This week I’m shattering preconceived notions that Indigenous Americans north of Mexico didn’t build cities. That they organized, instead, into only small, nomadic villages. Because, for around 800 years there was a great city, the largest pre-Colombian city north of Mexico, a city that, if you were to have visited in the year 1200, is theorized to have been larger than both London and Paris at that same time. In fact, it held the record for largest city in the now United States for almost 700 years from around 1100 until Philadelphia broke the record in the 1780s. I’m talking about the city of Cahokia which sprawled along the Mississippi River in southern Illinois, a testament to the true scale, potential, and abilities of Indigenous Americans in what is now the United States. Never heard of it? I hadn’t either. Let’s fix that. 

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Sources: 

• “Cahokia: A Pre-Colombian American City” by Timothy R. Pauketat
• Cahokia Mounds Museum Society
• EBSCO “Cahokia Becomes the First North American City”
• Wikipedia “Cahokia”
• Wikipedia “Mississippian Culture”

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Riding on the coat tails of last week's jewel heist episode, I'm back this week with the intriguing history of the Hope Diamond.  The story of the Hope Diamond is convoluted. It changed hands many times, stolen on several occasions and was gradually cut down from 112 carats to just 45 and a half today. Known for its rich blue color and red phosphorescence, the Hope Diamond is extremely rare and highly coveted. But, a big part of the reason the Hope Diamond is so well known is not because it’s pretty and sparkly. It’s because it has a rather dark past. In fact, when you follow the story of the Hope Diamond back through its many owners, you may begin to notice a trail of destruction and tragedy left in its wake. For many, the tragic demise of many of the diamond’s former owners is even proof of a curse. This infamy is a big part of what makes the Hope Diamond the most famous diamond in the world with an estimated value of between 200 and 350 million dollars. But, is any of it true? Or is it all a publicity stunt? Let’s fix that. 

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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Sources: 

• So Supernatural "The Curse of the Hope Diamond"
• Wikipedia "Hope Diamond"
• Wikipedia "Pierre C. Cartier"
• Smithsonian "History of the Hope Diamond"
• Chateau du Versailles "Louis XIII and Versailles"
• National Institute of Demographics "Life Expectancy in France"
• Wikipedia "Edward Beale McLean"

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Two weeks ago on Sunday, October 19th something rather extraordinary happened at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. During broad daylight, thirty minutes after the museum opened for the day, and as hundreds of visitors streamed inside, 8 pieces of France’s crown jewel collection valued at an estimated 102 million dollars (but actually priceless when considering historical value) were stolen in less than 8 minutes. I don’t often cover current events on this show, I’m usually covering events centuries after they happened, but this one deals with history and it deals with history that I now find myself unable to stop thinking about. My mind races back to the Mona Lisa episode and the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, how that was possible. How this was possible. It fixates on the pieces themselves, these extravagant ostentatious manifestations of the wealth of the elite. Who were these women who sported such opulence? What gave them that right? And it gets stuck, my mind, it gets stuck on another question that not enough people seem to be asking. Where did these gems come from originally? I promise you they didn’t come from France. So where did they come from and at whose expense? And, possibly the question that haunts me the most, can you really steal something that was already stolen? Let’s fix that.  

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Sources: 

• Artnet "The Glittering Royal History Behind the Louvre's Stolen Jewels"
• BBC "Everything we know about the Louvre jewelry heist"
• CBS News "How thieves pulled off a brazen crown jewel heist at the Louvre"
• ThoughtCo "The Rulers of France: From 840 to Present"
• Wikipedia "Colonial India"
• Wikipedia "French Crown Jewels"

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This week I'm concluding my Spooktober series by covering the story of the mysterious "ghost ship" Mary Celeste. The Mary Celeste was discovered adrift and unmanned around 400 nautical miles from the Azores Islands in December of 1872. The last recording in the ships log had been made some nine days before and it appeared that, since then, the ship had been sailing itself. But what happened to Captain Briggs, his wife Sarah, and their two year old daughter Sophia? What happened to the other seven crew members? As evidence is examined - a missing life boat, 9 empty barrels of alcohol, a disassembled bilge pump - the answers become no clearer. Join me this week to learn the mystery of the "ghost ship" Mary Celeste and to take a closer look at the clues left behind and the theories that emerged. 

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Sources: 

• Smithsonian Magazine "Abandoned Ship: The Mary Celeste"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Mary Celeste"
• Wikipedia "Mary Celeste"
• "Mary Celeste: The Greatest Mystery of the Sea" by Paul Begg
• "Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew" by Brian Hicks

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This one is not for the faint of heart! This week, in honor of Spooktober, I'm digging in to the story of Gilles de Rais, a French noblemen and military leader who fought alongside Joan of Arc to lift the siege of Orleans during the Hundred Years War. But that, turns out, isn't Gilles' only claim to fame. In the years following, he was responsible for kidnapping and then brutally assaulting, torturing, and murdering upwards of 140 children, making Gilles the first recorded and possibly most horrifying serial killer of all time. His bear all confessions are chilling, his acts unthinkable. There truly are no words. You've been warned.

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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Sources:

• UMKC School of Law "The Trial of Gilles de Rais (1440): An Account"
• UMKC School of Law "Confession of Gilles de Rais"
• The Trial of Gilles de Rais by Georges Batailles
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Gilles de Rais: History's First Serial Killer?"
• History Extra "Was Gilles de Rais really history's first recorded serial killer?"
• UMKC School of Law "Was Gilles de Rais Actually Innocent?"

