Podcast
History Unzipped
Hosted by Tony Perrottet · EN
Historian and journalist Tony Perrottet unearths sexual stories from throughout the ages. The series is modeled on the "secret cabinets" in Victorian museums, where medieval chastity belts, Renaissance pornography and perverse novels by the Marquis de Sade were hidden. Each episode will answer a burning question: How did Napoleon's penis end up in suburban New Jersey? Are champagne glasses modeled on Marie-Antoinette's breasts? How did you behave at one of Caligula's orgies? And what were Casanova's best pick-up lines?
10episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Musical Interlude: The Nazi Dictator's Other Ball
Aug 13, 202000:06:15Tap to summarizeDid Hitler only have one testicle? This juicy anatomical detail was included in the Nazi dictator's autopsy when it was finally revealed by the Soviets in 1968. Was the Fuehrer born that way? Did he suffer a nasty WW1 wound? Or does the secret lie with the famous British war anthem, "The Colonel Bogey March"?
Transcribe →Footnote: Scent of a Führer
Aug 1, 202000:07:08Tap to summarizeEva Braun put up with more than we think to be a Nazi dictator's consort. Hitler suffered from uncontrollable flatulence -- an ailment that poisoned the atmosphere at the Berghof and may have hastened the end of the war.
Transcribe →THE FASCINATING FASCIST WIFE: Interview with Nina Burleigh
Jul 26, 202000:33:04Tap to summarizeWhat does America's current First Lady, Melania Trump, have in common with the consorts of history's great dictators -- Mussolini's mistress Clara Petacci, Eva Braun, Evita Peron. Imelda Marcos? Nina Burleigh, author of "The Trump Women: Part of the Deal" reveals all! A fascinating insight into everything that is screwed-up with US politics today.
Transcribe →Musical Interlude: Why Castrati Made Better Lovers
Jul 18, 202000:12:40Tap to summarizeIn the 18th century, castrated Italian singers were sex symbols sought out by women across the courts of Europe. The most famous, Farinelli, lived like a rock start and has even had his own modern biopic. Learn why castrati were the bedroom idols of the era -- and listen to the only known recording of a castrato, made in the Vatican in 1902.
Transcribe →Footnote: Columbus Discovers the Clitoris
Jul 14, 202000:09:32Tap to summarizeA survey of the forgotten milestones of modern love -- from the 1556 "discovery" of "the seat of a woman's delight" by Renaldo Columbus (no relation to Christopher) to the 18th century birth of "sex as we know it," the invention of pornography (1864), the first use of the word "homosexual" (1892), Virginia Woolf's vision that that the sexual revolution was nigh (1908)... and more!
Transcribe →THE SCIENCE OF LUST: Interview with Wednesday Martin
Jul 6, 202001:09:10Tap to summarizeFemale desire has been a battleground for thousands of years. Men have downplayed it since the ancient Greeks, demonized it in Puritan witchcraft trials and misinterpreted in the studies of Sigmund Freud. Wednesday Martin -- author of Primates of Park Avenue, Untrue and The Button, a history of women's most sensitive part, unravels the saga from the Agricultural Revolution to the Renaissance and the "clitoracy" movement today.
Transcribe →Footnote: Celebrity body parts
Jun 27, 202000:09:39Tap to summarizeJesus' foreskin isn't the only famous phallic relic -- the organs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Rasputin, Tutunkhamun and John Dillinger have been on the market over the years. A rundown of celebrity body parts, including Galileo's finger, Einstein's brain, Beethoven's ear bones and Abe Lincoln's skull fragments -- as well as famous frauds like Joan of Arc's heart. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Transcribe →WHO STOLE JESUS' FORESKIN? Interview with David Farley
Jun 20, 202000:43:55Tap to summarizeCelebrity memorabilia is big business these days, but nothing quite compares to the Holy Foreskin, a portion of Jesus' most intimate anatomy revered by Christians since the Middle Ages. David Farley, author of An Irreverent Curiosity and star of a National Geographic TV special, The Quest for the Holy Foreskin, is the world's leading expert on the sacred prepuce and its mysterious fate. The relic was stolen from a church in an Italian hill town in 1983. Was it by Satanists, neo-Nazis... or the Vatican?
Transcribe →Footnote: the Curse of Self-Abuse
Jun 15, 202000:09:18Tap to summarizeHow an obscure 1712 pamphlet called Onania began the war on masturbation in Georgian London. Over the next 200 years, the campaign against self-pleasure became an international phenomenon, and led to such oddities as the creation of Corn Flakes and Graham crackers in the US.
Transcribe →SEX AT DAWN: Interview with Chris Ryan
Jun 12, 202000:44:52Tap to summarizeWas Charles Darwin a player? Christopher Ryan, author of the New York Times bestseller Sex At Dawn, discusses the Victorian triumph of views on sexual evolution and what they mean for us today. Discussed: Can new research on prehistory help explain modern scandals? What do we know about Darwin's erotic life? Who invented "key parties"? What is an "anaphrodisiac"? And -- are Republicans stuck in the Agricultural Revolution?
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