th, 1431 CE, something no one ever aspires to have written on their obituary. She fought to end the Hundred Years' War between England and France on behalf of Charles VII, the King of France she would help crown. How did a rural farmer's daughter with no military training end up in charge of thousands of French soldiers? Why did Charles even allow a seventeen year old girl into the army in an age when women didn't go to war? Prophecies fulfilled, battles fou...
May 28, 2018•2 hr 3 min
An alarming number of Japanese citizens have taken a dark pilgrimage to the Aokigahara forest, more commonly known as Japan’s suicide forest, to end their lives, most commonly by hanging themselves from some of the forest's tree branches. Why? Why here? Why is a small patch of serene forest the second most popular suicide destination in the world, thought to trail only the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco? We’re gonna break down Japan’s suicide dilemma, both within the suicide forest and outs...
May 21, 2018•2 hr 45 min
Cold Open: The Men in Black. The men who inspired the movies, not Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Who or what are they? Aliens? Extra top secret government officials specializing in suppressing UFO-related information? Modern folklore? Absolute and utter whackadoodle, crystal-powered horse shit? All of this and more explored on a Suck that veers a little less dark than recent episodes and maybe a little more fun. Let’s get paranormal! Let’s try to explain the unexplainable! Let’s get weird, toda...
May 14, 2018•2 hr 42 min
From August seventh to September tenth, 1888, a crazed killer who came to be known as "Jack the Ripper” terrorized the Whitechapel district of London's impoverished East End. This extremely violent sadist brutally killed at least five prostitutes, mutilating their bodies in a highly unusual manner. And today we Suck into the details of his crimes, who he could’ve been, who his victims were, and how absolutely terrible life was for the economically enslaved inhabitants of the East End of London a...
May 11, 2018•2 hr 54 min
Gary "The Green River Killer" Ridgway is currently in prison in Walla Walla, Washington, having been convicted of 49 different murders, most of which took place in the early and mid-1980s. It took investigators nearly 20 years to catch this seemingly normal suburban married Seattle-area father and big rig painter by day and young prostitute murdering monster by night. But thankfully, he was caught thanks to the Green River Task Force never giving up. We cover the life and horrible times of the m...
May 07, 2018•2 hr 53 min
The Spanish Inquisition started in 1478 and lasted all the way until 1834 - and it was terrible the whole time. But it was at its worst in the first hundred years, when thousands and thousands of innocent people living in the new Spanish Empire were ruthlessly tortured and many of them burned alive for, mostly, maybe being Jewish in a country that was aggressively Catholic. Find out how the Catholic church rose to power, how the Spanish empire was formed, why inquisitions were carried out, and h...
Apr 30, 2018•2 hr 50 min
In 1973, 21 year old German college student Anneliese Michel began to descend into an existence of pure and utter madness. She had begun to see the faces of demons appear around her with increasing frequency. She awoke more and more often in the middle of the night, unable to move, unable to scream out, feeling an evil presence overtake her body. Her life had become a never ending parade of visits to doctors and prayer. And neither priest nor neurosurgeon seemed able to help her. And for the las...
Apr 23, 2018•2 hr 59 min
Anneliese Michel would die in a small, German town on July 1st, 1976. The official cause of death? Malnutrition and dehydration. But why did she stop eating? Mental illness? She’d seen a plethora of doctors for years, none of whom could determine, beyond epilepsy, exactly what was wrong. Brain scans revealed nothing abnormal. Why was she hearing voices? Was she simply suffering from a mental illness local doctors just weren’t knowledgeable enough to identify and treat? If so, how does mental ill...
Apr 20, 2018•1 hr 29 min
The Lost Books of the Bible! Is that really what we’re talking about today on Timesuck? Yes. Was I super excited to dive into this topic when I found out our Space Lizard listeners voted it in on the app? No! I mean, we just did an episode last week with a strong Christian theme! And now we’re doing another? Yep. And it's awesome. Turns out, once again, the wisdom of the Space Lizard community has surpassed my own. This is a great topic! A fascinating topic. A very hard topic to research - you g...
Apr 16, 2018•2 hr 42 min
The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), founded by hatemonger Fred Phelps, is an American church (cult) known for protesting funerals with preposterously homophobic signs and for its use of inflammatory hate speech, especially against LGBT+ people. They also hate Catholics, Jews, Muslims, soldiers, America, and more. They hate almost everyone. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the WBC, “arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America.” Find out why they believe what they do, and ...
Apr 09, 2018•2 hr 30 min
The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most famous psychological studies ever conducted. In 1971, newly tenured psychology professor Richard Zimbardo turned the basement of the Stanford University psychology department into a fake prison where young male volunteers were divided into the roles of Prisoner and Guard . The study was meant to last two weeks. But the brutality of the Guards and the suffering of the Prisoners was so intense that it had to be terminated after only six days. Find ...
Apr 02, 2018•2 hr 32 min
Serial killer Richard Ramirez killed at least 14 people and raped and tortured at least two dozen more, mostly during the Spring and Summer of 1985. He robbed to support his coke habit and and he tortured, raped, and killed to both sexually satisfy himself and to appease Satan. Ramirez was WAY into Satan. He’d actually pray to the Devil for protection before sneaking into some innocent family’s home to brutalize, rape, and kill. And today, if you have the stomach for it, you can learn all about ...
