In 1857, a prominent New York dentist was found murdered in his Bond Street office. Suspicion fell on Emma Cunningham, the widow who ran the boardinghouse and claimed to be his wife — and heir. Her acquittal did not end the scandal. Adisputed marriage, a claimed pregnancy, and a staged birth kept the city riveted and raised new questions about truth, reputation, and inheritance in mid-19th-century New York.

Source Materials:

Duke, Franklin. Celebrated Criminal Cases of America. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, 1910.

Serratore, Angela. “The Murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell and the Scandal That Gripped 1857 New York.” Smithsonian Magazine.

Roberts, Sam. “The Murder That Gripped Bond Street.” The New York Times.

The New-York Daily Times (1857), contemporary coverage of the Burdell murder and Emma Cunningham trial.

Contemporary inquest and trialreporting in New York newspapers, 1857.

In 1629, the Dutch merchant ship Batavia wrecked on a remote reef off Western Australia. What followed was not just a struggle for survival, but a calculated campaign of violence that left more than one hundred people dead. Drawing on survivor testimony and historical records, this episode examines one of the most disturbing episodes in maritime history.

Source Materials

Pelsaert, Francisco. The Journal of Francisco Pelsaert. 1629.

Dash, Mike. Batavia’s Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002.

Drake-Brockman, Henrietta. Voyage to Disaster. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1964.

Edwards, Hugh. Islands of Angry Ghosts. New York: William Morrow, 1966.

Western Australian Museum — Batavia Collection
https://museum.wa.gov.au/

This episode was researched using both primary historical documents and modern scholarly works.

The 1612 Pendle witch trials remain among the most famous in English history. What began with a single accusation soon expanded into a prosecution that would send ten people to the gallows.

Source Materials

Potts, Thomas. The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (1613)

Almond, Philip C. The Lancashire Witches: A Chronicle of Sorcery and Death on Pendle Hill.

Poole, Robert (ed.). The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories.

Sharpe, James. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England.

Gibson, Marion. Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550–1750

Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy.