History Fix
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.
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Episodes
112 episodes
Ep. 103 Radium Girls: How These Inspiring Women Stood Up To Their Abusers and Won
This week, we'll delve into a cautionary tale: the "Radium Girls." These women were employed to paint glow in the dark numbers on watch faces and dials in the 1920s and 30s using radium paint. Assured that the paint was safe, the girls were ins...
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36:20
Ep. 102 Richard Etheridge: How Keeper Richard Etheridge Served Always “On Behalf of Humanity”
This week, Joan Collins from the Pea Island Preservation Society joins me again to discuss Richard Etheridge, the first Black man to serve as keeper in the US Life Saving Service. Born into slavery, Etheridge fought for the Union army during th...
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Episode 102
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43:30
Ep. 101 Freedmen: How the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony Became More Lost to History Than the Lost Colony Itself
Between mainland North Carolina and the narrow stretch of barrier islands we call the Outer Banks, sits a tiny island, just 12 miles long and around 3 miles wide. Dotted with rich maritime forest and bordered by brackish salt marsh on all sides...
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Episode 102
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46:42
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Ep. 100 Benjamin Banneker: How An Impressive Human Being Was Transformed Into a Mythic Folk Hero
In this episode, we'll uncover the truly impressive accomplishments of Benjamin Banneker, a free Black man living in rural Maryland in the 1700s. Banneker was a self taught astronomer who helped to lay out the boundary for the construction of W...
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Episode 100
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45:25
Ep. 99 Josephine Baker: How This Exotic Dancer Turned Spy Is Really So Much More Than That
This week, we'll delve into the mind blowing life of Josephine Baker, a Black performing artist who took Paris by storm starting in the 1920s. She sang, she danced, she barely wore any clothing, and she had a pet cheetah named Chiquita that reg...
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Episode 99
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48:01
Ep. 98 Cannabis: How Racism Led to the Demonization of a Rather Useful Plant
This week I'll explore the social history of the cannabis plant including its use since ancient times as a fiber, medicine, and for its psychoactive properties both ritualistically and recreationally. I'll explore how cannabis first made its wa...
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Episode 98
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44:12
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Ep. 97 Thomas Edison: Who Was Edison Really, Genius Inventor or Villainous Fraud?
Thomas Alva Edison has always been portrayed as the greatest, most prolific by far American inventor. The man obtained over a thousand patents in his lifetime and is credited with inventing or improving upon devices that changed our world, our ...
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Episode 97
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45:37
Ep. 96 Hanover: How a German Family Helped Define What It Means to Be British
Check out zipOns from befree Adaptive Clothing here! This week we'll take a lo...
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Episode 96
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42:10
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Ep. 95 Taured: How a Fraudster Was Transformed Into an Interdimensional Man of Mystery
Check out zipOns from befree Adaptive Clothing here! In the 1950s a mysterious...
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Episode 95
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41:03
Ep. 94 Dyatlov Pass: How Disney's "Frozen" Shed Light on a Decades Old Mystery
This week, we'll get lost in the mind boggling mystery that is the Dyatlov Pass case, when 9 experienced hikers died under suspicious and unexplainable circumstances while traversing Russia's Ural Mountains in 1959. When a group of ski/hikers l...
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Episode 94
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45:03
Ep. 93 Rudolph: How Underdog Robert L. May Created a Christmas Icon
I'm back this week with yet another inspiring underdog story... but make it Christmas! This week, I'll trace the origins of one of the most beloved Christmas characters, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, all the way back to his roots on the desk ...
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Episode 93
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36:52
Ep. 92 First Flight: How the Wright Brothers Changed the World Forever
Just in time for the 121st anniversary on Tuesday, I bring to you the story of two brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, who changed the world forever with their groundbreaking first flight on December 17th, 1903. Though it lasted just...
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Episode 92
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57:38
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Ep. 91 Révolution Part 2: What the French Revolution Can Still Teach Us Today
I'll pick up where I left off last week, with the storming of the Bastille and the fall of the "ancien regime." We'll explore how, over the next few years, this new France will become more of a hellscape than a paradise. As a radical group, the...
