Don't Look Now

The concept of wandering spirits seems to be ubiquitous across cultures.  While most will say they don't believe in ghosts by the light of day, this stand gets a bit less firm in the middle of the night when strange things happen.  Why do we tell ghost stories?  They are told all around the world and continue to be told over the years so there must be a reason for their existence.  Do we all just like the thrill of a scary story, or are there larger societal reasons that we cling to our ghost stories?

Haunted houses are a hallmark of the Halloween season in the United States.  When did they become a thing and when did they morph into the modern high end professionally run houses of today.  Buckle up and take a listen.

Listen in and learn about Pepper's Ghost, an illumination technique developed in the the 1860s and still in use today to project ghostly images onto the stage where they can be seen to appear in apparent three dimensional reality.  The technique has had a resurgence in recent decades allowing a deceased Tupac to perform at Coachella, and Michael Jackson to perform at the Billboard Music Awards. 

George Remus went from celebrated defense attorney at the onset of Prohibition to one of the most notorious bootleggers in the country.  After he eventually landed in jail, his wife Imogene ran off with an FBI agent and liquidated his multimillion dollar fortune.  Remus subsequently shot and killed Imogene in a public rage and defended himself in court, managing to get himself considered temporarily insane.  If you want drama, this story has it, so have a seat and take a listen.

Now that we have reached October, it's time for some spooky season stories.  Today we discuss one of the scary creatures from Irish folklore, the banshee.  Rumored to wail in signal of the impending death of those who hear it, the Banshee has roots that go back to the 8th century.  Are there wailing female forms haunting the Irish countryside, or are there other creatures a bit more mundane in origin that might have given birth to the legend.

We discuss the horrific case of the Radium Girls, young women who worked for companies in the early 20th century painting watch dials with glowing radium based paint.  They were told the product was harmless and were allowed to ingest it and use it as a fashion accessory.  Almost all of the women came down with serious health effects and radiation poisoning while their employers did their best to cover the issue up.  The case eventually became on of the driving forces that led to the founding of OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which is tasked with protecting American workers from workplace dangers.

New historical anthropology has unearthed a treasure trove of artifacts relating to the many Chinese workers that worked for the Central Pacific Railroad constructing the Transcontinental Railroad across the United States.  Information about he workers has been sparse due to the disinterest of racist railroad managers in keeping information about Chinese works at the time on this side of the Pacific, and the Cultural Revolution in China destroying primary sources of that side of the Pacific.  Come learn about how the railroad was really built and the people we owe a debt of gratitude to. (audio issue at the end of the podcast fixed thanks to JSS)

Imogene Rechtin started a campaign in 1910 to ban the pernicious scourge of kissing.  It's probably not a great spoiler to say that she failed in her attempt, but take a listen an find out about her group, the World Health Organization (no, not that WHO), and it's attempt to rid the work of kissing.

Thomas Andrew Parker, better known as Colonel Tom Parker, is famous for being Elvis Presley's controlling manager during is career.  However, few knew that he was not from West Virginia as he claimed, but actually an undocumented Dutch immigrant named Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk who arrived in America under some highly sketchy circumstances.  Take a listen and learn all about Colonel Tom.

Courage the Cowardly Dog was a cartoon that ran for four seasons on Cartoon Network in the late 90s and early 2000s.  While the show consisted of Courage subjected to all kinds of scary situations, few people know that much of the show had basis in reality.  Courage's home is a real house in New Mexico where unspeakable things have happened, and a real life serial killer roamed.