History Uncovered

In the summer of 2021, Indigenous people across Canada started visiting the sites of former Indian Residential Schools. With ground-penetrating radar devices in hand, they slowly swept the earth, hoping, with heavy hearts, to confirm a long-held rumor about the untold numbers of Indigenous children who had vanished while enrolled in these facilities. 

Although these recent discoveries in Canada have forced a political reckoning there, the United States is only just beginning to grapple with its own history of Indian Boarding Schools. Starting in the 19th century, the US opened hundreds of schools with the explicit mission... to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/residential-schools-in-canada

podcast credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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In 1995, Disney released Pocahontas, a film about a doomed whirlwind romance between a Native American woman, Pocahontas, and an English colonist, John Smith. But although both Pocahontas and John Smith were real people, the film takes some definite liberties with the facts of Pocahontas's life. 

Though she is best known as a Disney character today, the real-life story of Pocahontas is even more captivating than what appeared in the film. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/pocahontas-myths-documentary

https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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Between 1764 and 1767, something evil stalked the quiet hills of Gévaudan, France. The so-called Bête du Gévaudan, or Beast of Gévaudan, attacked hundreds of people, often tearing out their throats. No one knew what it was — or how to stop it.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/beast-of-gevaudan podcast credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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On Dec. 1, 1948, beachgoers came across a dead man on Australia’s Somerton beach. Well-dressed, and with no signs of trauma, his identity and cause of death eluded local police. Soon, investigators dubbed him the “Somerton Man.”

It looked as though he’d simply laid down for a rest and died peacefully in his sleep. But when police arrived and began examining the body, a baffling and disturbing mystery began to take shape. 

The man had no obvious signs of trauma; someone had cut all the tags out of his clothing, and, most puzzling of all, he had a tiny slip of paper sewn into a hidden pocket in his trousers, which simply read "Tamam Shud.” The phrase, mystifying to investigators at first, is Persian for "it is finished” and the slip of paper was torn from a rare edition of poems by the 12th-century writer Omar Khayyam.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/tamam-shud-somerton-man

https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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On the morning of February 4, 1912, a man named Franz Reichelt stepped out onto the edge of the Eiffel Tower. He paused there for about 40 seconds as if he was gathering his courage. Then, he threw himself into the air. 

He didn't intend to die — this wasn't an Eiffel Tower suicide attempt. Instead, Franz Reichelt had set out to prove that his prized invention, a bizarre parachute suit, could deliver him safely to the ground. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/franz-reichelt

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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In the 1840s, waves upon waves of Americans headed west to forge a new life. Many of these stories had happy endings while some suffered great tragedy -- but then there was the infamous Donner Party. To this day, nearly 200 years later, their torturous journey and especially their desperate turn toward cannibalism cast a haunting shadow over American history. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/donner-party

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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After he was last seen being blown away by gale-force winds in Mount Everest's "Death Zone," Beck Weathers' wife was notified that her husband was dead. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle: Beck Weathers climbed down Everest on two frozen feet and somehow lived after having his hands, feet, and nose amputated.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/beck-weathers

https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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In 2005, The Exorcism of Emily Rose terrified movie audiences around the world as it depicted the aftermath of a fatal exorcism and posed lingering questions about whether or not the character of 19-year-old Emily Rose had truly been possessed by the devil. 

But as unbelievably chilling as the movie’s central story was, it had not actually been invented by some Hollywood screenwriter. In fact, it was based on the horrifying true story of a real exorcism that took place in Germany in the 1970s. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/anneliese-michel-exorcism

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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On July 23, 2011, British singer Amy Winehouse was found dead inside her London home. Just 27 years old, she joined the tragic club of other music icons, like Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain, who had died tragically at that same young age. 

To some, Winehouse’s death seemed like a terrible yet predictable end to a long, public downfall. Right in front of the world’s eyes, Winehouse’s frame had grown skeletal and her behavior erratic. Rumors swirled about her drug addiction, her heavy drinking, and her volatile relationship with her then ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil. 

This is the story of Amy Winehouse’s tragic death and the downward spiral that preceded it. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/amy-winehouse-death

podcast credits:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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Sometime in the early morning hours of July 3, 1971, Jim Morrison — the iconic lead singer of The Doors — died of heart failure at the age of just 27. He was found by his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, unconscious in the bathtub of their Paris apartment. 

The questions surrounding his death have endured for half a century — did Morrison truly die of heart failure, as the official reports said, or was it a heroin overdose, or perhaps something else altogether? 

In recent years, new witnesses have come forward to challenge the official account of Jim Morrison’s death. They tell quite a different story, one that might finally rewrite the history of this doomed rock star’s untimely demise. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/jim-morrison-death

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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