Did That Really Happen?

This week we're going back to 1930s England with the very silly Fackham Hall! Join us as we learn about wedding music, cousin marriage, domestic worker unions, and more!

Sources: Kelly Massicot, "The History of the Wedding March," New Orleans Magazine, available at https://www.myneworleans.com/the-history-of-the-wedding-march/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fackham_Hall Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fackham_hall/reviews/top-critics

https://spartacus-educational.com/Domestic_Workers_Union.htm Laura Schwartz, "A Job Like Any Other? Feminist Responses and Challenges to Domestic Worker Organizing in Edwardian Britain," International Labor and Working-Class History 88 (2015): 30-48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43956663 Selina Todd, "Domestic Service and Class Relations in Britain 1900-1950," Past & Present 203 (2009): 181-204. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25580932 Anna Clark, "Domestic Servants and the Labour Movement, 1870s-1914" in Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present edited by Emmanuelle Avril and Yann Beliard (Manchester University Press, 2018). https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv18b5dxr.12

SMITH MT. ESTIMATES OF COUSIN MARRIAGE AND MEAN INBREEDING IN THE UNITEDKINGDOM FROM 'BIRTH BRIEFS.' Journal of Biosocial Science. 2001;33(1):55-66. doi:10.1017/S0021932001000554 Dominic Wilkinson, "Banning first cousin marriage would be eugenic and ineffective," Practical Ethics, available at https://blog.uehiro.ox.ac.uk/2025/03/banning-first-cousin-marriage-would-be-eugenic-and-ineffective/ https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3907 Amy Cole and Emb Hashmi, "Couple defend first-cousin marriages amid ban call," BBC, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g38l07895o

In this unexpectedly NSFW episode, we're traveling back to 1900 Australia with Picnic at Hanging Rock! Join us as we learn about the curricula and scandals of girls' schools, the history of tourism at Hanging Rock, bananas, the poet Felicia Hemans, and more!

Sources:

Poem: Casabianca, available at https://allpoetry.com/poem/8471921-Casabianca-by-Felicia-Dorothea-Hemans Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), TAMU, available at https://odp.library.tamu.edu/victorianpoetry/part/felicia-hemans/ Behrendt, S.C. (2001). 'Certainly not a Female Pen': Felicia Hemans's Early Public Reception. In: Sweet, N., Melnyk, J. (eds) Felicia Hemans. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230389564_6 "Alex Grammatikos, Carleton University. "The Nothingness of Fame, At Least to Woman": Felicia Hemans and the Price of . Century Gender Studies. Issue 10.3 (Winter 2014)"

"THE HANGING ROCK, NEAR WOODEND." The Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil (Melbourne, Vic. : 1873 - 1889) 17 February 1877: 182. Web. 28 Aug 2026 . Larissa Romensky, "No Picnic at Hanging Rock: Campaign to Recognize Aboriginal Past Rather than "White Myth". ABC News, available at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-17/campaign-to-recognise-indigenous-history-hanging-rock/8187942

Marjorie Theobald, "Discourse of Danger: Gender and the History of Elementary Schooling in Australia, 1850-1880," Historical Studies in Education, 29-52. Marjorie Theobald, "'Mere Accomplishments'?: Melbourne's Early Ladies' School Reconsidered," Women Who Taught: Perspectives on the History of Women and Teaching (1991), 71-91. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442683570.7 Shelley Richardson, "Educating Daughters: The Melbourne Girls," Family Experiments: Middle-class, professional families in Australia and New Zealand c. 1880-1920 (2016), 259-84. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q1crn1.17

Nicholas Surany, "The Australasian Banana Industry: Chinese, Australian, and Pacific Economic Connections," in Chinese Colonial Entanglements: Commodities and Traders in the Southern Asia Pacific, 1880-1950, edited by Julia T. Martinez, Claire Lowrie, and Gregor Benton (University of Hawai'i Press, 2024), https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.8441685.7

"Picnic at Hanging Rock," National Film and Sound Archive, https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/picnic Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock_(film) Vincent Canby, "Picnic at Hanging Rock," https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/40-picnic-at-hanging-rock https://www.criterion.com/current/top-10-lists/41-dennis-lehane-s-top-10 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-picnic-at-hanging-rock-1975

This week we're traveling back to 1820s Oregon Territory with First Cow! Join us as we learn about baked goods, "soft gold", cats, and more!

