The early 20th century was a strange and optimistic time. In the years following Marie and Pierre Curie’s discovery of radium, the world became obsessed with this mysterious, glowing element—and before long, that obsession made its way into everyday life.

During the height of the Radium Craze, companies sold beauty products that claimed to contain real radium, promising smoother skin, renewed vitality, and a healthy glow—sometimes quite literally. Creams, powders, and cosmetics were marketed as cutting‑edge science, long before the dangers of radiation were understood.

This 5‑Minute Friday episode offers a quick glimpse into that bizarre moment in history and serves as a teaser for next week’s full‑length episode. Shea will be joined by the creator behind the Radiant Radium social media channels, a collector and historian who specializes in household and beauty products from the radium era.

Next week, we’ll go far beyond cosmetics—into glowing clocks, radioactive water, dangerous health fads, and the long shadow these products left behind.

Subscribe now so you don’t miss it.

Find Radiant Radium online:

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radiant.radium
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@radiantradium
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radiantradium/

What happens when a city decides kindness is better than cruelty?

In this special crossover episode of Rainy Day Rabbit Holes, we’re joined by the incredible gals from PNW Haunts & Homicides to explore one of the strangest—and most unexpectedly heartwarming—stories in American history: Joshua Abraham Norton, the self‑declared Emperor of the United States.

Born into loss, fortune, ruin, and obscurity, Norton reemerged in 1859 with a bold declaration that could have ended very badly… except San Francisco leaned in. What followed was a twenty‑year “reign” filled with proclamations, public appearances, political commentary, and a city that collectively decided to play along.

Along the way, we explore:

• A Gold Rush city bursting with chaos, ambition, and opportunity
• A man who issued decrees abolishing Congress and the Supreme Court
• A public arrest that backfired spectacularly
• An Emperor who defended immigrants, challenged racist violence, and promoted civil rights long before it was fashionable
• A city that fed him, clothed him, saluted him… and mourned him

Was Emperor Norton mad? Satirical? Visionary? Or something else entirely?

And why did San Francisco—of all places—embrace him instead of locking him away?

You’ll have to fall down the rabbit hole with us to find out.

Huge thanks to PNW Haunts & Homicides, where ghosts, murder, and Pacific Northwest weirdness all hang out together.

👉 Follow and listen at: https://www.pnwhauntsandhomicides.com/

Find sources, photos, episode notes, and more at our website:

👉 https://www.rainydayrabbitholes.com/

Love strange history in person?

Join us June 3rd in Tacoma, WA for a live event at McMenamins Spanish Ballroom at the Elks Temple:

History Pub: Tacoma’s UFO Story — The Maury Island Incident

Presented by Steve Edmiston, Shea Drury, and Chris Staudinger

🎫 Tickets here:

👉 https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/41193663/history-pubtacomas-ufo-story-the-maury-island-incident-presented-by-steve-edmistonshea-druryand-chris-staudinger-tacoma-mcmenamins-spanish-ballroom-elks-temple

Sometimes the strangest stories are the most human.

Stay curious—and we’ll see you down the rabbit hole.

🐇👑

Today’s episode is a special feature from Dark History: Where the Darkness Sees the Light, a podcast that’s part of our Umbrella Podcast Collective.

Hosted by Rob Bradley, Dark History explores the uncomfortable, often unsettling stories we like to believe are safely buried in the past—and then shows how they still shape the world we live in.

In this episode, Rob takes a deep dive into the history of snake oil: the miracle cures, the confident sales pitches, and the long tradition of selling certainty to people who are scared, sick, or searching for answers. What begins in the 19th century quickly becomes something much more familiar, as the same patterns of deception reappear in modern forms—polished, optimized, and online.

This is one of our favorite episodes Rob has done. Not just because of the history, but because of how clearly it reveals a hard truth: the scams didn’t disappear. They adapted.

Listen closely. The bottles may be gone, but the promises remain.

🎙️ Dark History: Where the Darkness Sees the Light

👉 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s5-e4-snake-oil-never-died-it-just-went-online/id1603599807?i=1000751583276

🌧️ Explore more episodes and rabbit holes at:

👉 https://www.rainydayrabbitholes.com

Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is proud to be part of the Umbrella Podcast Collective, a group of independent podcasts exploring strange history, dark stories, and the things that refuse to stay buried.

🌐 Learn more about the collective:

👉 https://www.rainydayrabbitholes.com/umbrella-collective

In this collaborative episode, Rainy Day Rabbit Holes joins forces with Caitlyn and Cassie from PNW Haunts and Homicides to explore one of the strangest modern treasure hunts in history: Forrest Fenn’s hidden chest.

Presented by Caitlyn, the story follows art dealer and Vietnam veteran Forrest Fenn, who in 2010 announced that he had hidden a bronze treasure chest somewhere in the Rocky Mountains—worth millions—and released a cryptic poem meant to lead seekers to it. What began as a whimsical riddle quickly spiraled into a decade-long obsession involving online sleuths, wilderness expeditions, lawsuits, environmental damage, and tragic deaths.

Along the way, we unpack the poem’s clues, popular interpretations (including the infamous “home of Brown”), the massive online communities that formed around the hunt, and the ethical questions raised when adventure turns dangerous. The episode closes with a tarot reading that eerily mirrors the story’s ultimate lesson: knowing when to walk away.

Equal parts mystery, cautionary tale, and cultural phenomenon, this episode asks: when does the thrill of the chase stop being worth the cost?

