The Ridiculously Disturbing History of North Korea

Summary

Ridiculous History – "The Ridiculously Disturbing History of North Korea"

Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown
Date: October 7, 2025
Podcast: Ridiculous History (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

In this captivating episode, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown delve into the bizarre, brutal, and truly ridiculous history of North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK). The hosts explore the historical roots of the peninsula's division, the emergence and resilience of the Kim dynasty, the omnipresent cult of personality, the nation’s oppressive policies, and the surreal tourist experience at the DMZ. Throughout, they maintain their trademark blend of irreverence and deep research, offering context, parallels to other divided nations, and personal anecdotes about travel in the region.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Anecdotes and Episode Framing

• [01:02] Noel recounts his recent travels in Germany, narrowly missing a bombing at Oktoberfest.
• [02:22] Ben thanks Noel for zeppelin photos, segueing into a fascination with specific, peculiar museums—including those on the Korean border.

2. The Division of Korea & Early History

• [06:27] Ben establishes that for nearly 80 years, Korea has been split into South Korea (ROK) and North Korea (DPRK).
• [09:11] Noel draws parallels between the division of Korea and Cold War-era Germany:
  • "The history of the DPRK is relatively Recent, like you mentioned, beginning at the close of World War II ... The Korean peninsula was split in twain down the 38th parallel between Earth's biggest modern frenemies, the USSR, China and the United States of America." — Noel [09:11]

3. The Korean War & Ongoing Conflict

• [12:30] Ben explains that both North and South Korean governments claimed the entire peninsula, creating deep geopolitical tensions and setting the stage for the Korean War (1950-1953).
• [13:40] Discussion on how each side refers to the war, e.g., "the Fatherland Liberation War" in the North and "625" in the South.
• [15:13] The war technically hasn’t ended—there's still only a ceasefire, not a peace treaty:
  • "This war has not ended as you are hearing this episode ... It’s a temporary ceasefire. So these folks have been on timeout for decades and decades." — Ben [14:33]

4. The Cold War’s Legacy and Modern Geopolitics

• [17:51] China continues to ally with and protect North Korea, complicating refugee issues and international interventions.
  • "China is investing in a bulwark in a buffer zone. Right. So North Korea is kind of its own bigger DMZ for China." — Ben [19:02]
• [19:44] North Korea as a nuclear power, and China's strategic interest in its survival.

5. The Rise of the Kim Dynasty and Juche

• [24:47] Ben details how Kim Il Sung, the original "Eternal Leader," leveraged Soviet and Chinese backing to create a unique regime.
  • "North Korea began and continues to worship this man as a God. His family has ruled the area ever, ever since." — Ben [23:56]
• [28:51] The emergence of "Juche," North Korea’s ideology of self-reliance mixed with hypernationalism and anti-Western sentiment.

6. Cult of Personality & Theocracy

• [33:01] The Kims' cult of personality is likened to a secular theocracy.
  • "This cult of personality is ... probably the best example of a pure cult of personality. I literally just googled North Korean religion, and the religion in North Korea is Juche, right? It is. You are meant to worship the leaders." — Noel [33:01]
• [34:17] Severe consequences for any perceived disrespect, with punishments extending to entire families.
  • "Anybody who doesn't comply is gonna be punished with incarceration, losing job opportunities, sent off to forced labor for life. They might be killed and not just them, but their families as well unto the third generation. These folks hold grudges." — Ben [33:19]

7. Brutality and Human Rights Abuses

• [38:22] The hosts discuss notorious prison camps like Hwasong (Camp 16), forced labor, famine, infanticide, and increasing surveillance.
  • "We know the horrors of these prisons ... there are real, actionable and substantive human rights abuses occurring over there in the north of the peninsula." — Ben [39:17]
• [44:50] Many anti-state activities, even minor ones, are punishable by death or labor camps; all media is tightly controlled by the government.

8. DMZ Tourism and North Korean Products

• [47:13] Ben shares first-hand accounts of DMZ visits:
  • "It’s one of the most heavily surveilled and militarized areas of the world ... It’s also heavily monetized. There are tons of tourist trap things and there’s a lot of South Korean propaganda too."
• [48:12] Show-and-tell: Ben presents souvenir North Korean blueberry wine, noting the surreal experience and strict controls on what tourists can buy or do.

9. Warnings for Would-Be Tourists

• [49:22-50:58] Dramatic reading of travel advisories for North Korea—highlighting the real dangers, lack of diplomatic help, and the risk of imprisonment, torture, and death.

10. Nature Thriving Amid Division

• [53:52] The DMZ has become an accidental wildlife preserve hosting endangered species like the Amur leopard and Siberian tiger.
  • "The DMZ ... it’s a textbook example of how the natural world can flourish when the humans are removed from the equation." — Ben [53:46]

11. Lasting Effects and Historical Palimpsests

• [55:09] North Korean citizens are, on average, 1-3 inches shorter than South Koreans due to decades of malnutrition and stunted development.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Cult of Personality:
  "Juche might itself be kind of a grift. … Basically just translates to 'the subject.' And then other people are using the fig leaf of communism to rationalize this worship of this one particular family." — Ben [33:01]

• On Prison Camps:
  "We know the horrors of these prisons, all right? And even knowing that the west has a lot of silly anti North Korean propaganda, there are real, actionable and substantive human rights abuses occurring over there in the north of the peninsula." — Ben [39:17]

• On North Korea’s Isolation:
  "Depending on your nationality, depending on how things are going, entering North Korea can be either impossible or fatally dangerous." — Ben [48:43]

