Timesuck with Dan Cummins - podcast cover

Timesuck with Dan Cummins

Jump down new rabbit holes with Timesuck, the weekly podcast that takes you on a fascinating and bizarre journey through history’s darkest corners, most shocking conspiracies, and wildest true stories. Hosted by acclaimed standup comedian and storyteller Dan Cummins, each episode blends dark humor with deep research to uncover hidden truths about infamous historical figures, unsolved mysteries, notorious serial killers, and more. If you crave the weird, the wild, and the unexpected, Timesuck is your next obsession! And check out the Short Sucks, a new series of 40-60 minute episodes two Fridays a month. These bite-sized stories are perfect for when you want a quick dose of Timesuck (or need more addictive content to consume while you’re waiting for your next Timesuck!)

Episodes

151 - Lost Technologies!

Lost technologies! Greek fire, Damascus steel, the pyramid building abilities of ancient Egypt, India's flying vimanas, Rome's miracle medicine, the Antikythera Mechanism and so much more. We look into various claims of ancient technologies lost to time. Did they exist in the first place? Were they in any way superior to modern equivalents? A lot of historical mysteries explored on a Timesuck that bounces all over the place and was a blast to research and record. Hail Nimrod! Feel the Heat album...

Aug 05, 20192 hr 13 min

150 - Belle Gunness and Her Murder Farm

Hinker du teh hoingy boingy! Uff da! Uff da! Tiddly winks teh dingy thingy. Don't worry - not all of today's show is in Norwegian (and neither is that gibberish). Talking about Norway's infamous export, serial killer Belle Gunness, today on the Suck. It seems as if she had begun to operate a "murder farm" in Laporte Indiana at the dawn of the twentieth century. We'll never know exactly how many people Belle killed, but we do know a lot about her story. Motivated by money, she sacrificed both str...

Jul 29, 20192 hr 21 min

149 - OJ Simpson

OJ Simpson. It's been twenty-five years since his *alleged* murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. You've heard about the murders. You've heard about the trial. But how much do you really know about "The Juice"? We dive deep today on the life of OJ and look into his childhood, football playing days, acting career and more to establish just why his trial was so shocking. Feel the Heat album Link : https://bit.ly/2WVJuax Donating $2600 this month: 100+ Abandoned Dogs of Everglades Florida Rescu...

Jul 22, 20193 hr 31 min

148 - Robert "The Butcher Baker" Hansen

Serial killer Robert Hansen abducted and killed at least seventeen women and hunted many of them down in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1970s and 80s around Anchorage. This bakery owner and sport hunter was convicted in 1984 after confessing to killing seventeen women, mostly dancers and prostitutes, during a twelve-year reign of terror. Hansen led a very strange dual life - a happily married, donut-making father of two, while at the same time frequenting Anchorage's strip joints looking for youn...

Jul 15, 20192 hr 9 min

147 - Revolutionary War

Less than a week after the 4th of July, we Suck into the birth of the United States of America. We glance at some of the war's important battles and important figures, but, more importantly, we dig deep into the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. What went down between King George and the Founding Fathers that left colonists feeling like going to war with arguably the most powerful empire in the world was a good idea? How important was George Washington to America's eventual victory? If...

Jul 08, 20192 hr 21 min

146 - The Black Dahlia Murder Mystery

Who killed Elizabeth Short in 1947? We still don't know. Or do we? Today we go over the details of the Black Dahlia murder mystery - to this day the most infamous murder in Los Angeles history. We also go through a long list of suspects and take a close look at the guy I think did it. Will you come to the same conclusion I did? Find out today, on another true crime edition of Timesuck! Feel the Heat preorder Link : https://bit.ly/2WVJuax Come to my standup special taping at Crofoot in Detroit on...

Jul 01, 20192 hr 15 min

145 - Josef Fritzl: Austria's Monster

On April 19th, 2008, forty-two year-old Elisabeth Fritzl helped her seventy-three year-old father Josef carry their nineteen year-old unconscious daughter Kerstin - yes, THEIR daughter, you read that right - out of a small, windowless cellar that Kerstin had literally spent her entire life inside up until this point. That day, Elisabeth felt sunlight on her skin for the first time in twenty-four years. For over two decades, she had been imprisoned and continually raped by her own father. And she...

Jun 24, 20192 hr 23 min

144 - The Texas Killing Fields

Since 1971, well over thirty women have disappeared along a fifty mile-long patch of I-45 between Houston and Galveston. Some refer to this stretch of the Gulf Freeway as a highway to Hell, and to the marshy land around it as "The Texas Fields." Initially, the press only referred to one twenty-five acre patch of land in League City, an abandoned oil field, as the Texas Killing Field after the remains of two women were found in early 1986 on the same day. And both bodies were found near where a t...

Jun 17, 20192 hr 6 min

143 - America's Homeless Epidemic

Really hope you enjoy this one. One of my favorite episodes so far. Such a big topic that touches so many lives. What is the history of homelessness in America? Why are people homeless now? Who is homeless now? What is being done to help the homeless? What COULD be done to help? I touch on mental health issues, substance abuse, economic conditions, good ol' fashioned laziness, and more. I also share a lot of personal homeless encounters and really try to look at this issues from as many sides as...

Jun 10, 20192 hr 15 min

142 - Darwin Awards and Evolution

The Darwin Awards! Meatsacks removing themselves from being able to procreate or from the planet entirely in the most easily avoidable ways. Natural selection at work! We make light of a lot of death today, and also use this topic as an excuse to look into evolution theory and the man who put it on the map - Charles Darwin. Is evolution more than just "a theory"? Can we prove it worked? Did we really evolve from monkeys? Did a guy in Australia really try to kill a tiger with his bare hands after...

Jun 03, 20192 hr 15 min

141 - Albert Fish: NY Killer and SUPER Creep

Albert Fish. The Boogey Man. The Werewolf of Wysteria. The Brooklyn Vampire. The Gray Man. The Moon Maniac. A sexual sadist, sexual masochist, kidnapper, con artist, cannibal, torturer, murderer, and the kinkiest mofo I have ever read about. This tale is equal parts dark and captivating. Fish is the train wreck you can't stop staring at. After his capture in 1934, he would claim to have molested and raped around 400 children. He also admitted to killing three children and was sent to the electri...

May 27, 20192 hr 10 min

140 - The Legend of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and More

Do you enjoy knights, wizards, and dragons? How about medieval history? Folklore, maybe? Want to learn how England became England? We learned a lot about the beginning of the mythology that has led to our cultural fascination with knights, jousting, sword fighting, dragons, and everything medieval in this Suck. There would be no Game of Thrones without Arthurian legend. No Lord of the Rings as we know it. No Dungeons and Dragons. Also, the biggest Timesucker Updates ever with a lot of poignant p...

May 20, 20192 hr 10 min

139 - The Vietnam War

Today we talk about Vietnam. Do you know how the Vietnam war began? What events really led up to it? You will after this episode. You'll learn about centuries of foreign occupation at the hands of the Chinese and the French, and how colonial oppression led to a willingness to accept communist ideology. Communism may not be fun, but neither is being ruled by the French. We go over battles and the American counterculture's response to the battles. A LOT of info packed into this one. One of America...

May 13, 20192 hr 25 min

138 - The Brutal KGB and Russia's Long History of Secret Police

Back to the USSR! Talking about Mother Russia's long history with BRUTAL various secret police agencies terrorizing its own people today on the Suck. Gonna go over the GULAG forced labor camps, gonna talk about the US vs. USSR Cold War spy game, a brief history of spy and secret police agencies in non-Russian parts of the world, and so much more in a Suck that gets about as dark as a show can in various moments. Be glad you don't live in constant fear of the government throwing you in a brutal p...

May 06, 20192 hr 11 min

137 - Madame Delphine LaLaurie: How Evil Was She?