Follow PNW Haunts and Homicides on all the platforms!

https://www.pnwhauntsandhomicides.com/

This week on 5 Minute Friday, we’re still joined by Caitlyn and Cassie from PNW Haunts and Homicides, but this time the chaos is airborne.

Shea reads a truly unbelievable—but very real—news story out of China, where a farmer attempted to transport a pig using a drone… and accidentally knocked out power to an entire village. The pig became tangled in high‑voltage power lines, leaving it suspended midair and thousands of residents without electricity for roughly 10 hours.

We break down how the incident happened, why drone use has become common in mountainous rural regions, and how a headline that sounds like a metaphor (“when pigs fly”) briefly became an infrastructure problem. It’s absurd, it’s oddly fascinating, and it’s a perfect reminder that technology doesn’t care how good your idea sounded at 5 a.m.

Short, strange, and straight from the “you can’t make this up” file.

• Ashley Fike, “A Flying Pig Knocked Out Power to an Entire Village in China,” VICE, February 15, 2026
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-flying-pig-knocked-out-power-to-an-entire-village-in-china/ [vice.com]

Check out PNW Haunts and Homicides! https://www.pnwhauntsandhomicides.com/

Claudette Colvin: The Teenager Who Refused to Move

Before Rosa Parks became a household name, a 15‑year‑old girl in Montgomery, Alabama, made a decision that helped crack the foundation of Jim Crow segregation.

In this episode, Jody dives into the story of Claudette Colvin, a courageous teenager who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in March of 1955—nine months before Rosa Parks’ more widely recognized protest. Colvin’s arrest, trial, and testimony became a crucial part of the legal battle that ultimately ended bus segregation in the United States.

We explore why Colvin’s story was sidelined for decades, how age, respectability politics, and racism shaped whose stories were told, and why her role in Browder v. Gayle was so vital to the Civil Rights Movement. This episode is about bravery, memory, and the uncomfortable truth that history doesn’t always spotlight the people who deserve it most.

• Who Claudette Colvin was and why her protest mattered
• What happened on that Montgomery bus in 1955
• Why civil rights leaders chose not to center her story at the time
• How her testimony helped bring down segregation laws
• The long road to recognition—and justice—for Claudette Colvin

If you enjoy going down historical rabbit holes with us, consider supporting Rainy Day Rabbit Holes on Patreon. You’ll find bonus content, behind‑the‑scenes extras, and more ways to keep the show going.

👉 Visit www.rainydayrabbitholes.com to find our Patreon and explore the show.

Huge thanks to Letha Davis, who designed our website and helped bring Rainy Day Rabbit Holes to life online.

Check out her work at www.easybrzy.com.

As always, thank you for listening—and for remembering the stories history almost forgot.

⚠️ Not Safe for Work / Adult Content Warning ⚠️

Sometimes history refuses to stay in the past. And sometimes… it shows up in an emergency room.

This Five Minute Friday dives into a truly unbelievable modern news story involving a World War I artillery shell, one very bad decision, and a French hospital that suddenly had to take explosive history very seriously. It’s a reminder that just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s safe—and that curiosity without common sense is how you end up evacuating a building.

We ask the important questions:

• How does something like this even happen?
• Why are WWI explosives still turning up?
• And what life choices lead to this particular outcome?

Spoiler: History is wild, humans are weirder, and museums exist for a reason.

• A real Vice news story involving a live WWI artillery shell and a hospital evacuation
• Why unexploded ordnance from World War I is still being discovered today
• The difference between “historical artifact” and “active explosive”
• How history occasionally re-enters the present in the most unhinged way possible

• Vice: A Man Turned Up at Hospital With a Live WWI Artillery Shell in His Butt
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-man-turned-up-at-hospital-with-a-live-wwi-artillery-shell-in-his-butt/ [vice.com]

Rainy Day Rabbit Holes explores strange history, baffling decisions, forgotten stories, and the moments when the past collides violently—or hilariously—with the present.

New episodes and show info at:

👉www.rainydayrabbitholes.com

⚠️ Not Safe for Work / Adult Content Warning ⚠️

This episode discusses an explicit real‑world news story involving adult bodily injury, medical emergency, and crude subject matter. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Do not listen at work, around children, or polite society.

In the chaos of World War I, one unlikely soldier refused to stay behind. He didn’t carry a rifle, didn’t understand borders or politics, and technically wasn’t allowed to enlist—but he charged into danger anyway.

In this episode, we tell the true story of Sergeant Stubby, a Boston Terrier mix who became one of the most decorated heroes of World War I. From smuggling himself onto a troop ship, to warning soldiers of mustard gas attacks, locating wounded men in no man’s land, and even capturing an enemy spy, Stubby proved that bravery doesn’t require rank—or even thumbs.

Joining us for this emotional (and occasionally unhinged) journey is special guest Erin, Shea’s longtime friend and fellow history nerd, who helps us explore why Stubby’s story still resonates more than a century later.

Fair warning: this is a dog story, which means Shea cries. More than once. We apologize in advance—and also refuse to apologize at all.

• How a stray dog became the unofficial mascot of the 102nd Infantry Regiment
• Sergeant Stubby’s role in 17 battles on the Western Front
• Mustard gas detection, artillery warnings, and battlefield rescues
• The night Stubby captured a German spy—and earned a promotion
• Stubby’s postwar celebrity life, medals, and legacy
• Why this small dog’s story still hits so hard today

• Sergeant Stubby – World War I war dog and certified good boy
• Corporal James Robert Conroy – Stubby’s human best friend and handler
• Erin – Special guest, history nerd, and longtime friend of Shea

You can find photos, sources, and more stories like this at

👉 https://rainydayrabbitholes.com