iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild
329 episodes listed below
Dana Schwartz narrates the violent lives of monarchs, warlords, and queens.
Noble Blood treats royal history as character study, political drama, and crime scene. Its episodes move from Mongolia to Benin and medieval tournaments with careful prose, period texture, and a steady eye for consequence.
PRESS PLAY
Noble Blood is built around Dana Schwartz's solo-narrated episodes, which reconstruct the lives of historical rulers, aristocrats, and court figures in a scripted, story-driven style rather than a casual chat format. Subjects skew toward people whose power involved violence or moral compromise — a self-styled Russian aristocrat turned warlord in Mongolia, a Benin queen mother who commanded armies and engineered a royal succession, Habsburg court politics around early medical science. A secondary format is the historian interview, where Schwartz talks with authors and academics — Matt Kaplan on scientists who were ridiculed or persecuted, medievalist Hugh Doherty on tournament culture and its dramatization in HBO's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — to connect historical research with present-day pop culture. Geographic and cultural coverage extends beyond the European monarchies typical of the genre, taking in Mongolian, Russian, and West African history alongside the more expected Habsburg and English material. Episodes commonly touch on court intrigue, war and its aftermath, the mechanics of succession, and the specific ways women accumulated or held onto power in male-dominated systems. The show occasionally reuses its feed to run episodes from Very Special Episodes, another iHeart production, which cover different territory such as emergency-alert failures and Olympic-qualification stories rather than royal history. Listeners can expect scripted narration with source citations (historians and authors referenced by name) rather than freewheeling banter. The show suits people who want narrative nonfiction history focused on power, violence, and court politics, including entries outside the standard English/European monarchy canon. Production comes from iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild, and episodes run in the 25-55 minute range.
Made for: People who want scripted narrative history about royal power, court violence, and succession, including figures outside the usual English/European monarchy focus.
What sets it apart: Combines solo narrated profiles of lesser-covered royal and aristocratic figures — a Mongolian warlord, a West African queen mother — with historian interviews that link the material to current pop culture like Game of Thrones.
Author Dana Schwartz explores the stories of some of history’s most fascinating royals: the tyrants and the tragic, the murderers and the murdered, and everyone in between. Because when you’re wearing a crown, mistakes often mean blood.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Noble Blood makes dynastic power legible by tracing how status, marriage, belief, and violence shaped individual lives.
Noble Blood follows courts and empires by watching what status makes people do under pressure. Dana Schwartz alternates narrated history with specialist conversations, moving from medieval tournament culture and Habsburg marriage politics to Idia's authority in Benin and a…
A joust becomes an asset seizure, and suddenly your costume-drama brain has accounting homework.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A scrawny officer with a Cossack saber arrives in Chita in 1908 as Russia quietly eyes its next move east.
Roman steps off the Trans-Siberian Railway in Chita, July 1908 -- uniform torn at the knees, a three-foot Cossack saber at his hip. One witness called him scrawny, ragged, and droopy.
What a nuclear expert in Kauai did in the minutes after the Hawaii missile alert went out.
When the Hawaii missile alert went out, a nuclear expert on Kauai ran through what she knew: roughly 25 minutes if the launch was from North Korea, a neighbor's meditation cave as the most sealed space nearby, a passport and radiation shawl packed into a woven bag.
Idia of Benin turned sorcery into her sharpest political asset.
Noble Blood's episode on Idia, queen mother of Benin, opens with a sharp premise: in sixteenth-century Edo culture, a reputation for the supernatural was an asset for an ambitious woman rather than a liability.
Noble Blood's guest expert peels back the chivalric romance to show what medieval tournaments actually were -- and what they eventually became.
Noble Blood brings in a guest expert to demolish the stained-glass tournament -- those single-combat jousts of romantic imagination. The actual 12th and 13th century contests were sprawling capture-focused melees across terrain the size of football fields, where a knight could…
A Habsburg daughter: beauty, smallpox, and the cold arithmetic of the marriage market.
Noble Blood's conversation with a historian follows Elizabeth, a Habsburg princess whose suitors had included the kings of Poland, France, and Spain, until smallpox arrived and left her, by her mid-twenties, with nothing to offer the marriage market but her title.