• On Irony and Absurdity:
  "Yeah, it’s a family business. It’s communism for 95% of the country. … It’s also a theocracy but if you’re at the top." — Ben [32:21]

• On the Parallels to Germany:
  "There's so many parallels between this situation and what happened there in Berlin. The idea of a Cold War being that sort of like, technically, we're on pause, but life goes on, and tensions do tend to simmer." — Noel [15:15]

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Important Timestamps by Segment

| Timestamp | Content Summary | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 01:02 | Noel’s travel story in Germany and near-miss at Oktoberfest | | 06:27 | Intro to Korea’s split and historical peninsula context | | 09:11 | Division after WWII, comparison to Berlin Wall | | 13:40 | Multiple names/perspectives for the Korean War | | 15:13 | Korean War’s unresolved status; ongoing ceasefire | | 19:02 | China–North Korea relationship and geopolitics | | 24:47 | Emergence of Kim Il Sung and the personalized cult | | 28:51 | Juche ideology—self-reliance and nationalism | | 34:17 | Aggressive enforcement of loyalty; multi-generational punishment | | 38:22 | Prison camps and satellite imagery; human rights abuses | | 44:50 | All activity controlled; punishment for minor infractions | | 47:13 | Ben’s DMZ visits and North Korean tourist products | | 49:22 | Government warnings against traveling to North Korea | | 53:46 | The DMZ as a wildlife preserve | | 55:09 | Lasting effects: North vs. South Korean height differences |

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Tone & Style

The hosts retain a candid, conversational, and sometimes darkly humorous tone, balancing scholarly research with relatable analogies and cultural references (80s sitcoms, personal travel, food). They occasionally slip in jokes to break tension, but consistently circle back to deeper ethical issues and the ongoing tragedy of life in North Korea.

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For Further Listening & References

• "Stuff They Don't Want You to Know" – Related episodes on North Korea's mysteries and cult of personality
• Film Reference: "JSA – Joint Security Area" by Chan-wook Park [52:42]
• Recommended Read: "Depraved and Insulting English" (mentioned by Ben near the end)

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Conclusion

This episode of Ridiculous History offers a dense, enlightening, and unsettling look at North Korea—its history, the personality cult surrounding the Kim dynasty, the devastation wrought by governance, and the strange worlds on either side of the DMZ. For those unfamiliar with the peninsula’s tortured story, it’s an engaging and informative primer, laced with memorable banter and a genuine spirit of historical inquiry.

Transcript

[Ben Bullen]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous historians. Thank you as always, so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our dear leader himself, Mr. Max Williams.

[Noel Brown]

Is there any good North Korean chants that you know?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, we'll play one in a second. Okay, cool, cool, cool. I'm Ben Bullen. That is Noel Brown, returned from some journeys. Noel, to the degree that you're comfortable, can you share with our fellow listeners your sojourns abroad?

[Noel Brown]

Yes, I returned to my home homeland, the fatherland, Deutschland, where I wandered the black forests hunting for elk with my lederhosen and my. My tiny bow and arrow. No, I don't know about that. I. You know, it's crazy, man. I was around Lake Constance, which is referred to in Germany as Bodensee. Lovely little seaside kind of town, lakeside town. And to get there, I went through Munich. And I actually stayed in Munich the night before I flew out. And that very day there a bombing at Oktoberfest. And I just narrowly missed that. It was right down the street from my hotel, man. So no one is safe, even the. Even the revelers at Oktoberfest. You know, it's just, man, not to start off with a bummer, but that. That did kind of make me feel a little bit, you know, hashtag blessed, I guess.

[Ben Bullen]

But, God, I mean, of course, I'm. I'm so happy you're safe, bro. I also, on a positive note, want to thank you again in person on. For sending me a picture of a dirigible. You actually inspired a conversation I had on the Daily Zeitgeist recently. Friends of the show, all about airships. It just made my day. So thank you.

[Noel Brown]

I didn't make it, but I didn't really know why there were so many zeppelins everywhere. Not just advertising, but it just seemed like it was very much a feature of the area. And in the little town that I stayed near the lake called Meersburg, they have a Zeppelin museum. And I know you, you will wag a finger at me for not making it, man, but I just. I couldn't make it work. But next time. It's a lovely area, by the way, if anyone ever is looking to see what you know and the most idyllic of German bergs looks like, look no further than Mearsburg or the Lake Constance area.

[Ben Bullen]

And no wagging the fingers. I don't find that constructive, but I do you. You know me well, I do love a specific museum. One of the weirdest ones. I' dude was on the border of the Korean peninsula on the 38th parallel.

[Noel Brown]

You brought me a hat. If I'm not mistaken, I did bring you a hat.

[Ben Bullen]

I always try to bring you little gifts when I'm traveling.

[iHeart Radio Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ben Bullen]

This is Jim.

[Noel Brown]

Hello.

[Ben Bullen]

Jim started advertising with iHeartradio way back.

[Noel Brown]

In April, and now I have customers out the door.

[Ben Bullen]

And this is Sarah.

[Noel Brown]

Hi.

[Ben Bullen]

She started putting a portion of her marketing dollars in podcasting back in June.

[Noel Brown]

Business is booming.

[Ben Bullen]

That's why I'm working on a Saturday.

[Noel Brown]

Want to be like Jim and Sarah? It's easy.

[Ben Bullen]

All you have to do is own or manage a business and reach out to iHeart. Get started today at 844-844-IHeart or iheartadvertising.com There's a vile sickness in Ampas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. From iheart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noel Brown]

Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story. When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia Almasel, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling. Surviving meant hiding. Escaping, took courage, risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control.

