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In each episode of History Fix, I discuss lesser known stories from history that you won't be able to stop thinking about. Need your history fix? You've come to the right place.
Support the show at buymeacoffee.com/historyfix or Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine. Your donations make it possible for me to continue creating great episodes. Plus, I'll love you forever!
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141 Episodes
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We'll be visiting 8 lost cities over the next couple of weeks! This week we'll journey to an ancient city of mythic proportions that most thought to be fictional until it was actually discovered in the mid 1800s: Troy of Homer's Iliad fame. Next we'll make our way to southern Pakistan to explore the ruins of the completely unknown and yet stunningly advanced city of Mohenjo Daro. Then we'll hop the pond to the jungles of Guatemala to get lost in the sprawling Maya capital city of El Mirador. ...
William Shakespeare is undoubtedly one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. Author of over 30 plays and over 150 poems, he masterfully knit together over 20,000 English words, all out inventing some 1,700 of them, to beautifully capture full ranges of complex emotions and subtle nuances of human nature that still capture audiences over 400 years later. Pretty impressive for a 16th century man from a modest family with only a grammar school education, illiterate parents, illiterate c...
In this week's episode, I delve farther into one of the character's from last week's episode about the War of the Roses: Richard III. Richard is a highly misunderstood historical figure, whose reputation was tainted by later Tudor propaganda during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the son and granddaughter of his usurper, Henry VII. But how much of that reputation was deserved? And, possibly more interesting, what did we learn from the 2012 discovery of Richard's body crammed unadorn...
Link to family tree! Game of Thrones is typically considered to be the most popular television show of all time based on its massive global reach and deep cultural impact. If you haven’t seen it, it’s an 8 season historical fantasy series based on a book series by George R. R. Martin about different houses, different families, the Starks, the Lannisters, the Targaryens, the Baratheons, all battling and plotting and backstabbing each other to try to sit on the iron throne. It’s pretty awesome....
In this episode, I tackle the history of education from prehistoric hunter-gatherer days all the way to today. We'll look at the many motives that have shaped the education and formal schooling of children from the agricultural revolution, through ancient times, to the protestant reformation and the industrial revolution. Through it all, motives have been... questionable. We educated children because we needed them to work the land. We educated them because we needed to train them as future p...
This week I'm tackling a topic that's been on my mind for quite some time: Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition. Shackleton was really a huge failure. Almost everything this man did failed. He failed to reach the South Pole first. He failed to cross the continent of Antarctica. He failed in many business endeavors, tobacco, stamp collecting, a Hungarian mining venture. He failed miserably in politics. He spent most of his life in debt and died penniless in 1922. And yet, the story I...
Discovered accidentally in the 1930s, studied as a possible psychiatric wonder drug, used by the CIA in highly unethical clandestine mind control experiments for project MKUltra during the cold war, adopted by the counterculture hippies of the summer of love, LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is viewed by some for its potential to expand human consciousness and promote peace and by others for its potential to completely destroy our society. But how can it be both? How can it be all of these th...
This episode was supposed to be about Lady Jane Grey, the "Nine Days Queen" who was hastily placed on the English throne following the death of Henry VIII's son Edward VI, usurping his older sister Mary. But as I researched Jane Grey, I came across another character entirely who desperately needed her story "fixed." Frances Grey was Jane Grey's mother (and the niece of Henry VIII). History has not remembered Frances fondly. In the almost 500 years since her death, she has been cast as the evi...
Join me this week as I recount the unbelievable true story of Joan of Arc, the 16 year old peasant girl who dressed in mens clothing and led French armies to victory in the 1420s. Something like this happening today seems near impossible, but in the 15th century when women had few rights, it was inconceivable. So how did a teenage girl with no military training come to lead successfully soldiers in battle? And what about the voices? Was Joan of Arc really sent by God to save France? Sup...
This week is all about the history of salt! Yes, salt. You've probably never given it much thought. It sits in a salt shaker on your kitchen counter, spice rack, or cabinet. You can buy a pound of it for 76 cents at Walmart right now. But, believe it or not, salt was once an extremely valuable commodity. Whole civilizations rose up over salt. Trade routes were established. People became very wealthy. Salt allowed for the preservation of food which allowed humans to travel over long distances....
