History Unplugged Podcast

Halley’s Comet visits the earth every seventy-five years. Since the dawn of civilization, humans had believed comets were evil portents. In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from these primordial superstitions (or so it was thought), proving that Newtonian mechanics rather than the will of the gods brought comets into our celestial neighborhood. Despite this scientific advance, when Halley’s Comet returned in 1910 and astronomers announced that our planet would pass through its poisonous tail, newspapers gleefully provoked a global hysteria that unfolded with tragic consequences. In “Comet Madness: How the 1910 Return of Halley's Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization,” Richard J. Goodrich examines the 1910 appearance of Halley’s Comet and the ensuing frenzy sparked by media manipulation, bogus science, and outright deception. The result is a fascinating and illuminating narrative history that underscores how we behave in the face of potential calamity – then and now. As the comet neared Earth, scientists and journalists alike scrambled to get the story straight as citizens the world over panicked. Popular astronomer Camille Flammarion attempted to allay fears in a newspaper article, but the media ignored his true position that passage would be harmless; weather prophet Irl Hicks, publisher of an annual, pseudo-scientific almanac, announced that the comet would disrupt the world’s weather; religious leaders thumbed the Bible’s Book of Revelation and wondered if the comet presaged the apocalypse. Newspapers, confident that there was gold in these alternate theories, gave every crackpot a megaphone, increasing circulation and stoking international hysteria. As a result, workmen shelved their tools, farmers refused to plant crops they would never harvest, and formerly reliable people stopped paying their creditors. More opportunistic citizens opened “comet insurance” plans. Others suffered mental breakdowns, and some took their own lives. We will see how humans confront the unknown, how scientists learn about the world we inhabit, and how certain people—from outright hucksters to opportunistic journalists—harness fear to produce a profit.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Charles III was crowned king of England on May 6, 2023, the first of its kind in 70 years. He wore regalia that look straight out of a portrait of Charlemagne: the St. Edward’s Crown, which wegiths five pounds and has 444 gemstones; the “Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross,” a three-foot gold rod set with the largest stone cut from the largest diamond ever discovered; and The “Sovereign’s Orb,” a huge sphere that represent his command of the known world. We look the incredibly thick symbolism of this event and compare-and-contrast it to Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years ago.To explain the significance of these ceremonies is Jennifer Robson, author of “Coronation Year,” a historical fiction book set in 1953, when Elizabeth is about to be crowned.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many of us think that we know all there is to know about W.E.B Du Bois was the early 20th century’s most significant thinker, writer, and philosopher of the U.S. civil rights movement. He saw an extraordinary opportunity during World War 1 to advance the rights of black Americans. He encouraged them to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause in World War 1, enlisting to fight in the war. This decision would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for over two decades, Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of black participation in World War 1. His book, however, remained unpublished. Today’s guest is Chad Williams, author of “The Wounded World,” an account of Du Bois’s efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works of history. He reveals Du Bois’s struggles to reckon with both the history and troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for black people in the 20th century. He also addresses larger questions of why lynchings against black Americans spiked following the war.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When General Douglas MacArthur fled the Phillipines in the beginning of World War Two, he swore to return, and did so in 1944 in an epic battle in which the Allies faced banzai charges, jungle warfare, and the block-by-block battle to retake Manila. Critical players were the 11th Airborne Division, one of five of America’s paratrooper divisions, who battled a fanatical enemy but also the sweltering tropical landscape, insects, and disease. To share their story is today’s guest James Fenelon, author of Angels Against the Sun: A WWII Saga of Grunts, Grit, and Brotherhood. The Pacific theater of WWII pitted the 11th Airborne against the merciless Japanese army and the combined enemy of monsoons, swamps, mud, privation, and disease. These rowdy paratroopers, serving under General Joseph Swing answered the call and fought in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific War.