Ep. 110 Easter Island: How the Remote Pacific Island of Rapa Nui Became An Unnecessary Mystery
In April of 1722 Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen and his crew stumbled upon a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They sailed for the Dutch West India Company in search of Terra Australis Incognita, a hypothetical undiscovered continent that doesn’t actually exist. The land they found instead was just a 64 square mile speck some 1,200 miles from the nearest island and over 2,000 miles from the nearest continent. This island, which they spotted on Easter Sunday, was incredibly small and incredibly remote. And yet, remarkably, there seemed to be people living there. Roggeveen and his crew were confused, as were the handful of Europeans who made occasional landfall in the centuries that followed. None of them could understand the mysterious people of Easter Island. Where did they come from? How did they get there? Why did they carve massive stone heads? How did they move them? There were so many unanswered questions that have led to a complete lack of answers even today. But the real mystery is, why didn’t anyone just ask the Rapanui people themselves? Perhaps, if they had, Easter Island, Rapa Nui wouldn't be the mystery it is today. Join me this week to finally learn about Rapa Nui. We’ll examine recent DNA evidence that completely debunks past theories and we’ll finally listen to the Rapanui people whose rich oral traditions, storytelling, have survived despite it all.Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: UNESCO "Rapa Nui National Park"Smithsonian Magazine "The Secrets of Easter Island"Smithsonian Magazine "Easter Island's Ancient Population Never Faced Ecological Collapse, Suggests Another StudyNature "Ancient Rapanui genomes reveal resilience and pre-European contact with the AmericasEBSCO "European Discovery of Easter Island"Wikipedia "History of Easter Island"PBS NOVA Online "Secrets of Easter Island"Shoot me a message!
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Ep. 109 The Philadelphia Experiment: How Tales of an Invisible Teleporting Naval Ship Found Their Way Into History
In the 1950s, a strange story emerged about a ship called the USS Eldridge docked at a naval shipyard in Philadelphia. According to a man aboard another ship docked nearby, in October of 1948 the hull of the Eldridge suddenly glowed an eery blueish green and then the entire ship disappeared, became invisible. But that's not all. After it turned invisible, it then suddenly teleported 300 miles away to another naval shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia and back. The crew aboard the Eldridge reportedly suffered ill effects, disorientation, burns, and some of them even had body parts fused to the hull of the ship. This witness, a man named Carl Allen or sometimes Carlos Allende, claimed that what he had seen was a top secret government experiment gone wrong, an experiment that had been covered up ever since. But what was the Philadelphia Experiment really - a government conspiracy or a hoax turned urban legend? Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Naval History and Heritage Command "Philadelphia Experiment"Wikipedia "Philadelphia Experiment"Military.com "This Is the Truth Behind WWII's Creepy Philadelphia Experiment"Wikipedia "Carl Meredith Allen"ussslater.org "Destroyer Escort Anecdotes"How Stuff Works "How the Philadelphia Experiment Worked"Skeptical Inquirer "Solving a UFOlogical Murder: The Case of Morris K. Jessup"Wikipedia "Morris Ketchum Jesup"Shoot me a message!
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Ep. 108 April Fool's Day: How No One Even Knows What This Holiday Really Is
This week we're exploring what is, quite possibly, the weirdest and most mysterious of all the holidays: April Fools' Day. The real trick? No one even knows where this holiday came from or why we celebrate it. We'll dive in to some of the origin theories, from ancient Rome to medieval fables to Renaissance poetry. We'll also take a look how the holiday has evolved throughout time, including some of the greatest pranks ever pulled on April Fools' Day. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Library of Congress Blogs "April Fools: The Roots of an International Holiday"History.com "April Fools' Day"NPR "April Fools' Day might be the world's longest running joke. No one knows how it began"A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities BU Today "How a BU Prof April-Fooled the Country"Encyclopedia Britannica "Julian Calendar"History.com "9 Outrageous Pranks in History"Shoot me a message!
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Ep. 107 Bloody Mary: Why England's First Queen Was Cast as an Evil Villain Instead of a Triumphant Underdog
I have danced around the story of Mary Tudor, oldest daughter of Henry VIII, for far too long. It's finally time to recognize Mary with her own episode, the perfect story to wrap up Women's History Month. This is a tragic story. The lot cast upon Mary was often cruel and unjust, her life marred by trauma and heartache. But it's also a story of triumph, an underdog rising up, overcoming insurmountable challenges to claim her rightful place as England's first ever queen regnant. Despite being villainized by history ever since, cast as "Bloody Mary," the stuff of childhood urban legends and sleepover games, Mary was no more evil than her father and brother who came before her or her sister, Elizabeth I, who came after her. So what happened? Why has the myth of "Bloody Mary" persisted for so long and who was Mary Tudor, Queen Mary I, really? Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Royal Museums Greenwich "Why is Mary I Known As 'Bloody Mary?'"History Extra "The lost heirs of Henry VIII"Smithsonian Magazine "The Myth of Bloody Mary"History.com "What Inspired Queen 'Bloody' Mary's Gruesome Nickname?"The Fitzwilliam Museum "Mary Tudor"Tudor Extra "The Illness, Death, and Burial of Mary I"Wikipedia "Mary I of England"Wikipedia "The Education of a Christian Woman"Shoot me a message!
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Ep. 106 Madame Restell: The "Wickedest Woman in New York" and Why Abortion Really Became Controversial in the US
Amidst the chaos of 19th century New York City, one poor immigrant woman named Ann Lohman managed to climb her way out of the slums and into a brownstone mansion on 5th avenue. But her means of doing this rubbed some people the wrong way. Ann, alias Madame Restell, was a notorious abortionist operating in the city with satellite offices in Philadelphia and Boston. She built an empire selling married women birth control and performing procedures to help them end unwanted pregnancies. Soon after she began this profitable practice, there were many who hoped to take her down, put a stop to it. But not for the reasons you might expect. Not for the reasons people oppose abortion today. Turns out, abortion, though mostly unseen and unspoken of, has been mostly an accepted necessity throughout history. It wasn’t until the mid 1800s when women like Madame Restell rose up, challenging the status quo that abortion became controversial. Let’s fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Smithsonian Magazine "Madame Restell: The Abortionist of 5th Avenue"Science History Institute "How Notorious Abortionist Madame Restell Built a Drug Empire"The New York Historical Society "Life Story: Ann Trow Lohman, a.k.a Madame Restell"The New York Historical Society "Urbanization"Johns Hopkins University "A Brief History of Abortion in the US"CNN "Abortion is ancient history: Long before Roe, women terminated pregnancies"Shoot me a message!
In each episode of History Fix, I discuss lesser known stories from history that you won't be able to stop thinking about. Need your history fix? You've come to the right place.Support the show at buymeacoffee.com/historyfix or Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine. Your donations make it possible for me to continue creating great episodes. Plus, I'll love you forever! Find more at historyfixpodcast.com
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