History For Sleep with the Drowsy Historian

Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorian

Life under Catherine the Great looked very different depending on where you stood in the empire.

Tonight, you are not a noble, a soldier, or a figure history remembers. You are a Russian peasant—waking before dawn, working frozen fields, eating thin meals, aging while labor never stops, and slowly disappearing inside a system that records grain but not names.

This immersive historical sleep story follows the full life of an ordinary peasant under serfdom in 18th-century Russia. There are no battles, no revolutions, and no dramatic escapes—only cold, fatigue, silence, and endurance. The horror here is quiet and procedural, shaped by landlords, tradition, faith, and an empire that moves on without ever noticing you.

Told in calm, second-person narration, this episode focuses on mundane suffering, sensory realism, and the slow erosion of a human life lived entirely inside obligation.

Put on your headphones, get comfortable, and let history do what it does best: continue without you.

🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep Tools
Looking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:
• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/47ccNqV
• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f
• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE
• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn
• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu
• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTw

These are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.

#HistoryForSleep #DrowsyHistorian #RussianHistory #CatherineTheGreat
#Serfdom #PeasantLife #ImmersiveHistory #DarkHistory
#HistoricalStorytelling #SleepPodcast #ForgottenHistory

Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorian

What was it like to grow up homeless in Renaissance Naples?

In this immersive, second-person journey, you spend a full day and night moving through the alleys, markets, churches, and quiet corners of one of Europe’s most crowded cities. You wake on cold stone, drift along the edges of daily life, survive on scraps and small kindnesses, watch others eat behind warm windows, and learn how hunger, habit, and patience shape a childhood lived outdoors.

This is not a story of rescue or transformation. It’s a quiet descent into routine — how survival becomes ordinary, how humor and humanity flicker briefly even in hardship, and how the city itself becomes teacher, shelter, and witness.

Told in a calm, weary voice designed for rest and reflection, this episode focuses on atmosphere, texture, and the unnoticed rhythms of everyday life in the past.

Settle in, get comfortable, and let the city of Renaissance Naples carry you through the night.

🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep Tools
Looking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:
• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/47ccNqV
• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f
• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE
• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn
• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu
• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTw

These are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.

#history #sleepstory #drowsyhistorian #renaissance #naples #homelessness #medievallife #immersivehistory #bedtimestory #historicalfiction #quiethistory

Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorian

Tonight, you’re not a warrior or a conqueror.
You’re an ordinary person enduring winter on the vast Mongolian steppe.

There are no walls here. No forests to hide in. Only wind, snow, felt, fire, and the slow routines that make survival possible. You learn how to dress for a world that wants you gone, how to tend a fire that offers balance rather than comfort, how to eat what the cold allows, and how endurance becomes habit when winter devours everything else.

This is not a story about heroism.
It’s about patience, repetition, and learning when not to fight the land.

🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep Tools
Looking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:
• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/47ccNqV
• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f
• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE
• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn
• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu
• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTw

These are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.

#DrowsyHistorian #HistoricalSleep #CalmHistory #MongolianSteppe #MongolianWinter #NomadicLife #SurvivalHistory #HistoryForSleep #ImmersiveHistory #QuietHistory #AncientLife #Endurance

Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorian

In this immersive, second-person historical narrative, you spend a full day as a trench cook during World War I — boiling water that refuses to boil, stirring stews made from whatever survived the supply line, and carrying warmth through a maze of mud, rats, collapsing planks, and exhausted men.

There are no speeches, no glory, and no victories here. Just pots older than you are, fires that don’t want to stay lit, and soldiers who haven’t slept properly in years — all depending on one small, stubborn ritual: food that’s warm enough to matter.

This is not a story about battles or generals.
It’s about endurance, routine, and the strange, quiet absurdity of keeping people fed in a place that never really lets you rest.

Put on your headphones, get comfortable, and step into a forgotten corner of history — where even boiling water becomes an act of resilience.

🛏️ Drowsy Historian’s Favorite Sleep Tools
Looking to upgrade your nighttime routine? These are a few things I personally use or recommend:
• Sleep Earbuds for Enhanced Immersion → https://amzn.to/47ccNqV
• Blanket Soft Enough to Make the Plague Feel Tolerable → https://amzn.to/3GSOq8f
• Weighted Blanket for Pretending You’re a Mummified Pharaoh → https://amzn.to/4kVJCgE
• Sleep Mask Headphones For Total Historical Escape → https://amzn.to/4nWsNVn
• Book Light for Reading About Plagues at 2AM → https://amzn.to/4eSg0iu
• White Noise Machine for Blocking Out the 21st Century → https://amzn.to/3GJ9jTw

These are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the show while staying cozy.

#WorldWarI #WWI #TrenchLife #MilitaryHistory #ForgottenHistory #DrowsyHistorian #HistoryForSleep #ImmersiveHistory #GreatWar #EverydayHistory #CalmHistory

Get early episodes & ad-free audio on Patreon: https://patreon.com/DrowsyHistorian

Tonight, you spend a full day inside a 1930s American factory — clocking in before dawn, working beside tired men and indifferent machines, filling out endless paperwork, and trading hours of your life for wages that barely hold things together. There are no dramatic moments here. No speeches. No sudden escapes.

Just routine. Repetition. And the quiet erosion of the self.

This immersive, second-person historical sleep story follows one ordinary worker through a single, unremarkable day during the Great Depression — from the walk to work, to the factory floor, to the slow return home, and finally into an exhausted sleep. The horror doesn’t come from violence or cruelty, but from indifference, bureaucracy, and the steady demand to keep going.

Perfect for sleep, relaxation, or quiet background listening.

#DrowsyHistorian #GreatDepression #FactoryWork #WorkingClassHistory #ImmersiveHistory #HistoryForSleep #CalmHistory #SleepStory #EverydayHistory #1930sAmerica