⚠️ Not Safe for Work / Adult Content Warning ⚠️

Sometimes history refuses to stay in the past. And sometimes… it shows up in an emergency room.

This Five Minute Friday dives into a truly unbelievable modern news story involving a World War I artillery shell, one very bad decision, and a French hospital that suddenly had to take explosive history very seriously. It’s a reminder that just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s safe—and that curiosity without common sense is how you end up evacuating a building.

We ask the important questions:

• How does something like this even happen?
• Why are WWI explosives still turning up?
• And what life choices lead to this particular outcome?

Spoiler: History is wild, humans are weirder, and museums exist for a reason.

• A real Vice news story involving a live WWI artillery shell and a hospital evacuation
• Why unexploded ordnance from World War I is still being discovered today
• The difference between “historical artifact” and “active explosive”
• How history occasionally re-enters the present in the most unhinged way possible

• Vice: A Man Turned Up at Hospital With a Live WWI Artillery Shell in His Butt
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-man-turned-up-at-hospital-with-a-live-wwi-artillery-shell-in-his-butt/ [vice.com]

Rainy Day Rabbit Holes explores strange history, baffling decisions, forgotten stories, and the moments when the past collides violently—or hilariously—with the present.

New episodes and show info at:

👉www.rainydayrabbitholes.com

⚠️ Not Safe for Work / Adult Content Warning ⚠️

This episode discusses an explicit real‑world news story involving adult bodily injury, medical emergency, and crude subject matter. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Do not listen at work, around children, or polite society.

In the chaos of World War I, one unlikely soldier refused to stay behind. He didn’t carry a rifle, didn’t understand borders or politics, and technically wasn’t allowed to enlist—but he charged into danger anyway.

In this episode, we tell the true story of Sergeant Stubby, a Boston Terrier mix who became one of the most decorated heroes of World War I. From smuggling himself onto a troop ship, to warning soldiers of mustard gas attacks, locating wounded men in no man’s land, and even capturing an enemy spy, Stubby proved that bravery doesn’t require rank—or even thumbs.

Joining us for this emotional (and occasionally unhinged) journey is special guest Erin, Shea’s longtime friend and fellow history nerd, who helps us explore why Stubby’s story still resonates more than a century later.

Fair warning: this is a dog story, which means Shea cries. More than once. We apologize in advance—and also refuse to apologize at all.

• How a stray dog became the unofficial mascot of the 102nd Infantry Regiment
• Sergeant Stubby’s role in 17 battles on the Western Front
• Mustard gas detection, artillery warnings, and battlefield rescues
• The night Stubby captured a German spy—and earned a promotion
• Stubby’s postwar celebrity life, medals, and legacy
• Why this small dog’s story still hits so hard today

• Sergeant Stubby – World War I war dog and certified good boy
• Corporal James Robert Conroy – Stubby’s human best friend and handler
• Erin – Special guest, history nerd, and longtime friend of Shea

You can find photos, sources, and more stories like this at

👉 https://rainydayrabbitholes.com

Before we get into today’s rabbit hole, we wanted to share an exciting update — and a little behind‑the‑scenes honesty.

On June 3rd, 2026, Jody and Shea will be part of a McMenamins History Pub event in Tacoma, Washington, held at McMenamins Elks Temple in the historic Spanish Ballroom.

The program, Before Roswell: Tacoma’s Maury Island Incident, explores the strange, complicated, and often‑overlooked UFO case that put Tacoma at the center of flying saucers, mysterious men in black, and a federal investigation — weeks before Roswell captured the world’s attention.

This is a collaborative presentation featuring:

• Rainy Day Rabbit Holes Podcast — storytelling and narrative context
• Chris Staudinger of Pretty Gritty Tours — historical and cultural context rooted in Tacoma’s gritty reality
• Steve Edmiston, filmmaker and founder of the Men In Black Birthday Bash — an in‑depth examination of the case and its lasting legacy

📍 Where: McMenamins Elks Temple, Spanish Ballroom (Tacoma, WA)

📅 When: June 3rd, 2026

🔗 Event details & tickets:

https://www.mcmenamins.com/events/274794-history-pub

If you want to brush up beforehand, we’ve covered the Maury Island Incident extensively on the podcast. Head to:

👉 https://rainydayrabbitholes.com/podcast

Then type “maury” into the search bar to find our four episodes diving deep into the case.

We also wanted to share a little honesty about the show.

Each episode of Rainy Day Rabbit Holes involves researching, reading, outlining, writing, recording, editing, releasing, maintaining the website, and keeping up with social media. It’s a labor of love — but it can also be a lot.

Jody and Shea are both feeling a bit stretched thin right now. We love this podcast deeply and can’t imagine it not being part of our lives, but we never want it to become something we resent or phone in. Keeping the joy alive matters to us.

So, going forward:

• Full‑length episodes will be released every other week
• On the off weeks, we’ll still bring you 5 Minute Fridays, because those are fun and low‑lift
• We may also take a short summer break (a month or two) to fully recharge and come back refreshed

You may also hear some guest hosts from our Umbrella Podcast Collective, including:

• Laura & Stephen from Midday Movies
• Kevin from Tyrant in Training
• And Shea’s big brother, Jason

We’d love to involve the community even more.

If you’re creative and interested in submitting a story, outline, or even a listener‑written episode that could be featured on the show, please reach out.

📧 Email: shea@rainydayrabbitholes.com

Thank you, truly, for your support, your love, and your patience. We’re so grateful for this community — and we’re excited about what’s ahead, at a pace that keeps Rainy Day Rabbit Holes joyful for everyone involved.

❤️

Jody & Shea

This week, Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is stepping a little off our usual path of unhinged history and strange stories—and doing so for a cause that means a lot to us.

