History Fix

This week I sit down with Jenny Chan, director of Pacific Atrocities Education, to talk about the many "comfort women" who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese government in the years leading up to and during World War II. We've talked about the generals, the battles, the military movements, but we haven't yet focused on the victims. These women from China, Korea, etc. were often tricked or even downright abducted and forced into comfort stations where they were repeatedly abused by members of the Japanese Imperial Army around the clock. But who's telling their story? To this day there are many who deny this sort of government sanctioned sexual slavery even happened. Let's fix that. Check out the Pacific Atrocities Education website here! Snag Jenny's book "The Undrowning Lotus" here! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Wikipedia "Nanjing Massacre"Encyclopedia Britannica "Russo-Japanese War"Encyclopedia Britannica "Treaty of Portsmouth"Harvard Law School "J. Mark Ramseyer"Shoot me a message! Support the show

I'm back this week with the promised second part to my Women in STEM special. This week, we'll explore the stories of 6 more women who changed the world, beginning with Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein who cracked the elusive Japanese Purple code during World War II. Chien-Shiung Wu made breakthrough discoveries in physics and helped develop the first atomic bomb with her critical involvement in the Manhattan Project. Katherine Johnson helped put the first man in orbit and send men to the moon. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space followed shortly after by Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space. And, a cameo you may not be expecting, Judith Love Cohen, mother of actor and musician Jack Black, helped bring the astronauts home during the failed Apollo 13 mission to the moon. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Wikipedia "Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein"National Security Agency "Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein"National Women's History Museum "Chien-Shiung Wu"NASA "Katherine Johnson Biography"National Women's History Museum "Sally Ride"NASA "Sally Ride"National Women's History Museum "Mae Jemison"Wikipedia "Judith Love Cohen"Shoot me a message! Support the show

This week kicks off a two part episode spectacular about women in STEM. Join me to learn about Elizabeth Blackwell who was admitted to medical school as a practical joke and went on to graduate first in her class, becoming the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. Nettie Stevens discovered X and Y chromosomes and got none of the credit. Lise Meitner helped discover nuclear fission. Florence Siebert developed the tuberculosis test that is still used today. Cecilia Payne discovered what stars are made of. And Grace Hopper made computers accessible to the masses all while serving as the oldest ever officer in the US armed forces. Prepare to be amazed! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: The College of Scholastica "12 historical women in STEM you've probably never heard of"National Women's History Museum "Elizabeth Blackwell"Wikipedia "Elizabeth Blackwell"National Women's History Museum "Nettie Stevens"US Women in Nuclear "Women in Nuclear History: Lise Meitner"The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History "Lise Meitner"The Royal Society "Florence Siebert: From polio survivor to medical pioneer"American Museum of Natural History "Cecilia Payne and the Composition of Stars"Yale University "Biography of Grace Murray Hopper"Shoot me a message! Support the show

This week I'm uncovering the real story of Micaela Leonarda Antonia de Almonester Rojas y de la Ronde, Baroness de Pontalba. And, yes, everyone in this story has a super long name! Micaela is best known for helping to transform New Orleans' Place d'Armes into the Jackson Square we know today. She designed and oversaw the construction of the iconic Pontalba Buildings that flank the sqaure in the heart of the New Orleans' historic French Quarter. As the wealthiest woman in New Orleans, this isn't too surprising. But Micaela's life wasn't all sunshine and roses. Join me to uncover her darkest moments and to squash some pretty far out myths. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Frenchquarter.com "Micaela Almonester Pontalba: The Baroness of Extremes"Wikipedia "Micaela Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba"The Historic New Orleans Collection "The Woman Behind New Orleans' Famous Pontalba Buildings"The Historic New Orleans Collection "How Did Louisiana Become Spanish?"Laura Plantation "What is Creole?Emerging Civil War "Micaela Almonester, Andrew Jackson, and Myths"Shoot me a message! Support the show

As we transition from Black History Month to Women's History Month, I've chosen a topic that encompasses both, a topic that addresses a major misconception in American history. What role did white women actually play in enslaving people? For a very long time, historians assumed that women were merely passive enslavers. They enslaved because their husbands enslaved. They were involved only because of their roles as housekeepers. But, when we look at the actual evidence - documents, letters, interviews, etc. - we are forced to consider another reality. In many cases, white women played an active, possibly even dominant, role in buying, selling, punishing, and hiring out enslaved people. Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: From Naming to Knowing "Women as Enslavers"New York Times "Scholars Thought White Women Were Passive Enslavers. They Were Wrong"Michigan Law Review "A Different Type of Property: White Women and the Human Property They Kept"From Naming to Knowing "Junius Brickle"Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet JacobsThey Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-RogersShoot me a message! Support the show

Get ready for a wild ride because this story is bananas! This week, I uncover the unbelievable true story that is the life of Harriet Jacobs. Born enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813, Harriet would go on to escape from slavery in the most remarkable way. I'm talking, hoodwinking various prominent white men and hiding in an attic crawl space for 7 years remarkable. But, most importantly, Harriet would later tell her story to the world, becoming the first woman to author a fugitive slave narrative in the United States. However, despite her bravery in coming out with a story viewed as very taboo and even shameful at the time, the masses refused to believe that "Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl" was true or that it was written by Harriet herself for 120 years. Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: "Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet JacobsPBS "Harriet Jacobs"Documenting the American South "Harriet A. Jacobs"NCPedia "Norcom, James Sr."Wikipedia "Harriet Jacobs"Wikipedia "Lydia Marie Child"Wikipedia "Nathaniel Parker Willis"Shoot me a message! Support the show

