New York journalism in 1897 was in a pretty technicolor space. Newspapers, so long the grey, stolid, medium of the merchants and businessman, were instead being filled with lurid stories of murder, scandal and drunken debauchery and the public were loving it. As papers fought for readers in the streets, sometimes quite literally, the stories that filled the ... Show More
Oct 27
Mob Football, Murder & The Possession of Anne Gunter
It’s fairly rare for a football match to end in murder, witchcraft accusations and vomiting pins, but, as weird as it sounds, it apparently does happen. Or at least, it happened once, in 1605, when a small village in Oxfordshire had a kickabout that turned violent. Years later, a ... Show More
55m 30s
Oct 12
The Strange Disappearance of Rudolf Diesel
SOURCES Brunt, Douglas (2023) The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel. Atria Books, London, UK. Edinburgh Evening Dispatch (1913) The Missing Inventor. Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, Thurs 2 Oct 1913, p2. Edinburgh, UK. New York Times (1913) Dr Diesel Vanishes From A Steamship. New Yor ... Show More
52m 56s
Jun 2018
Hearst vs Pulitzer - The Headless Torso, Part 2 | 2
In 1897, America looked very different. Carriages rolled through the streets of New York. Mass media was just growing up, and Hearst was convinced that carrier pigeons - hunted to extinction by 1914 - were what would give his paper the edge during the early days of the Headless T ... Show More
22m 40s
Jul 2020
William Guldensuppe Pt. 1
On June 26, 1897, four boys discovered a package wrapped in red oilcloth floating in New York City’s East River. It contained the upper torso of an unknown man, launching one of the largest media murder mysteries ever, and igniting newspaper wars that would last a decade. Learn m ... Show More
48m 16s
Jun 2018
Hearst vs Pulitzer - The Headless Torso, Part 1 | 1
This is the beginning of a mystery, a great business rivalry, and a look into American history. To tell the story of Hearst vs Pulitzer, we called our friend Lindsay Graham over at American History Tellers for help.The Headless Torso mystery is about a jilted husband, a German mi ... Show More
24 m
Jun 2018
Hearst vs Pulitzer - The Price of News | 3
In 1883, 15 years before the Headless Torso Murder, New York City's population was rapidly growing and the newspaper scene was pretty sleepy. The city's nearly 50 daily papers, even the small New York Times, was a pretty sedate bunch, informing citizens about zoning board decisio ... Show More
21m 34s
Jan 2017
E28: The Hall-Mills Murder
Two corpses are found posed under a tree in New Brunswick, New Jersey. An heiress, a reverend, a cheating wife, a charming bachelor, the local oddball, and the love affair that turned deadly—with this cast of characters, it’s no wonder the case kicked off one of the biggest media ... Show More
37m 59s