It’s History

It’s History

By Ryan SocashHistory
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It’s History episodes

  • The Dancing Plague of 1518

    The dancing plague (or dance epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (now modern-day France), in the Holy Roman Empire in July 1518. Somewhere between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for days.

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    13 min
  • Chernobyl's Belarusian FALLOUT zone

    Chernobyl, most infamously known for the nuclear accident that almost wiped out Europe, occurred in Northern Ukraine and it's most associated with the nearby town of Pripyat, which was built for power plant workers and their families but evacuated and left as a ghost town due to the radioactive fallout. However, a country that is rarely mentioned when discussing the disaster is the Republic of Belarus north of Ukraine, which today shares an exclusion zone lesser known than the Ukrainian zone, but just as eerie.

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    11 min
  • Original Pripyat Evacuation Recording

    The message broadcast during the evacuation of Pripyat: Attention! Attention! In connection with the accident at the Chernobyl atomic power station, unfavorable radiation conditions are developing in the city of Prypiat. In order to ensure complete safety for residents, children first and foremost, it has become necessary to carry out a temporary evacuation of the city's residents to nearby settlements of Kyiv oblast. For that purpose, buses will be provided to every residence today, April 27, beginning at 14:00 hours, under the supervision of police officers and representatives of the city executive committee. It is recommended that people take documents, absolutely necessary items and food products to meet immediate needs. Comrades, on leaving your dwellings, please do not forget to close windows, switch off electrical and gas appliances and turn off water taps. Please remain calm, organized and orderly.

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    5 min
  • Chernobyl ☢️ Ego + Fall-out = Tourism?

    The Chernobyl disaster was caused by a nuclear accident that occurred on Saturday 26 April 1986, at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history and was caused by one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident in Japan.

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    26 min
  • "THE MAIL ROOM IS FILLING!" Titanic Survivor Account 1 | Joseph Boxhall's

    Mr Joseph Groves Boxhall was born in Hull, Yorkshire, on March 23,1884. He was the second child of Joseph and Miriam Boxhall, and had two sisters who survived into adulthood (a third sister died in infancy). The Boxhall family had a strong seafaring tradition; his grandfather had been a mariner, his uncle was a Trinity House buoymaster and Board of Trade official, and his father, Captain Joseph Boxhall, was a well known and respected master with the Wilson Line of Hull. On 2 June 1899 Joseph Groves Boxhall joined his first ship, a steel hulled barque sailing from Liverpool and belonging to the William Thomas Line. During the course of his apprenticeship he sailed to Russia, the Mediterraenan, North and South America and Australia. In July 1903 he obtained his Second Mate's Certificate, and very soon afterwards joined the same shipping company has his father, the Wilson Line of Hull. In January 1905 he passed the examination for his First Mate's certificate in Hull. After further sea time, he studied for his Master's and Extra-Master's certification at Trinity House in Hull, and passed these examinations in September 1907, and in November joined the White Star Line. During the following few days Boxhall assisted with preparations for the vessel's trials and once these had been completed he accompanied her on the short voyage to Southampton arriving there just after midnight on April 4. On the day of departure Boxhall was on the navigating bridge, working the engine room and docking bridge telegraphs on orders from Captain Smith and the Trinity House Harbour Pilot George Bowyer . Once at sea Boxhall settled into his role of regular watches, navigation and assisting both passengers and crew. Boxhall returned to the bridge after a fifteen minute inspection and reported back to the Captain that he, at least, could find nothing awry. Smith then sent Boxhall to get the Carpenter to sound the ship but as Boxhall left the bridge joiner John H. Hutchinson (it may have been carpenter J. Maxwell ) rushed past him, he exclaimed that the forward compartments were filling up fast. The joiner was soon followed by Postal Clerk John Richard Jago Smith who informed the Captain that the lower mail sorting room on the orlop deck was also filling up with water. Boxhall was then sent to fetch Second Officer Charles Lightoller and Third Officer Herbert Pitman . The two officers had already been out to see what had happened but had returned to their cabins to await orders. Boxhall's next task was to work out the ship's position. After he had done so Captain Smith went to the wireless room and ordered First Marconi Operator Jack Phillips to send out a call for assistance. At 12.45 a.m. Boxhall and quartermaster George Arthur Rowe began to fire rockets from an angled rail attached to the bridge. Rowe continued to do so until the rockets ran out around 1.25. Whilst Rowe was thus engaged Boxhall scanned the horizon, he spotted a steamer in the distance, he and Rowe attempted to contact the vessel with a morse lamp but they were unsuccessful. At one point Boxhall sought reassurance from the Captain and asked if he felt the situation was really serious, Smith replied that the ship would sink within an hour to an hour and a half.

