History For Sleep with the Drowsy Historian

• The Forgotten Horror of Thalidomide (Birth Defect Scandal)

  Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorianTonight’s story is not set on a battlefield or in the ruins of an empire. Instead, it begins in the bright optimism of the 1950s and 60s — a world of gleaming hospitals, reassuring doctors, and glossy pillboxes that promised comfort and safety. You are a young mother, newly pregnant, who trusts modern science to ease the hardships of life. A new drug — thalidomide — is said to be perfectly safe. It is said to be progress.But as months pass, silence gathers in waiting rooms, whispers circulate behind closed doors, and joy gives way to devastation. Your baby is born alive — but marked forever by the drug you were told to trust. Doctors avert their eyes. Society stares. Governments delay. The optimism of a modern miracle collapses into isolation, struggle, and betrayal.🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep ToolsLooking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/4pVFoJy• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTwThese are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.#DrowsyHistorian #HistoryForSleep #Thalidomide #MedicalHistory #DarkHistory

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• The 5 Mass Extinctions That Nearly Erased Life (Up to 90% Died)

  Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorianLife on Earth has never been stable — it has always teetered on the edge of collapse. In fact, most of the species that ever lived are already gone. Across deep time, five catastrophic events nearly erased everything: seas froze and drowned, forests poisoned the oceans, volcanoes suffocated the skies, continents tore apart, and finally, an asteroid ended the reign of the dinosaurs.This is the quiet, unsettling story of the Big Five Mass Extinctions — the Ordovician, the Devonian, the Permian (The Great Dying), the Triassic, and the Cretaceous. Each one reset the planet, shaping life not through strength or grandeur, but through luck, adaptability, and survival in the margins.🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep ToolsLooking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/4pVFoJy• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTwThese are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.#MassExtinction #EarthHistory #DrowsyHistorian #BigFive #ExtinctionEvents #Dinosaurs

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• The HORRIFYING Fate of a Hurricane Katrina Survivor

  Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorianIn late August 2005, New Orleans was forever changed. Tonight, you will step into the life of a Hurricane Katrina survivor — not through headlines or statistics, but through the lived horror of waiting, drowning, and being forgotten.This is not the story of the storm itself. It is the story of what came after: the levees breaking, families stranded on rooftops, days in the Superdome without food or water, the silence of a government that looked away, and the exile that followed. The horrifying truth is that survival was not an ending, but its own kind of erasure.🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep ToolsLooking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/4pVFoJy• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTwThese are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.#HurricaneKatrina #HistoryForSleep #DrowsyHistorian

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• Why You Wouldn’t Survive the Great Blizzard of 1888

  Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorianOn March 11th, 1888, New York and much of the Northeast awoke to what seemed like an ordinary gray morning. By nightfall, the world had vanished into walls of snow, and the “modern” city of telegraphs, trains, and streetcars collapsed under silence. The Great Blizzard of 1888 killed thousands, sealed homes like tombs, and left survivors to crawl through trenches of ice.Tonight, you’ll step inside that storm. From the first harmless flurries to the crushing weight of snowdrifts, you’ll follow one man’s doomed attempt to endure. This is not a tale of triumph, but of erasure — when progress itself was smothered, and the city that never slept lay buried, forgotten beneath white.🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep ToolsLooking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/4pVFoJy• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTwThese are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.#history #sleepstory #blizzard #newyorkhistory #drowsyhistorian #greatblizzard1888 #disasterhistory

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• What Halloween Was REALLY Like in the Middle Ages

  Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorianStep into a medieval village on All Hallows’ Eve—what we now call Halloween. Far from pumpkins and candy, this night was one of prayers for the dead, flickering candles, children begging for soul-cakes, and villagers disguising themselves in soot and masks to confuse wandering spirits. The church bells tolled to ward off the restless dead, while neighbors whispered of witches, charms, and omens. In the torchlit lanes, laughter blurred with fear, and the night pressed heavy until dawn’s bell called the living back to order.This is not Halloween as you know it. This is Halloween as your ancestors lived it: a fragile night of ritual, belief, and unease, when the line between the living and the dead seemed unbearably thin.🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep ToolsLooking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/47ccNqV• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTwThese are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.#MedievalHistory #HalloweenHistory #AllHallowsEve #DrowsyHistorian #SleepHistory #DarkHistory

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