Noble Blood
Channel Details
Noble Blood
Author Dana Schwartz explores the stories of some of history’s most fascinating royals: the tyrants and the tragic, the murderers and the murdered, and everyone in between. Because when you’re wearing a crown, mistakes often mean blood.
Recent Episodes
312 episodes
How to Start a Monarchy from Scratch (Part 1)
Eventually, Te Wherowhero would become the first Māori king. But decades before that, he would face off against rival tribes, proving his leadership a...
Countess of the Demimonde
At the dawn of La Belle Epoch in Paris, a trans woman who became known as "The Countess" would journey from ballrooms to prison and back, a key figure...
![The Forbidden Star Trek Fanfiction [from Very Special Episodes]](https://www.omnycontent.com/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a9f8aaf1-b12b-40b8-85aa-b08f0126e2b6/0387d5a2-3b0f-4eaf-a964-b46c00248cdb/image.jpg?t=1781662911&size=Large)
The Forbidden Star Trek Fanfiction [from Very Special Episodes]
In 1968, a woman wrote a romantic story about Kirk and Spock, passed it quietly among friends, and hoped it would never see the light of day. But befo...
The Chloroform Baronet (Part 2)
In 1847, James Young Simpson successfully used chloroform for the first time to help in childbirth. But the anesthetic was still controversial and dan...
The Chloroform Baronet (Part 1)
James Young Simpson, as a young surgeon, was distraught at the seemingly inescapable pain and fear that patients were suffering. He decided to try to...
Napoleon's Forgotten Wife
When Josphine failed to produce heirs, Napoleon secured a divorce and arranged for another marriage: to the 18-year-old daughter of the Emperor of Aus...
![The Other James Bond [from Very Special Episodes]](https://www.omnycontent.com/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a9f8aaf1-b12b-40b8-85aa-b08f0126e2b6/7370c559-762d-467f-8852-b457001c1d83/image.jpg?t=1779846613&size=Large)
The Other James Bond [from Very Special Episodes]
When Ian Fleming needed a name for the secret agent at the center of his new novel, he stole one from the cover of a birdwatching book. The real James...
When the Kennedeys met the Windsors (with Caroline Hallemann)
Two families captivated the 20th century: the Kennedy clan in America, and the Windsors, the royal family of the UK. Both faced the tribulations of fa...
Kaspar Hauser Came to Town
In 1826, a young man stumbled into town with limited language and a mysterious past: he revealed that he had spent his life in isolation, in a single...
![Exit Strategy: They Vanished Into Siberia for Over 40 Years [from Very Special Episodes]](https://www.omnycontent.com/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a9f8aaf1-b12b-40b8-85aa-b08f0126e2b6/52631e16-dca3-4c6d-9da2-b44101330387/image.jpg?t=1778017951&size=Large)
Exit Strategy: They Vanished Into Siberia for Over 40 Years [from Very Special Episodes]
In 1978, Soviet geologists flying over Siberia spotted something impossible: a family living in total isolation, untouched for decades by the modern w...
The Mind of Émilie du Châtelet (Part 2)
Part two of our episode on Émilie du Châtelet, the brilliant female mathematician and physicist who helped to redefine our understanding of how the wo...
The Mind of Émilie du Châtelet (Part 1)
History has often reduced the brilliant mathematician and physicist Émilie du Châtelet to her relationship with a famous man (Voltaire). But she was a...
The Virgin and Thomas Seymour
When the future Queen Elizabeth I was just 13 years old, she was living with Catherine Parr, who remarried after the death of Henry VIII. Catherine's...
Marilyn, Hamilton + John Wilkes Booth's Statue: NYC History Hiding in Plain Sight
This week's Very Special Episodes is a tour of New York’s secret history with a very special guest!
Greg Young of the beloved Bowery Boys podcas...
The Mad Baron in Mongolia (Part 2)
For eight months, Roman von Ungern-Sternberg took control of the capital of Mongolia, in a campaign that was less about international politics and mor...
The Mad Baron in Mongolia (Part 1)
In 1921, a Russian officer named Roman von Ungern-Sternberg invaded Mongolia, ostensibly with the goal to liberate it from Chinese forces. But he had...
![This Is Not a Drill: Hawaii's Text Message Debacle [from Very Special Episodes]](https://www.omnycontent.com/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a9f8aaf1-b12b-40b8-85aa-b08f0126e2b6/b3180500-665b-46db-83ab-b41700e1b1fc/image.jpg?t=1774362800&size=Large)
This Is Not a Drill: Hawaii's Text Message Debacle [from Very Special Episodes]
On a quiet morning in Hawaii in 2018, cell phones lit up with a text message that felt impossible. A ballistic missile was inbound, and this was not a...
