The History Files

Let’s take a look at the real Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States and eventually known as, amongst other things, “The Great Emancipator”. How much of what is popularly known about him is the truth, and how much is folklore? We thought it was high time for a little myth-busting.

Show notes and links:

* War of Jenkins’ Ear (April 9, 1731)

* Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (April 14, 1865)

* RMS Titanic disaster (April 10, 1912)

* Lincoln (2012) (Speilberg)

* Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) (John Ford)

* Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England

* American Colonization Society (wikipedia.org)

* Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization (umich.edu)

* Mexican–American War (wikipedia.org)

* The Mexican American War, pt. 1 (The History Files episodes 26-28)

* Corwin Amendment (wikipedia.org)

* A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War: Thomas DiLorenzo (amazon.com)

* What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe: Thomas DiLorenzo (amazon.com)

This week, we take a look at the larger-than-life Mexican rebel Pancho Villa, and what was going on in Mexico in the first decade of the 20th century that would produce characters like him and other would-be military leaders. For bonus photos and other info, visit Gordon’s blog.

Show notes and links:

* Lost Nazi library containing thousands of occult books discovered (deadbeatspanel.com)

* V-2 rocket (wikipedia.org)

* And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (TV Movie 2003) (imdb.com)

* Old Gringo (1989) (imdb.com)

* Viva Zapata! (1952)  (imdb.com)

* Chasing Pancho Villa, Gordon England (audible.com)

* Columbus, NM (wikipedia.org)

* Emiliano Zapata (wikipedia.org)

* Francisco I. Madero (wikipedia.org)

* Ambrose Bierce  (the real “Old Gringo”)

* Elfego Baca  (wikipedia.org)

* Soldiers of the Queen – Foreign Military Attaches, Cape Town, South Africa, 1900 (soldiersofthequeen.com)

* The Last Campaign of the U.S. Cavalry: Frank Tompkins (amazon.com)

* John J. “Black Jack” Pershing (wikipedia.org)

* Pancho Villa Expedition(a.k.a. “Punitive Expedition”)

* Zimmermann Telegram (wikipedia.org)

* The Tin Lizzie Troop  by Gle...

Have you ever wondered what a Swiss-German immigrant and a handful of Hawaiians were doing in central California in the early 19th century? If you have, join us this week as we take a look at the up and down history of Johan August Sutter, founder of present-day Sacramento and the fort that still bears his name.

Show notes and links:

* Texas Declaration of Independence (1836)

* Emancipation reform of 1861, Russia

* Nikola Tesla’s public radio demonstration (teslauniverse.com)

* Kohl Tutorial (youtube.com)

* The Iliad – what is it really about? (youtube.com)

* History Hit: 2016 Oscars historical films (historyh.it)

* The Year of Decision 1846, Bernard DeVoto, Mark DeVoto, Stephen E. Ambrose (amazon.com)

A book about the California trail that we failed to mention.

* John Sutter

* Fort Vancouver

* Sutter’s Fort

* Californios

* Bartleson–Bidwell Party

* Fort Ross, California

* John C. Frémont

* California Republic – Bear Flag Revolt (1846)

* Battle of Monterey – a.k.a. Sloate’s Landing (1846)

* Donner Party

* Mormon Battalion

* Jean Baptiste “Pomp” Charbonneau

This week, we take a look at Alternative History, a growing genre of speculative fiction. So much of it is dark and dystopian, but it can be hopeful, too, as demonstrated by the Steampunk radio drama “Brass”, written by today’s guest, John Longenbaugh. As Mr. Longenbaugh says of writers in this genre, “At their best they do the same thing a good historian does: make the past seem nearer and more accessible.”

Our show format is a bit different this time, being pretty much one long interview with no other segments, but we hope you’ll find it entertaining.

Show notes and links:

* John Longenbaugh (johnlongenbaugh.com)

* If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931) – essays on alt history.

* West of Eden  (1984) by Harry Harrison

* Patrick O’Brian

* Making History, by Stephen Fry (goodreads.com)

* The Peshawar Lancers, S. M. Stirling (amazon.com)

* Space: 1889 (tabletop RPG)

* 1632 series by S. M. Stirling

* The Destroyermen Series (taylorandersonauthor.com)

* Lest Darkness Fall (1939) by L. Sprague de Camp

* Harry Harrison: A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (1972) by Harry Harrison

* The Man in the High Castle (1972) by Philip K. Dick

* Brass (battlegroundproductions.org)

* The Iron Dream (1972) by Norman Spinrad

This week, we take at the Law of Accelerating Returns, or the exponential explosion of information over the centuries. It’s a big topic and we just skim the surface of a fascinating area of study, beginning with the development of language, to the invention of the printing press, to today’s portable microcomputers. Things are a bit topsy-turvy this week, so apologies for the abbreviated length of this episode (kind of ironic considering the subject matter). Not only is it about half our usual run time, but most of the “media” references showed up at the end as we thought of more and more things to add.

Show notes and links:

* Postal Service Act

* Battle of Olustee  (1864)

* Panama–Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco (1915)

* Habibullah Khan

* Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing, Neal Stephenson

* The Law of Accelerating Returns  by Ray Kurzweil

* To the Dustbin of History , Gary North (lewrockwell.com)

* Moore’s law

* The History of Paper (silk-road.com)

* Printing press

* The Space Show (podcast) Tue, 02/16/2016 | Dr. John Brandenburg (thespaceshow.com)

* Hand Weapons of World War One: Knife, Club, & Spade (youtube.com)

* Rough Riders (TV Movie 1997) (imdb.com)

* Rough Riders (1997)  (youtube.com) With Spanish subtitles. It’s the only streaming version I could find.

