It started just after Labor Day, with an envelope postmarked September 13, 1935, sent special delivery, addressed to Miss Mae West of 570 N. Rossmore, Ravenswood Apartments, Hollywood, California. There was nothing unusual about the envelope, but its contents were a different matter. It was the first of what would become a series of extortion letters threatening disfigurement by acid if she didn't pay $1,000. This wasn’t about keeping secrets or giving favors; it was about taking money from Mae West.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Acid Burns’: That Time Mae West Was Blackmailed, Know What I Mean? See?

Humans have always committed crimes. What can we learn from the criminals and crimes of the past, and have humans gotten better or worse over time?

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John Healy wasn’t a real doctor. Charles Bigelow was never a scout in the United States Army. And, the products they sold weren’t actually based on healing secrets of the Kickapoo people. Yet, the two men made a fortune from their Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company patent medicines – which, while named for them, not a single Kickapoo was involved with the company or its remedies. The story of Healy and Bigelow is one of quackery, lies, native cultural appropriation, and ... wait, did we call out the cultural appropriation? Yes? Well, then, let's talk about this.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company Had Nothing to Do With 'American Indians' or 'Medicine'

Norman Baker was an entrepreneur, a pioneering radio personality, and a fake doctor. He was a masterful propagandist, and through his radio station and multiple tabloid publications, he manipulated American anxieties about everything from politics to alleged ills of vaccinations. But his biggest claim was that he could cure cancer, in just six weeks, with his own elixir -- and your money. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Where Sick Folks Get Well’: Norman Baker Couldn’t Cure Cancer. Period.

Though the Pink Pills couldn't stand up to the wild advertising claims that the product was a cure-all, the pills were actually potentially medically beneficial to some people with a certain -- common -- condition; in theory. Maybe. Hey, we're not doctors. Let's talk about, how despite that, why this potentially potent patent medicine was under fire from the U.S. government. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spoiler! Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People … May Have Worked

William Bailey called himself a doctor, but his career was as a shady businessman, not a medical professional. In the early 20th century, he launched a series of start-up companies, capitalizing on the new discoveries of radioactive elements, and sold patent medicine products with lethal radioactive substances with unproven promises to cure everything from arthritis to impotence – it was said they could help you regain your youth. But instead, they were deadly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Radioactive Quackery: 'Doctor' Bailey and His Jaw-Dissolving ‘Energy Drink’

Today, if you’re asked to think of a tractor, most of us probably imagine farm equipment. But in the late 18th century, a physician named Elisha Perkins made and sold a different kind of tractor – a device consisting of small metal rods that could cure what ails you simply through touch. And for several years, people were mad for the Perkins Patent Metallic Instruments, or Perkins Tractors as they became popularly known -- even though it all turned out to be what we now know as the placebo effect. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Acid Burns’: That Time Mae West Was Blackmailed, Know What I Mean? See?

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