Stay ConnectedIn 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.
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Michael Rockefeller was the great grandson of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and the richest man in the world. He was also the son of Nelson Rockefeller, New York governor, Vice President of the United States, and a well known art collector. Michael had big shoes to fill. To do that, he followed in his father's art collecting footsteps, traveling to the Asmat region on the west coast of New Guinea to collect wood carvings for his father's Museum of Primitive Art in Manhattan. The Asmat people were hunter gatherers living in the jungle with almost no western contact. They led a very different life than Michael, practiced head hunting and cannibalism. Michael admired the Asmat, their culture, their art. But he never truly understood them. He couldn't. So when his sailboat capsized near the village of Otsjanep and he disappeared attempting to swim to shore, never to be seen again, his family assumed he had drowned. But did Michael Rockefeller really drown? Or was his fate far more violent? Let's fix that.
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Perched between the ocean and the sound in Nags Head, completely dominating the narrow sliver of land that makes up part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, is a monumental sand dune, a mountain of lush golden sand. This dune system, known as Jockey’s Ridge, is somewhere around 4,000 years old and can reach heights of over 100 feet. It’s majestic, it’s miraculous, the tallest living sand dune on the east coast, a unique ecosystem home to a myriad of coastal creatures, a landmark and navigation tool dating back hundreds if not thousands of years, a playground for generations of children, and the most visited state park in North Carolina. But, did you know that back in the 1970s, Jockey’s Ridge was slated for demolition to make way for a condominium complex? And did you know that three young children and their fearless mother put their foot down, quite literally, to save it? And that I have one of those children here with me today? Let’s fix that.
Check out the Friends of Jockey's Ridge
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Polio has been around since ancient times but it was a very quiet disease for most of history, affecting few people and raising little alarm. It wasn’t until the 20th century that polio began to appear among the masses, terrifying epidemics, a mysterious disease that seemed to target children out of nowhere, paralyzing them, killing them. No one knew how it spread. No one knew how to treat it. No one knew how to stop it. They quarantined. They avoided swimming pools and water fountains. They lived in fear. But the strange thing was, these polio epidemics were only happening in developed countries, countries that had recently gone to great lengths to ensure improved hygiene and sanitation. Good hygiene, cleanliness, was supposed to prevent the spread of disease. How had it backfired so horrifically with polio? Let’s fix that.
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Check out Outer Lore! In January of 1812 a schooner named The Patriot disappeared off the coast of North Carolina's Outer Banks. This dangerous stretch of coastline has claimed some 3,000 ships, earning it the nickname "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Aboard the Patriot was Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of infamous US vice president Aaron Burr, on her way to visit her father in New York. The disappearance of The Patriot and its famous passenger remain a mystery to this day. The discovery of a portrait resembling Theodosia that supposedly washed up with a shipwreck along the Outer Banks only adds to the mystery. Is the Nags Head portrait really Theodosia Burr? What really happened to her? A storm? Mutiny? Pirates? Is it possible she survived?
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In 1975, the Khmer Rouge stormed into Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh victorious after 5 years of civil war. The people rejoiced. They thought the victors were there to liberate them, to restore peace and order after years of fighting. That couldn't have been farther from the truth. Over the next 4 years, the Khmer Rouge communist regime would force people into the countryside to work in rice fields night and day, where many died of starvation and disease. They killed the weak, the slow, the intellectuals, anyone who thought for themselves was a threat. In just 4 years, an estimated 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. How could this happen? Join me to discover how the pieces came together, how this violent regime used fear and manipulation to control the masses, and how we can stop it from happening again. Knowledge is power.
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This episode explores the famed poison, Aqua Tofana, that desperate housewives used to murder their husbands in 17th century Italy. I'll delve into the legend of Giulia Tofana, the apparent namesake behind the poison who was supposedly responsible for the deaths of 600 men in the mid 1600s and do my best to separate fact from fiction to uncover what in the world was going on in Italy and, more importantly, why.
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Coffee may seem like an innocent breakfast beverage to accompany your bacon and eggs, a mid afternoon office pick me up. But did you know, coffee is so much more than that? Did you know that coffee helped spark human enlightenment, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, capitalism, helped build the world as we know it? Let’s fix that.
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George Washington - most of you know him as America’s first president, Revolutionary War hero, founding father, face of the one dollar bill, chopped down a cherry tree, wooden teeth, real man’s man if you know what I mean. I think that’s all most people know or think they know about him. But the cherry tree thing, that never happened. The wooden teeth? They weren’t made of wood. I don’t think many people actually know George Washington’s story - who he was, what he did, what his life was like, the good, the bad, the truth. Let’s fix that.
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This episode is all about inventions, techniques, and resources that have been lost or forgotten throughout the ages. From ancient construction techniques to puzzling inventions like the Antikythera mechanism, Greek Fire, and the Archimedes Heat Ray, I'll try to unravel the mysteries of the past and get to the bottom of how advanced technology becomes lost to the ages.
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Join the Patreon for exclusive bonus content! Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope were American paleontologists during the second half of the 19th century. Although they started as friends, they soon turned bitter enemies, competing against one another for 20 years to find and name the most fossils. This duel, often dubbed the “bone wars” led to espionage, sabotage, scandal, backstabbing, name calling, bribery, theft, and the throwing of literal rocks. It also led to a lot of mistakes made in haste. But, at the end of the day, it led to the discovery of 130 dinosaur species including Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Allosaurus, Apatosaurus (AKA Brontosaurus… I'll explain in the episode!), and more. Check out this week’s episode of History Fix to learn more, wherever you get your podcasts (or link in bio).
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