What's the best way to tell the most powerful empire in the neighborhood to go screw itself? If you're Vlad the Impaler, apparently you burn down everything, attack them in the middle of the night, and leave a few thousand impaled bodies lying around as a welcome message.

In Part 2 of our series on Vlad the Impaler, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan pick up where we left off, as Vlad's problems with the Transylvanian Saxons escalate into open conflict with the Ottoman Empire. We follow his increasingly brutal campaign against Sultan Mehmed II, including a daring night raid that nearly reached the sultan himself and the infamous forest of humans that reportedly greeted the Ottoman army outside Wallachia's capital.

But terror can only get you so far. As Vlad's own brother turns against him, his supporters abandon him, and the Hungarian king who should have been his ally throws him in prison, the Impaler's grip on power begins to crumble. We follow his long imprisonment, brief return to the throne, and mysterious death.

Along the way, we examine the stories that helped turn Vlad into a monster, the legends that painted him as a just ruler, and just how much of his life actually inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Join us for the conclusion of Vlad's story, packed with medieval warfare, political betrayal, questionable historical anecdotes, and Kevin and Dan's grim sense of humor. The real man behind the Dracula legend turns out to be considerably more complicated than either the monster or the hero.

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What happens when your childhood involves being handed over to a foreign empire as a hostage, your father gets murdered, and your brother is buried alive? You probably don’t grow up with a particularly healthy relationship with trust.

In Part 1 of our series on Vlad the Impaler, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan explore the making of the man who would become one of the most feared rulers in European history. Before the impaled bodies, the terrifying reputation, and the vampire mythology, there was a young Wallachian prince growing up in a world where family loyalty was optional and the throne was essentially a very dangerous game of musical chairs.

We trace Vlad’s complicated family history, his father’s relationship with the Ottoman Empire, and the years Vlad spent as a hostage alongside his younger brother Radu. When his father is killed and his older brother meets an even worse fate, Vlad’s path back to power becomes a story of political alliances, betrayal, and revenge.

Along the way, we separate what we actually know from what later storytellers invented, including the popular claims about Vlad’s supposedly cruel childhood. And naturally, Kevin and Dan bring their morbid sense of humor to the life of a prince whose family problems make your own awkward holiday gatherings look positively charming.

This is the dark history of the original Dracula, medieval Wallachia, and the making of a ruler whose real life was already horrifying enough without the fangs.

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What's the worst thing you can do with a stick?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan explore the brutal history of impalement, a method of execution designed not just to kill, but to make the suffering last as long as possible. From ancient Babylon and Assyria to the Persian Empire, medieval Europe, and colonial Indonesia, impalement was used to punish criminals, crush rebellions, and send a very clear message to anyone thinking about challenging the people in charge.

We begin in 1800 Cairo, where a young theology student named Süleyman al Halabi assassinates a French general and receives one of the most horrifying punishments imaginable. From there, we travel through nearly four thousand years of history, examining Assyrian siege reliefs, Persian royal inscriptions, European criminal codes, the notorious punishments ordered by rulers like Peter the Great, and Dan confusing the Javanese with the Japanese.

Naturally, Kevin and Dan bring their dark sense of humor to a subject that makes even the most uncomfortable historical research feel like a particularly bad day at work. Along the way, we examine the different methods of impalement, why some victims survived for hours or even days, how a gruesome public execution became a powerful tool of terror, the translation issues that cause arguments between historians, and all of it with one GLARING omission.

It’s torture history, brutal executions, ancient empires, and the horrifying lengths rulers have gone to make sure everyone gets the message.

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