In this episode of History Fix I discuss the history behind the Buffalo Soldiers mentioned in Bob Marley's hit 1983 song by the same name. Recruited just after the Civil War, these all Black army regiments were sent out west to claim land already inhabited by Indigenous Americans during the decades long "Plains Wars." Despite being forced by desperation to do this dirty job for a country that had previously enslaved them, these men fought so valiantly, even the Native Americans they fought against couldn't help but respect them, giving them the name "Buffalo Soldiers." 

Sources:

• National Park Service "Buffalo Soldiers" 
• National Park Service "Brigadier General Charles Young"
• National Museum of African American History & Culture "Buffalo Soldiers" 
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum "Who Are the Buffalo Soldiers?"
• History.com "Buffalo Soldiers" 
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Battle of New Orleans"
• American Battlefield Trust "New Orleans"
• American Battlefield Trust "Black Confederates: Truth and Legend"
• PBS "Ripley, Ohio: Freedoms Landing"

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In this episode of History Fix, I unpack the history of Valentine's Day. Join me to discover more about the holiday's bizarre Roman roots (there are naked, drunk priests!), how no one really knows who Saint Valentine was or what he did, and who sent the first valentine and when. You'll also learn about Esther Howland, the 18th century Massachusetts woman who started a multi-million dollar business in her 3rd floor bedroom crafting hand made valentines. 

www.somethingpeaceful.com

Sources: 

• History.com "History of Valentine's Day"
• NPR "The dark origins of Valentine's Day"
• Time Magazine "The Truth About the Connection Between Valentine's Day and the Ancient Roman Festival of Lupercalia"
• Library of Congress Blogs "Esther Howland and the Business of Love"
• British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog "Charles d'Orleans, earliest known Valentine?"
• British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog "My 'right well beloved Valentine'"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "The Parlement of Foules"

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This week on History Fix, I have a chat with New Orleans tour guide Tanya de Fazen to uncover the true story of the infamous "Queen of Voodoo" Marie Laveau. Get a look inside the culturally colorful and unique history that has made New Orleans a one of a kind city. Learn why Marie Laveau is closer to a saint than a witch and how her story got so twisted. 

Connect with Tanya:

• Tanya's Facebook
• Tanya's Haunted Pub Crawl
• Tanya's Wicked Women Tour

Sources: 

• Encyclopedia Britannica "Marie Laveau"
• Ghost City Tours "Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans"
• JSTOR "The Free People of Color of Pre-Civil War New Orleans"
• History.com "New Orleans"
• National Park Service "American Indians in Louisiana"
• The Historic New Orleans Collection "How did Louisiana become Spanish?"
• Stuff You Missed in History Class "How Marie Laveau Worked"

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In this episode of History Fix, I reveal the dark history of the eugenics movement and how it led to the forced sterilization of over 60,000 Americans. I'll also reveal how American sterilization policies influenced similar policies enacted in Hitler's Nazi Germany that led to the forced sterilization of 400,000 Germans, the "euthanasia" of 250,000 disabled people, and eventually the murders of 6 million Jewish people during the holocaust. This one's heavy, but you won't want to skip it! 

www.historyfixpodcast.com

Sources: 

• National Human Genome Research Institute "Eugenics: Its Origins and Development"
• Scitable by Nature Education "America's Hidden History: The Eugenics Movement"
• National Library of Medicine "US Scientists' Role in the Eugenics Movement"
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia "Eugenics"
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia "Euthanasia Program and Aktion T4"
• The New York Times "The Long Shadow of Eugenics in America"

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In this episode of History Fix, I discover how rats have impacted history. I'll go way back to uncover how the brown rat came to occupy every continent (except Antarctica) as well as how rats have impacted human health throughout history - their ties to the Bubonic plague and how they are used in medical and scientific testing today. Join me to learn more about rats than you ever thought you wanted to know! 

www.historyfixpodcast.com

Sources: 

• Smithsonian Institute "Year of the Rat"
• Washington Post "The researcher who loved rats and fueled our doomsday fears"
• USA Today "Fact Check: Yes Jack Black's mother worked on system that helped save Apollo 13 astronauts"
• Rocky Pest "The Origins and History of Rats" 
• Earth Guard Pest "Six Dangerous Diseases Spread by Rats and Rodents"
• BBC "Black Death spread by humans not rats"
• Live Science "Maybe rats didn't spread the Black Death after all, new evidence suggests"
• Haaretz "How Rats Took Over the World"
• Max-Planck-Gessellschaft "Spread of black rats was linked to human historical events"
• Laphram's Quarterly "Her Majesty's Rat-Catcher"
• University of Cambridge "Rats"
• NPR Throughline "Of Rats and Men"

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In this episode of History Fix, I tell the stories of four historically Black towns that are now underwater: Oscarville, Georgia, Kowaliga (Benson), Alabama, Vanport, Oregon, and Seneca Village in New York City. We'll take a look at how and why these fledgling towns were destroyed and the ripple effect it's had on Black Americans even today. 

www.historyfixpodcast.com

Sources: 