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Episode 91
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44:54
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Ep. 90 Révolution Part 1: What the French Revolution Can Still Teach Us Today
This week I discuss the events leading up to the outbreak of the French Revolution during the summer of 1789. You'll learn how Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette came to find themselves on the French throne at a time when the system, that had worke...
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Episode 90
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33:19
Ep. 89 John Billington: How "America's First Murderer" Attended the First Thanksgiving
On November 11, 1620, forty-one men aboard the ship the Mayflower signed a document of great importance. With their signatures they vowed to create fair and just laws and to work together for the good of the Plymouth colony. This document, the ...
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Episode 89
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38:48
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Ep. 88 Sacagawea: How Lewis and Clark's Indigenous Guide Did So Much More Than That
It’s the greatest adventure story ever told, Lewis and Clark’s daring pursuit to cross thousands of miles of rugged terrain, to explore the rest of the continent, to finally reach the Pacific Ocean, gaze out over its vast expanse, with their fa...
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Episode 88
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48:20
Ep. 87 Residential Schools: How the US Government Forced Indigenous Children to Give Up Their Identities
Starting in the 1800s, the US government forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of indigenous children from their homes and sent them to boarding schools hundreds of miles away where they ruthlessly tried to destroy all traces of their culture,...
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Episode 87
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34:07
Ep 86 Mt. Rushmore: How Sacred Indigenous Land Was Stolen and Defaced by the US
In the Black Hills region of South Dakota stands a massive American monument, the faces of four US presidents blasted into the side of a mountain. George Washington represents the birth of the nation. Thomas Jefferson represents its growth. The...
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Episode 86
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35:40
Ep. 85: The Exorcist: How a Real Life Story Inspired the Cult Classic Horror Film
This week, I'll explore the peculiar true story that inspired William Peter Blatty to write the book and screenplay for the 1973 hit film "The Exorcist." This is the story of a boy around 14 years old who experienced something truly...
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Episode 85
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45:50
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Ep. 84 Salem: Why the Witch Trials of 1692 Should Still Scare You Today
It’s January of 1692 and there’s something very wrong with 9 year old Betty Parris. Her father, the minister Samuel Parris, rushes to her bedside. Betty screams. Her body writhes under the blankets, twisting and contorting into grotesque shapes...
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Episode 84
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44:31
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Ep. 83 Historical Hauntings: How Characters Throughout History Have Reappeared From the Afterlife
This week, I'll examine several cases of historical hauntings. These are ghost stories where you actually get to find out the single most important question... who was that? We'll go all the way back to ancient Babylon, cruise through ancient G...
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Episode 83
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43:34
Ep. 82 Mary Shelley: How the Mind Behind Frankenstein Pushed All the Boundaries
Mary Shelley was just 18 years old when the idea for Frankenstein struck her on a rainy night in Geneva, Switzerland. Cooped up on vacation with nonstop rain, famous poet Lord Byron had challenged the group of literary geniuses to come up with ...
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Episode 82
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44:31
Ep. 81 Columbus Part 2: How a Villain Was Twisted Into America's Greatest Hero
This is part 2 of last week's episode on Christopher Columbus. This week, you'll learn about Columbus' disastrous third voyage to the Americas when he finally pays the price for governing like a power hungry tyrant. And yet consequences, of cou...
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Episode 81
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26:37
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Ep. 80 Columbus Part 1: How a Villain Was Twisted Into America's Greatest Hero
Few humans in history have sent out more shockwaves than Christopher Columbus. His four voyages to the Americas changed our whole existence, culturally, spiritually, ethnically, economically, politically, geographically, morally possibly more t...
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Episode 80
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34:59
Ep. 79 Lucrezia Borgia: How History May Have Cast This Infamous Daughter All Wrong
Before Henry VIII, before Louis XVI, there was a dynasty in Italy so corrupt, so scandalous, gluttonous, hedonistic, that the others don’t even compare. But this was not a royal family. These were not kings, they were popes, cardinals, bishops....
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Episode 79
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37:28