This week, inspired by last week’s discussion of the Count of Monte Cristo, we take a look at some real revolutions. If you ever wondered about what makes a successful revolution, or about the difference between a revolution vs. a coup d’état, look no further. As far as the cause of most revolutions… it turns out it’s usually about money, which isn’t really surprising since it seems like most conflicts boil down to squabbles over either money, power, or both.

Show notes and links:

* Mary, Queen of Scots

* Alexander Graham Bell

* Saint Valentine

* Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns, Lilli Fransen, Shelly Nordtorp-Madson, Anna Norgard, Else Ostergard: Books (amazon.com)

* The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman

* The history-pedants’ guide to The Last Kingdom – episode one (youtu.be)

* Pope Urban II, the Papal Revolt

* Protestant Reformation

* English Civil War

* Glorious Revolution

* American Revolution

* French Revolution

* Russian Revolution

This week we take a look at the origins of Alexander Dumas’ legendary literary figure, the Count of Monte Cristo. New writers are often told “write what you know”, and Dumas did exactly that. The heroic protagonists in his epic adventure tales were based on… his father; a larger-than-life individual who not only provided the characters for his writer son’s stories but many of their feats of derring-do.

Show notes and links:

* James II of England

* Elizabeth II

* Fort Ross, California (fortross.org)

* 1925 serum run to Nome (wikipedia.org)

* Hitler Becomes Army Commander (historyplace.com)

* The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, Tom Reiss (amazon.com)

* The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) (imdb.com)

* Fusil Charleville (wikipedia.org)

* The Count of Monte Cristo

This week for our main topic we take a look at the ill-fated Donner party and their misbegotten attempt to cross the Sierras into California in… October. Although these tragic events later found a place in the folklore of the American West, in 1846 it was just a horrific series of terrible decisions resulting in the deaths of around 50% of the participants, many of them children. Sadly, the tragedy could have been avoided had it not been for the overweening hubris of the group’s leaders. As Gordon says, “You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”

Show notes and links:

* Rum Rebellion  (1808)

* Gold Discovered at Sutter’s Mill, California (1848)

* Charles George “Chinese” Gordon killed in Khartoum (1885)

* Khartoum (1966)

* The Death of Queen Victoria and the Victorian Era

* Egyptian Museum Employees Face Fines for Botched Repair on King Tut’s Mask | Smart News (smithsonianmag.com)

* Red Letter Media Half in the Bag: The Revenant (redlettermedia.com) (NSFW)

* Winston Churchill’s lost card game now on iOS thanks to Donald Rumsfeld (arstechnica.com)

* Hawken rifle – the Plains Rifle

* Donner Party

* The Emigrants’ Guide To Oregon and California (complete text)

* The Hastings Cutoff (scienceviews.com)

* Sutter’s Fort (suttersfort.org)

* The Story of the Donner Party: Patty Reed’s Doll

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This week, in one of our bi-weekly, shorter episodes, we take a look at the super secret government program popularly known as MK Ultra. One of several clandestine operations generated during the Cold War, this one is notorious for its creepy experiments and conspicuous lack of ethics.

Not a lot is definitively known about the project, supposedly dismantled in the 1970s, but that won’t stop us from talking about it, because the truth is out there.

Show notes and links:

* Hugh Glass – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The real-life subject portrayed in The Revenant.

* An Informal History of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, Don Berry

* The Revenant (2015) (imdb.com)

* OperationPaperclip.info

* Project MKUltra

* Operation Midnight Climax

* The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson

* The Men Who Stare at Goats – Declassified

* Crazy Rulers of the World – part 1 – The Men Who Stare At Goats

Jon Ronson’s documentary about the First Earth Army.

In this episode we take a look at that most ubiquitous of modern rifles, the M16 variant of the AR15. Whether the select-fire military-issue variant or single-shot civilian model, Eugene Stoner’s revolutionary design has become the iconic long arm of the modern age, so we thought it was time to dispel some of the myths and explain some of the idiosyncrasies of this ballistic marvel. I’d make a “trigger warning” disclaimer but that wouldn’t be tactful.

Show notes and links:

* Massacre of Novgorod (1570)

* Rhubarb – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (1770)

* Jean Pierre Blanchard: Made First U.S. Aerial Voyage in 1793

* Common Sense (pamphlet) by Thomas Paine (1776)

* First cargo down the Mississippi (1812)

* Banana Wars – US Marines invade Honduras (1912)

* 50-ft Revolutionary War-era ship found near hotel site (usatoday.com)

* 144-year-old Arctic shipwreck discovered (cnn.it)

* Caduceus vs Staff of Asclepius (drblayney.com)

* The Paradise (TV Series 2012–2013) (imdb.com)

* Half in the Bag Episode 101: The Hateful Eight and The Ridiculous 6 (sort of) (youtube.com)

* Submachine gun

* PPS h41

* PPS submachine gun

* Sturmgewehr 44

* 7.62×39mm – the M43

* SKS

* Mikhail Kalashnikov

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