Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities has built a devoted following by consistently delivering top-notch research with meticulous exploration into history’s most bizarre, unsettling, and darkly fascinating moments. With hundreds of episodes spanning everything from Victorian death customs to carnival oddities to medical disasters that defy comprehension, the sheer volume of content can make it difficult to know where to start, or which installments represent the podcast’s finest work.
This list of the top episodes highlights the Cabinet’s best work, the episodes that exemplify Mahnke’s gift for transforming historical peculiarity into compelling narrative while balancing scholarly rigor with genuinely engaging storytelling.
Unlucky Hand
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Bonds frequently exist as unseen forces, yet they link individuals together through distinctive patterns. This exploration of the Cabinet will uncover some of the more unexpected relationships among its members.
Silent Killer
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The realm of scientific inquiry can be quite peculiar, as these two narratives certainly demonstrate.
Landslide
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Random occurrences and fortuitous events invariably generate intriguing circumstances. The audience will learn about two examples that are certain to leave them puzzled and bewildered.
Life, uh, Finds a Way
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The first story examines reports from early 20th century German explorers in Africa who claimed to have encountered a dinosaur-like creature called Mokele-mbembe, described by locals as a massive reptilian animal that stopped the flow of rivers. The second story investigates the infamous 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident, where nine Russian hikers died under mysterious circumstances in the Ural Mountains, and reveals how scientists in 2021 finally solved the decades-old mystery by using animation technology from Disney’s “Frozen” to simulate avalanche conditions, determining that a small slab avalanche was the likely cause of the tragedy.
Boats & Botany
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The first story follows Jean Baret (born Jeanne), a French woman who in 1767 disguised herself as a man to join a global naval expedition as a botanist’s assistant, despite laws forbidding women on ships. The second story describes “On the Trail of the Golden Owl,” a 1993 French puzzle book created by Regis Hauser that contains eleven elaborate clues leading to a buried bronze owl statue, which can be exchanged for a jewel-encrusted version worth about $250,000.
Bottomless Pit
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The first story follows Charles Dahmer (also known as Charles Domar), a Polish man born in 1778 who suffered from an insatiable hunger that led him to consume shocking quantities and varieties of food, including cats, grass, raw meat, and even a fellow sailor’s severed leg during battle. The second story chronicles the peculiar 19th and early 20th century fad of backward walking, focusing on Patrick Harmon (real name Patrick O’Rourke), who in 1915 walked backward from San Francisco to New York City, allegedly to win a $20,000 bet.
The Test Drive
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The first story follows Gino Bartali, an Italian cycling champion who won the Tour de France in 1938 but refused to dedicate his victory to Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. During World War II, Bartali used his fame as cover to become a secret resistance operative, transporting forged documents, fake IDs, and visas hidden in his bicycle frame to help Jewish families escape Nazi persecution, even hiding a Jewish family in his basement. The second story recounts how Bertha Benz, frustrated by her husband Karl’s loss of confidence after their automobile prototype received lukewarm public reception in 1886, secretly took their teenage sons and drove the car 65 miles to visit her parents in 1888, completing the world’s first long-distance automobile journey.
Rolling Stone
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The capabilities individuals can achieve through sheer determination are truly remarkable. This particular exploration of the Cabinet presents illustrations of how such dedication can manifest in both positive and negative ways.
Snapshot
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The first tale describes the 2010 discovery of a Parisian apartment that had been abandoned and left untouched since 1942, when its occupant fled to southern France during World War II. The second story chronicles the life of Heinrich Steinweg (later Steinway), a German cabinet maker born in 1797 who endured tremendous loss throughout his life, including the deaths of his mother, siblings, and father, as well as surviving multiple wars including the Battle of Waterloo.
Told You So
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The first tale recounts how Soviet scientist Mikhail Gerasimov opened the tomb of Turco-Mongol conqueror Tamerlane in June 1941 despite warnings of a curse inscribed on the tomb that predicted “whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.” The second story details how British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in one of her first acts after taking office in 1979, sought to protect the Loch Ness Monster by proposing to use trained US Navy dolphins equipped with high-tech gadgets to locate the creature.
Destined for the Deep
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The first tale follows Ramón Artagaveytia, a Uruguayan businessman born in 1840 who survived the catastrophic sinking of the SS America on Christmas Eve 1871, which killed nearly two-thirds of the passengers. The second story chronicles Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved African woman who was kidnapped as a child in 1761 and brought to Boston, where she learned to read and write despite the common practice of denying education to enslaved people.
Fire in the Sky
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The first tale follows Denis Papin, a French medical school graduate who in the 1670s abandoned his medical career to work on air pump technology with Dutch scientist Christian Huygens in Paris. The second story recounts the Carrington Event of September 1-2, 1859, when amateur astronomer Richard Carrington observed a massive solar flare (coronal mass ejection) from his observatory in Surrey, England.
On the Job
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The first tale examines famous literary works written while their authors were imprisoned, including Marco Polo’s travel accounts dictated to fellow prisoner Rustichello da Pisa in 13th century Genoa, Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur” (the definitive King Arthur compilation) written in 15th century England, and Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” (considered the first modern novel) conceived while he was imprisoned in Algiers after being captured by pirates. The second story follows Willie Kennard, who in 1874 applied for the position of town marshal in Yankee Hill, Colorado. The town councilmen, skeptical of the Black applicant, challenged him to arrest the notorious outlaw Barney Casewitz, who had killed three people including two previous marshals.
Cradle Will Fall
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The first story chronicles the alleged curse of James Dean’s 1955 Porsche Spyder, the car in which the iconic actor died after colliding with a Ford Tudor while racing to Salinas, California. The second story recounts the incredible luck of Joseph Figlock, a Detroit man who in the 1930s was sweeping an alley when a baby fell four stories from a window and landed on his head and shoulders, with both surviving.
So Fancy
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The first part follows Bela Lugosi (born Bela Blasko in 1882 in Hungary), who worked his way from local theater productions through European stages to Broadway and eventually Hollywood. After Universal Studios cast him in the 1931 film adaptation of “Dracula,” a role he had originated on Broadway, Lugosi became an overnight sensation and defined the modern image of vampires on screen with his iconic white waistcoat and black cape. The second story chronicles Henry Every, known as the “King of Pirates” or “Arch Pirate,” who in 1695 led a small pirate squadron to intercept a 25-ship convoy carrying treasure from the Grand Mogul on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Double Agent
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The first story is about Juan Pujol Garcia, a Spanish man who became one of World War II’s most successful double agents under the codename “Garbo.” After being rejected by British intelligence, he convinced the Germans he was spying for them from London while actually working from Spain and Portugal, fabricating an entire network of fictional contacts. The second story recounts the 1964 discovery by archaeologist Ahmed Moussa of an ancient Egyptian tomb in Saqqara containing Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, two men who served as head manicurists and confidants to Pharaoh Nyuserre during the Old Kingdom period around 5,000 years ago.