[Ben Bullen]

And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. But I didn't kill him.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Bullen]

Folks, if you ever have the chance to visit the Korean Peninsula, do so. The food is amazing. We're huge fans of Korean food on this show. The people are lovely. The technology is fascinating. The culture is rich and astonishing. But one caveat, as we know, if you're from the United States especially, you probably want to stick to the south side of the peninsula.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, I would think so. It's not exactly a tourist destination yet, but you can hang out in kind of the no Man's Land, which we're going to get to a little bit later. And there's some very interesting, let's just call it lightly, if not heavily propagandistic attractions there.

[Ben Bullen]

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for almost a century, for nigh on 80 years, the historical region of Korea, the peninsula there in East Asia, has been split in twain. The southern half is the Republic of Korea, which we in the west just call Korea. The northern half, however, is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, AKA the Hermit Nation, or to most folks, again in the west, just North Korea.

[Noel Brown]

You know, I've always wondered why they call it the Hermit Nation, but I guess it's just specifically referring to, like, they don't get out much.

[Ben Bullen]

No, no. It's illegal for them to do so now.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

Now, we asked Noel, you earlier asked at the top for a sound cue, maybe a little bit of audio cinema here. So what about this? Why don't we play just a brief clip of the biggest party in town in North Kore over there in their capital, Pyongyang. It's called the Mass Games, the Arirang Mass Games. And I'd love to play this for you and hear your reactions.

[Noel Brown]

This is, by all means.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Okay, cool. This is for context. This is a mass exhibition of children doing gymnastics. So you see that animation in the back there?

[Noel Brown]

So cool.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, that's all human made, by the way. Those are. That's literally thousands of people. And they have these color coded cards that they use to create that image of a. It looks like a kid dreaming while they're holding a pencil, leaning over a textbook.

[Noel Brown]

What do you think he's dreaming of, Ben?

[Ben Bullen]

He's dreaming of the Eternal Leader. Okay.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, he's off screen.

[Ben Bullen]

He's off screen for sure. Always. So, as you know, well, Noel Lo, these many years, North Korea, the dprk has mystified the rest of the world because it is a very strange place. And we talked about this a little bit on our sister show. Stuff they don't want you to know. Today's episode, today's question, how did it come to be? I mean, let's find out. Because DPRK is kind of a new kid on the block.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, it's true. It is an ancient land, Korea as a whole. But the history of the DPRK is relatively Recent, like you mentioned, beginning at the close of World War II, there in 1945, when Japan went ahead and surrendered to the Allies, the Korean peninsula was spl in twain down the 38th parallel between Earth's biggest modern frenemies, the USSR, China and the United States of America. With the Nazis on the outs, or at least on their way to the outs, the Soviets and the Americans were looking towards a new goal of expanding their conflicting ideologies across the world. The Soviets and Communist China on the north side of the parallel saw the new territory as both a buffer against the encroaching Americans and an opportunity to demonstrate the massive advantages of the great Communist dream. Ben, part of the reason that I was in Germany is I'm working on a series that is centered around the Cold War and the Berlin Wall and a lot of trafficking of humans from the east side of the Wall, the Communist side, to the west side of the Wall. And it's a very similar split here in terms of like, the Communists got all that stuff on that one side, and the Americans more or less were in support of the stuff on the other side, and never the twain meet. And all of these conflicts that you might not think immediately would be an issue became a total issue which led to this shutting down of the border, lest people on the Communist side, you know, feel left out or something, or like, felt like, feel as though that there was stuff going on the other side of the wall that did not include them. And this isolationist mentality really took over to the point where, very similarly to the divide between north and South Korea, utterly illegal to travel from one side of the Berlin Wall to the other on pain of death. Which is why a lot of very crafty folks got into the business, some for profit, some for doing the right thing, ideological reasons of moving people across that divide.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, I was thinking of you recently as I was revisiting my old State Department days with the idea of this division. Because history is a palimpsest, folks. If you go to Berlin now, you can still see the legacy of the divide of the Wall. East Germany in particular tends to have lower economic performance. A lot of the stats you would imagine about demographics still carry with them the burden, the albatross of that great divide. And look, as you were saying, when the Allied forces and the Communist forces are divvying up this peninsula, they know from the jump this is an unsustainable situation. These two occupying. They're not really countries, these two occupying powers, or gangs.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, right. Supporters, I guess they're sort of like, these are our guys, and these are our guys.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Very much a vassal state situation. These two great powers cannot agree on the best way to reunify the peninsula. Korea has historically considered itself one thing, one people, quite homogenous. So by 1948, as a result of these disagreements and negotiations, the two great powers, the communist and the capitalist, set up two separate governments. And the pickle of it is the badger in the bag is that each of these governments on the same peninsula claimed that they had sovereignty over the entire area. So stuff was real awkward from 1948 to 1950, when the conflict went hot and kinetic, what we call the Korean War broke out. And it was a. Beat me here, Max, please. It was a shit show.

[Noel Brown]

It was. And it had some interesting alternate names, I guess, depending on where you stood. Some of these I was not aware of. Tell us a little bit about some of these and kind of what the. I don't know, the stank on each of them might be.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, it's kind of like how in the US you call it the Vietnam War, but in Vietnam, it has a different name. In the United States, you called this conflict in 1950-1953, you call it the Korean War, sometimes the forgotten war, the dprk. The North Korean government calls it the Fatherland Liberation War, because in their mind, you know, it's the righteous, holy thing to do.