    Boxhall was put in charge of Lifeboat 2 which was lowered at 1.45am. After the Titanic had gone down he asked the ladies in the boat whether they should go back to help swimmers out of the water, but they said no. The boat was less than two thirds full. During the night Boxhall periodically set off green flares and also rowed. Around 4.00 a.m. the Carpathia was sighted and Boxhall let off a final flare to guide the ship to them. When he finally clambered aboard the Carpathia he was ordered to the bridge and there informed Captain Rostron that the Titanic had gone down at about 2.30 a.m.

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    21 min
  • The Titanic Myth ⚠️

    RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making the sinking at the time the deadliest of a single ship in the West[4] and the deadliest peacetime sinking of a superliner or cruise ship to date. With much public attention in the aftermath the disaster has since been the material of many artistic works and a founding material of the disaster film genre.

    RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect of the shipyard at the time, died in the disaster.[6]
    Titanic was under the command of Captain Edward Smith, who also went down with the ship. The ocean liner carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere throughout Europe, who were seeking a new life in the United States. The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants, and opulent cabins. A high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger "marconigrams" and for the ship's operational use. The Titanic had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors. The ship carried 16 lifeboat davits which could lower three lifeboats each, for a total of 48 boats. However, Titanic carried only a total of 20 lifeboats, four of which were collapsible and proved hard to launch during the sinking. The carried lifeboats were enough for 1,178 people—about half the number on board, and one third of her total capacity—due to the maritime safety regulations of those days. Though at the time of the sinking the lowered lifeboats were only about half-filled.
    After leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, before heading west to New York.[9] On 14 April, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles (600 km) south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. ship's time. The collision caused the hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard (right) side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea; she could only survive four flooding. Meanwhile, passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partially loaded. A disproportionate number of men were left aboard because of a "women and children first" protocol for loading lifeboats. At 2:20 a.m., she broke apart and foundered with well over one thousand people still aboard. Just under two hours after Titanic sank, the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived and brought aboard an estimated 705 survivors.
    The disaster was met with worldwide shock and outrage at the huge loss of life, as well as the regulatory and operational failures that led to it. Public inquiries in Britain and the United States led to major improvements in maritime safety. One of their most important legacies was the establishment of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) in 1914, which still governs maritime safety. Several new wireless regulations were passed around the world in an effort to learn from the many missteps in wireless communications—which could have saved many more passengers.

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    10 min
  • "NOTHING COULD HAVE SAVED HER" | Titanic account #2 Commander Lightoller

