In the 1930s and 1940s, a young Black woman named Bessie Stringfield decided she’d strike out on her own and hit the road – and ended up crisscrossing the United States eight times, and becoming the first Black woman to ride a motorcycle through each of the lower 48 states. If she ran out of money, she’d join a circus. If she couldn’t find a place to stay, s ... Show More
Today
The Great Venus Fly Trap Heist
This story is about a heist that took place back in 2013 – not at a museum, or a gallery, or a royal palace, but at a garden. What these thieves were after… were Venus Fly Traps. We visit the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden in Wilmington, North Carolina to learn about pla ... Show More
13m 55s
Jan 31
Tell Us: We want to hear your story!
We're working on an episode about interesting places to lay your head -- and we'd love to hear YOUR story about the places you have stayed during your travels. Tell us why and how you picked that place, and what made the experience of staying there good, bad, funny, interesting, ... Show More
1m 6s
Jun 2025
The Best-Paid Woman in NYC
As J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, entrusted with building his collection, Belle da Costa Greene could ‘spend more money in an afternoon than any other young woman of 26’, as the New York Times put it in 1912. In the latest LRB, Francesca Wade reviews a new biography of Greene ... Show More
40m 30s
Aug 2023
188: The Murder of Margaret Abernathy
Monday, February 4, 1991 started out as a normal day. 40 year old Priscilla Matula was rushing out the door for work. She owned and operated a car dealership with her husband, Nick. It soon became one of those days…where everything seems to go wrong and irritation bubbles to the ... Show More
39m 52s
Oct 2024
34. Violet Charlesworth - Fake Heiress
In this episode of Lady Swindlers, Lucy Worsley meets Violet Charlesworth, an heiress with a taste for the high life. From her family home in North Wales, Violet drives the length and breadth of the country in her expensive motorcars, accompanied by pedigree pooches and dripping ... Show More
27m 46s
Jul 2024
Nikki Saelee-McCain // 423
<p>In May of 2024, a 39-year-old California woman vanished without a trace, and no one, including her husband, seemed to be able to account for her whereabouts – even after her truck was founded abandoned in a deserted location. But the public quickly turned on her husband when t ... Show More
43m 22s
May 2025
Battle of the Broadway Divas, e.l.f. Buys Rhode, and Nora Went to the Cowboy Carter Tour | We’re Obsessed
The divas are diva-ing! Jodi and Nora start out with a recap of Nora’s experience at the Cowboy Carter Tour in New Jersey, which famously had a tremendous amount of rain and a gender reveal (1:00), then go through some fake-sounding real-life headlines sent in by listeners (12:00 ... Show More
1h 27m
Dec 2024
The Butcher Baker of Alaska / Part 2 // 464
<p>Between 1971 and 1983, an unknown perpetrator committed dozens of kidnappings, rapes, and murders, wreaking havoc on the state of Alaska. The assailant was elusive, striking against area women during the freezer winter temperatures, and the extended daylight hours of Alaska’s ... Show More
49m 39s
Apr 2020
Young Carers, Elizabeth Strout, Matilda McCrear
How are young carers coping in the lockdown? We hear from 17 year old James who looks after his mum and grandma. And Dr Kate Blake-Holmes joins us too. She's a social worker at the University of East Anglia and is carrying out research into this area. As we experience lockdown, h ... Show More
49m 17s
Sep 2023
Christine & Christa Belusko // 341
<p>In September of 1991, a 30-year-old woman vanished from a lodge in Pennsylvania. Although she was found shortly after, badly beaten, strangled, and burned on a beach in New York, it took 30 years to identify her body. And when police did, it only deepened the mystery, because, ... Show More
37m 52s