Siniska of Sparta sought to compete at the Olympics in an era when women were barred from the Games.
Noble Blood's episode on Siniska, a Spartan princess, doesn't take the easy route. Young women in Sparta trained athletically -- laws required them to be "fit as their brothers" -- and married around 18 to men of comparable age, later and more equitably than almost anywhere else…
Olympic qualification, tallied in canceled trips and 75 percent of a paycheck.
Elizabeth got to the 2018 Winter Games through Hungary, her grandparents' country, without sponsorship or any institutional backing. By her own count, 75 percent of everything she made went to training and competing. Brendan puts a single qualifying session at up to $30,000.
Kaplan and Schwartz on how the medical establishment punished the doctor who proved it was killing its own patients.
When The Economist's Matt Kaplan joins Dana Schwartz to examine Empress Maria Theresa's place in the history of science, the conversation lands on Semmelweis -- the doctor who proved physicians were ferrying infection from the morgue to the delivery room, built a chlorine…
Food52 hosts break down recipes and food-business origin stories, from sourdough to Salty Pimp cones.
Lillian Cunningham travels to five national parks to trace the human fights behind each landscape.
Academic Mukulika Banerjee and journalist Pragya Tiwari interview one expert each episode on India.
Roman von Ungern-Sternberg is introduced through the 1921 seizure of Urga, where a mixed force of Mongolians, Tibetans, and Russians moved in during a snowstorm and took Bogd Khan out of house arrest.
A warning turns physical.
Idia made belief into power.
Tournaments were dangerous business.
This episode features a mix of podcast promotions, including advice from Will Ferrell's dad, news commentary from Amy and TJ, and a historical narrative introduction from Noble Blood.
This episode of Noble Blood explores a historical murder case involving politics and intrigue in a harem in 1651.
A narrative history podcast exploring the lives, scandals, and tragedies of famous royals throughout history.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
Dana Schwartz interviews author Veronica Buckley about her book on the seven daughters of Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, exploring their lives as dynastic pawns in 18th-century Europe.
This episode explores the history of royal participation in the Olympics, focusing on Princess Anne's 1976 equestrian competition and the lesser-known story of Siniska, a Spartan princess who became the first woman to win at the ancient Olympics in 396 BC.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
Elizabeth did the math.
This transcript features promotional snippets for multiple iHeart podcasts, including Thanks Dad, Amy and TJ Podcast, and Dear Chelsea, highlighting advice, news commentary, and celebrity interviews.
A medical breakthrough turns into an accusation.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
This episode discusses the disastrous Arctic balloon mission of 1897, exploring its historical context and failure.
The episode recounts the story of Count Leopold Berchtold during the collapse of an empire.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals, beginning with a scene in Imperial Russia.
This is a promotional compilation for various iHeart podcasts featuring celebrity guests and news updates.
This transcript features promotional snippets for three iHeart podcasts: Mostly Human with an interview on AI responsibility, Rorschach about a political murder mystery, and Math & Magic with marketing insights from industry leaders.
This is a promotional compilation featuring previews and advertisements for various iHeart podcasts, including Thanks Dad, Amy and TJ Podcast, and Dear Chelsea.
Dana Schwartz introduces a new podcast and book before beginning a historical narrative about royalty.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
A narrative history podcast exploring the lives and scandals of historical royals.
Hosts Cal Penn and Ed Helms introduce an audiobook club episode featuring a supernatural romance coauthored by Nicholas Sparks and M.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
Host Dana Schwartz interviews historian Tracy Borman about historic royal figures, exploring their dramatic and often bloody stories.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
Dana Schwartz interviews actor and historian Peter Weller about Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and his transition from acting to art history.
A narrative history podcast exploring the dramatic and often bloody stories of historical royals.
The episode recounts the story of Count Casimir Pulaski, a Polish nobleman and cavalry commander in the American Revolutionary War.
The episode recounts the birth of a child to an unusual-looking French courtier and his wife in 1588, exploring the fears and superstitions surrounding the event.
This episode recounts a scandalous baccarat game involving Prince Albert at Tranbycroft estate.
The episode recounts the disastrous maiden voyage of the Swedish warship Vasa in 1628, symbolizing royal ambition and tragedy.