[Noel Brown]

There lies the stank. Right. Everyone's putting their own little spin on it, depending on, you know, which side of the divide you fall.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. In South Korea, in the ROK, it's called the 625 after the day it started. And China's name for it, which I think is our mutual favorite, is the War to Resist US Aggression and aid.

[Noel Brown]

Korea, the stankiest of them all.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, they put some spin on it, for sure, but the issue is, we're talking about this war in the past tense. Conflict raged back and forth. It looked for a time to be anyone's game. This war has not ended as you are hearing this episode. We're recording it on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, while the Korean War continues. There's no official peace treaty. Neither side has surrendered, nor seems likely to. It's a temporary ceasefire. So these folks have been on timeout for decades and decades.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, it's a cold war.

[Ben Bullen]

Very much so.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. I mean, there's so many parallels between this situation and what happened there in Berlin. The idea of a Cold War being that sort of like, technically, we're on pause, but life goes on, and tensions do tend to simmer.

[Ben Bullen]

Do you remember that? You know, I'm in love with 80s and 90s sitcom themes. Not the actual perfect strangers, just the. There's one.

[Noel Brown]

There was a Golden Dunwood described the plot of the damn series. I miss those days.

[Ben Bullen]

Shout out to the nanny. Right?

[Noel Brown]

Mr. Belvedere.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Mr. Bell. Oh man. First time I skipped Fresh Prince, of course. Uh huh. Fresh Prince. Put some respect on the name as.

[Noel Brown]

Much as wife's name out of your mouth, please.

[Ben Bullen]

The one thing that I'm remembering immediately, I rediscovered a sleeper hit called Dear John. Did you ever hear this? I'm gonna send you the theme.

[Noel Brown]

The theme song must not have been a massive sensation.

[Ben Bullen]

Sleeper hit, like I was saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Ozymandias, it was a big deal in its day. It's all about a guy who has a acrimonious break up with his partner. She leaves him and she leaves a letter. A Dear John letter.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, right. Is that what a Dear John letter is? It's a breakup letter.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Okay, okay. And it's a. So it's. The entire show is about this guy named, in a burst of creativity, John and his buddies he meets in therapy and the hijinks they get into.

[Noel Brown]

Got it. So a bit of a sad sack kind of. Kind of character.

[Ben Bullen]

Bittersweet little Ted lasso to it. But do check out the theme song for Dear John. I'll send it to you guys after this recording you can find on YouTube. The Korean War is not.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, Judd Hirsch from Taxi.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah. The Korean War is also an acrimonious stalemate. The 38th parallel becomes the demilitarized zone. We call it the DMZ for short. And it remains one of the most dangerous, fascinating areas on the planet today. China also remains an official ally of North Korea, so much so that when. When people try to escape North Korea and make it to a third party embassy in China, China will capture them. They don't consider them political refugees. They consider them economic, illegal, economic migrants. And they turn them back into North Korea.

[Noel Brown]

Yikes. Sort of a bit of an understanding, I suppose. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

Really terrible one too, because horrific things happen to defectors and their families if they're caught. So the west, as you said, has been in a cold war with North Korea, which ultimately, if you game it out, is a proxy war with China since pretty much the end of World War II. And that's part of the reason Uncle Sam and other countries don't just enter North Korea and do some government overthrow. Because if they did, the rulers of China, Uncle Xi would get very mad very quickly.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, it's. I mean, I know it's. It's not. This is maybe not the venue to fully unpack all of this, but I'm always confused with that, like, steadfast support that China gives to North Korea, much like some of the steadfast support that we give to Israel. It's always just confused me a little bit about what the motivations are, where that comes from. I'm not trying to be hot button here about it, but maybe you can see how I would connect those relationships a little bit.

[Ben Bullen]

I could see the parallels in the structure, the mechanisms of those relationships, because in both cases, there's a mix of ideology, there's a mix of resource extraction. And in the case of the Korean peninsula in particular, China is investing in a bulwark in a buffer zone. Right. So North Korea, for China, is kind of its own bigger dmz. It's looking at Uncle Sam and the bases out there around Seoul and so on, the capital of South Korea. And it's going, give me five feet, give me a distance.

[Noel Brown]

In the event of some sort of invasion or military assault.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Especially given that North Korea is now technically a nuclear power.

[iHeart Radio Announcer]

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[Ben Bullen]

There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed.

[Noel Brown]

You know how waking up from a.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Dream, a familiar place can look completely alien.

[Noel Brown]

Get back, everyone. Let's go. Dax.

[Ben Bullen]

And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest. Corner of this town as a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Abbostown.

[Elena Sada]

At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on the vault. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

[Noel Brown]

My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out.

[Elena Sada]

This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel as part of the My Cultura podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1980, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[Ben Bullen]

That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Noel Brown]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize.

[Ben Bullen]

Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him.

[Noel Brown]

So he had this little practice.

[Ben Bullen]

To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Bullen]

North Korea was taking cues from the Soviets when the whole operation began. And they said, we're gonna build a massive centralized economy, like you were saying, showing the power of the communist ideals. They eschewed capitalism and they aimed to build a new paradise on earth. And they said, it's gonna be uniquely Korean and it's going to be thoroughly communist on paper, but it's not quite communist. Noel. Because they found a leader, the infamous war hero, Kim Il Sung. And Kim Il Sung quickly becomes more than a political figure. He's the centerpiece of a new nationwide cult of personality. North Korea began and continues to worship this man as a God. His family has ruled the area ever, ever since.

[Noel Brown]

And he was taking cues for sure from, you know, the hits Stalin and Mao. And in Kim Il Sung, those two leaders of the USSR and China found the perfect candidate to run their new country, like you said, Ben, as something of a vassal state. This was pretty sharp and also pretty insidious. Yeah, agreed.

