It’s April 6th. This day in 1926, a massive oil fire near San Luis Obispo, California is enveloping the area in smoke and heat and creating its own weather system.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss what came to be known as the Tank Fire, how the oil industry was lightly regulated in this era — and how you try to put out a miles-long river of fire.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s April 3rd. This day in 1990, the Arizona Senate votes to remove Governor Evan Mecham from office — for all sorts of reasons.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss Mecham’s very sketchy track record on race, corruption, abuse of power and more; and how he ended up in office to begin with.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s April 2nd. This day in 1910, a Louisiana senator proposes allocating a quarter of a million dollars to import hippos from Africa and grow them in American swamps, then harvest them for food.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Dan Pashman of The Sporkful to talk about how the hippo plan was intended to solve a hunger and ecological crisis — and why Americans never quite found the taste for hippo meat.

Be sure to check out Dan’s podcast and the new pasta shape he created!

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s March 20th. This day in 1959, a skirmish between the fisheries police and an oyster boat results in the death of a Virginia oysterman — and sheds light on a decades-long battle known as the “Oyster Wars.”

Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by Dr Christine Keiner of RIT to discuss why there was so much tension and violence along the Chesapeake Bay, going all the way back in the mid-1800s.

Be sure to check out Christine’s book The Oyster Question: Scientists, Watermen, and the Maryland Chesapeake Bay since 1880

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s March 27th. This day in 2009, the US is responding to the outbreak of the H1N1 flu, which would soon be a global pandemic.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Dr James Hamblin of the Yale School of Public Health to discuss the fairly strategic and effective response to that pandemic — and the lessons we failed to learn heading into future outbreaks.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s March 27th. This day in 1863, Jefferson Davis declared a “day of fasting and prayer” to support the Confederate cause in the Civil War.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the role of days like this — the fasting was as much about food shortages as anything — and how religion and the cause of the war mixed for both north and south.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s March 23rd. This is, in some ways, the birthday of Uncle Sam — it was the first time that the character appeared in a political cartoon.

Niki, Jody and Kellie discuss how Uncle Sam had its origins in a real-life figure, and how the character truly burst into the public imagination with those iconic “I Want You” posters.

It’s March 20th. This day in 1852, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is the best-selling book in the country, capturing a growing anti-slavery sentiment, as well as tremendous backlash.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel took off so quickly — and how even at the time it was viewed as well-intentioned but potentially misguided in its portrayal of the slave narrative.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s March 19th. In 2008 (on March 17th) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after a week of reports about his patronizing a prostitution ring.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by long-time NY political reporter Azi Paybarah to discuss how quickly the salacious details broke, the media environment that fueled it — and why there was a particular hypocrisy at the heart of it all.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s March 16th. Today we mark Evacuation Day (technically the 17th), a day in which Boston marks the retreat of troops during the Revolutionary War. Over the years, the holiday has been combined and conflated with St. Patrick’s Day, making it the most Boston of holidays.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why the holiday gained traction in the first part of the 20th century — and why in the last decade or so it’s receded a bit.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia