Halloween special: How many people did the real Dracula impale?

More or Less

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Vlad III Dracula, the Wallachian Prince who became Bram Stokers inspiration behind his famous vampire 'Count Dracula,' was a brutal ruler. So brutal that history dubbed him 'Vlad the Impaler' due to his penchant for that particularly gruesome form of execution. Which, without going into too much detail, involved driving a large stake or pole through someone's body - often vertically.

Chroniclers and historians claim that he impaled over 20,000 people during his reigns which, if true is a very, very big number. But is it true? We speak to Historian Dénes Harai whose paper: 'Counting the Stakes: A Reassessment of Vlad III Dracula’s Practice of Collective Impalements in Fifteenth-Century South-eastern Europe' attempts to set the record straight.

Let's travel back to 1431 to separate the math's from the myth.

Presenter/Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Sound Mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron.
0:10.5	Evil genius.
0:11.6	He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it.
0:15.5	That's like hiding at your own funeral.
0:17.1	Yeah, a bit great gig.
0:18.6	I'm Russell Kane.
0:19.6	Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius.
0:24.1	Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius.
0:26.4	It also helps it.
0:27.4	It's a long time ago, right?
0:29.4	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's
0:33.5	out of ice cream.
0:34.9	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:38.0	Hello, and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast,
0:41.0	with a program that looks at the numbers in the news, life, and those in the lives before us.
0:46.4	And I'm Lizzie McNeil.
0:48.9	It's that time of year again, so-called spooky season.
0:51.9	And what could be spookier than discussing a seriously scary stat has been floating around since the 15th century?
1:00.0	Now, beware, this episode, more or less, is a bit grislier than usual, and it's all to do with this guy.
1:08.0	Welcome to my house, Mr. Harker.
1:10.0	Come freely, go safely. with this guy. Welcome to my house, Mr. Harker.
	...

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