[Ben Bullen]

Because here's what they're doing. They're finding a dictator to push their values, and they want to hold their space in the great Monopoly game of geopolitics, but they need him to appear to be homegrown. So they need a Korean guy so they can say, hey, this is an independent country that happens to agree with us. But they were giving the orders. They were running the place without officially occupying it. And Kim Il Sung is so fascinating. He had various other titles over the decades. So he was born in 1912. Right. And he rules North Korea from 1948 all the way up until he passes away in 1994. It was similar to Vladimir Putin, where people just kept throwing different titles and accolades upon them. His current posthumous title is literally right now now, the Eternal Leader.

[Noel Brown]

In a burst of humility, as you like to say, Ben.

[Ben Bullen]

In a burst of humility, as we like to say. His totalitarian regime is beyond domestic reproach. There were and are no opposition parties. That's a thing that doesn't happen. There are no civic minded, independent groups. And for a little while, this is the thing the Americans forget. For a little while. Well, objectively, they were doing well, despite their extensive aggressive violations of anything slightly resembling human rights.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, that's right. In fact, by the 60s, North Korea had a higher standard of living than the American aligned South Korea, which was beset on all sides with economic and political turmoil. And North Korea never forgave the US for its activities during the Korean War. And a big part of their ideology was decrying the Americans as belligerent imperialists. The North Korean government has consistently demanded so far without any particular success, that the United States Uncle Sam remove itself from the peninsula entirely. And they even seized an American vessel, the USS Pueblo in 1968. However, by the 70s, things started to take a bit of a turn.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, this is where South Korea, the rok, recovers from the chaos and the corruption. Well, they never really recovered from the corruption. But anyway, they start making a lot of money. They get very involved in advantageous international trade. At the same time, North Korea increasingly hermiting off it starts to falter and collapse as it is straying from the usual Soviet communist ideology. The biggest distinction is that Kim Il Sung, the Eternal Leader, has this philosophy that gets sold to the domestic population. It's called juche. Juche is, I'm going to be diplomatic. According to the official North Korean sources, juche is the final form of communist, and it's focused on Korean nationalism, cultural preservation, self reliance, and also, I hate the Americans, I hate the Japanese, and if you roll with them, screw you too.

[Noel Brown]

So it's not just the kind of communism that on paper, some folks want to say, wow, that'd be great if.

[Ben Bullen]

It worked like that.

[Noel Brown]

But this is even its own kind of specialized, hyper nationalized version of that.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, in everything but name. It's a theocracy, really. The Soviets were not particularly tickled with this development.

[Noel Brown]

But no, that's our thing. You can't take our thing and just run with it.

[Ben Bullen]

Well, they said, we gave you the thing, right? We franchised you.

[Noel Brown]

Now you're styling on it.

[Ben Bullen]

We didn't get it from you. Stop putting new stuff on the menu. You know, like, it's as though for the capitalist version, it's like if McDonald's found out that a store in Oklahoma or Florida had just started making gyros without permission, like, what's up with these gyros, you guys? Still, everybody shrugged and they said, what are you going to do? And they knew the great game was still afoot. So they supported North Korea along with China through funding, through subsidies, through all kinds of shenanigans, all the way up until the Soviet Union itself fell in 1991 and the Berlin Wall started tumbling.

[Noel Brown]

Down, et cetera, 100%, this was not a good thing for North Korea. Without the support that they'd been receiving, their economy got worse. This led to widespread and absolutely horrific conditions, including famine throughout the land in 1994, when the Eternal Leader passed away. It's really important to remember that Kim not only outlived Mao and Stalin, his buddies and sort of, you know, ideological mentors, but over his reign, six different South Korean presidents also came and went, and 10American presidents came and went.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, so this is a long time strongman. One of the best to do it, actually, if you put aside the ethics for a second. Also, just to clarify here, folks, the Berlin Wall, the fall of it that we're referencing, occurs in November of 1989. So we're being a little figurative, but that's one of the most.

[Noel Brown]

But there's parallels.

[Ben Bullen]

It's one of the most historically important death throes or red flags of the red flags. All right, we'll keep it. Of the Soviet Union falling in 91.

[Noel Brown]

Scary red flags.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, no kidding. So Kim Il Sung passes away in 1994. The nation goes into an intense period of grief, due in no small part to the fact that there is such horrific famine that cannibalism does exist. It does happen. Survival cannibalism occurs. Kim Il Sung's son, Kim Jong Il. Shout out. Max is a big fan. That's what we say about him when he's not around. Kim Jong Il succeeded him. And then Kim Jong Il rules with an iron F. He leads the charge on becoming a nuclear power. He passes away. He is succeeded by Kim Il Sung's grandson, the current ruler, Kim Jong Un.

[Noel Brown]

Well, it's interesting because, I mean, even though this is technically a communist regime, as you may have gotten the sense of, this is a dynasty.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. It's a family business. It's communism for 95% of the country. Country. Right. And it's also a theocracy. But if you're at the top, it's no secret that the west has a lot of propaganda aimed at North Korea. So your browser search away from hearing all sorts of wild stories. We'll probably get to some of these. It's weird. It's an absolute monarchy. It's a theocracy, but it's secular, so.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. It's technically an atheist state.

[Ben Bullen]

Right.

