Great stories, tested against the record.
Our Fake History follows the trail from myth to evidence, asking why certain stories feel too useful, too thrilling, or too strange to let go. Recent episodes move from Snow White and the Mandela Effect to Box Brown, Norse voyages, and disputed old stones.
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Our Fake History is built around a deceptively simple pleasure: taking a story everyone half-knows and asking what can actually be proven. It is not a gotcha machine. The show is warmer than that, more interested in why a legend worked than in mocking anyone for believing it. Recent episodes show the range clearly. Snow White becomes a way into false memory and the Mandela Effect. Box Brown's famous escape opens into a larger story about abolitionist audiences, public performance, ghostwritten autobiography, and the uneasy demand that survivors present trauma in only certain approved ways. The Viking series begins with raiders and sagas, then keeps widening. It considers settlement, trade, Norse contact with Indigenous people, the pull of Vinland, and the many later attempts to plant Vikings wherever people wanted them to be. Rune stones, Dighton Rock, and the Newport Tower all get handled as evidence, not as scenery. The show is strongest when it slows down over a claim that sounds just plausible enough to travel. A stone has markings. A saga has monsters and merchants. A political scandal leaves a suffix behind. A historical survivor becomes a symbol before he is allowed to be a person. From there, the show works patiently through context, sources, incentives, and cultural afterlife. The tone is accessible but not flimsy. It can be playful about fake Viking history or scandal naming, then turn grave when the subject is slavery, sexual assault, propaganda, or racist uses of the past. Bonus episodes add a looser rhythm, with listener questions pushing the show toward side paths on saints, skin grafts, saga comedy, activist entertainers, and the ethics of historical storytelling. Our Fake History suits listeners who like folklore, old sources, and skeptical inquiry, but still want the romance of a good tale before the floorboards are lifted.
Made for: For listeners who like history with narrative pull, source-checking, and a little dry humor. It especially suits people drawn to myths, medieval sagas, famous cons, folklore, and the cultural afterlife of old stories.
What sets it apart: The show does not simply debunk myths; it studies why they became useful, persuasive, or emotionally durable. Its best episodes keep the drama of the legend while carefully tracing the evidence underneath it.
A podcast about myths we think are history and history that might be hidden in myths! Awesome stories that really (maybe) happened!
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Sebastian Major tests durable historical legends against competing explanations, contemporary testimony and the people who shaped their public meaning.
Our Fake History takes a familiar historical claim and asks what survives once the legend meets the record. Sebastian Major moves across Spartan warfare, the Spanish-American War, Al Capone's Chicago, the Parthenon marbles, Constantinople and Henry Box Brown, usually beginning…
A gold-nosed emperor enters the myth audit, and your history-book certainty quietly exits.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A listener question about Henry Box Brown turns performance into a sharp test of who gets to define freedom.
A listener question about Henry Box Brown gives this bonus episode its clearest historical charge: what happens when a figure associated with activism moves toward magic and circus performance?
A daring escape story that turns into a sharp look at who controls the legend.
Henry Box Brown's escape story starts with a crate and keeps circling back to what it cost to squeeze a life into legend. The episode stays close to the box itself, Brown's 1849 flight out of slavery, and the way that private act of survival quickly became public through…
A thoughtful listener-question coda on Norse exploration, fake Viking history, and the darker edges of Iceland and Greenland settlement.
Our Fake History's bonus episode works as a coda to its Norse voyages to North America trilogy, with Sebastian Major answering listener questions and widening the frame.
A measured look at how the Kensington Runestone fed broader debates over Norse claims and an ancient American past.
This episode uses the Kensington Runestone to open a wider debate about Norse presence in North America. Sebastian Major starts with Olaf Oman's 1898 find near Kensington, Minnesota, then follows how the stone moved from a possible local calendar into a medieval-runes story…
Vinland history with sagas, skepticism, and a few very strange dead men.
