This week, Joan Collins from the Pea Island Preservation Society joins me again to discuss Richard Etheridge, the first Black man to serve as keeper in the US Life Saving Service. Born into slavery, Etheridge fought for the Union army during the Civil War. Afterwards, he returned home to the Outer Banks of North Carolina where he re-entered service as a life saver, more specifically, surfman number 6, the lowest ranking position. Join me this week to learn how Etheridge distinguished himself time and again, climbing through the ranks despite all obstacles, despite the color of his skin, to lead, to serve, to fight, on behalf of humanity.  

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Sources: 

• "Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers" by David Wright and David Zoby (affiliate link)
• "Etheridge Homeplace: a History" by Penne Smith
• United States Coast Guard "Captain Richard Etheridge, Keeper, USLSS"
• National Park Service "Richard Etheridge"
• Wikipedia "Pea Island Life Saving Station"
• American Battlefield Trust "Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Life Saving Station"
• The Outer Banks Voice "Darrell Collins Passed to the Great Beyond"
• United States Coast Guard "The Long Blue Line 'To Never Halt or Falter'"
• Coastwatch "Pea Island Surfmen Prove Themselves on a Heroic Night"
• US Life Saving Service Heritage Association "History of the USLSS"
• Wikitree "John Burgess Etheridge"

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Between mainland North Carolina and the narrow stretch of barrier islands we call the Outer Banks, sits a tiny island, just 12 miles long and around 3 miles wide. Dotted with rich maritime forest and bordered by brackish salt marsh on all sides, it’s home to two sleepy towns aptly named Manteo and Wanchese. This is Roanoke Island of course, of Lost Colony fame. But some 300 years later, in the mid 1800s, it was home to another colony entirely, one you’ve probably never even heard of, a colony whose population soared to just under 4,000 people in a matter of a few years. That’s more than the combined populations of Manteo and Wanchese today. This was the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony and its history, its story, some might argue, has become even more lost than the Lost Colony itself. Let’s fix that. 

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Sources:

• "Ironclads and Columbiads: The Civil War in North Carolina" by William R. Trotter (affiliate link)
• "Time Full of Trial: The Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony" by Patricia C. Click (affiliate link)
• National Park Service "The Battle of Roanoke Island"
• National Park Service "Richard Etheridge"
• Wikipedia "Battle of Roanoke Island"
• National Park Service "The Freedmen's Colony on Roanoke Island"
• Wikipedia "Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island"
• roanokefreedmenscolony.com
• Letter from Richard Etheridge and William Benson
• Roanoke Island Festival Park "The Freedmen's Colony"
• National Park Service "Freedom Comes to Roanoke Island"

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In this episode, we'll uncover the truly impressive accomplishments of Benjamin Banneker, a free Black man living in rural Maryland in the 1700s. Banneker was a self taught astronomer who helped to lay out the boundary for the construction of Washington DC. He also built his own working clock and wrote and published almanacs for the years 1792 to 1797. He also called Thomas Jefferson out for being a hypocrite, my personal favorite accomplishment. But, despite all of the truly impressive things he really did, he's mostly remembered for things he did not do: planning the city of Washington DC, constructing the first clock in America, writing the first almanac in America, etc. Join me to examine how and why his already impressive enough real life accomplishments have been embellished by historical telephone. Let's fix that. 

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

• "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini
• The White House Historical Association "Benjamin Banneker the Black Tobacco Farmer Who the Presidents Couldn't Ignore"
• Wikipedia "Benjamin Banneker"
• Wikipedia "Mythology of Benjamin Banneker"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Pierre Charles L'Enfant"

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This week, we'll delve into the mind blowing life of Josephine Baker, a Black performing artist who took Paris by storm starting in the 1920s. She sang, she danced, she barely wore any clothing, and she had a pet cheetah named Chiquita that regularly terrorized the orchestra pit. But Josephine Baker was so much more than that. from St. Louis street rat to world famous performer, first Black female movie star to French spy during World War II, entrepreneur to US civil rights activist, mother of twelve… I think you will find that Josephine Baker is nothing if not completely unexpected. Let’s fix that. 