[Noel Brown]

And this cult of personality is. I mean, probably the best example of a pure cult of personality. I literally just googled North Korean religion, and the religion in North Korea is Juche, right? It is. You are meant to worship the leaders, which is.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay, I'm gonna get in trouble for this. But, you know, pre podcast, this was a thing I had to learn a lot about, and Juche might itself be kind of a grift. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get back in there after I say this on air. But Juche, if you look at Kim Il Sung's actual writing, it basically just translates to the subject. And then other people are using the fig leaf of communism to. To rationalize this worship of this one particular family. And anybody who doesn't comply is gonna be punished with incarceration, losing job opportunities, sent off to forced labor for life. They might be killed and not Just them, but their families as well. Unto the third generation, these folks hold grudges.

[Noel Brown]

We're absolutely Persona non grata all down the line. So let's talk a little bit about that pure cult of personality. The North Korean cult of personality that surrounds the Kim family can be found in a lot of examples everywhere witnessed Ben firsthand of North Korean culture. Now, this isn't directly acknowledged by the state, by the North Korean government, but many defectors and visitors from Western regions have witnessed and report stiff penalties for anyone who would dare to criticize or to not show proper deference for the current or former leaders of the country.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, and anthropologically put, there is a disconnect between a lot of other places in the world, and, I mean, there's a cultural chasm between what we would consider proper respect and what the people of North Korea and the government in North Korea would consider proper respect. Have you. You bowed deep enough? Did you take a picture at the wrong time? Did you say something? And Australians get in trouble for this all the time. Did you say something that you thought was a funny joke and it was seen as disrespectful? Look, the personality cult was definitely in play soon after Kim Il Sung took power in 48. But when he died in 1994amid this famine, this economic collapse, they turned the gas up so high on the personality cult, on this Orwellian worship of things. That's partially due to. I mean, it's due to several factors, but the main factor operationally is that they needed to convince these people who are having a horrible time. They needed to convince these people that Kim Il Sung is God and that therefore, his children are the right rulers. So the North Korean government's official position is, yeah, we don't have a cult of personality. We as a people, just all agree this is the best family. We just all organically do this not because of consequences, because we're right.

[Noel Brown]

And that's, you know, that's not to say that there aren't folks that live there who don't fully believe this stuff with every, you know, fiber of their being.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah, and that's a great point, because this is. This is descended from Confucianism, right? From the idea of a. Of a hierarchy of family and a hierarchy of society that is indisputable and immovable. And so this Confucianism has been weaponized. You have to adore the leaders. It reminds me of. You remember Stalin, right?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, that guy.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

From earlier. We used to hang. Really fun at parties.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he was a blast. Well, so as, as you mentioned previously, our buddy Kim took a lot of cues from the Mao and Stalin personality quotes. And I always remember the old story about, about people being terrified when they watched speeches by Joseph Stalin. So people would start clapping, right? Always a standing ovation, no matter what he says. And people would clap for a very, very long time because everyone was afraid to be the first person to stop clapping. You might look disloyal. It's a scary thing. It's definitely in play in North Korea. Not cheering hard enough. It's a bad look. People might start to ask questions. And asking questions or seeming disloyal, pretty much anything can land you in the camps. And the camps are heinous.

[Noel Brown]

Absolutely. Their human rights abuses have been widely reported, are well known, proven and to your point, Ben, Heinous. In 2009, there was some satellite imagery that was unearthed showing a lot about the way the Kims lived, which was pretty high on the hog, as well as the terrifying subjugation of their people, the North Korean people. We were able to see photographs showing details of Hwasong Concentration camp, which is generally referred to as Camp 16. It's one of North Korea's most notorious prison camps. And the Wall Street Journal reported that it is roughly 300 square miles containing around 20,000 political prisoners located near a facility for testing nuclear weapons.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah. Again, this is the gnarly stuff and we have to talk about it. We know the horrors of these prisons, all right? And even knowing that the west has a lot of silly anti North Korean propaganda, there are real, actionable and substantive human rights abuses occurring over there in the north of the peninsula. We're talking not just starvation and disease, but also infanticide, which is the murder of children. Especially in cases where if you go to the wrong camp, if you do something the government finds egregious enough, then you are no longer a person person. You are not only in some cases, you're not even forced into manual labor, you're forced into purposefully meaningless manual labor. And pregnant women, due to that three generation rule have been incarcerated and they lose the kids. And they're increasing the use of surveillance and forced labor, severe punishments. They're ratcheting it up to maintain total control as things collapse. You can read about the this, of course, things like Human Rights Watch, but the recent United nations report is from like this year, showing how profoundly this has escalated.

[iHeart Radio Announcer]

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[Ben Bullen]

There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town. You must excis it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed.

[Noel Brown]

You know how waking up from a.

[Ben Bullen]

Dream, a familiar place can look completely alien.

[Noel Brown]

Get back, everyone.

[Ben Bullen]

And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town. As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The definition walks in Abbostown.

[Elena Sada]

At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pull back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Maciel looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

[Noel Brown]

My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. Story is the story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out.

[Elena Sada]

This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Marcial Maciel as part of the My Cultura podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[Ben Bullen]

That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Ben Bullen]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him.

[Noel Brown]

So he had this little practice.

[Ben Bullen]

To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Bullen]

You can get the death penalty for or anything considered an anti state activity. That includes drug use. Although methamphetamines were huge for a while. What could be seen as pornography, human trafficking, because so many people try to get out distribution of unauthorized media. Thought crime, basically, right? Don't go in there and start showing people like an episode of Peacemaker. That's treasonous. And then economic crimes, like a free market, you grow some extra rice, you got some wheat, you try to sell it to make a little side hustle. That's also treasonous. And of course, this would be the moment where in many other countries, someone would pop up on YouTube or a late night talk show and they would say, hey, this is kind of weird and not normal, right? Not happening there. All media is controlled by the government for sure.

