logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2024
32m 39s

CLASSIC: London Made a Train for the Dea...

iHeartPodcasts
About this episode

In the mid-19th century, London was literally filling with corpses. When the city was in the grips of a cholera epidemic, the already-overfilled cemetaries couldn't handle the extra bodies. So when there's literally no room in the soil for another dead body, what's a city to do? To the creators of the London Necropolis Railway, the answer was simple -- build a train for the dead. Tune in to learn some grisly, ridiculous history with Ben and Noel.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
Yesterday
The Chicago Tylenol Murders
<p>For most people, Tylenol is nothing more than an ol' stand-by, over-the-counter pain reliever. Yet, as Ben, Noel and Max learn in today's episode -- this wasn't always the case. Today's episode takes the boys to 1980s Chicago, when a ghoulish series of still-unsolved murders r ... Show More
39m 23s
Nov 22
CLASSIC: Benjamin Franklin's Advice On "Finding A Mistress"
<p>Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was a man of many interests, but his endeavors were by no means limited to technical innovation, philosophy and politics. In fact, throughout his life he had a reputation as an irredeemable lech -- literally, in later years, a dirty old man -- ... Show More
31m 43s
Nov 20
Wait! Can a tree really own itself?
<p>Do you have a favorite tree? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max head over to the famous college town of Athens, Georgia where -- legend has it -- one guy was so enamored with his childhood oak that he ultimately deeded it to itself. How much of the story is true? Can a tree ... Show More
42m 22s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2024
BrainStuff Classics: Why Did London Once Have a Train for the Dead?
As London grew throughout the 1800s, it became clear that there wasn't enough real estate for its deceased citizens. Learn how the London Necropolis Railway took the funerary show on the road in this classic episode of BrainStuff.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio ... Show More
4m 41s
Jul 2020
The Death of the City?
Our normally bustling cities have been eerily quiet for months. It’s reminiscent of the post-apocalyptic horror film, ‘28 Days Later’. The lockdown is proving costly; Westminster Abbey has lost more than £12 million in revenue this year and is set to lay off one in five of its st ... Show More
43m 2s
Oct 2022
Spectacles of death: public executions in London
From grisly medieval punishments to the justice doled out to celebrity criminals in the Victorian era, public executions were a spectacle that shaped the landscape of London for centuries. Curator Beverley Cook tells Ellie Cawthorne about a new Museum of London Docklands exhibiti ... Show More
31m 37s
May 2023
Saxon Origins of London
<p>From ghost town to ceremonial, ecclesiastical and economic hub - how did London develop in the Saxon era, and how is that crucial to what London has become?&nbsp;</p><br><p>Dr. Rory Naismith is the author of <em>Citadel of the Saxons: The Rise of Early London</em> and a lectur ... Show More
39m 57s
Jan 2018
Tower of London
The London Tower holds a rich history of England and its rulers...but it also holds many devious acts of imprisonment, torture and murder. This history has led the tower to become one of England’s most haunted places...where tourists just might see the pale faces or bloody, headl ... Show More
49m 35s
Mar 2022
New York Goes Underground
March 12, 1888. There’s been a blizzard in New York. Wind, ice, and snow have brought the city to a halt. Stagecoaches are stuck, elevated trains are frozen. By the time the storm is over, 400 New Yorkers will die. The public outrage is severe, and many blame New York City’s faul ... Show More
31m 11s
Oct 2022
S2 E1: Murders in a City Without Light
London's West End - once a glittering Mecca of nightlife - is pitch black. The lights are off to hide the city from waves of Nazi bombers - but in the darkness a merciless killer is hunting down the women of this district. Join hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes as they wal ... Show More
41m 52s
Mar 2022
How cities mirror the human body
Arterial roads lead to the heart of a city, parks are a city's lungs; as for it's bowels… let's not go there. But why do we continue to speak of the city in bodily terms? Marco Amati, author of The City and the Super-Organism: A History of Naturalism in Urban Planning, joins Blue ... Show More
14m 57s
May 2023
Body Parts In The Basement - May 9 2023
May 9th: The Euston Square Mystery Body Found (1878) Sometimes the world around us, the one that is constantly changing and altering, can leave an effect on different facets of true crime. Today’s story is one where the environment has everything to do with who the victim was and ... Show More
17m 18s
Dec 2019
The Orphan Train: Death of an American Experiment
Between 1854 and 1929, 250,000 orphans - at peril in the dangerous, overcrowded streets of New York - were placed on trains and sent west to live with new families. A desperate solution to a desperate problem, some of the stories turned out well and some far from well. The bond b ... Show More
43m 46s