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

• The New Yorker "Josephine Baker Was the Star France Wanted - and the Spy It Needed"
• CBS News "The legacy of Josephine Baker"
• The Guardian "From the archive, 26 August 1974: An interview with Josephine Baker"
• Wikipedia "Josephine Baker"
• Slate "Josephine Baker's Rainbow Tribe"
• Spiegel International "Josephine Baker's Rainbow Tribe"
• The Conversation "Josephine Baker's 'Rainbow Tribe' and the pursuit of universal brotherhood"

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This week I'll explore the social history of the cannabis plant including its use since ancient times as a fiber, medicine, and for its psychoactive properties both ritualistically and recreationally. I'll explore how cannabis first made its way to the Americas and how it became a main crop of colonial planters that they were actually required by law to grow. I'll explore it's use in 19th century American medicines and do some digging to find out why it came to be banned in 1937 following an influx of Mexican immigrants who brought recreational use of "locoweed" or "marijuana" with them. You're in for a wild ride! 

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

• NPR "The Mysterious History of Marijuana"
• CBS News "The man behind the marijuana ban for all the wrong reasons"
• DEA "Drug Scheduling"
• Wikipedia "History of Cannabis"
• American Addiction Centers "History of Marijuana"
• History.com "Marijuana"
• University of Georgia "History of Marijuana Regulation in America"
• Nature Magazine "A Potted History"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Why Is Marijuana Illegal in the US?"
• Mount Sinai "Herbal Medicine"
• FindLaw "Marijuana Possession Laws by State"
• American Association of Medical Colleges "Alcohol related deaths are spiking. So why don't we take alcohol addiction more seriously?"
• Associated Press "US poised to ease restrictions on marijuana in historic shift, but it'll remain controlled substance" 
• Wikipedia "Datura stramonium"
• National Park Service "Wildlife in the Tropical Rainforest"

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Thomas Alva Edison has always been portrayed as the greatest, most prolific by far American inventor. The man obtained over a thousand patents in his lifetime and is credited with inventing or improving upon devices that changed our world, our lives forever: the lightbulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, telegraphs, telephones, x-rays, and batteries. The list goes on. His contemporaries were blown away. But in recent decades, many have come to doubt Edison’s genius. More recent Edison critics take a look at his impressive body of work with scrutiny. "He didn't really invent all of those things," they say. Modern minds are split on Thomas Edison. He’s either a great American hero, inventor of our modern world, or an idea stealing fraud who ripped off other great minds and claimed the credit. But who was he really? Was Thomas Edison the real deal or do we need to rewrite the history books, giving back credit where credit is due? Let’s fix that.

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

• Library of Congress "Life of Thomas Alva Edison"
• National Park Service "Edison Biography"
• US News "Many Minds Produced the Lightbulb That Illuminated America"
• Forbes "Nikola Tesla Wasn't God and Thomas Edison Wasn't the Devil"
• Ranker "Here Are All The Things That Thomas Edison Didn't Actually Invent, But Took The Credit For Anyway"
• Wikipedia "Thomas Edison"

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Check out zipOns from befree Adaptive Clothing here! This week we'll take a look at the 6 Hanoverian monarchs: George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV, and Victoria. We'll examine how George I, a German, came to be king of Great Britain and Ireland despite being only 57th in line for the throne and how German monarchs continued to rule the country for the next 187 years and beyond. What mark did the Hanover dynasty leave on Britain? How does it still effect them today? I think you'll be surprised to learn just how German Britain actually is!

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

• Historic Royal Palaces "The Georgians"
• History Hit "The 6 Hanoverian Monarchs In Order"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "House of Hanover"
• UK National Archives "The Death of Queen Anne"
• PBS "What Illness Did King George III Have?"
• German History Society "Britain and Germany: A Love-Hate Relationship?"
• BBC "Queen Nazi salute film: palace 'disappointed' at its use"
• The Guardian "Genetic study reveals 30% of white British DNA has German ancestry"
• The Telegraph "How German the Royal Family Actually Is"
• Indian Express "How German Are the British Royals?"