The episode moves through the Norse sagas at their oddest edges, where the dead rise again and the Greenlanders push on toward Vinland. Sebastian Major is strongest when he pauses to ask what the texts are doing, especially in the tension between pagan and Christian worldviews…
A comic opener leads into a more complicated view of the Norse.
Sebastian Major begins with a comic tale about a supposed Norse rune, then uses it to widen the frame on the Vikings themselves. The episode works best when it moves past the raid-only myth and treats Norse movement as a mix of violence, settlement, trade, and integration with…
A playful detour on why scandals borrow Watergate's name, with truth and language still under examination.
This bonus episode keeps the Charles Ponzi series in motion through listener questions, then opens out toward the broader appeal of con artists and the language that helps scandals harden into public memory.
Ponzi's scheme is at its best when the paper trail turns on him.
Charles Ponzi fits the old lovable rogue tradition, and the episode uses that frame to move from character to mechanics without losing the thread.
Taiwan, remembered through conversation.
Box Brown makes the question sharper.
This episode explores the Mandela Effect phenomenon, focusing on Fiona Broome's claim that many people falsely remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s.
Our Fake History host Sebastian Major examines the life of Henry Box Brown, the enslaved man who mailed himself from Richmond, Virginia to Philadelphia in a 3-foot wooden crate in 1849 and became one of the most celebrated figures on the abolitionist lecture circuit.
In this bonus Q&A episode of Our Fake History, host Sebastian Major answers listener questions following a three-part series on Viking voyages to North America.
Our Fake History host Sebastian Major wraps a three-part series on Viking voyages by tracing how the 1837 publication of Danish historian Carl Christian Roffin's Antiquitates Americanae sparked a wave of Viking pseudo-history in the United States.
Sebastian Major, host of Our Fake History, continues a series on the Norse voyages to North America by working through the final chapters of the Saga of the Greenlanders and comparing it to the Saga of Erik the Red.
A weird rock starts the trouble.
Ponzi empires come first.
By March 24, Ponzi's coupon story was running out of road.
The story starts with internet money.
Buffalo Bill's money trouble drives the conversation.
Jefferson saw geography as time travel.
Buffalo Bill starts with a rhyme.
What counts as a real elephant duel?
A sailor walks north.
1593 gets messy fast.
Rabid vampires, alewives, and werewolf psychopomps come first.
Innsbruck was done with Heinrich Kramer.
Lycaon starts as a warning.
Parthenon marble myths keep multiplying.
A curse hangs over the marbles, at least if the gossip gets a vote.
In 1822, the Acropolis becomes a siege story.
Robin Hood climbs the ladder.
A summer throwback heads back to Robin Hood.
Musashi rolls into town, and Sebastian Major knows this is the fun stretch of the Japan swordsman series: fights, jokes, and old sound effects included.
Episode 55 gets a summer throwback.
Dark Side of the Rainbow opens the trail.
Cuban conspiracy theories come first.
The Maine arrives already carrying bad luck in its wake.
King or kingmaker?
Contemporary politics is rough terrain.
Mermaids get another skeptical look.
Black Isle is not really an island, which is exactly the sort of awkward fact Sebastian Major likes.
Medea opens a door.
Spartan slaves set the hook.
300 Spartans, but not the Thermopylae 300.
A poem opens by naming the good warrior as the one who can stand in bloody battle.
Leonidas hangs by the Mona Lisa.
Hadrian and Antinous enter through an opera connection.
This episode examines myths surrounding Al Capone's downfall, questioning Elliot Ness's role and exploring how Capone's public image shifted from charismatic figure to reviled gangster.
This episode explores the myths and realities of Al Capone's life, focusing on how the 1932 film Scarface shaped his legend and the censorship battles it sparked.
This episode explores the myths and truths surrounding Al Capone, starting with the infamous 1986 TV special 'The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults' hosted by Geraldo Rivera, which became a televised fiasco.
This episode re-examines the legacy of baseball legend Ty Cobb, exploring whether he was a racist murderer as portrayed by biographer Al Stump or a misunderstood figure.
This episode examines the historical reality of India's thuggee cults, exploring whether they were a genuine murderous religious group or a colonial myth used to justify British expansion.
This episode explores the myth and reality of India's thuggy cult, questioning whether it was a real murderous fraternity or a colonial invention used to justify British rule.
This episode examines the legend of Mulan, contrasting Disney's controversial 2020 live-action adaptation with the ancient Chinese ballad.
This episode explores myths and historical accounts of female pirates, from legendary figures like Princess Alvilda to documented ones like Grace O'Malley and Mrs.
This episode explores the historical myths surrounding the early Arab sieges of Constantinople, focusing on whether the first siege in the 670s actually occurred.
Sebastian Major opens a new trilogy series by framing Constantinople as one of the only cities besides Jerusalem whose conquest appears in multiple religious traditions' end-times prophecy.
This throwback episode revisits Season 2, Episode 34 of Our Fake History, exploring whether Archimedes built a death ray and connecting it to Edgar Allan Poe's fascination with science.
This episode explores the theme of deception through the lens of Edgar Allan Poe's potential involvement with hoaxes, starting with a historical example of a chess-playing automaton that defeated notable figures like Benjamin Franklin.
This episode continues examining whether historical understanding of the Gunpowder Plot has been misremembered, using a dramatic reading to illustrate themes of class struggle and societal injustice.
This episode explores the origins and context of the Million Mask March, a global protest event from 2013, and its connections to Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous.
The host revisits an early episode about the historical truth behind the myth of the Labyrinth and King Minos.
This episode explores the myth and reality of Reinhard Heydrich, the 'Butcher of Prague', a high-ranking Nazi official.
This episode explores the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb and the myths surrounding it.
The episode begins with the story of Lord Carnarvon's car crash in 1903, setting up his later involvement in the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb.
This episode explores the legend of bandit Joaquin Murrieta during the California gold rush, questioning what is myth and what is history.
This episode examines the mythologized history of Batman, tracing his evolution from comic book character to cultural icon.
The episode explores the mysterious pattern of Essex County sheriffs dying or retiring due to illness, suggesting a possible curse.
The episode begins with a promotional announcement for a conference, then tells a mysterious story about a man on a bus in Vancouver in 2004.
This episode examines the strange behavior of two girls in Salem Village that sparked the 1692 witch trials, questioning the myths versus historical facts.
The host promotes an upcoming conference and then introduces the leather jacket scam, a classic con artist trick.
This episode explores the Phantom Time hypothesis and the nature of historical truth.
The host revisits a classic episode about Saint Olga's vengeful quest, using it to explore the concept of fake history and its implications in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The host uses professional wrestling as a lens to explore the power of lies and the blurred line between history and mythology.
The host promotes an upcoming conference and then poses a question about the most important fake sporting event of the 20th century, discussing examples like the 1936 Nazi Olympics.
The episode begins with a casino ad and a promo for the Intelligent Speech Conference, where the host will speak about historical contingencies.
This episode explores the myth of a secret black magic society at Cambridge University in 1738.
This episode explores the myth of Gargantua, a giant from French folklore, and his humorous encounter with the people of Paris.
This episode examines the myth surrounding Christopher Columbus's first sighting of land in 1492, questioning who actually spotted it first.
This episode examines the toppling of a Christopher Columbus statue in 2020 as a case study in how historical myths are challenged and re-evaluated.
This episode explores how movies shape historical myths, using the controversial example of D.W.
This episode explores the mythological significance of body parts, particularly eyes, in ancient storytelling, using examples like Tiresias and Oedipus Rex, while teasing a connection to Pythagoras and beans.
This final episode in a series on Mata Hari explores themes of sexuality, personal agency, and how one's life choices define their legacy, framed through the lens of obituaries and a Jason Isbell lyric.
This episode explores the imprisonment and interrogation of Mata Hari as she faces trial for espionage in 1917 Paris.
This episode explores the controversial espionage case of Mata Hari, a woman executed by France in 1917 for allegedly spying for Germany during World War I, examining the historical context and questions surrounding her guilt.