The Ice Queen

Kösem Sultan was the favorite of the Sultan and the mother of a ruler. She had extraordinary power over the Ottoman Empire, but, as we've learned from this podcast, power can have deadly consequences.Support Noble Blood:—PRE-ORDER 'THE ARCANE ARTS'— Bonus episodes, stickers, and ...  Show more

In 2000, weeks before the Academy Awards ceremony, 55 Oscars vanished during shipment to Los Angeles. The disappearance triggered a frantic search. Then, in a twist worthy of a movie plot, a man digging through a grocery store dumpster stumbled on dozens of missing trophies. He w ...  Show more

“Despite being born into royalty, Anna Ioannovna didn’t have the easiest life. Her uncle publicly ridiculed her marriage, and the cruelty she experienced growing up may have had lasting emotional damage, leading her to eventually build an actual ice palace.”

As rulers go, Anna of Russia was considered pretty bad news. In the second part of this two-part series, the guys explore how Anna (aka Anna the Terrible)'s traumatic life experience may have contributed to her later, profoundly cruel punishments -- things like forcing a disgr ...

In the midst of the Cold War, Joseph Stalin's only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, decides to flee Mother Russia to start a new life in America. But with the KGB on her tail, how on earth is she going to get out? Playwright Dan Kitrosser unravels her story. See omnystudio.com/list ...  Show more

Khutulun's story is a little bit cloudy, in part because it’s many hundreds of years old, and in part because accounts of her life involve a combination of propaganda and an outsider’s interpretation of it.