[Noel Brown]

And, you know, it's easy to be hyperbolic about a lot of stuff that's going on in this country right now and say we're descending into these types of conditions. And while there's certainly some troubling indications that free speech is being cracked down on, we have a long way to go to get anywhere approaching what's been going on in this part of the world for a very long time.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, I agree with you. The US is far from perfect. It's always been kind of a hold my beer experiment. It's a very young country that swings above its weight class, but it is a heck of a lot less stressful to know you live in a place where for now, you can say what you want without getting black bagged. That was a nice one on behalf of the founding fathers. So good on you guys.

[Noel Brown]

It would seem that that is remaining a safeguard of some degree with the Kimmel situation. There was Certainly a lot of saber rattling and, you know, this idea of pulling him off the air and Sinclair and all that stuff, holding the line. But a lot of that stuff has been reversed. And I'm not saying it's not a mega slippery slope and it's not going to revert and possibly even get worse than it already was. But it was a little bit heartening if we're being positive here, to see that that stuff didn't hold and that there is some sense of the Constitution.

[Ben Bullen]

Now, folks, with all this information, we know what you're thinking. Longtime ridiculous historians, surely all of us are saying, guys, I love it. I can't wait to visit the good ish news. You may be able to, depending on where you're from. As you know, Noel and Max, I've been over to the border twice. Both times very surreal experience. Beyond surreal. It's one of the most heavily surveilled and militarized areas of the world. Right there on the borders of the dmz because that's the only part that's demilitarized and it's riddled with mines. The border is heavily patrolled. It's also heavily monetized. There are tons of tourist trap things and there's a lot of South Korean propaganda too. You buy merchants swag historical artifacts. Oh, oh, wait, let me show you something. Hang on. You'd love this.

[Noel Brown]

Show and tell.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, show and tell.

[Noel Brown]

What you got?

[Ben Bullen]

What you got, Noel? This is wild blueberry wine from Bakdu Mountain.

[Noel Brown]

Is that in a box like chicken broth?

[Ben Bullen]

It is. Here, I can open it.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, I got it. It's just a package. There's a bottle inside of the box. Okay. That is very syrupy looking wine, my friend. It looks something like you'd pour on pancakes.

[Ben Bullen]

I feel like it's sketchy. So I got it. And I'm never. I mean, even in.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, that's a showpiece, my friend. No need to sample it. Just put it on a shelf.

[Ben Bullen]

It's right up there with my Zam Zam water, which is the holy water. So here's the thing. You can get limited amounts of actual North Korean products like this sketchy bottle of blueberry wine. However, depending on your nationality, depending on how things are going in the world, entering North Korea can be either impossible or fatally dangerous. And I think it'd be cool for us to. This is a long quote, but I think it'd be cool for us to round robin the warning that you see about traveling to North Korea. It's directly from WikiTravel which is another fun website.

[Noel Brown]

I mean, first and foremost, you just. You got nobody having your back, essentially once you're there. I mean. Yeah, let's. Let's just get.

[Ben Bullen]

You gotta. You gotta.

[Noel Brown]

They sum it up beautifully.

[Ben Bullen]

What's that guy's name? Dennis Rodman. The worm. They got to call in the worm to rescue you.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. All right. Many governments do not recommend traveling to North Korea due to the uncertain security situation caused by North Korea's nuclear weapons development program and strict rules that are aggressively enforced in the country.

[Ben Bullen]

It continues. There are no U.S. and Canadian diplomatic offices in the DPRK. The ability of officials to provide consular assistance is extremely limited.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, the Swedes have an office, but like, good luck getting help from them. They're your only recourse. Sorry to editorialize here. The ability of officials to provide consular assistance is extremely limited. Sweden, through its embassy in Pyongyang, is the protecting power for Canadian, American and Australian nationals. If any emergency consular assistance assistance is required. How come Sweden gets one?

[Ben Bullen]

Sweden goes everywhere, man.

[Noel Brown]

They're just so friendly.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, right. It continues, such assistance will likely be very limited due to the unpredictability of the actions of the DPRK government and the leader. If you engage in activities that insult or disparage the government, you will face imprisonment, torture, beating, disappearances and forced labor for life until death, starvation and execution.

[Noel Brown]

Sorry, talk about a list of like, side effects.

[Ben Bullen]

Right? There's a fine print. Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

So a lot of would be tourists kind of quibble about the ethical implications of going in the first place. Right. Like if you go, are you not supporting this totalitarian and brutally unethical by pretty much any standard regime?

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly. Yeah. That's the thing. And it is true, because if you visit, no matter where you're from, if you visit, people are usually going to fly in from some Chinese airlines. You have to be pre registered with a state run tour operator. They control everything. The site visits, the restaurants, photography, conversations. And these tour guides, by the way away, just so we know, these two tour guides, like most North Korean people, are super cool. They're just scared. They don't want to die. They don't want their family tortured. So they're. They're doing their best. And your hotel is going to be in Pyongyang, in the capital. Your hotel room is going to be bugged. Don't touch anything that you don't have to touch because the government does not care who you are. They will arrest you if they walk want for anything. And your home government as we said realistically will not be able to do much about it. You got to call in the worm. You know, I. I mean, there's more to explore and we have to mention we're ethically bound to mention the harrowing atrocities occurring in North Korea. But we also, you know, I'm working on being more positive. It's tough, but same dude.

[Noel Brown]

It is tough, but yeah, we do the best we can.

[Ben Bullen]

Especially after that snuff film episode.