Did Madame Delphine and her Dr. husband really torture their slaves in the most horrific of ways at the now infamous LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal St in the French Quarter of New Orleans? Or are the stories of firefighters walking into a burning structure in 1834 and finding horribly mutilated bodies just part of New Orleans ghost tour folklore? We do our best historical detective work as we examine the lives of one of the most infamous women to ever live in one of American's most interesting c...

Apr 29, 20192 hr 17 min

136 - The Moon Landing Conspiracy

2019 is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing! Yip, yip, yaw! On July 20th, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, two American astronauts, landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on the moon. The Eagle has landed! And then, some six hours later, Neil became the first human to take one giant leap for mankind. And then Buzz followed Neil onto the moon's surface less than twenty minutes later. OR... did none of that ever happen? Did the several Apollo missions that foll...

Apr 22, 20192 hr 23 min

135 - Vikings!

Vikings! We take a deep dive today into the history of Scandinavia, focusing in particular on the age of the Vikings! We look into what they wore, how their society was structured, why they became associated with barbaric raping and pillaging, and so much more. Viking culture is fascinating, complex, and honestly - pretty weird. And strange people make for a fun Suck. Hail Nimrod! Donate to our charity of the month! Cameron Owens National Fallen Firefighter’s Foundation Stair Climb http://events...

Apr 15, 20192 hr 11 min

134 - Napoleon MF'n Bonaparte!

Napoleon! A man who knew before he died he would be remembered as being one of the most important European leaders in history - and boy was he right. He's regarded by many military historians as being one the best military strategists of all time. Dude was SUPER hard to beat on the battlefield but he was defeated several times - mostly because pretty much every other nation in Europe joined forces and ganged up on France to defeat him. He'd be born on a little island not bothering anyone and he'...

Apr 08, 20192 hr 12 min

133 - Mikhail "The Werewolf" Popkov: Russia's Most Prolific Serial Killer

Former Russian police officer Mikhail Popkov was found guilty on December 10th, 2018 of killing fifty-six people in Siberia. All but one victim were women between the ages of seventeen to thirty-eight. He was given a second life sentence. He already had a life sentence he'd been given in 2015 when he was convicted of murdering twenty-two Russian women. He used his badge for years to lure women into his car, drive them out into the woods, and brutally rape and kill them. And the whole time he was...

Apr 01, 20192 hr 43 min

132 - Order of the Solar Temple Doomsday Cult

On October 4th, 1994 the dead bodies of two Solar Temple cult members and their baby are found in Morin Heights, Quebec. All three have been stabbed to death. The baby has had a wooden dagger run through its heart in an obvious ritual killing. Forty-eight other cult members would take their lives that evening. And then another sixteen in 1995. And then five more in 1997. Why? Why did so many cult members take their own lives? What did these people believe in? Madness. They believed in so much ma...

Mar 25, 20192 hr 19 min

131 - Disappearances, Hidden Cities, Murders and More: National Park Mysteries

The origin of the Chupacabra legend! UFO sightings in Yosemite. A giant, lost Egyptian city in the Grand Canyon. Another underground city supposedly inhabited by mystical Lemurians in Mount Shasta. Mysterious murders. Unexplained disappearances. Haunted camp lodges. Cursed land. The birth of a cult that exists unto this day. Myths, monsters, aliens, ghosts, and more in today’s cornucopia of strange, national park mysteries edition, of Timesuck! Upcoming Happy Murder Tour Standup dates: March 28 ...

Mar 18, 20192 hr 12 min

130 - Casey Anthony - Free and Guilty?

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Wow! I have never read about someone who told lies - big lies - more often and consistently than Casey Anthony. On July 5, 2011, a Florida jury found Casey Anthony “not guilty” of counts one through three regarding first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and aggravated child abuse. However, many people, including myself, think she definitely killed her young daughter. Why do I think that she for sure, 100% did it? Find out on today's "how the Hell did ...

