True Weird Stuff

Swing Your Partner

Today's True Weird Stuff - Swing Your Partner   From 17th-century folk traditions to 20th-century propaganda, the square dance traveled a long road before landing in your elementary school gym. What looks like homespun Americana hides a secret: a powerful man’s fear that jazz was a threat to white America. Sometimes the most wholesome traditions carry the darkest fingerprints.  

Chronovision

Today's True Weird Stuff - Chronovision   In 1972, a Vatican priest claimed he built a machine that could watch past events like a television...everything from ancient Rome to the crucifixion of Christ. Father Pellegrino Ernetti called his invention the Chronovisor, and Ernetti claimed the Vatican saw the machine, feared it, and hid it away forever. The Chronovisor promised answers that no religion or government could survive. Was it the greatest secret ever buried, or a warning about wanting proof too badly?

Internal Sunshine

Today's True Weird Stuff - Internal Sunshine   William J.A. Bailey wasn’t a doctor, but he convinced the public to trust him anyway—selling radium-laced water as a cure for nearly everything. One of those believers was Eben Byers, a wealthy athlete who drank more than a thousand doses, slowly poisoning himself until his jaw disintegrated and his skull began to rot before his death. The death of Eben Byers forced the world to finally confront the cost of pseudoscience that goes unchecked.  

The Perfect Baby

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Perfect Baby   In 1919, a toddler known as one of America’s “Perfect Babies” vanished from his New Jersey home. Searchers scoured the woods. Accusations spread. Theories multiplied. When his remains were found deep in the swamp, they answered nothing. The disappearance and death of 2-year-old Billy Dansey spun a web of fear, superstition, prejudice, and failed justice.

Lynnewood Hall

Today's True Werid Stuff - Lynnewood Hall   Lynnewood Hall was built as a monument to wealth, power, and permanence—an American Versailles, commissioned by the Widener family, meant to last for generations. But tragedy struck the Widener family at the height of their fortune, tying the mansion forever to the sinking of the Titanic and a grief no amount of money could undo. As decades passed, the house was stripped, sold, misused, and left to decay, becoming a silent witness to hubris, loss, and the slow collapse of a gilded dream.