[Noel Brown]

That was a rough one do check that out if you want to get real dark and non ridiculous over on stuff they don't want you to know. And also I would recommend. It's been a while since I've seen it, but it was my first exposure to a lot of this stuff. And this is a director who's been kind of really having a moment lately. Wook Chan park or Chan Wook Park. One of his very first films is called jsa, which stands for Joint Security Area. And it is a political thriller that surrounds all the stuff we're talking about here today. And it's not my favorite. It's a little dry and a little procedural, but you can see the fingerprints of someone that would go on to make masterpieces like Oldboy and, you know, the Sympathy series. And I believe he's got a new one coming out soon that's supposed to be a real contender that I don't know the details about, you know, awards and such.

[Ben Bullen]

That's a nice reference. And I did enjoy. Enjoy is not the right word. I was mystified by that little blue building that you can hang out at. It's also where they show videos and stuff, right?

[Noel Brown]

Didn't you say there's like constant on a loop kind of welcome videos, but there is like eagles and stuff.

[Ben Bullen]

You have to watch a thing about how great the DMZ is for birds and natural wildlife on the South Korean side. Yeah. North Korea is also home to one of the world's most fascinating festivals. What we were playing earlier. Ararang. Ararang. As well as the dmz. Maybe that's where we end. Because beauty can emerge from horror. The dmz, dude, similar to Chernobyl. It's a textbook example of how the natural world can flourish when the humans are removed from the equation.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, it is quite the wildlife paradise.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Our favorite thing, probably. Well, I don't want to speak for you guys, but one of my favorite things is of the more than 5,000 animal and plant species identified in the area, including more than 100 that are endangered in other parts of the world. There are rumors even to this day that the Amur leopard and the Siberian tiger may roam the dmz. Cool. That's cool.

[Noel Brown]

I like tigers. Cool. When you said it like that though, I was picturing you were going like in a cryptid direction.

[Ben Bullen]

It's like Bigfoot, right? Uh huh.

[Noel Brown]

These are that level of rare, yes?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, 100%. Again, there's so much other stuff we can get to. We do want to point out again what we're saying about history being a palimpsest with intergenerational consequences. Not just in East Berlin, but if you look at this peninsula, you'll see that on average, due to malnutrition, North Korean citizens are going to be 1 to 3 inches shorter than South Korean citizens.

[Noel Brown]

Dad didn't know malnutrition made you shorter. I just thought it made you skinnier.

[Ben Bullen]

If you're not eating during the formative adolescent going phases.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, that does make sense.

[Ben Bullen]

It's part of why Audrey Hepburn looks so unique, actually.

[Noel Brown]

Didn't know. Well, speaking of Audrey Hepburn and Hollywood royalty, the next episode that we're gonna be doing for y' all is about about the mysterious case of the missing ruby slippers, the golden age Hollywood relic made famous by the wizard of Oz. And who knew? Well, our buddy Jordan Runtog knew that there's a gangster story involved, some sort of retired would be heisty mafiosos, and quite a few hilarious misunderstandings that went on for quite a long time. We're going to talk about that that on the next episode of Ridiculous History. But in the meantime, Ben, thanks for doing all the research on this one. I know this is sort of a pet subject for you and I learned a whole lot that I did not know about this very, very interesting part of the world, the Hermit kingdom.

[Ben Bullen]

Thanks so much for tuning in everybody. There is a panoply of excellent research on here. There, there are tons of strange stories, some more true than others, about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Please, please, please hit us up if you want to know more. And please check out our previous related episodes on stuff they don't want you to know. We'll be back later this week with with a shoe centric episode, a little bit of a ridiculous crime hat we shall doff. And you know, thanks to you super producer, Mr. Max Williams, thanks to your brother Alex Williams, who composed this banging.

[Noel Brown]

Of course, Chris Frasiotes and Eve Jeffcoats here at Spirit. Jonathan Strickland the quizter. AJ Bahamas Jacobs the puzzler. And again, Ben, our research associate on this episode. You, sir. Thanks for for hanging.

[Ben Bullen]

It's always a pleasure. Ah, and again, thanks to man, I'm still speaking of weirdly specific reference works. I'm still in love with depraved and insulting English. We don't have to do it again, but everybody check out that book. And Noel, so glad you're back. Safe, man. I am excited about the show. I know there aren't too many details we can divulge just yet, but as they emerge, as we get closer, we can't wait to tell you more about the show. So thanks to you, Noel.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, man, it's a real history mystery and it's got a lot of interesting aspects around the Cold War, around the kind of stuff that we're talking about today. And it also has a true crime ethical center of it, but it's not kind of your average total bummer true crime story. So thanks, Ben. I will reveal info as it becomes available to share. In the meantime, geez, we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

[Ben Bullen]

You know what your customers are doing right this second? The exact same thing. You are listening to me.

[Noel Brown]

Which, let's be honest, is kind of flattering.

[Ben Bullen]

But my point Is, ads on iHeartRadio actually get heard in the car, at the gym, on the couch, while people are walking their dogs. Who's a good boy?

[Noel Brown]

Who's a good boy? You're a good boy.

[Ben Bullen]

That's right, dude. You're a good. So why not make the next ad about you? Get started today. Call 844-844-IHEART or go to to iheartadvertising.com that's 844-844, iheart or iheartadvertising.com There's a vile sickness in Amber's Town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. From iheart podcasts and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noel Brown]

Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story. When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 1919 years old when Marcia Almasel the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling. Surviving meant hiding. Escaping took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the Many Secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in Northwest Lake Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control.

[Ben Bullen]

And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill him.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[iHeart Radio Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.