Sources:

Washington Irving, The Beauties of Washington Irving, 1825. Excerpt available at https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beauties_of_Washington_Irving_Esq/IgdCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=olykoek&pg=PA33&printsec=frontcover Dan Kois, "I Made the Oily Cakes from First Cow,' Slate, available at https://slate.com/culture/2020/03/first-cow-oily-cakes-recipe.html https://inliterature.net/sleepy-hollow/traditional-dutch-1800s-olykoek-recipe/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Cow RogerEbert.com review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/first-cow-movie-review-2020

Preston Lewis, How Feral Cats Fared in the Wild West. Hint: It Usually Didn't End Well. Available at https://historynet.com/feral-cats-wild-west/

Barton Barbour, "Fur Trade in Oregon Country,' in Oregon Encyclopedia (August 2024), https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/fur_trade_in_oregon_country/ "Beaver Trap," Oregon History Project, https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/beaver-trap/ Melinda Jette, "Exploration & Fur Trade" Oregon History Project, 2003, https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/exploration-amp-fur-trade-by-robert-gray/ Jennifer Ott, ""Ruining" the Rivers in the Snake Country: The Hudson's Bay Company's Fur Desert Policy," Oregon Historical Quarterly 104, no. 2 (2003): 166-95. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20615318

We don't have a new episode this week, so we're opening the Patreon vault to take you back to 1980s LA with GLOW! Join us as we learn about the wild world of 80s professional wrestling, including Hulk Hogan, the audition process, and more!

Sources:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/original-gorgeous-ladies-of-wresting-glow_n_5953ff80e4b02734df2f98f2 https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/06/159777/glow-characters-gorgeous-ladies-of-wrestling-80s-photos#slide-1

Mrspikeshaw "Hulk Hogan - Say Your Prayers, Eat Your Vitamins," https://youtu.be/0-dI4Sl2rzE Sam Migliore, "Professional Wrestling: Moral Commentary Through Ritual Metaphor," Journal of Ritual Studies 7:1 (1993): 65-84. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44398889 Conor Heffernan, "Representations of Hulk Hogan in the 1980s: Christianity, Masculinity, Xenophobia," Sport and Modern/Contemporary Visual Culture 12:1 (2023). https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/12/1/22 The Best Wrestling Promos of All Time, "Best Promos - Hulk Hogan "The ultimate sentence of Hulkamania," https://youtu.be/EA8ZAkvRgVo WWE, "Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage join forces: Saturday Night's," https://youtu.be/rDWalFmERhY WWE, "FULL MATCH - Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant - WWE Championship Match: WrestleMania III" https://youtu.be/rz8q5ZjboXY

Metacritic, Glow Season 1 https://www.metacritic.com/tv/glow/season-1 Julia Raeside, "GLOW review - a riotous portrayal of the piledriving world of women's wrestling," The Guardian (22 June 2017). https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2017/jun/22/glow-review-a-riotous-portrayal-of-the-piledriving-world-of-womens-wrestling Rotten Tomatoes, "GLOW" Season 1 (2017); https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/glow/s01 IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5770786/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

This week we've got a listener-requested episode on Brooklyn! Join us as we travel back to 1950s Ireland and New York and learn about Irish dances, golf, Coney Island, 1950s immigration, and more!

Sources:

Source Paul Rouse, How Golf Took Root in Ireland, Irish Examiner, available at https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport-columnists/arid-20472471.html

John T. Ridge, Dance Halls of Irish New York, available at https://nyirishhistory.us/article/dance-halls-of-irish-new-york/

Linda Dowling Almeida, Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995 (Indiana University Press, 2001), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20060pn .

The Beach in 1954: https://www.britannica.com/place/Coney-Island-amusement-area Aaron Rose's Coney Island at the Museum of the City of New York: https://collections.mcny.org/asset-management/24UAKVQPB41?&WS=SearchResults&Flat=FP Marta Gutman, "Race, Place, and Play: Robert Moses and the WPA Swimming Pools in New York City," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67, no.4 (2008): 532-61. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jsah.2008.67.4.532 Carolina Bank Munoz, Penny Lewis, and Emily Tumpson Molina, "Brooklyn," in A People's Guide to New York City (University of California Press), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2j6xfj4.8

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/brooklyn Glenn Kenny, "Brooklyn," https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/brooklyn-2015

In this definitely NSFW episode, we're traveling back to 17th century Italy with Benedetta! Join us as we learn about the trial of Benedetta Carlini, comets, convent theater, and more!

Sources:

https://daily.jstor.org/lesbianism-at-the-convent/ Judith C. Brown, Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (1986, Archive.org) Rudolph M. Bell, "Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archives: An Exchange," Renaissance Quarterly 40, no.3 (1987): 485-511. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2862521

Image of the comet over Heidelberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/1618_W1#/media/File:Comet_1618_Heidelberg.jpg Nicholas Kollerstrom, "Galileo vs. 1618's Great Comet: Fly Like an Eagle," DIO 21, 2018 Elisa Neckar, "Sept. 6, 1618: The First Comet Seen Through a Telescope," Astronomy, available at https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/sept-6-1618-the-first-comet-seen-through-a-telescope/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedetta_(film) Rotten Tomatoes Reviews: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/benedetta Blank Check Podcast (Paul Verhoeven Series)

Elissa B. Weaver, Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

This week we're traveling back to Edwardian England with Kind Hearts and Coronets! Join us as we learn about man traps, municipal baths, executing nobility, suffragettes doing awesome stuff like smashing windows and flying hot air balloons, and more!

