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Episode 17 of The Oddities Department is what happens when the museum staff quits, the exhibits get hostile, and absolutely no one is left in charge.

This week’s tour is unstable from the jump.

We begin with June and Jennifer Gibbons — The Silent Twins, a haunting true story of two sisters who spoke only to each other, mirrored each other’s every move, and ultimately made a pact that only one of them could survive.

From there, we open a window—literally—with Defenestration, the long-standing historical tradition of solving political disagreements by throwing people out of buildings. Prague really committed to the bit.

Then we step into the Australian rainforest and meet the Gympie Gympie Tree, a plant so excruciatingly painful that contact with it has driven people to the brink. Nature, once again, chooses violence.

Next, we follow Juan Pujol García, the Spanish chicken farmer turned double agent who built an entire fake spy network and convinced the Nazis to believe every word of it—helping reshape the outcome of World War II through pure deception.

And then… things get worse.

Because we arrive at Mr. Liu and the 2023 Butthole Eel, a modern medical emergency that proves not every idea deserves follow-through.

Finally, we close with Tarrare, the man who ate everything—objects, animals, entire meals meant for dozens—and left behind one of the most disturbing and unexplainable medical cases in history.

Six exhibits.
Zero janitorial support.
And something is definitely still moving in the basement.

Welcome back to The Oddities Department.

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In Episode 16, we explore a collection of unbelievable historical moments that will keep you on your toes...

• The Great Molasses Flood of 1919, one of the strangest disasters in U.S. history
• The only confirmed case of a human struck by a meteorite (Ann Hodges)
• The disturbing story of Mary Toft, the woman who convinced doctors she gave birth to rabbits
• The brutal fate of Johan de Witt, in one of history’s most shocking acts of political violence
• The dangerous and often deadly history of beauty standards and cosmetics
• And a list of Black Death “cures” that somehow made a deadly plague even worse

This episode blends true crime, dark history, science, and absurd human behavior, uncovering how misinformation, desperation, and curiosity have shaped some of history’s most chaotic moments.

If you’re into podcasts about:

• Strange historical events
• Bizarre medical stories
• Silly Historical Figures
• Unexplained or unbelievable history

…you’re in the right place.

🎙️ New episodes of The Oddities Department drop regularly—where history gets messy, and the truth is always stranger than fiction.

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Episode 15 of The Oddities Department cracks open another tour of historical chaos.

This week’s tour contains six stories that are equal parts fascinating, horrifying, and deeply, deeply hilarious.

We begin with The Story of Nellie Bly, the fearless journalist who got herself committed to an insane asylum in 1887 to expose the brutal conditions inside, then came back out and changed journalism forever.

Next is The King of Sting, Dr. Justin Schmidt, the entomologist who turned getting stung by some of the world’s most painful insects into legitimate scientific research… and then described the agony like a deranged poet.

Then we stop by The Weird History of the Dildo Exhibit, tracing one of humanity’s oldest inventions from stone-age pleasure tools to modern taboos and beyond. Because apparently, some ideas survive every civilization.

From there, we slide into Casanova & The Oyster, the slippery, seductive history of how one legendary lover turned shellfish into foreplay and helped cement oysters as history’s most overrated aphrodisiac.

Then comes The Cadaver Synod, the unbelievably real moment in church history when a dead pope was dug up, dressed in robes, and put on trial by his enemies in one of the most grotesque acts of medieval pettiness ever recorded.

And finally, we descend into the chaos of Operation Cat Drop, the time humans tried to fix one ecological disaster by parachuting cats into the Borneo jungle like that was a perfectly normal thing for a government to do.

Six exhibits.
Zero sanity.
Maximum historical whiplash.

Welcome to The Oddities Department.