In 1996, a German author named Heribert Illig published a theory that became a bestseller: that 297 years of human history were simply invented. The entire Carolingian period. The life and reign of Charlemagne. The Viking Age. The rise of Islam. All of it, according to Illig, fabricated by a Holy Roman Emperor, a Pope, and possibly a Byzantine Emperor — men who conspired to insert three centuries into the historical record so their own reigns would fall at the symbolically significant year one thousand.

Host Shawn Spainhour walks you through the full theory — the calendar argument that started it, the archaeological gaps Illig pointed to, and the case for a fictional Charlemagne — and then through the evidence that dismantles it: astronomical records, tree rings, radiocarbon dating, and the meticulous calendars of the Islamic world, none of which were consulted by Illig and none of which cooperate with his timeline. The Phantom Time Hypothesis is wrong. But the question underneath it — how do we actually know what we know about the past? — is one worth sitting with.

Strange Epochs tells true stories from history's stranger corners. Each episode is written for deep listening — slow, atmospheric, and immersive. Whether you're behind the wheel, unwinding after a long day, or settling in for sleep, this show is built to pull you in and carry you somewhere else.

Sources are listed in the show notes:

• Illig, Heribert. Das erfundene Mittelalter: Die größte Zeitfälschung der Geschichte. Econ Verlag, 1996.
• Wikipedia contributors. Phantom time conspiracy theory. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2024.
• Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften. Symposium on the Phantom Time Hypothesis. Volume 8, 1997.
• Discover Magazine. What Is the Truth Behind the Controversial Phantom Time Hypothesis? 2023.
• Big Think. Phantom time hypothesis: Did a power-hungry pope fabricate centuries of history? 2023.
• Damn Interesting. The Phantom Time Hypothesis. Alan Bellows, 2005.
• Sky History. The Phantom Time Conspiracy: Are three hundred years of human history made up? 2023.
• Discovery UK. Phantom Time Hypothesis: Did We Really Invent Centuries of History? 2025.

In medieval France, a pig was formally arrested, given a defense lawyer, brought before a judge, found guilty, dressed in human clothing, and publicly hanged. This was not an isolated incident. Between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, there are documented records of over two hundred animal trials across Europe — pigs, bulls, rats, weevils, caterpillars, and at least one rooster accused of the capital crime of laying an egg. Every proceeding was conducted with complete legal seriousness. Every sentence was carried out by a professional executioner who received new gloves afterward, as they did after hanging a human being.

Host Shawn Spainhour takes you inside the worldview that made this not just possible but perfectly logical — a medieval understanding of justice, order, and humanity's place in creation that was coherent, deliberate, and deeply revealing about how an entire civilization understood itself. This is not a story about superstition or madness. It is a story about what law means, who it applies to, and what happens when a society draws the boundaries of moral responsibility around everything that lives.

Strange Epochs tells true stories from history's stranger corners. Each episode is written for deep listening — slow, atmospheric, and immersive. Whether you're behind the wheel, unwinding after a long day, or settling in for sleep, this show is built to pull you in and carry you somewhere else.

Sources are listed in the show notes:

• Evans, E.P. The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. William Heinemann, 1896.
• Cohen, Esther. Law, Folklore, and Animal Lore. Past and Present, Volume 110, 1986.
• Dinzelbacher, Peter. Animal Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Journal of Medieval History, Volume 32, 2006.
• Gins, Sven. Casting Justice Before Swine: Late Medieval Pig Trials as Instances of Human Exceptionalism. University of Groningen, 2023.
• Wikipedia contributors. Animal trial. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2024.
• History Today. Pigs Might Try. Alexander Lee, 2020.
• JSTOR Daily. When Societies Put Animals on Trial. 2020.
• Popular Science. In Medieval France, Murderous Pigs Faced Trial and Execution. 2026.
• Ancient Origins. Medieval Justice: Pig Was Tried in Court, Sentenced and Executed for Murder. 2022.

In 1816, summer never came. Crops failed in June. It snowed in July. Families across the Northern Hemisphere watched their harvests die in the ground and had no idea why. A volcano on the other side of the world — Mount Tambora in Indonesia — had erupted the year before with a force so massive it put enough material into the atmosphere to change the climate of an entire hemisphere. The people starving in Vermont and Ireland and Bengal had never heard of it.

Host Shawn Spainhour takes you through the full story: the eruption of Tambora in April 1815, the slow creep of its effects across the globe, the famines and food riots and mass migrations it triggered, the new strain of cholera it helped unleash, and the strange red sunsets that painters couldn't stop painting. And on the shores of Lake Geneva, a young woman named Mary Shelley — stuck indoors through a cold, dark Swiss summer — sat down and invented Frankenstein.

Strange Epochs tells true stories from history's stranger corners. Each episode is written for deep listening — slow, atmospheric, and immersive. Whether you're behind the wheel, unwinding after a long day, or settling in for sleep, this show is built to pull you in and carry you somewhere else.

Sources are listed in the show notes:

• Wood, Gillen D'Arcy. Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World. Princeton University Press, 2014.
• Post, John D. The Last Great Subsistence Crisis in the Western World. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
• Wikipedia contributors. Year Without a Summer. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2024.
• Wikipedia contributors. 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2024.
• National Park Service. 1816: The Year Without Summer. U.S. National Park Service, 2022.
• Britannica editors. Mount Tambora eruption. Encyclopaedia Britannica, updated 2024.
• Oppenheimer, Clive. Eruptions That Shook the World. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Lackinton, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, and Jones, 1818.
• U.S. Geological Survey. New England's 1816 Mackerel Year, Volcanoes and Climate Change Today. 2017.