Naked History

About Naked History

Welcome to Naked History, the podcast that peels back the polished layers of the past to reveal the weird, wild, and wonderful truths beneath. Hosted by historian Dyllan Gasaway, this show dives into the untold tales, strange coincidences, and overlooked events that shaped the world. From volcanic eruptions that sparked literary masterpieces to strange coincedences, absurd inventions, historical what-ifs, and the mystery of it all, you've found the right place. https://linktr.ee/nakedhistorypodcast

Publisher

Dyllan Gasaway

Category

history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

22 May 2025

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

61 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   12 Oct 2026

   Ep 28 Debrief: So, Who the Hell Was Jack the Ripper?

   Everybody wants to know who Jack the Ripper was. Unfortunately, wanting an answer and having evidence are two very different things. In this Naked History: Debrief, we return to Victorian Whitechapel and finally dive into the suspect rabbit hole deliberately left out of Jack the Ripper: The Monster We Made. Montague John Druitt died suspiciously close to the end of the canonical murders. Aaron Kosminski was remembered as a suspect by senior police officials—and later became the center of sensational DNA claims involving an alleged crime-scene shawl. George Chapman actually was a serial murderer. Francis Tumblety was an American quack doctor weird enough to practically arrive pre-packaged as a suspect. Walter Sickert became the focus of a modern investigation. And eventually people decided Queen Victoria’s grandson and Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll might as well get involved too. We separate contemporary suspicion from later speculation, examine what the evidence actually tells us, and ask an uncomfortable question: what if Jack the Ripper wasn’t a prince, famous painter, doctor, or criminal mastermind? What if he was nobody? Plus, Naked Regrets takes another look at the “canonical five” and how the victims have historically been characterized, while This Week in History takes us from the Women's March on Versailles and the Great Chicago Fire to The Jazz Singer, Che Guevara, and the long-overdue exoneration of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. There will be suspects. There will be conspiracies. There will not be a dramatic reveal. Because after 138 years, “interesting” still isn’t the same thing as “evidence.” Music Credits: "Our Story Begins" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (http://incompetech.com)) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (https://freetouse.com/music)Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

2. 

   5 Oct 2026

   Ep 28: Jack the Ripper: The Monster We've Made

   This episode discusses the Jack the Ripper murders and includes descriptions of murder, violence against women, poverty, sex work, alcohol addiction, and postmortem mutilation. While I’ve deliberately avoided unnecessary graphic detail, some descriptions of the victims’ injuries and crime scenes are necessary to understand the history and the investigation. More importantly, these were real women—not characters in a Victorian horror story—and I’ve tried to treat their lives and deaths accordingly. Please listen with that in mind, and use your own discretion. London, 1888. Women are being murdered in Whitechapel, police are struggling to find their killer, newspapers are feeding a terrified public—and somebody sends a letter signed with a name that will become immortal: Jack the Ripper. There’s just one problem. We have no idea if the murderer wrote it. For the first Naked History Halloween episode, we’re stripping away more than a century of fog, top hats, conspiracy theories, dubious suspects, disputed letters, and questionable “case closed” claims to find the real history underneath the legend. We follow the murders of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly; enter the overcrowded streets and lodging houses of Victorian Whitechapel; examine what police were—and weren’t, capable of investigating in 1888; and watch as newspapers, hoaxers, fear, prejudice, and public fascination transform an unidentified murderer into one of history’s most recognizable monsters. Because Jack the Ripper may be famous. But almost everything we think we know about him is built around an empty space. We don’t know his name. We don’t know his face. We don’t even know for certain how many people he killed. And maybe that’s exactly why we’re still talking about him. Music Credit: "In The West" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ⁠⁠⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠ Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

3. 

   28 Sept 2026

   Ep 27 Debrief: Carpathia, Titanic, and the Stories That Refuse to Sink

   Titanic sank in 1912. The myths surrounding her have somehow remained extremely buoyant. In this Naked History: Debrief, we return to RMS Carpathia: All Possible Speed to separate some of the history from the legend. We revisit the claim that Carpathia pushed her engines so hard during the rescue that they were permanently affected, dig deeper into Captain Arthur Rostron’s belief that divine intervention guided his ship safely through the ice, and look at what the historical record can—and can’t—actually tell us. Then, Myth-Taken takes on some of Titanic’s most persistent stories: the supposedly “unsinkable” ship, ignored iceberg warnings, third-class passengers allegedly locked below decks, the band’s final song, and the question James Cameron will apparently be answering until the heat death of the universe: could Jack have fit? Plus, This Week in History takes us from William the Conqueror and Alexander the Great to Charlie Brown, German reunification, and Sputnik. Titanic became a story about catastrophe. Carpathia became a story about what people do afterward. And sometimes the footnotes are where the best stories are hiding.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

13 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 34 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

68

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.