If you love history, true crime, or storytelling — or if you're looking for something to listen to on a long drive or help you wind down at the end of the day — this one is for you.

In September of 1944, residents of Mattoon, Illinois began reporting a prowler outside their windows — one who left no footprints, no face, and no trace. Only a smell. A sweet, sickening gas that paralyzed legs, caused vomiting, and sent families to the hospital. The local newspaper ran the story. Then more victims came forward. Then more. The town was terrified, the police were baffled, and the attacker was never caught — because some investigators came to believe there was never an attacker at all.

Host Shawn Spainhour takes you into the anxious world of wartime small-town America — a community stretched thin by rationing, absent husbands, and factory fumes — and walks you through one of the most debated cases of mass psychogenic illness in modern history. Was the Mad Gasser real? A chemical leak? A copycat? Or something that spread not through the air, but through fear itself?

Strange Epochs tells true stories from history's stranger corners. Each episode is written for deep listening — slow, atmospheric, and immersive. Whether you're behind the wheel, unwinding after a long day, or settling in for sleep, this show is built to pull you in and carry you somewhere else.

Sources are listed in the show notes.

Johnson, Donald M. The Phantom Anesthetist of Mattoon: A Field Study of Mass Hysteria. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Volume forty, nineteen forty-five.

Maruna, Scott. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: Dispelling the Hysteria. Swamp Gas Book Company, two thousand and three.

Bartholomew, Robert E. and Goode, Erich. Mass Delusions and Hysterias: Highlights from the Past Millennium. Skeptical Inquirer, Volume twenty-four, two thousand.

Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette. Anesthetic Prowler On Loose. September second, nineteen forty-four.

Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette. Front-page coverage of the Mad Gasser incidents. September two through September fourteen, nineteen forty-four.

Time Magazine. Mad Anesthetist of Mattoon. September eighteenth, nineteen forty-four.

Daily Illini. Nocturnal Prowler Lists Thirty-Three Victims in Mattoon Scare. September twelfth, nineteen forty-four.

Wikipedia contributors. Mad Gasser of Mattoon. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, two thousand and twenty-four.

If you love history, true crime, or storytelling — or if you're looking for something to listen to on a long drive or help you wind down at the end of the day — this one is for you.

In the year 897, the body of Pope Formosus was dug up, dressed in papal robes, propped on a throne, and put on trial before a room full of bishops in Rome. A deacon was appointed to speak on the corpse's behalf. The verdict was decided before the first word was spoken.

Host Shawn Spainhour takes you into the unstable world of the ninth-century papacy — the collapse of Carolingian power, the Roman noble families pulling strings behind the throne, and the bitter rivalry that drove Pope Stephen VI to put a dead man on trial. This wasn't madness for its own sake. It was a calculated act of political erasure, an attempt to unmake a pope's entire legacy and rewrite the authority of the Church itself.

The episode also covers the aftermath: the outrage that swept Rome, Stephen's own violent downfall, and the question of what bodies, relics, and legitimacy truly meant in the medieval world.

Strange Epochs tells true stories from history's stranger corners. Each episode is written for deep listening — slow, atmospheric, and immersive. Whether you're behind the wheel, unwinding after a long day, or settling in for sleep, this show is built to pull you in and carry you somewhere else.

Sources are listed below and in the show notes:

• Duffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press, 1997.
• Liutprand of Cremona. Antapodosis (Retribution), circa 958–962. Translated by Paolo Squatriti, Catholic University of America Press, 2007.
• Mann, Horace K. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages. Kegan Paul, 1902.
• Moore, Michael Edward. The Attack on Pope Formosus: Papal History in an Age of Resentment, 875 to 897. In Ecclesia et Violentia, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.
• Monroe, William S. The Trials of Pope Formosus. PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2021.
• Annales Alamannici. Contemporary chronicle entry for the year 897. Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
• Kelly, J. N. D. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Oxford University Press, 1986.

If you love history, true crime, or storytelling — or if you're just looking for something to listen to on a long drive or drift off to sleep — this one is for you.

In the summer of 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea stepped into the streets of Strasbourg and began to dance. She didn't stop for days. Within weeks, dozens of others had joined her — and the city of Strasbourg found itself in the grip of one of the strangest, most inexplicable events in recorded history.

Host Shawn Spainhour guides you through the full story: the medieval world of famine, plague, and religious terror that made this outbreak possible; how city officials and physicians tried — and failed — to stop it; and the leading theories historians still debate today, from ergotism to mass psychogenic illness.

Strange Epochs tells true stories from history's stranger corners. Each episode is written for deep listening — slow, atmospheric, and immersive. Whether you're behind the wheel, unwinding after a long day, or settling in for sleep, this show is built to pull you in and carry you somewhere else.

Sources are listed below and in the show notes:

• Waller, John. A Time to Dance, A Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518. Icon Books, 2008.

• Bartholomew, Robert E. Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusion. McFarland, 2001.

• Strasbourg City Council Records, July through September 1518. Archives de la Ville et de la Communauté Urbaine de Strasbourg.

• Bock, Hieronymus. Contemporary chronicle account of the dancing plague, circa 1518.

• Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. Contemporary account of the Strasbourg outbreak, circa 1518.

• Waller, John. “A Forgotten Plague: Making Sense of Dancing Mania.” The Lancet, Vol. 373, 2009.

• Bartholomew, Robert E., and Wessely, Simon. “Protean Nature of Mass Sociogenic Illness.” The British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 180, 2002.