Dark chapters of history, talked through with jokes and tangents.
Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner talk through wars, crimes and rock-band excess, and they split bigger subjects like Pearl Harbor, the war on drugs and Motley Crue into numbered parts. The banter is loose and profane, but they get openly angry about Afghanistan and start the James Bulger episode with a spoken warning.
PRESS PLAY
Unfortunate History is a conversation show about the darker, stranger stretches of the past, carried by Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner. The two introduce themselves by name and close with the same send-off, telling everyone to stay unfortunate. In between, the subjects swing hard. Episode titles take in Pearl Harbor, the war on drugs, the war in Afghanistan, the murder of James Bulger and the band Motley Crue. The bigger stories are split into numbered parts, as with '46: Pearl Harbor Part 1 - OOOOH!' and '43: War on Drugs Part 2 - Torn From Life Violently'. Some of the mix is on purpose. In '44: Motley Crue Part 1 - Born Rad...I Mean, Bad', the pair say how heavy the war on drugs two-parter and the Afghanistan episode had been, and they present the band as a change of pace. That change of pace still includes depraved tour stories, one credited to Nikki Sixx. There is also a detour into Keith Moon of the Who and his reputation for throwing televisions out of windows and driving Rolls Royces into swimming pools. The talk is loose and profane. Tangents come up often: an opinion on Chris Cornell, an awkward exchange about squeaky shoes at a gig, a joke about moving into a hundred-dollar garage in LA to get rid of a mortgage. Under the joking, the pair react to their material with real feeling. In 'History Quickie: The War in Afghanistan', one of them has a whiskey on hand because, he says, it is going to be a harsh conversation. The anger that follows is specific. The figures cited put US spending on the war at two trillion dollars, with 38 billion sent to Afghanistan itself, and the pair call the promise to help rebuild the country a lie outright. The Pearl Harbor discussion stays on Japanese nationalism and on how sanctions landed as an insult. At one point the two talk each other out of a joke they decide not to make. The war on drugs material includes the story of a man named Harry. He is said to have told a woman working in films to take longer breaks between them, and to have quietly tapered a woman from a wealthy Washington family off drugs instead of arresting her. The pair weigh whether that was compassion or just sweeping it under the rug. The tone is most sober in 'Revision: The Murder of James Bulger (Graphic)'. It opens with a spoken warning about graphic detail and suggests that younger or sensitive listeners choose a different episode. Inside the case, the pair call the CCTV footage of the child being led from a shopping centre haunting, and they keep coming back to how ordinary the scene would have looked to a passer-by. Overall, a listener gets history as two people talking it through: opinionated, full of digressions, sometimes crude, and ready to get serious when a story calls for it.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes history as a rambling two-person conversation rather than a polished lecture and doesn't mind swearing, dark humor and detours between the facts.
What sets it apart: It puts Pearl Harbor, the war in Afghanistan and the war on drugs next to rock-band debauchery, and handles all of them as banter full of tangents. It still gets serious for a graphic case like the murder of James Bulger, which gets a spoken warning up front.
A podcast that covers unfortunate, interesting, and downright wacky moments in history.
Squeaky shoes, then unequal drug enforcement: Cody and Greg ask you to stay for the hard turn.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loud, loose return about Japanese nationalism, imperial pride, and the hosts finding their rhythm again.
Unfortunate History returns with Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner treating the episode like a lively restart, with the energy of hosts glad to be back rather than the shape of a formal history lesson.
A rock-band tour story turns hotel-room debauchery into an uneasy question about pressure and exploitation.
Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner work through an ugly tour story about a band, two women, a hotel room, and a phone used for a humiliating stunt.
A graphic, steady revisit of a child murder turns one haunting CCTV image into questions of violence, intent, and escalation.
Unfortunate History returns to the murder of James Bolger by tracing the terrible path that begins with CCTV footage of John Venables leading him from a shopping centre.
A grimy Motley Crue story where bad work, bad manners, drug use, and unruly banter all collide.
Motley Crue lands as a hard-living story, with Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner tracking Nicky through eviction, a $100-a-month garage, punishing factory and liquor-store shifts, stolen Jack, pills, and a steady slide into self-inflicted chaos.
