By Shea LaFountaine
In each episode of History Fix, I discuss lesser known stories from history that you won't be able to stop thinking about. Need your history fix? You've come to the right place.
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Mary Shelley was just 18 years old when the idea for Frankenstein struck her on a rainy night in Geneva, Switzerland. Cooped up on vacation with nonstop rain, famous poet Lord Byron had challenged the group of literary geniuses to come up with a ghost story. Mary struggled. She could think of nothing. Then one night, as she struggled to sleep, she was hit with what she referred to as a "waking dream." What followed would come to define the science fiction genre, both inspiring and horrifying readers for centuries to come. But who was Mary Shelley, the creator? Who was she to bear such a creature? How did she manage to embody all that horror, that pain, that grotesque abnormality, gothic morbidity? Well, the more you know about the life of Mary Shelley, the more it all makes sense. Let’s fix that.
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This is part 2 of last week's episode on Christopher Columbus. This week, you'll learn about Columbus' disastrous third voyage to the Americas when he finally pays the price for governing like a power hungry tyrant. And yet consequences, of course, will be few, and he'll return once again for his fourth and final voyage. We'll also delve into the shockwaves sent out by Columbus' actions, how his decisions have negatively affected us to this day, and why it's time to shift our view of him once and for all.
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Few humans in history have sent out more shockwaves than Christopher Columbus. His four voyages to the Americas changed our whole existence, culturally, spiritually, ethnically, economically, politically, geographically, morally possibly more than any single person ever has. When Columbus' ships first dropped anchor off the islands of the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, as the anchor struck the sandy bottom of the crystal blue Caribbean waters, it issued in a new era, the modern era. Columbus has gone down in history as a hero, the forefather of our forefathers. But in reality, he was far more villain than hero. Let's fix that.
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Before Henry VIII, before Louis XVI, there was a dynasty in Italy so corrupt, so scandalous, gluttonous, hedonistic, that the others don’t even compare. But this was not a royal family. These were not kings, they were popes, cardinals, bishops. These were holy men, men of the church. Men whose unholy actions may very well have helped spark the dissatisfaction that led to the protestant reformation. These men were part of the house of Borgia, one of the most infamous families in Italy by the turn of the 16th century. They lied, they cheated, they murdered, they did whatever they had to do to get what they wanted - power. But they weren’t all men. One well known daughter of the House of Borgia, Lucrezia Borgia, has had her name drug through the mud right along with her disreputable male relatives. She’s been called a murderer, a whore, accused of incest and even witchcraft. History has cast Lucrezia as an evil seductress deserving of the Borgia reputation that her father and brother gained. But was she really? Or was she, like so many women of her time, simply a pawn in the hands of men behaving very badly? Let’s fix that.
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The bloody history of childbirth is riddled with death and despair. It's a burden that was carried almost entirely by women, behind closed doors, something men took no part in. And, because of that, we know very little about it today. What we do know is that it was an extremely dangerous affair. Mortality was so high, many women wrote a will as soon as they found out they were pregnant. The 18th century saw the beginning of the "medicalization" of childbirth when inexperienced forcep bearing male doctors got involved and began a crusade to put a stop to midwifery. But, ironically, childbirth didn't get any safer after that. It actually got deadlier, at first.
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On March 25th, 1911, a fire erupted on the 8th floor of the Asch building in New York City. The 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of this building housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory which employed around 500 people, mostly young immigrant women, to sew women's blouses under sweatshop conditions. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, believed the building to be fireproof and refused to take any fire safety measures. They also locked the exit doors, fearful that the women would steal from them if allowed to leave before their bags could be searched. Due to this negligence, 123 women and 23 men died, burned alive, trapped in locked stairwells or waiting for the only elevator. Many of the victims were forced to jump from 8th and 9th floor windows, their broken bodies littering the sidewalk below. This horrifying tragedy was a wakeup call for labor conditions in the US, leading to the passing of more than 30 health and safety laws. But what of Blanck and Harris? Were they punished? Did they learn their lesson? Of course not.
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Michael Rockefeller was the great grandson of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and the richest man in the world. He was also the son of Nelson Rockefeller, New York governor, Vice President of the United States, and a well known art collector. Michael had big shoes to fill. To do that, he followed in his father's art collecting footsteps, traveling to the Asmat region on the west coast of New Guinea to collect wood carvings for his father's Museum of Primitive Art in Manhattan. The Asmat people were hunter gatherers living in the jungle with almost no western contact. They led a very different life than Michael, practiced head hunting and cannibalism. Michael admired the Asmat, their culture, their art. But he never truly understood them. He couldn't. So when his sailboat capsized near the village of Otsjanep and he disappeared attempting to swim to shore, never to be seen again, his family assumed he had drowned. But did Michael Rockefeller really drown? Or was his fate far more violent? Let's fix that.
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Perched between the ocean and the sound in Nags Head, completely dominating the narrow sliver of land that makes up part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, is a monumental sand dune, a mountain of lush golden sand. This dune system, known as Jockey’s Ridge, is somewhere around 4,000 years old and can reach heights of over 100 feet. It’s majestic, it’s miraculous, the tallest living sand dune on the east coast, a unique ecosystem home to a myriad of coastal creatures, a landmark and navigation tool dating back hundreds if not thousands of years, a playground for generations of children, and the most visited state park in North Carolina. But, did you know that back in the 1970s, Jockey’s Ridge was slated for demolition to make way for a condominium complex? And did you know that three young children and their fearless mother put their foot down, quite literally, to save it? And that I have one of those children here with me today? Let’s fix that.
Check out the Friends of Jockey's Ridge
Check out hannahwestwrites.com
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Polio has been around since ancient times but it was a very quiet disease for most of history, affecting few people and raising little alarm. It wasn’t until the 20th century that polio began to appear among the masses, terrifying epidemics, a mysterious disease that seemed to target children out of nowhere, paralyzing them, killing them. No one knew how it spread. No one knew how to treat it. No one knew how to stop it. They quarantined. They avoided swimming pools and water fountains. They lived in fear. But the strange thing was, these polio epidemics were only happening in developed countries, countries that had recently gone to great lengths to ensure improved hygiene and sanitation. Good hygiene, cleanliness, was supposed to prevent the spread of disease. How had it backfired so horrifically with polio? Let’s fix that.
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Check out Outer Lore! In January of 1812 a schooner named The Patriot disappeared off the coast of North Carolina's Outer Banks. This dangerous stretch of coastline has claimed some 3,000 ships, earning it the nickname "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Aboard the Patriot was Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of infamous US vice president Aaron Burr, on her way to visit her father in New York. The disappearance of The Patriot and its famous passenger remain a mystery to this day. The discovery of a portrait resembling Theodosia that supposedly washed up with a shipwreck along the Outer Banks only adds to the mystery. Is the Nags Head portrait really Theodosia Burr? What really happened to her? A storm? Mutiny? Pirates? Is it possible she survived?
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The podcast currently has 91 episodes available.
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