In honor of Podcastathon, a global event where podcasters shine a light on causes that matter, Shea and Jody are dedicating this special episode to PACK (People for Animal Care and Kindness)—a volunteer‑driven nonprofit right here in our community that helps pets and the people who love them stay together during hard times.

Instead of rabbit holes full of chaos (don’t worry, we’ll be back to that soon), we’re sharing true animal hero stories that highlight loyalty, bravery, and compassion:

• A house cat who body‑checks a dog to save a child
• Two guide dogs who led their blind owners out of the World Trade Center on 9/11
• A loyal rescue dog who refused to move until help followed her to her injured owner
• And Shea’s own deeply personal PACK story involving a foster dog named Ruff who became family

This episode is about the quiet, compassionate work that makes happy endings possible—late‑night texts, emergency vet care, temporary fosters, and people who show up when it matters most.

If this episode makes you smile, cry, or hug your pet a little tighter, we hope you’ll consider supporting PACK and the work they do every single day.

• Learn more and donate: https://www.packgives.org/
• Support Podcastathon: https://podcasthon.org/

• Website, photos & sources: https://www.rainydayrabbitholes.com
• Bonus episodes & ad‑free listening on Patreon (link on our site)

Thank you for listening, for caring, and for helping us support an organization that makes our community kinder—for animals and humans alike.

https://podcasthon.org/podcaster/rainy-day-rabbit-holes

Last week we shared a strange little Victorian love poem about a cannibal bride.

This week… things escalate.

In this Five Minute Friday episode, Shea reads another cannibal-themed poem from the archives: “How Three Were Made One,” published in The White Pine News in 1891.

The poem features a love triangle, a violent rivalry, and a punchline that only Victorian newspaper readers could find amusing.

But it also reveals something interesting about the cultural moment that produced it. Nineteenth-century Americans and Europeans were fascinated with stories of “savages” and cannibals, and those ideas showed up everywhere—from adventure novels to newspaper jokes.

This episode explores how those stereotypes appeared in everyday entertainment and why historians sometimes pay attention to odd little artifacts like this one.

Because sometimes the strangest things in the archive tell us the most about the world people thought they lived in.

Part 2 of 2

Alfred Packer should have been hanged.

The verdict was clear. The sentence was delivered with venom. The public was ready to watch justice swing from a rope. And then—everything fell apart.

In Part Two of the Colorado Cannibal story, the horror leaves the mountains and enters the courtroom, where legal loopholes, jurisdictional chaos, and a stunning legislative mistake derail what seemed like an open-and-shut case. As lawyers argue over maps, treaties, and vanished statutes, a convicted killer becomes something unthinkable: a celebrity.

What follows is a saga of failed executions, rewritten charges, and a second trial that exposes just how fragile justice can be when laws change faster than crimes can be prosecuted. Witnesses dismantle the starvation defense. Evidence resurfaces. Sentences stretch into record-breaking territory.

Then comes the twist no one expects—a fearless reporter, a newspaper war, gunfire in a newsroom, and a campaign that transforms a cannibal into a cause. By the time the dust settles, the question isn’t whether Alfred Packer was guilty. It’s how the system let him walk free.

This is the conclusion of one of the American West’s most disturbing true crime stories—where the law blinks, history shrugs, and the legacy somehow ends with a cafeteria bearing his name.

While researching our recent episode on Alferd Packer, the Colorado Cannibal, Shea stumbled across something unexpected while digging through nineteenth-century newspapers: romantic poetry… about cannibals.

Yes, really.

In this Five—okay, probably Fifteen—Minute Friday, Shea reads a bizarre little poem from the San Antonio Daily Light (April 1, 1889) titled “Love and Theology.” It’s a Victorian-era love story involving a missionary, a cannibal maid, and a romantic misunderstanding that ends… poorly.

Along the way we talk about why nineteenth-century readers were so fascinated with cannibal stories, how these tales showed up everywhere from travel writing to adventure novels, and why the “cannibal” became such a popular stereotype in Western culture.

It’s weird.

It’s funny.

And it’s a fascinating little snapshot of the cultural imagination of the 1800s.

Next week we’ll share another cannibal poem from the archives—this one even stranger, and with a few more uncomfortable historical layers.

Victorian journalism was a wild place.

Part 1 of 2

In the winter-shadowed mountains of 1870s Colorado, people disappeared with unsettling regularity. Most were claimed by weather, terrain, or bad luck. This story is different. Five men entered the high country chasing gold. Only one came back.

What followed was not a simple tale of survival. It was a cascade of contradictions, shifting confessions, scattered bones, and a discovery so disturbing it permanently renamed the land itself. Sketches published in a national magazine revealed a scene that suggested planning, patience, and something far darker than desperation.

As rumors spread and evidence surfaced, the line between hunger and intent began to blur. Supplies that shouldn’t have existed. Money that shouldn’t have been spent. Stories that changed just enough to stay ahead of the truth. And always, the same question lingering in the thin mountain air: what really happened out there?

This is Part One of a two-part descent into one of the most infamous true crime stories of the American West—an episode that inspired films, legends, and a name still spoken with unease. The gore fades. The mystery deepens. And the mountains, as always, keep their secrets just a little longer.

Can’t wait for the conclusion?

Part Two of this story is already waiting. The manhunt, the trial, the lies unraveling in public, and the legal chaos that followed are all available right now on our Patreon. Visit rainydayrabbitholes.com to unlock ad-free episodes, bonus content, and early access to stories that go places polite history refuses to tread.

You’ll also find photos, sources, and supplemental material connected to this episode on our website, beautifully designed by Letha Davis of easybrzy.com—because even dark history deserves a good-looking home.