When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain

History's Unknown Chapters

By: Giles Milton

Narrated by: Giles Milton

Obscure and addictive true tales from history told by one of our most entertaining historians, Giles Milton

This program is read by the author, the host of the popular podcast, Unknown History with Giles Milton.

The first installment in Giles Milton's outrageously entertaining series, History's Unknown Chapters: colorful and accessible, intelligent and illuminating, Milton shows his customary historical flair as he delves into the little-known stories from the past.

There's the cook aboard the Titanic, who pickled himself with whiskey and survived in the icy seas where most everyone else died. There's the man who survived the atomic bomb in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And there's many, many more.

Covering everything from adventure, war, murder and slavery to espionage, including the stories of the female Robinson Crusoe, Hitler's final hours, Japan's deadly balloon bomb and the emperor of the United States, these tales deserve to be told.

©2015 Giles Milton (P)2016 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“If you get a kick out of odd historical trivia like that, you’ll devour “When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain,” the first installment in Giles Milton’s new “History’s Unknown Chapters” series. Packed with 50 stories your social studies teacher probably skipped, the book sports a wandering eye and witty voice that make for diverting winter reading.”—The Washington Post

"A list of insurance claims taken out on pets drowned with the Titanic. A legend detailing the various forms of Chinese castrati. A detailed description—by the oh-so-fittingly named Sir Hamon L’Estrange—of a dodo a mere quarter century before the bird’s extinction. These moments are the winking epigraphs of grinning Death, gleaned from Giles Milton’s history of the bizarre, the obfuscated and the macabre. And what a history it is!"—Paste Magazine

“[An] easily digestible mix of humor, trivia, and solid research….Dozens of seemingly too-good-to-be-true tales…There are plenty of fabulously dramatic adventures here…Milton’s entertaining collection is sure to leave readers waiting for the next volume in the series."—Publishers Weekly

Quirky Events In World History

An entertaining little tome of mostly insignificant but newsworthy events in history. Whether it's folks, who out of desperation, resorted to Canadian or the last soldier killed in World War I the author's delivery is clear and entertaining. A very interesting Audible offering.

Short Snippets of History

Very entertaining stories of History's past. very logically put together. Details of History that are not found in your history book.

Sometimes funny, sometimes sad and quite disturbing but definitely interesting.

A few of the stories in this book were familiar to me but most of them I had never heard.
It was a very interesting collection of odd historical events.
As I said in my title some of them were pretty disturbing.
If you are squeamish like me, you may need to take a break at times.
There were several stories that dealt with cannibalism and those are the ones that I found it difficult to listen to.
As someone who loves both history and trivia I enjoyed this book very much and would highly recommend it.
As you can see from my rating I thought that the author did a very good job as narrator as well.

very interesting

this is an enjoyable and surprising story. well narrated and compelling. glad I bought it

Quick read but very interesting!

I absolutely loved this - it was full of stories & facts I had never heard before. Highly recommend!

Tidbits from history

Entertaing. Am looking forward to next Giles Milton book alread. This one I will defenitely listen to again.

Quite entertaining

So many interesting little stories from history. Very easy to listen to, the narration is entertaining. A detractor for me was that some of the short stories seem to end abruptly, providing little information aside from a brief summary. You won't gain anything groundbreaking from this book but for entertainment and sparking a little curiosity it's certainly worth a listen.

Wonderful listen.

The stories are absolutely wonderful. You will have plenty to talk about at your next social gathering.

Perfectly unnecessary, i couldn’t keep away

Giles Milton has managed to gather every interesting bit of information floating between the lines of textbooks and rumors and turned it into a feast of fun. He’s sarcastic. He’s interesting, and the narrator was absolutely perfect. Very happy to say I’m a fan!

Entertaining, but very light on details

A lot of entertaining and interesting nuggets of history, but a lot of the stories read like summaries. I was hoping for more details, particularly for stories like the 160 people who survived the nukes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This book only tells us a little about one of them.

Still worth reading, just leaves a bit of legwork up to the readers to get the whole stories.