Sources:

National Trust Collections: Humane Mantrap with No Teeth: https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/832217 Henry Yau, "Student Spotlight #2: Man Traps," The Museum of English Rural LIfe: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-views/student-spotlight-2-man-traps/ Keith Fitzpatrick-Mathews, Man Traps and Spring Guns and Burymead, North Hertfordshire Museum, available at https://northhertsmuseum.org/man-traps-and-spring-guns-at-burymead/

https://www.criterion.com/films/357-kind-hearts-and-coronets?srsltid=AfmBOoqI6mqHSaktbVr3VfmjtvrX_EoEHYVpCazVLklhDJtp_Vz21UaE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kind_Hearts_and_Coronets Philip Kemp, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/414-kind-hearts-and-coronets-ealing-s-shadow-side https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kind-Hearts-and-Coronets David A. Ellis, Conversations with Cinematographers, 15. https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=kind-hearts-and-coronets

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/PLA01/03/0063 https://www.victorianturkishbath.org/F0GLOSSARY/SFglossPages/Slipper_w.htm Dave Day and Margaret Roberts, "Working at the Baths," Swimming Communities in Victorian England (2019), 157-201.

https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/londons-public-executions/ https://capitalpunishmentuk.org/english-hangmen-1850-to-1964/ Colin Rhys Lovell, "The Trial of Peers in Great Britain," The American Historical Review 55, no.1 (1949): 69-81. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1841088 Execution of Lord Lovat (1747), https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-96988/a-representation-of-the-execution-of-lord-lovat/ https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/the-beheading-of-clan-fraser-chief-watched-by-thousands-859749 Robin Eagles, "The Last Peer Hanged for Murder," https://historyofparliament.com/2022/05/10/the-last-peer-hanged-for-murder/ Andrew Thrush, "The execution of Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk," https://historyofparliament.com/2022/04/28/the-execution-of-thomas-howard-4th-duke-of-norfolk/

https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-547960/glass-smashing-for-votes-suffragettes-as-window-breakers/ https://bowstreetmuseum.org.uk/shattering-suffrage/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/suffragettes-on-file/window-smashing-campaign/ https://balloonteam.net/montgolfier/on-this-day-the-suffragette-airship/ https://blogs.loc.gov/families/2022/09/venturesome-ladies-trailblazing-female-fliers/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Matters#/media/File:The_London_Illustrated_News_(7th_November_1908.webp

We don't have a new episode this week, so we're releasing a Patreon episode from the vault: 2022's canceled-too-soon series, A League of Their Own. Join us as we learn about the AAGPBL's weird code of conduct, WWII-era mail censorship, and more!

Sources: Full text available at https://www.aagpbl.org/history/rules-of-conduct https://www.aagpbl.org/teams/rockford-peaches/1944 Lisa Taylor/Justina Moloney, "Passed Censor," Folklife Today: American Folklife Center & Veterans History Project, Library of Congress (28 August 2017). https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2017/08/passed-censor/ "Victory Mail," National Postal Museum, Smithsonian. https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/victory-mail and https://youtu.be/tj_LoG7wStY Myron Fox, "Censorship!" American Experience, PBS (2000). https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/warletters-censorship/ "Letters Home: Wartime Correspondence from the Natale Bellantoni Papers," Hoover Institution Library & Archives https://histories.hoover.org/letters-home/#:~:text=Throughout%20World%20War%20II%2C%20the,hands%20should%20mail%20be%20intercepted. Devan Coggan, "Abbi Jacobson responds to angry reactions to A League of Their Own: 'Representation matters so much'" Entertainment Weekly (15 August 2022). https://ew.com/tv/a-league-of-their-own-reactions-abbi-jacobson-responds/ Rebecca Nicholson, "A League of Their Own review-- this gorgeous baseball drama is about something far bigger than sport," The Guardian (12 August 2022). https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/aug/12/a-league-of-their-own-review-baseball-drama-abbi-jacobson-madonna-movie-remake Jenna Scherer, "A League Of Their Own serves up a whole new crop of Peaches," AV Club (10 August 2022). https://www.avclub.com/a-league-of-their-own-season-1-review-1849391265 Linda Holmes, "New Peaches, new problems: 'A League of Their Own' makes a successful move to TV," NPR (11 August 2022). https://www.npr.org/2022/08/11/1116855780/a-league-of-their-own-2022-amazon-prime-review Riese, "32 Excerpts From Really Special "League Of Their Own" Reviews Written By Homophobes Who've Had Quite Enough," Autostraddle, (15 August 2022). https://www.autostraddle.com/32-homophobic-league-of-their-own-reviews/ https://youtu.be/1OvULWYcSjQ

This week we're traveling back to 1940s Germany (yup, this is a heavy one, folks) with Nuremberg! Join us as we learn about real-life figures like Douglas Kelley, Emmy Goering, Howie Triest, and more!

