Historically High

Without a doubt the closest the planet has come to nuclear war occurred between October 16th-28th 1962. The Cold War was at its peak. Brought there by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion about 18 months earlier by "Cuban Exiles", with pretty obvious support from the United States. With nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy the U.S. had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union if it ever came to the first strike in an atomic conflict. Cuba and the Soviet Union decided nuclear strike parody was fair and thus began the process of moving nuclear capable missiles into Cuba and within 100 miles of Florida. Constant surveillance of Cuba by the United States discovered nuclear launch sites being constructed putting John F. Kennedy into a situation with razor thin margins for error. For 13 days the world stood on the brink, with JFK and Nikita Khrushchev playing a game of chess with nuclear annihilation as the stakes. So many things should have gone wrong, so what ended up going right? Join us this week as we get Historically High on The Cuban Missile Crisis. 

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We're gonna go ahead and apologize in advance for any stumbles through this one. Sir Isaac Newton possessed a kind of brilliance that is very hard for the majority of people to really wrapped their heads around, and that includes us. Known as the Father of Modern Physics he didn't just help shape our understanding of the science of the natural world (not nature but the laws that govern nature, gravity, optics, movement, etc) but he deciphered a lot of the mysteries within it. He developed calculus because the math of his time wouldn't help him solve the questions he had. He discovered that light is made of a spectrum of colors that exist at all times even if we can't see them, and he revolutionized the understanding of gravity and planetary rotation. He was also human, who suffered from human flaws, vindictiveness being a pretty evident one.  But as with most genius there can be a mania that lies beneath. Join us as we get Historically High on the smartest man we've covered to date.

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The scariest part of the Dust Bowl is the very small amount we talk about it historically. The need for wheat during WW1 caused the wheat market to double. There was a lot of new agricultural land in the Southern Great Plains. Once the war was over, the government tried to prop up grain prices as best they could. In order to continue making the money they once did, farmers in the Southern Great Plains doubled down purchasing more land, and tearing more of the natural grasses from the earth. Then the Depression happened and prices for wheat bottomed out. Then drought hit the U.S. THEN the winds came. Without the native grasses holding down the top soil, the Great Plains became a literal dust bowl. Some left for California. Some road it out. Some never learned their lesson. Join us as we get Historically High on The Dust Bowl!

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The Stanford Prison Experiment produced groundbreaking results. The main result was proving the need to create Institutional Review Boards for human experiments. Dr. Philip Zimbardo wanted to test the effect of power and powerlessness in a prison setting. He used a bunch of college age boys to play the part of guards and prisoners. Usually a Doctor oversees their experiment. Not only did Zimbardo oversee his experiment, he made himself the Superintendent of his prison. The Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to last 2 weeks. It last 6 days. Zimbardo claimed he proved what he set out to prove. But did he? Was his thumb on the scale? Listen in to find out as we get Historically High on the Stanford Prison Experiment. 

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We're heading back to WW2 for the most pivotal battle of the European Theater. Some of you are already scoffing at that statement but let me lay it out like this. After Germany steamrolled mainland Europe, Great Britain was all that was left. Russia and Germany weren't at war yet. The United States was still over two years away from being at war. It was the British holding the line against total Nazi domination of Europe. If Britain fell that means no where to launch an invasion, no D-Day, no liberation of France. Between July 10 and October 30 of 1939, roughly 3000 pilots, most British and Scottish, but many others from all over including countries already occupied by the Nazis, held the skies above Britain and the English Channel preventing an invasion. For almost 4 months, fighter pilots, crews keeping them airborne, radar technicians, and the WAAF dispatchers, fought a fight for the rest of the world. In the words of Winston Churchill "Never was owed by so many, to so few" This is their story, This is the Battle of Britain. 

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It's Part 2....so if you haven't already go back and listen to part 1 first. Think you can just raw dog it without having any of Ireland's backstory, think again. We pick back up at a major event in Irish history, The Blight, or as most of us know it The Great Irish Potato Famine. Ireland is hurting and the people in charge, currently the English, aren't doing a whole lot to help. This combined with a whole list of issues with English rule (discussed in part 1) most of the inhabitants of the Emerald Isle have had enough. What follows is the story of Ireland's fight for independence, the individuals who rose as leaders of the movement, and the 'Troubles' experienced while battling for freedom. 

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Ireland. A country with a history almost as rich as the country is beautiful. A country that despite its proximity to mainland Europe seemed to avoid little things like invasion by the Roman Empire. Tracing its first people's back 10,000 years ago,  they began building stone monuments and elaborate burial tombs around 6500, and around 2500 years ago the Celts began to arrive. The Celtic tribes divided the island into different kingdoms spreading their culture and language. Fast forward to the 5th century and you get St. Patrick and the Catholics came in doing what they do and later came the Vikings. They liked what Ireland had going for it and established quite a few settlements deciding to make the Emerald Isle home, lending their culture to its history as well. There's so much more to The Land of Saints and Scholars, you'll just have to listen to find out, Welcome to Ireland....Part 1. 

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Apollo 13 was slated to be NASA's third manned spaceflight to land on the moon. Apollo 11 won us the space race and Apollo 12 proved it wasn't just a fluke that we put a man on the lunar surface. Apollo 13 was going to up the ante by putting men on a different part of the moon to explore. Now all of these missions took place within a period of 12 months so by Apollo 13 the public had lost interest. NASA had made it too easy to reach the moon according to the public. Well two days later the nation and world were glued to their TV's after an explosion in space crippled Apollo 13's command ship Odyssey leaving the astronauts short on oxygen and with power systems failing 200,000+ miles from Earth. Normally an explosion in space is a death sentence and it would've been for James Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise, but the geniuses of NASA mission and flight control had other plans. Through some of the craziest feats of sciences, mathematics, physics, and engineering the rescued these three men from the jaws of cold death. Find out how they did it on this week's episode. 

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Prof Chris here. I'm gonna shoot everyone straight, I got carried away with this one, I couldn't see it while it was happening, and I had the blinders on, sooo what you get now is 3 hours and 45 plus minutes of comprehensive and probably mostly entertaining discussion on the history of the Wizarding World introduced in the Harry Potter books/movie. I've got my nerd on full display here but Prof Adam enabled it so he's just as culpable as me. But serious this one was a shit ton of fun for me. If you've listened previously to any of my Fictional History lessons you know I'm nothing if I'm not thorough, or I try to be, so to all my nerds out there and to those just dipping their toes in for a few hours, I hope you enjoy.

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Henry Hudson. We don't know too much about his life prior to becoming a captain for the Muscovy Company of England. In his life he would tale 4 voyages looking to reach the east coast of Asia. 3 of those 4 voyages would start out going east only to run into ice. 2 of those voyages would discover some very cool things in the western world that would take his name (Hudson River, Hudson River Valley, Hudson Strait, Hudson Bay). Interestingly enough, all of his even numbered voyages had some degree of mutiny. The first mutiny-lite forced him to find a new country to sail for. His 4th and final voyage would return to England without him aboard. We don't know exactly what happened. What we know for sure is there is no way of knowing how or where Henry Hudson took his final breath. That mystery still lives on today. Join us as we get Historically High on Henry Hudson. 

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