History For Sleep with the Drowsy Historian
History For Sleep delivers slow, calm, and slightly unsettling historical storytelling that makes dozing off educationally depressing.
Brought to you by the Drowsy Historian, each episode is 1–2 hours of immersive bedtime history with just enough absurd detail to keep you listening — until you aren’t.
Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorian
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- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 118 minutes
- Episodes
- 194
- Years Active
- 2025
Why You Wouldn't Survive as a Christian Missionary in Feudal Japan | History For Sleep
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You arrive in Japan in the mid-1500s, a Portuguese Jesuit full of zeal, convinced you’ve come to save souls. Instead, y…
The TERRIFYING Life of a Medieval Irish Bard | History For Sleep
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Step into the brutal, sacred world of the medieval Irish bard — a figure both feared and revered, whose words could cro…
The BRUTAL Life of a Vestal Virgin in Ancient Rome | History For Sleep
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In the heart of ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins were revered as sacred — but their lives were far from divine. Taken f…
The HORRIFYING Fate of a CIA Mind Control Test Subject (MK-Ultra) | History For Sleep
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You wake up in a room you don’t remember entering. There’s a clipboard on the desk with your name misspelled, a camera …
Why Being a Victorian Chimney Sweep Was a Death Sentence | History For Sleep
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Most histories won’t dwell here. But this is the story of soot-slicked brickwork, twisted flues, and the boys who were …
Why You Wouldn’t Survive a British Opium Factory in Colonial India | History For Sleep
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You’re not a merchant. Not a rebel. Not a soldier. You’re a laborer — pulled into a British opium factory in colonial I…
The HORRIFYING Truth About the Marian Persecutions | History For Sleep
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This is not the story of a martyr. It's not the tale that ends in triumph or memorial. It’s the forgotten life behind t…
The HORRIFYING Fate of a Woman Captured by Genghis Khan | History For Sleep
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In tonight’s story, you are a woman from a quiet Central Asian village — and today is the last day you will ever be fre…
The BRUTAL Life of a Roman Slave | History For Sleep
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Tonight’s story isn’t about emperors or heroes. It’s about the forgotten, the broken, and the used — the people who kep…
The HORRIFYING Fate of a Survivor in Hiroshima | History For Sleep
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On the morning of August 6, 1945, the city of Hiroshima woke to the sound of cicadas and the promise of another summer …
The TERRIFYING Fate of a Spanish Flu Victim (1918) | History For Sleep
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Tonight, you're not a war hero. You're not even a name history bothered to remember. You're a soldier who survived the …
You’re a Comanche Warrior When the World Still Fears You | History For Sleep
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Tonight’s story takes you into the wind-swept vastness of the Southern Plains — not through the eyes of generals or set…
The HORRIFYING Fate of a Tasmanian Islander During British Colonization | History For Sleep
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Tonight, you are not a warrior. You are not a hero.
You are a Palawa islander — and the ship has just appeared on the wa…
Why You Wouldn’t Survive a Plague Outbreak at the Tudor Court | History For Sleep
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What’s worse than serving at the Tudor court? Serving at the Tudor court during a plague outbreak. In tonight’s slow, g…
Why You Wouldn’t Survive the Winter of 536 AD (Worst Year in History) | History For Sleep
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The year is 536 AD. The sky is gray, the crops are dead, and the sun has vanished behind a veil of ash. You are not a k…
You Wouldn’t Survive the Bronze Age Collapse | History For Sleep
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Welcome to the Bronze Age Collapse: a centuries-long nosedive into famine, war, disease, and the kind of cultural oblit…
Why You Wouldn’t Survive the D-Day Landing | History For Sleep
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You are not a war hero. Not today. You're cold, soaked, and seasick — crammed inside a steel box with nothing but a jam…
You’re Trapped on the Roof During the LA Riots (And No One’s Coming to Help) | History For Sleep
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You’re not a hero. You’re a Korean-American teenager on a rooftop in 1992 Los Angeles — holding a rifle you barely know…
The HORRIFYING Fate of a Congolese Rubber Worker Under King Leopold | History For Sleep
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Beneath the banners of civilization and charity, an empire was built on blood. In this episode, we follow the haunting,…
The BRUTAL Life of a Continental Soldier | History For Sleep
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You’ve heard the stories of glory. Now meet the misery beneath the myth.
In this immersive, second-person historical jou…