In this darkly fascinating episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore the bizarre world of Victorian starvation contests and the tragic tales of the Starving Brides of Blackpool—young women who became public spectacles in a disturbing blend of endurance, showmanship, and societal obsession with purity. Then, Jethro takes us back to 17th-century England for the unsettling trials of Thomas Hogg and George Spencer, where superstition and Puritanical paranoia turned alleged sin into criminal conviction. Were these men victims of early witch-hunt hysteria—or living symbols of a community’s moral panic?

Expect laughter in the darkness, uncomfortable truths, and that signature Box of Oddities blend of macabre history, weird culture, and unexpected humor.

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