• Travel Noire "5 Black American Towns Hidden Under Lakes and Ultimately From History Books"
• 11alive "Relative of Oscarville resident shares history behind the city underneath Lake Lanier"
• The Jerusalem Post "Dark Secrets of a Cursed Lake"
• Clio "Oscarville Georgia"
• civilandhumanrights.org "Commemorating the 117th anniversary of the 1906 Atlanta race massacre"
• census.gov "Quick Facts Georgia"
• Tampa Bay Times "Looking Back: Civil rights protestors take back Forsyth County"
• Newsone "The Black Town Under Lake Martin: A Father and Son's Dream of Greatness"
• centralparknyc.org "Before Central Park: The Story of Seneca Village"
• Smithsonian Magazine "How Oregon's Second Largest City Vanished in a Day"

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This episode is all about the Mona Lisa. Who was Mona Lisa and how did her portrait become the most famous work of art, ever? How does everyone know her face but nothing at all about the woman herself? Join me to uncover the history behind the famous painting - the subject, the artist, and how it came to be so very famous.  

www.historyfixpodcast.com

Sources:

• Short History of Podcast "The Mona Lisa"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "The Mona Lisa and its Influence"
• Antica Torre "Meet the Real Mona Lisa, Born and Raised in Florence"
• Museum of Science "Da Vinci - The Genius"
• The History Blog "Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical lion recreated"
• History Extra "Did the French invent the guillotine?"
• Live Science "The Louvre Museum"
• Harpers Bazaar "A complete list of all the times the Mona Lisa has been vandalized"

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As the clocks ticked down to midnight on December 31st, 1999, as each final second of the last millennium slipped away, people all over the world collectively held their breath. If all the hype was to be believed, if the Y2K threats were real, their New Years merrymaking - the fireworks, the champagne, the confetti - might all come crashing down amidst terror and chaos, the apocalypse. Would the power go out? Would planes fall out of the sky? Would there be some giant explosion? What was going to happen? There was only one way to find out. [count down audio]. And then… nothing. Nothing happened. In the decades since, Y2K or the “Millennium Bug” has been dismissed as nothing more than a hoax, media hype gone way too far. But did you know, the threat was more real than many of us realize? Let’s fix that.

Check out Peter's podcast Y2K: An Autobiography for more! 

www.historyfixpodcast.com

Sources: 

• Y2K: An Autobiography podcast by Peter de Jager
• National Geographic "Y2K Bug"
• National Museum of American History "Y2K"
• Time Magazine "20 Years Later the Y2K Bug Seems Like a Joke - Because Those Behind the Scenes Took It Seriously"
• The Guardian "The Millennium Bug Was Real"
• The Washington Post "Lessons of Y2K, 20 Years Later"
• Forbes "Apocalypse Then: When Y2K Didn't Lead to the End of Civilization"
• The Conversation "If you think the millennium bug was a hoax, here comes a history lesson"
• Computerworld "Some Key Facts and Events in Y2K History"
• Computerworld "Have we learned nothing from Y2K?"
• New York Post "Y2K Bug Was Real..."
• The New York Times "The Town Crier for the Year 2000"

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In this episode, I explore the history of Christmas traditions including Santa Claus, stockings, and Christmas trees. I'll also uncover the pagan roots behind Christmas and examine how it has evolved from a religious holiday celebrating the birth of Christ to a secular day of excessive spending. Chances are you've been celebrating Christmas your entire life, carrying out these strange rituals, without ever really knowing why. Better late than never! 

www.historyfixpodcast.com

Sources: 

• National Retail Federation "NRF Predicts Healthy Holiday Sales as Consumers Navigate Economic Headwinds"
• Pew Research Center "Modeling the Future of Religion in America"
• The New York Times "Is Christmas a Religious Holiday? A Growing Number of Americans Say No"
• Time Magazine "The Surprising First Fighters in the War on Christmas"
• Time Magazine "The Surprising Story of Christmas in the United States"
• Library of Congress "Immigration to the United States 1851 - 1900"
• Live Science "When Was Jesus Born?"
• History.com "History of Christmas"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "St. Nicholas"
• History.com "History of Christmas Trees"
• Smithsonian Magazine "The Legend of the Christmas Stocking"
• Business Insider interview with Christa Pitts

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In this episode, I share how heroic sled dogs and their mushers achieved the impossible in  1925 to deliver a life saving serum to the children of Nome, Alaska.  I'll recount their harrowing journey along the Iditerod Trail in subfreezing whiteout conditions and explore why one dog, Balto, seemed to get all the credit while the real hero of Nome, Togo, was almost forgotten by history. 

www.historyfixpodcast.com

Sources: 

• Smithsonian National Postal Museum "The Great Nome Gold Rush"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Nome, Alaska"
• Pan American Health Organization "Purple Death: The Great Flu of 1918"
• CBC "A century ago there was a race against time to fight a deadly outbreak" 
• CDC "Diphtheria"
• National Library of Medicine "How did they make diphtheria antitoxin?"
• alaskaweb.org "The 1925 Serum Run to Nome"
• Dog Tails by DogWatch "Four-Legged Hero: The Amazing True Story of Balto the Sled Dog"
• PBS "Balto"
• Sports Illustrated "And You Thought We Have Vaccine Issues?"
• History vs. Hollywood "Togo"
• Wikipedia "Nome, Alaska"
• Wikipedia "1901 diphtheria antitoxin contamination incident"

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• Buy Me a Coffee
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