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

The "More or Less" podcast, hosted by Lizzy McNeill, investigates the historical claim that Vlad the Impaler impaled 20,000 people. McNeill interviews Dinesh Harai, a historian, who explains Vlad III Dracula's historical context, his reign in Wallachia, and the use of impalement as a form of capital punishment in the late medieval period. Harai details how Saxon and Ottoman accounts, particularly a 1463 pamphlet, exaggerated the numbers of impaled victims due to political antagonism. By comparing these historical accounts with archaeological findings, census records, and other contemporary letters, Harai concludes that Vlad likely impaled approximately 2,000 people, a figure significantly lower than the widely cited 20,000, though still substantial and more frequent than his contemporaries.