Mar 30, 2018•2 hr 48 min
Toughest topic I’ve tackled so far. Marches going on across the country to ban assault rifles. School walkouts. Gun rights advocates staging their own protests. Celebrities posting all kinds of feel good, emotional quotes. But are we looking at this issue the right away? After my research this past few weeks, I don't think so. Let's stop polarizing this discussion. The current issue runs a lot deeper than getting rid of a gun or class of guns. So let’s go deep, Timesuckers! Prepare to be bombard...
Mar 26, 2018•2 hr 37 min
On Friday, April 25th, 1986, the Soviet city of Pripyat, built to support the local nuclear power plant Chernobyl, had 13,414 apartments, a hospital, a movie theater, an art school, a central park with a giant ferris wheel, and over 50,000 residents. And then, at 1:23AM on Saturday, April 26th, 1986, the number 4 reactor heated up to more than 100 times its usual operating power. Which is very, very bad. After a few explosions and a lot of radiation kicked out to the atmosphere, by April 30th, t...
Mar 19, 2018•2 hr 31 min
The Bielski brothers led the largest Jewish-led rescue operation of Jewish civilians in ALL of World War II. They saved over 1,200 men, women, and children by hiding them in the forests of Western Belo-russia, from 1942-1944. More than 20,000 descendants of the survivors the Bielski’s helped save are alive today because of the ingenuity, heart, and perseverance of these men. They led numerous attacks against the German forces, sabotaging their war and round up efforts, killing their soldiers, an...
Mar 12, 2018•2 hr 41 min
Aleister Crowley was many things: an author, an artist, a poet, a mystic, a student, a mountaineer, a world traveler, and a notorious occultist. He shocked Victorian and post-Victorian England and the Western World at-large with his "Satanic" ways. He was permanently banned from both Italy and France before his death. He believed in magic, real magic, and tried to conjure mythical spirits into our world. He performed bizarre "sex magick" rituals that shocked polite society. He developed the spir...
Mar 09, 2018•2 hr 54 min
What in the shit are we talking about this week? Norse Gods! Turns out they’re still being worshipped today. Who knew? Well, our own Timesuck editor Jesse Dobner for one, who is a practicing Asatruar. Apparently a lot of people in Iceland also knew and quite a few in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Even a few Timesuckers. I didn’t. I thought Thor was a comic book character whose Marvel mythology kicked off three really successful movies and made Chris Hemsworth a star and Stan Lee even more money- ...
Mar 05, 2018•2 hr 34 min
Tupac and Biggie - two of the biggest hip hop stars of all time. And neither of them would see the age of 26. Their West Coast/East Coast rap feud helped sell millions of records, helped launch the career of Puff Daddy. It cemented Death Row Records as one of the greatest hip hop labels of all time. I listened to a ton of Tupac growing up. And who hasn’t heard some Biggie? But how much do we really know about either man? Well, after today’s episode, you’ll know a lot. Biggie, biggie, biggie, can...
Feb 26, 2018•2 hr 44 min
Feb. 28th, 2018 will mark the 25th anniversary of the ATF raiding the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco Texas, setting off a 51 day armed standoff between federal agents and militant Christian fanatics. Over 80 people would die, most in the final day of the siege when a fire would burn the compound to the ground, killing nearly all of the men, women, and children still inside. Tanks versus citizens. Armed agents versus armed zealots. Religious freedom versus gun laws and the age of consent. And b...
Feb 19, 2018•2 hr 52 min
When murder investigators entered the rural farm house of loner Ed Gein just outside the tiny town of Plainfield, Wisconsin on November 16th, 1957, they found a scene like nothing any American investigator had ever seen before. A scene of outlandish, unimaginable horror. Body parts stored in bags and boxes. And so much skin. Human skin crafted into the stuff of nightmares. How could all of this horror come from a slight, soft-spoken, middle-aged local loner and farm-hand? Find out today on a mor...
Feb 16, 2018•2 hr 44 min
The Irish Republican Army. Guys and gals who have, since their inception, been viewed as a liberation force by some and a terrorist group by others. They fight for the liberation of Northern Ireland from whom they view as British oppressors. But, as you’ll find out today - their case isn’t so simple. Their cause not obviously just. They’ve been lighting up Northern Ireland and England with bombs and gun fire for damn near 100 years. Why? Does Northern Ireland even need or want liberating? We dig...
Feb 12, 2018•2 hr 44 min
I recently watched the new 4th season of Black Mirror on Netflix, and, if this season has a theme, I’d say it’s the concept of digital immortality. Can human consciousness be transferred into digital form? And, if so, is this digital version of ourselves as alive as the old carbon-based model? I keep thinking about this possibility, because, for the first time in human history, it does seem possible. And I’m not the only person who thinks so. We talk a lot about the past here on Timesuck, and we...
Feb 05, 2018•2 hr 33 min
Before this week I knew very little about Africa’s history. It’s a continent of many nations, nations whose boundaries and governments are near constantly in some state of transition. It’s a beautiful continent rich in wildlife, natural resources, and culture but suffering under perpetual war, famine, and chaos. There are currently 15 African countries experiencing either war or post war tension. Why? Well, turns out the trouble has a lot to do with good ol’ fashioned European imperialism. We kn...
Jan 29, 2018•2 hr 46 min