    Charles Herbert Lightoller, DSC & Bar, RD, RNR (30 March 1874 - 8 December 1952) was a British Royal Navy officer and the second officer on board the RMS Titanic. He was the most senior member of the crew to survive the Titanic disaster. As the officer in charge of loading passengers into lifeboats on the port side, Lightoller strictly enforced the women and children only protocol, not allowing any male passengers to board the lifeboats unless they were needed as auxiliary seamen.Lightoller served as a commanding officer of the Royal Navy during World War I and was twice decorated for gallantry.During World War II, in retirement, he provided and sailed as a volunteer on one of the "little ships" that played a part in the Dunkirk evacuation. Rather than allow his motoryacht to be requisitioned by the Admiralty, he sailed the vessel to Dunkirk personally and repatriated 127 British servicemen.Two weeks before the sinking, Lightoller boarded the RMS Titanic in Belfast, acting as first officer for the sea trials. Captain Smith gave the post of chief officer to Henry Wilde of the Olympic, demoting the original appointee William McMaster Murdoch to first officer and Lightoller to second officer. The original second officer, David Blair, was excluded from the voyage altogether, while the ship's roster of junior officers remained unchanged. Blair's departure from the crew caused a problem, as he had the key to the ship's binocular case. Because the crew lacked access to binoculars, Lightoller promised to purchase them when the Titanic got to New York City. Later, the missing key and resultant lack of binoculars for the lookouts in the crow's nest became a point of contention at the U.S. inquiry into the Titanic disaster. On the night of 14 April 1912, Lightoller commanded the last bridge watch prior to the ship's collision with the iceberg, after which Murdoch relieved him. An hour before the collision, Lightoller ordered the ship's lookouts to continually watch for 'small ice' and 'particularly growlers' until daylight. He then ordered the Quartermaster, Robert Hichens, to check ship's fresh water supply for freezing below the waterline.[14] Lightoller had retired to his cabin and was preparing for bed when he felt the collision. Wearing only his pyjamas, Lightoller hurried out on deck to investigate, but seeing nothing, retired back to his cabin. Deciding it would be better to remain where other officers knew where to find him if needed, he lay awake in his bunk until fourth officer Joseph Boxhall summoned him to the bridge. He pulled on trousers, and a navy-blue sweater over his pyjamas, and donned (along with socks and shoes) his officer's overcoat and cap. During the evacuation, Lightoller took charge of lowering the lifeboats on the port side of the boat deck.[9] He helped to fill several lifeboats with passengers and launched them. Lightoller interpreted Smith's order for "the evacuation of women and children" as essentially "women and children only". As a result, Lightoller lowered lifeboats with empty seats if there were no women and children waiting to board, meaning to fill them to capacity once they had reached the water.[2] Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Godfrey Peuchen has the distinction of being the only adult male passenger Lightoller allowed into the boats on the port side evacuation, due to his previous nautical experience and offer of assistance when there were no seamen available from the Titanic's own complement to help command one of the lowering lifeboats.[15] There were fears from some of the officers that the davits used for lowering the boats would not hold the weight if the boats were full, but they were unaware that the new davits on the Titanic had been designed to do so.

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    25 min
  • Plague Doctor Costumes, A Terrifying Sight

    One of the most intriguing of the plague doctor images we've found is a painted coat of arms belonging to Theodore Zwinger III (1658-1724), a Swiss doctor and descendant of Theodore Zwinger I (1533-1588), the Swiss doctor and humanist whose Theatrum Humanae Vitae is considered, the historian Helmut Zedelmaier writes, "perhaps the most comprehensive collection of knowledge to be compiled by a single individual in the early modern period". The painting depicts a plague doctor on one side of a blazon and a man in a ruff on the other — perhaps representing both the medical and the scholarly traditions of the Zwinger clan? Some sort of duality is being represented, at any rate — and the extraordinarily avian plague doctor (even his eyes look birdlike!) lends something mysterious to the picture.

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    6 min
  • When Animals Were Punished in Court

    In legal history, an animal trial was the criminal trial of a non-human animal. Such trials are recorded as having taken place in Europe from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth. In modern times, it is considered in most criminal justice systems that non-human persons lack moral agency and so cannot be held culpable for an act. Animals, including insects, faced the possibility of criminal charges for several centuries across many parts of Europe. The earliest extant record of an animal trial is the execution of a pig in 1266 at Fontenay-aux-Roses.[1] Such trials remained part of several legal systems until the 18th century. Animal defendants appeared before both church and secular courts, and the offences alleged against them ranged from murder to criminal damage. Human witnesses were often heard and in ecclesiastical courts they were routinely provided with lawyers (this was not the case in secular courts, but for most of the period concerned, neither were human defendants). If convicted, it was usual for an animal to be executed, or exiled. However, in 1750, a female donkey was acquitted of charges of bestiality due to witnesses to the animal's virtue and good behaviour while her co-accused human was sentenced to death.

    Translations of several of the most detailed records can be found in E. P. Evans' The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, published in 1906. Sadakat Kadri's The Trial: Four Thousand Years of Courtroom Drama (Random House, 2006) contains another detailed examination of the subject. Kadri shows that the trials were part of a broader phenomenon that saw corpses and inanimate objects also face prosecution, and argues that an echo of such rituals survives in modern attitudes towards the punishment of children and the mentally ill.

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    10 min

About It’s History

From the publisher's feed

IT’S HISTORY is a ride through history – join us in discovering the world’s most important eras, the minds that changed everything, and the most important inventions of our time through weekly tales of Urban Decay.