{"podcast":{"title":"Disturbing History","slug":"disturbing-history-7341005","podcast_index_feed_id":7341005,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/6628223/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/disturbing-history--6628223","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/f42011dc1c8c8130e84fb37f20a9046e.jpg","author":"Paranormal World Productions LLC","episode_count":106,"summary":"Disturbing History is a dark history podcast uncovering the strange, sinister, and little-known stories the past tried to bury. Each week, we explore unsolved mysteries, secret societies, forgotten crimes, eerie folklore, lost civilizations, historical conspiracies, and disturbing events that never made it into your high school textbook .Hosted by author, investigator, and storyteller Brian King-Sharp, Disturbing History dives deep into: Unsolved historical mysteries Secret societies and hidden power structures Dark folklore and urban legends Lost colonies and vanished civilizations True crime cases buried by time Historical conspiracies and cover-ups Paranormal events rooted in real history Through immersive storytelling and investigative research, we uncover the shadowy corners of the past — the uncomfortable truths, forgotten tragedies, and disturbing secrets that shaped our world.If you’re fascinated by dark history, obsessed with unexplained events, or drawn to stories that blur the line between fact and legend, this podcast is for you. Because the past isn’t always dead. Sometimes it’s just been buried. Follow Disturbing History and turn on automatic downloads for weekly dee…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-05T14:19:19.361689+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/disturbing-history-7341005"},"episode":{"title":"The Horror of Holmesburg Prison","slug":"the-horror-of-holmesburg-prison","published_at":"2026-04-08T14:20:02+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/disturbing-history-7341005/the-horror-of-holmesburg-prison","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/disturbing-history-7341005","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-horror-of-holmesburg-prison--71183988","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71183988/dhprisonfinal.mp3","summary":"For more than two decades, incarcerated men inside Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison were used as human test subjects in experiments that sound like something out of a dystopian novel. Beginning in 1951, University of Pennsylvania dermatologist Dr. Albert Kligman turned the prison into one of the largest non-therapeutic human research operations in American history, exposing inmates to infectious diseases, radioactive isotopes, mind-altering drugs for the CIA and U.S. Army, dioxin at 468 times the authorized dosage for Dow Chemical, and injections of asbestos funded by Johnson and Johnson. The overwhelming majority of the men subjected to these experiments were Black, and most were paid as little as a dollar a day for their participation. Kligman famously described his first visit to the prison by saying all he saw before him were acres of skin, comparing the inmates to a fertile field. His work at Holmesburg led directly to the development and patent of Retin-A, one of the most widely used skincare medications in the world, generating enormous wealth for Kligman, the University of Pennsylvania, and Johnson and Johnson while the men whose bodies made it possible received nothing. The experiments ended in 1974 after public outcry following the exposure of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, but it would take until 1998 for the full story to reach the public through Allen Hornblum's landmark book Acres of Skin. A lawsuit filed by nearly 300 former test subjects was dismissed on statute of limitations grounds, and Kligman died in 2010 at the age of 93 without ever apologizing. The City of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the College of Physicians have since issued formal apologies, but no reparations have been paid. This episode tells the full story from beginnin…","meta_description":"For more than two decades, incarcerated men inside Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison were used as human test subjects in experiments that sound like someth…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4732,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/disturbing-history-7341005/episodes/the-horror-of-holmesburg-prison/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/disturbing-history-7341005/the-horror-of-holmesburg-prison.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}