Sources:

James Wylie, "The Battle to Be 'First Lady of the Third Reich.'" Daily Telegraph (London), November 14, 2019, 22,23. EBSCOhost. Richard J. Evans. 2015. The Third Reich in History and Memory. Oxford University Press. EBSCOhost. George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality. New York: Howard Fertig, 1985 "Frau Goering Gets Year, but is Freed," New York Times, 22 July 1948, available at https://www.nytimes.com/1948/07/22/archives/frau-goering-gets-year-but-is-freed-court-also-confiscates-30-of.html https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/the-err-and-the-nazi-partys-systematic-looting-of-europe-xmbqkk/8289/ https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/about/err.php

Douglas Kelley, 22 Cells in Nuremberg, https://archive.org/details/22-cells-in-nuremberg-douglas-m-kelley-z-library/page/n7/mode/2up Jack El-Hai, "The Psychiatrist and the Nazi," World War II 28, no. 5 (2014): 38-45. Jack El-Hai, "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist," Scientific American, (2011), https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-nazi-and-the-psychiatrist/ Martin Levinson, "General Semantics and PTSD in the Military," ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 72, no.3 (2015): 258-64, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24762164 . Meilan Solly, "The True Story Behind 'Nuremberg,' a WWII Drama About Hermann Goring's Cat-and-Mouse Game With an American Psychiatrist," Smithsonian Magazine (2025) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-true-story-behind-nuremberg-a-wwii-drama-about-hermann-gorings-cat-and-mouse-game-with-an-american-psychiatrist-180987621/ José Brunner, ""Oh Those Crazy Cards Again": A History of the Debate on the Nazi Rorschachs, 1946-2001," Political Psychology 22, no.2 (2001): 233-61, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3791925

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_(2025_film) Interview with James Vanderbilt, NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/11/11/nx-s1-5487719/nuremberg-james-vanderbilt https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/nuremberg-james-vanderbilt-interview

Mario Cacciotollo, "Jewish Army Translator Who Got Close to the Nazis," BBC, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-14706309

This week we're traveling back to 18th century Manchester (and America!) with The Testament of Ann Lee! Join us as we learn about Ann Lee's life with her awful husband Abraham and fellow spiritual leader Jane Wardley, shaker spirituals, pacifism, and more!

Sources:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pacifism/ Ngram for Pacifism: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pacifism&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 George Fox on peace: https://quaker.org/legacy/minnfm/peace/fox_1651.htm Tolstoy, "The Law of Violence and the Law of Love", 1908, available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/tolstoy/1908/the-law-of-violence-and-the-law-of-love/chapter-8.html

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/news/pop-religion-hunger-and-thirst-embodied-religion-testament-ann-lee https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_testament_of_ann_lee Guy Lodge, https://variety.com/2025/film/news/the-testament-of-ann-lee-review-amanda-seyfried-1236503769/ Peter Bradshaw, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/01/the-testament-of-ann-lee-review-shaker-venice-film-festival-amanda-seyfried-mona-fastvold Peyton Robinson, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-testament-of-ann-lee-amanda-seyfried-film-review-2025

https://shakermuseum.org/learn/school-programs/shaker-music/ Nardi Reeder Campion, Mother Ann Lee: Morning Star of the Shakers (Brandeis University Press, 2026). https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.37730392 Linda Fujie, ""Draw the Chords of Union Stronger": The Musical Life of the American Shakers," The World of Music 35: 3 (1993): 51-79. Daniel Patterson, The Shaker Spiritual (Dover, 1979, 2000) https://archive.org/details/shakerspiritual0000patt/page/2/mode/2up . https://www.shakermuseum.us/tis-gift-simple-things-arent-simple-seem/?nocache=1 https://home.shakerheritage.org/let-us-labor-the-evolution-of-shaker-dance/ https://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-shaker-dance-and-worship-18th-century-photo-researchers.html https://daily.jstor.org/the-rhythms-of-shaker-dance-marked-the-shakers-as-other/ EP Thompson, Making of the English Working Class BS Youngs, "The Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing," 1823, Full text available on Google Books

Nardi Reeder Campion, Mother Ann Lee (2026) https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.37730392.11 A summary view of the Millennial Church, or United Society of Believers (commonly called Shakers) : comprising the rise, progress, and practical order of the society, together with the general principles of their faith and testimony (1823), https://archive.org/details/asummaryviewmil02wellgoog/page/n4/mode/2up