The Queen Mother Who Refused to Die
Against the odds, Idia's son, Esigie, became the leader—Oba—of the Edo people. And against even greater odds, Idia survived to help him rule.
A Medievalist of the Seven Kingdoms (with Dr. Hugh Doherty)
Dr. Hugh Doherty (University of East Anglia), the historical consultant for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, joins the podcast to discuss 14th century...
Fortune Has Changed My Life
Born in Africa, enslaved, and brought to a foreign land, Abram Petrovich Gannibal forged an incredible path for himself, rising until he became a resp...
Politics and Murder in the Harem
Kösem Sultan was the favorite of the Sultan and the mother of a ruler. She had extraordinary power over the Ottoman Empire, but, as we've learned from...
![Movie Mystery: The 2000 Oscars Heist [from Very Special Episodes]](https://www.omnycontent.com/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a9f8aaf1-b12b-40b8-85aa-b08f0126e2b6/189fb403-6df2-4399-a212-b409018b67f4/image.jpg?t=1773188255&size=Large)
Movie Mystery: The 2000 Oscars Heist [from Very Special Episodes]
In 2000, weeks before the Academy Awards ceremony, 55 Oscars vanished during shipment to Los Angeles. The disappearance triggered a frantic search. Th...
A Terrible Waste
When Heinrich VI, King of Germany, called a gathering of noblemen to deal with a property dispute, he couldn't have predicted how tragic—and disgustin...
Daughters of the Empress (with Veronica Buckley)
Veronica Buckley, author of the new book SEVEN SISTERS, joins us to discuss the daughters of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, who remade Europe with...
Olympic Glory for a Princess
Though Queen Elizabeth II's daughter, Princess Anne, competed in the Olympics, the first princess to do so beat her to it by more than a thousand year...
The Winter Queen
Elizabeth Stuart was the daughter of King James I and VI of England and Scotland. Her husband was offered the throne of Bohemia, and who would ever sa...
Very Special Episodes: How to Make the Olympics (Without Supernatural Athletic Ability)
Elizabeth Swaney fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming an Olympian, defying all odds. But it wasn’t supernatural athletic ability that got her the...
A Philosopher's Death
Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola was a brilliant and precocious philosopher, who caused a stir in Italy with his writings before he was even 25. But Pico...
Maria Theresa's Medical Legacy (with Matt Kaplan)
Dana is joined by the science writer for The Economist, Matt Kaplan, to discuss 18th century medical progress, the legacy of Maria Theresa, and the tr...
The Real Cyrano
Cyrano de Bergerac is a larger-than-life figure in pop culture, whose story has been adapted countless times. But it turns out, Cyrano was a real man,...
The Missing Diamond in Case XIII
The Florentine Diamond was one of the crown jewels (sorry) of the Habsburgs—a 137-carat diamond that had come from the court of the Duke of Tuscany. B...
Antoine Lavoisier's Head
Antoine Lavoisier was a French chemist, who gave us the name for oxygen and other terminology that we still use today. But he was also a wealthy man w...
Cruelty and Murder, War and Peace
Natasia Minkin was the mistress of one of the cruelest men in tsarist Russia. She apparently tried to give him a run for his money.
Support Nobl...
The Affair of the Poisons
In the 17th century, aristocratic France was set on high alert—women were procuring poisons and using it for nefarious, murderous means. It was a scan...
Very Special Episodes: The Cabbage Patch Crisis
In 1983, a cherubic, homely doll triggered something close to national hysteria. Parents fought in store aisles. Shelves were stripped bare. Even the...
The Mitford Communist (With Carla Kaplan)
The glamorous Mitford sisters—six daughters of a Baron—have captivated the public imagination for decades. One became a duchess, one a famous novelist...
How Lola Montez Took Down a King
Though she was born in Ireland with no Spanish blood, the self-named "Lola Montez" captivated Europe with her charm and sexuality, eventually entangli...
Very Special Episodes: Skylab Is Falling
NASA's Skylab was one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 1970s. But in 1979, the 77-ton space station suddenly began to fall. As the world...
The Noblewoman Marooned on the Isle of Demons
While sailing from France to the New World, Marguerite de La Rocque and her lover were punished, marooned on an island where they would be tormented b...
BONUS: “Remain: A Supernatural Love Story” (with Kal Penn)
Listen to Dana Schwartz's conversation with Kal Penn on his podcast Earsay: An Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, where they dive into Remain: A Super...