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vampire lore goes back to the ancient world (revenant legends abound from Rome to China) but vampire mythology doesn't come into its own until at least the Renaissance period. Was the inspiration for it all the bloodthirsty Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes, the ruler who impaled tens of thousands in the 1400s? Was he the direct inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula? Partially yes, but it's not as clear cut as most think. In this episode we will sink our fangs into vampire lore, the reign of Vlad Tepes, and where Bram Stoker got his ideas for his most famous novel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever wondered if you could have survived the eruption at Pompeii, escaped San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake, found a seat on Titanic's lifeboats, outrun the Goths in the Sack of Rome, or lived through the apocalyptic Chicxulub asteroid strike?Surprisingly, the answer to all those questions is yes, even the last one. Today’s guest Cody Cassidy discusses the reasons that the past had an incredibly high mortality rate, along with survival strategies that humans used to keep from extinction. He is the author of “How to Survive History” and helps us appreciate the challenges our predecessors faced.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eleanor Roosevelt is undisputedly one of America’s most influential First Ladies. She used the office to promote international initiatives that stabilized global peace after the hellish destruction of World War Two, doing such things as securing the passage of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.But one thing few know is that for 10 days the First Lady went missing. In August of 1943, Eleanor was not attending to her domestic duties at the White House, in fact, she was nowhere to be found. Later, Americans would read in newspapers that Eleanor’s whereabouts had been discovered—she was on the other side of the world.In an unprecedented mission which only a handful of First Ladies since have ever attempted, Eleanor’s assignment was to go undercover into a battle zone and report back, firsthand, what America’s servicemen and women were facing... and bring secret information back to the Oval Office. At a time when commercial air travel was unrefined (transcontinental flights took at least 20 hours and involved several fueling stops) and war was still active in the South Pacific, Eleanor faced dangers every day to complete her secret mission and boost troop morale.Today’s guest is Shannon McKenna Schmidt, author of The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back. She shares the largely untold story of Eleanor’s top-secret mission to the Pacific theater that had ripple effects throughout the 20th century.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the height of the witch burning craze, thousands people, largely women, were falsely accused of witchcraft. Many of them were burned, hanged, and executed, typically under religious pretense. But this phenomena largely didn’t happen in the Middle Ages, and if so it only occurred at the very end of this period.Witch burnings did not begin en masse until the Renaissance period and did not peak until the Enlightenment period in the eighteenth century. Although executions by being burn at the stake were somewhat common in the Middle Ages, they were not used on “witches”—only heretics and other disobeyers of Catholic teachings received this ignominious death. Witch trials and their accusations of weather manipulation, transforming into animals, and child sacrifices, have no documented occurrence before 1400.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Three years into a global pandemic, the fact that infectious disease is capable of reshaping humanity is obvious. But seen in the context of sixty thousand years of human and scientific history, COVID-19 is simply the latest in a series of world-changing pathogens. In fact, the role that humans play in social and political change is often overstated. Instead, bacteria and viruses have been the invisible protagonists of mankind's ever-evolving story. Today’s guest is Jonathan Kennedy, author of “Pathogensis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues.” We discuss how Neanderthals and other early species of humans died out—not because they were cognitively inferior to Homo sapiens but because they were vulnerable to the diseases they carried; how disease triggered the agricultural revolution and allowed it to spread; how plague outbreaks in the 6th and 7th centuries led to the creation of modern states in Western Europe and the transformation of Islam into a world religion; and how infectious diseases aided the colonization of the Americas but inhibited the colonization of AfricaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in 1920s Hungary. Investigators would discover that a murder ring of women was responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men. It was an unlikely lineup of killers—village wives, mothers, and daughters. At the center of it all was a sharp-minded village midwife, a “smiling Buddha” known as Auntie Suzy, who distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév. “Why are you bothering with him?” Auntie Suzy would ask, as she produced an arsenic-filled vial from her apron pocket. In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses. But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. With each vial of poison emptied, a new reason surfaced to drain yet another. Some women disposed of sickly relatives. Some used arsenic as “inheritance powder” to secure land and houses. For more than fifteen years, the unlikely murderers aided death unfettered and tended to it as if it were simply another chore—spooning doses of arsenic into soup and wine, stirring it into coffee and brandy. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead. Todays guest is Patti McCracken, author of “The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring.” We explore whether these murders were of a very particular time and place, or if they could happen anywhere if the right conditions emerge.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.