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As it sometimes does, this week's topic presented itself to me. Determined to find out why the little known story of a woman most people have never heard of needed to be told so badly, I dug in. Join me to uncover the story of Grace Sherwood for yourself, the only woman ever to be convicted of witchcraft in Virginia. We'll examine the factors that led to Grace's conviction and the "recipe" for witch hunts that has plagued our past and potentially (but hopefully not!) our future. 

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• Transcripts of Grace Sherwood's trial for witchcraft
• "A Place In Time: The Age of the Witch of Pungo" by Belinda Nash and Danielle Sheets
• Salem Witch Museum "Grace Sherwood: the 'Witch' of Pungo"
• Ferry Plantation "Trial of Grace Sherwood - the Witch of Pungo"
• Virginia Museum of History and Culture "Grace Sherwood: the 'Witch of Pungo'"
• The Washington Post "Va. Gov. Gives Informal Pardon to Witch"
• Wikipedia "Grace Sherwood"

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Welcome to Spooktober! It's my favorite month on History Fix because I get to bust out all of the spooky stories I've been saving. This week, we're talking about the notorious serial killer who operated in New Orleans in the nineteen teens known as the Axeman. The Axeman attacked strictly Italian grocers, breaking into their houses with stolen axes to bludgeon them to death. This guy has been embraced by popular culture, appearing on television shows like American Horror Story, not because of his brutal acts or the fact that we still have no idea who he was today. He's been embraced mostly because of a letter that was published in the local newspaper purporting that he loved jazz music and would spare anyone listening to jazz  on a particular night in the spring of 1919. But who was the Axeman? And what does any of this have to do with jazz? Let's fix that. 

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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Sources: 

• "The Axeman of New Orleans: The True Story" by Miriam Davis
• Country Roads Magazine "The Axeman of New Orleans"
• Smithsonian Magazine "The Axeman of New Orleans Preyed on Italian Immigrants"
• The Historic New Orleans Collection "The Mysterious Axeman's Jazz"
• Wikipedia "Axeman of New Orleans"

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I'm back again this week with four more "lost cities" for you. First we'll explore the  Egyptian city of Thonis-Heracleion that literally sank beneath the Mediterranean Sea and was rediscovered some 1,200 years later. Next, we'll hop over to Jordan to discover the ancient Nabataean city of Petra with it's grand facades etched into the red rock landscape. After that it's off to Cambodia to learn about the not actually lost at all Khmer city of Angkor. And finally the mountains of Peru where majestic and little understood Machu Picchu looms among the picturesque peaks. But, while it's fun to think about "lost cities," the obvious lesson of this week's episode is: be careful what you call "lost" and be careful how easily you throw out the term "discovered." These words carry weight and they've already caused a lot of damage. Let's fix that. 

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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Sources: 

• The Guardian "Lost Cities #6: how Thonis-Heracleion resurfaced after 1,000 years under water"
• The British Museum "Timeline of Ancient Egypt"
• Franckgoddio.org "Sunken Civilizations"
• National Geographic "Who built the 'lost city' of Petra and why did they leave?"
• Natural History Museum of Utah "Angkor: The 'Lost City' That Never Needed to be Discovered"
• Wikipedia "Angkor"
• Wikipedia "Machu Picchu"

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We'll be visiting 8 lost cities over the next couple of weeks! This week we'll journey to an ancient city of mythic proportions that most thought to be fictional until it was actually discovered in the mid 1800s: Troy of Homer's Iliad fame. Next we'll make our way to southern Pakistan to explore the ruins of the completely unknown and yet stunningly advanced city of Mohenjo Daro. Then we'll hop the pond to the jungles of Guatemala to get lost in the sprawling Maya capital city of El Mirador. And finally, we'll revisit Pompeii, an ancient Roman time capsule completely preserved in volcanic ash. 

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources: 

• The British Museum "The search for the lost city of Troy"
• BBC "Did the Trojan War actually happen?
• BBC "Pakistan's lost city of 40,000 people"
• National Geographic "Recovering the lost city of Mohenjo Daro"
• Smithsonian Magazine "El Mirador, the Lost City of the Maya"
• Wikipedia "El Mirador"
• History Fix Episode 18 "Pompeii"

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William Shakespeare is undoubtedly one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. Author of over 30 plays and over 150 poems, he masterfully knit together over 20,000 English words, all out inventing some 1,700 of them, to beautifully capture full ranges of complex emotions and subtle nuances of human nature that still capture audiences over 400 years later. Pretty impressive for a 16th century man from a modest family with only a grammar school education, illiterate parents, illiterate children, who never left the country, didn’t seem to own any books, and has no surviving handwritten letters or documents of any kind today. So impressive, in fact, it actually raises some pretty big questions. How exactly did a man like William Shakespeare write such an impressive collection of literary masterpieces? Or didn’t he? Let’s fix that. 

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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Sources: 

• poets.org "About William Shakespeare"
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust "William Shakespeare Biography"
• shakespeareauthorship.com "How Do We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare?"
• History Extra "The Globe Theatre Fire of 1613"
• Book Brunch "The British and Reading: a Short History"
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust "Shakespeare's Words"
• History.com "10 Things You Didn't Know About William Shakespeare"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "William Shakespeare"
• biography.com "Was Shakespeare the Real Author of His Plays?"
• EBSCO "Shakespeare Authorship Question"
• Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship "How Wrote Shakespeare? Shakespeare Authorship 101"

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