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Check out zipOns from befree Adaptive Clothing here! In the 1950s a mysterious man appeared at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. He looked normal enough, just a regular looking mid-thirties white guy in a suit there on a business trip. But when he presented his passport to airport officials, they were puzzled. The passport was unlike any they had ever seen before. It listed the man as being from a nation called Taured, a nation they had never heard of, a nation they were pretty sure didn’t exist. When asked to point out Taured on a map, the man became confused. He pointed to the Principality of Andorra on the border of France and Spain. “It’s supposed to be right here,” he said “it’s been here for over a thousand years.” He couldn’t understand why his country was no longer listed on a world map. Airport officials took the man to a hotel room for the night until they could interrogate him further the next day. They placed two guards outside the room to ensure he didn’t escape but in the morning, the mystery man from Taured was gone without a trace. In the years since, many have speculated that the man from Taured came from another dimension, an alternate reality in which Taured really did exist between France and Spain. But how much of this story is actually true and how much is just the product of the game of historical telephone? Let’s fix that. 

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Sources: 

• Snopes "The Mystery of the Man from Taured"
• All That's Interesting "Inside the Legend of the Mysterious Taured Man"
• Wikipedia "John Zegrus"
• Reddit post by user taraiochi
• UK Parliament "Frontier Formalities"

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This week, we'll get lost in the mind boggling mystery that is the Dyatlov Pass case, when 9 experienced hikers died under suspicious and unexplainable circumstances while traversing Russia's Ural Mountains in 1959. When a group of ski/hikers led by 23 year old student Igor Dyatlov failed to return after a 3 week journey, search parties were sent. They quickly found the group's abandoned tent, cut open from the inside. Not long after that, the bodies were discovered. But the condition of the bodies raised more questions than it answered. No single theory adequately explains how the 9 hikers died. Was it an avalanche? Weapons testing by the Russian military gone wrong? A yeti??? When Russia reopened the investigation in 2019, Swiss avalanche researchers used an unconventional method to try to prove or disprove the avalanche theory. They reached out to the creators of Disney's animated film "Frozen" to get their snow animation code. What did their simulations tell us? Is it case closed for the Dyatlov Pass incident or does the mystery persist?

Check out photos from the hiker's cameras here

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Sources: 

• BBC News "Dyatlov Pass"
• History.com "The Dyatlov Pass Incident: Why the Hiker Deaths Remain a Mystery"
• National Geographic "Has Science Solved History's Greatest Adventure Mystery at Dyatlov?"
• Smithsonian Magazine "Have Scientists Finally Unraveled the 60 Year Mystery Surrounding 9 Russian Hiker's Deaths?"
• Live Science "Russia's 'Dyatlov Pass' conspiracy theory may finally be solved 60 years later"
• Wikipedia "Dyatlov Pass Incident"
• Collider "'Frozen' May Have Helped Solve a Half-Century Old Mystery"
• Business Insider "Animation used for 'Frozen' helped solve a mysterious 62-year-old avalanche case"

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I'm back this week with yet another inspiring underdog story... but make it Christmas! This week, I'll trace the origins of one of the most beloved Christmas characters, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, all the way back to his roots on the desk of a department story copywriter in 1939 Chicago. Robert L. May was down on his luck when his boss at Montgomery Ward asked him to write a children's book that the store could hand out to customers at Christmas time. He was in debt, his wife was dying of cancer, he was struggling to support his 4 year old daughter, and he was far from achieving his dream of becoming a great American writer. But, just like his underrated title character, Robert rose to the occasion and gave the world something it needed, something that mattered.

Read May's original Rudolph manuscript and listen to his daughter Barbara May Lewis read it here!

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

• Time Magazine "The Surprisingly Sad True Story Behind 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'"
• NPR "The History of 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'"
• Chicago Tribune "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer..."
• Wikipedia "Robert L. May"
• American Business History Center "Gimbel Brothers Department Stores: Dust to Dust"
• On Location Tours "'Elf' Filming Locations"
• Wikipedia "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"
• The Hollywood Reporter "'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' Most Beloved Holiday Movie, Poll Finds"
• Wikipedia "Johnny Marks"

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