Mar 11, 20192 hr 9 min

129 - Ted "The Unabomber" Kaczynski

Ted Kaczynski, aka "The Unabomber", is an American domestic terrorist who conducted a seventeen-plus-year series of attacks, using mail bombs to target academics, business executives, and others. This mathematical genius wanted to destroy man's dependence on technology. Luckily, he failed miserably. The Unabomber bombing campaign killed three people and injured 23, starting in the late 1970s and lasting until 1996. Learn why Ted did what he did in today's crazy mountain man, weirdo beardo editio...

Mar 04, 20192 hr 8 min

128 - Serial Killer Pedro "Monster of the Andes" Lopez

South American serial killer Pedro "Monster of the Andes" Lopez was convicted of killing 110 girls in Ecuador in 1983. He claimed to have killed roughly 350 between Ecuador, Peru, and his native Columbia. He spent only fourteen years in prison for those 110 Ecuadorian murders and then another three years in a Columbian psychiatric ward for additional murder conviction in that country, and then he was set free in 1998. He may still be alive and free today. Find how this dirtbag was able to walk f...

Feb 25, 20192 hr 47 min

127 - Pedophile Island

Should we banish pedophiles to an actual island? That's essentially what Washington state has been doing since 1990 with the Special Commitment Center for sexually violent offenders deemed to be at a high risk to re-offend. McNeil Island is about two miles off the coast of Tacoma and has about 240 dangerous sexual predators living on it. If we're not gonna put these people on an island, what should we do with them? We thoroughly address the dicey topic of sex offenders - who they are, how many t...

Feb 18, 20192 hr 54 min

126 - The Black Panthers

The Black Panthers! A very controversial civil rights group originating in Oakland, California in 1966. Formed by young revolutionaries Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in response to police brutality that become commonplace in Oakland. Based on the teachings of black nationalist Malcom X, the Black Panthers became a national organization that aggressively sought social justice for black Americans. They also became a huge target of the FBI and ended up getting in numerous violent clashes with law enf...

Feb 11, 20192 hr 20 min

125 - The Black Death

The Black Death killed between 25 and 75 million people in Europe alone in just over five years! This terrifying outbreak of the plague killed roughly 1/3 of the entire world’s population, dropping it from an estimated 450 million down to around 350 million. It's been labeled by various historians as The Greatest Catastrophe Ever. And we explore it's spread, how it killed you, who it killed, how it was treated (so crazy), and much more on a wild medieval ride today on Timesuck! We're donating $1...

Feb 04, 20192 hr 1 min

124 - Mothman

The Mothman is a strange creature reportedly witnessed mainly in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia between November 12, 1966, and December 1967. It’s described as a winged, man-sized creature with large reflective red eyes and large moth-like wings. Sometimes it appeared to have no head, with its eyes set into its chest. Was it real? Is it just folklore? Did anything strange roam the West Virginia woods in late 1966 and early 1967 outside of just the imagination of the people who lived th...

Jan 28, 20192 hr 7 min

123 - Serial Killer Ed Kemper: The Co-ed Killer

Born on December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California, Edmund Kemper, at age 15, killed both his grandparents to "see what it felt like." He turned himself in and was sentenced to a state mental healthy facility where this killer with a genius level IQ manipulated psychiatrists into thinking he was cured. The 6'9" 280lb murderer almost immediately began a gruesome murder and necrophilia spree. One of the darkest subjects we've covered, today, on Timesuck. January 24th-26th New Brunswick, New Jersey ...

Jan 21, 20192 hr 8 min

122 - Cleopatra: Queen. Seductress. Product Of SO MUCH INCEST!

Whopper of a tale for you today. Battles, incest, murder, betrayal, and more! Born in 69 BCE, Cleopatra VII was part of the Macedonian dynasty that took over rule of Egypt in the late 4th century B.C. A dynasty full of a PREPOSTEROUS amount of incest and murder. SO much. During her reign, she forged political alliances and became romantically involved with Roman military leaders Julius Caesar and Mark Antony - bearing sons for month men. She could've ended up ruling Rome. Instead Rome pushed her...

Jan 14, 20192 hr 53 min