Varina Howell Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis and First Lady of the Confederacy played the part well. She was educated, graceful, the picture of antebellum perfection. She hosted elegant soirees at the Confederate white house in Richmond, Virginia and managed a household of around 20 workers, black and white, enslaved and free. But Varina, when examined closely, was not what she seemed. In writing, she referred to herself as a “half-breed” born of the North and of the South. Her political loya...
Thomas Jefferson was America's golden boy. Author of the Declaration of Independence, secretary of state under George Washington, vice president to John Adams, and 3rd president of the United States, he penned famous words like "all men are created equal," and "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." For this, he's often remembered as a moral champion who fought for equality and liberty for all. But there was another side to Thomas Jefferson, a darker side, one he kept well hidden. Despi...
Back this week with one final, somewhat nautical episode to round out the month of June. This week we're talking about the Great Flood of Noah's Ark fame. It's one of the best known bible stories. But did you know, it doesn't end there? Almost every other major culture or religion that we know of has almost the same flood myth. The ancient Babylonians, the Greeks, Hindu, Buddhist, Aztec, Chinese, Norse, Aboriginal Australian, various Native Americans groups, and the list goes on and on. This ...
In keeping with the nautical theme I accidentally adopted this month, I'll be exploring the rather misleading story of sixteen century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan this week. Magellan's claim to fame is being the first person to circumnavigate the globe, to sail all the way around the Earth, a full circle. That really is Magellan’s only claim to fame. Except for one thing. He never even did that. Did you know that, despite claiming all the credit posthumously, Magellan only made it ...
I'm back this week with four more shipwreck stories. We'll start with the horrific explosion of the Mississippi river steamboat, the Sultana in 1865. Next, we'll tackle the Titanic which famously sank in 1912, killing around 1,500 passengers. On to another famous ship, the Endeavor. The Endeavor was the British naval ship used by explorer Captain James Cook during his first voyage of discovery which landed him in Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti in the mid 1700s. Later the ship changed hand...
This week, we'll uncover the stories of four different shipwrecks. I'll start with an ancient Roman ship found near the Greek island of Antikythera which sank around 60 to 70 BC with mind blowing treasures on board. Next, I'll talk about the sinking of King Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, in 1545 and it's rediscovery twice in the 400 years since. Then we'll move on to my personal favorite, the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was intentionally run aground by the infamous pirate Blackbeard in...
This week I teamed up with fellow podcaster and prolific world traveler, Gary Arndt, from the "Everything Everywhere Daily" podcast to talk about UNESCO, an organization with a mission to save natural wonders and cultural heritage sites around the world. You'll hear the story of how UNESCO got it's start, specifically the painstaking dismantling, transport, and reconstruction of one some ancient Egypt's greatest wonders, threatened by modern development, and how the world came together to sav...
This week we're talking about the Vietnam War, one of the most unpopular wars in US history. Tomorrow is Memorial Day and while I very much want to honor and remember the over 58,000 Americans who lost their lives fighting for their country in Vietnam, around one third of them drafted, that’s not exactly the focus of this episode. Instead, I want to explore a side to the war we don’t often think about. I want to explore what happens if you’re drafted, but you know you can’t do it. You c...
This week I’m very excited to share with you some recent developments in the story of the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke. I’m joined by Scott Dawson, who runs the Lost Colony Museum in the town of Buxton, on Hatteras Island. For a long time, Scott has been working with British archaeologist Dr. Mark Horton to excavate sites of old Native American villages in Buxton, left by a group known as the Croatoan. What they have discovered recently may just be the first real “smoking gun” evidence to prove w...
This episode is all about the history of feeding babies which has been necessary and yet surprisingly difficult since the beginning of mankind. In fact, it's so necessary that to forgo it, up until very recently, the last hundred years or so, was a death sentence for the infant. We don’t often think about feeding babies. It’s something mothers take care of behind the scenes, part of the invisible load. We certainly don’t pause to think about the history of it, the immense challenges faced thr...
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