A blunt first History Quickie tests Afghanistan's reconstruction promise against the money the hosts say was actually sent.
Unfortunate History's first History Quickie measures Afghanistan's reconstruction promise against the money the hosts say actually reached the country.
Veteran stories with banter and backbone.
Power, spectacle, and the cost of rule.
Audio plays with sharp turns.
Weird history, sharp research, hidden women.
Books from the war years, staged as radio drama.
Japan lost 75 percent of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil.
Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner finish Unfortunate History’s account of Motley Crue, covering Vince Neil’s childhood in Compton, early drug use, and route into performance.
John Venables describes James Bulger being hit with a house brick and still getting back up.
At six years old, Nikki Sixx says his mother told him, 'I'm going to lock the door and I'm just going to leave you on the porch.'
Unfortunate History's "History Quickie: The War in Afghanistan" starts with Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner framing Afghanistan through the 2021 U.S.
Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner continue Unfortunate History’s War on Drugs series by tracing Harry Anslinger’s campaign against marijuana, jazz musicians, and Billie Holiday.
Unfortunate History begins a two-part history of the War on Drugs by tracing its origins to the early 1900s rather than Richard Nixon’s 1970s administration or Ronald Reagan’s 1980s campaign.
Unfortunate History examines the Great Smog of 1952 and the London Beer Flood of 1814.
Unfortunate History examines Billy Collins Jr., an undefeated Nashville boxer whose first 14 professional wins included 11 knockouts and eight stoppages within three rounds.
Unfortunate History: Special: Q&A 2021 replaces a regular history topic with listener questions after Cody Pennington faced two major exams, another exam, and coursework.
Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner examine Japan’s invasion of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the mass violence that followed.
Unfortunate History hosts Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner investigate the Cock Lane Ghost, a London haunting that drew crowds in January 1762.
Unfortunate History hosts Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner examine the 1629 wreck of the Dutch ship Batavia near Beacon Island, where about 40 of more than 300 people died.
Cody Pennington and Greg Skinner examine Olga of Kiev, Sophia Dorothea, and Pauline Bonaparte as three historical princesses whose lives differed sharply from Disney’s image of royalty.
Unfortunate History: 36: Charles Bronson Part 2 - Betrayal & Canine Lungs follows Bronson after nearly 13.5 years in prison, his 1987 release, and his difficulty adjusting to money and life outside.
Unfortunate History examines Charles Bronson, the name used by Michael Peterson, who entered prison for armed robbery in 1974 and remained incarcerated largely because of repeated violence.
Unfortunate History examines Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Calico Jack, and William Kidd through two pirate stories: women who disguised themselves as men and a privateer who repeatedly failed at piracy.
Unfortunate History examines the Tulsa Race Massacre beginning on May 31, 1921, when Greenwood, an affluent Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, became the target of a violent attack.
Unfortunate History examines the Great Fire of London, which began at the King’s bakery on Pudding Lane on 2 September 1666 after a hot summer and weeks of scarce rain.
Unfortunate History's episode "31: Poisoning Rome - That's one Scary Giraffe" covers the 331 BCE Roman poisoning accusations and Lacusta's later career as an assassin.
Unfortunate History’s 30th episode examines John Wilkes Booth’s opposition to Abraham Lincoln, slavery abolition, and the Union during the final days of the American Civil War.
The hosts banter about their roles before introducing a historical British figure they find impressive and amusing.
The hosts introduce the Twilight Zone accident of 1982, a fatal on-set tragedy that led to legal reforms.
The hosts discuss the George Floyd murder and its historical context, blending dark humor with a serious historical analysis.
The hosts celebrate their podcast's growth in listeners and ask for ratings and shares.
The hosts introduce the podcast and preview a deep dive into the life of Billy the Kid, a famous outlaw from the American Old West.
The hosts discuss Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both atomic bombings in Japan.
The episode begins with a warning about graphic content and then transitions into a discussion of a disturbing historical event.
The hosts introduce the podcast and begin discussing the life and career of Robert Liston, a 19th-century Scottish surgeon known for his speed in surgery before anesthesia.