In this episode, I unpack the dynamic character that is Dangerfield Newby, the real life inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's title character in the film "Django Unchained." For many years Dangerfield Newby was viewed as a villain. He took part in John Brown's 1859 raid on the military arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. These raiders took people hostage. They killed people. But when we take a closer look at their motives for carrying out these violent offenses, when we read the letter removed from the pocket of Dangerfield's lifeless body, a letter written by a desperate and terrified wife, the question emerges: were these men actually villains? Or were they heroes? Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: History.com “John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry”History.com “John Brown”Harriet Newby LettersBlack Past “Dangerfield F. Newby”American Battlefield Trust “Dangerfield Newby”Emerging Civil War “The Newby Family Fights for Freedom”WTRF “Black History: Former slave and Ohioan Dangerfield Newby’s life story ranges from hopeful to horrific”Wikipedia “Dangerfield Newby”Shoot me a message! Support the show

Happy Black History Month! We're kicking off the month with a story that was suggested by Janice on Instagram. Nowadays, when you call for emergency services, you expect the speedy arrival of an ambulance staffed by personnel who have the skills to save your life en route if necessary. But, believe it or not, that's actually a new concept. Before the 1960s, your call would have been answered (quite slowly) by a police paddy wagon or even a hearse and there would be virtually no pre-hospital care other than basic first aid. It took until 1967 for folks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to realize that there had to be better way and the Freedom House Ambulance Service was born. If you've never heard of it, there's a reason for that. The Freedom House Ambulance Service was staffed by all Black paramedics, taken off the streets of Pittsburgh's impoverished Hill District. They were trained up and put to work and they absolutely killed it, revolutionizing emergency medical services country-wide. But history has a way of erasing these types of stories. So, let's fix that! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: EMS1 "How Pittsburgh's 'Freedom House' Shaped Modern EMS Systems"University of Pittsburgh "Freedom House Ambulance Service of Pittsburgh - Making Medical History"University of California San Francisco "America's First Paramedics Were Black. Their Achievements Were Overlooked for DecadesWikipedia "Freedom House Ambulance Service"Shoot me a message! Support the show

Here it is! My first ever live History Fix episode! This live show was recorded at College of the Albemarle in Manteo, North Carolina on January 28th. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to each person who braved freezing temperatures to see this show live. For all the rest, here is the recording. I do recommend watching the video version of this one as there are lots of great visuals to go along with it. That can be found on either YouTube or Patreon. Without further ado, I present to you the history of writing (which is really the history of history when you think about it!) Click here to support Dare County Libraries! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: The Written World by Martin PuchnerThe Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard ShlainScottish Book Trust "International Women's Day: the Fight to Read and Write"International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences "The Evolution of Writing" by James WrightBritish Museum "Who was Ashurbanipal?"Harvard Magazine "Murasaki Shikibu"Shoot me a message! Support the show

This week I'm uncovering a lost city that was left out of my lost cities two parter (episodes 131 and 132). Nineveh, the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire, is mentioned in the Bible no less than 19 times. But, for millennia we weren't sure if it was a fictional setting or a real place. All of that changed in the 1840s when British explorer Austen Henry Layard discovered the ruins of a vast metropolis on the banks of the Tigris River that could only be Nineveh. Within those ruins he found a palace and within that palace a library, the Library of Ashurbanipal. The information held within Ashurbanipal's library told us everything we never knew about the Assyrian Empire, once the largest empire in the world. So, what did those clay tablets say? Join me to find out! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: British Museum "Sparking the imagination: the rediscovery of Assyria's great lost city"British Museum "Historical city travel guide: Nineveh, 7th century BC"British Museum "A library fit for a king"British Museum "Who was Ashurbanipal?"Got Questions "What is the significance of the city of Nineveh in the Bible?"Shoot me a message! Join me January 28th at 6 pm at College of the Albemarle in Manteo, North Carolina for the first ever History Fix live show! Support the show

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day this Monday, January 19th, I'm delving into the story behind this remarkable man. How does a Black man born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, a man whose grandparents were sharecroppers in a post slavery American South, a man subjected to Jim Crow laws that intentionally sought to hold him down, rise to such great heights as to become the only single American with his own dedicated national holiday? Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: NPR "I Have a Dream Speech"History.com "Martin Luther King Jr. "NAACP "Martin Luther King Jr."History.com "Jim Crow Laws"The King Center "About Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."Forbes "How Martin Luther King Jr. Improvised 'I Have a Dream'"Wikipedia "Martin Luther King Jr."Shoot me a message! Support the show

In this episode I finally explore a topic I've wondered about for a long time: circumcision. How did an ancient punishment for prisoners turned religious ritual become a medical procedure carried out by over 80% of Americans? What triggered doctors to start recommending circumcision for all newborn boys starting in the late 1800s and why doesn't the rest of the world do it too? What about the ethical implications of performing a body altering procedure on someone without their consent? Is there really a good reason to do it? Or does a 5.4 billion dollar a year industry come into play? Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: UNAIDS "Male Circumcision: context, criteria, and culture"Journal of Pediatric Surgery "The evolutionary saga of circumcision from a religious perspective"Advanced Urological Care "Circumcision Revisited: An Historical Perspective"National Library of Medicine "Male genital representation in paleolithic art: erection and circumcision before history"Research Gate "High Cost of Circumcision"Wikipedia "Circumcision"Wikipedia "Prevalence of Circumcision"Johns Hopkins Medicine "Johns Hopkins Study: Newborn Male Circumcision Rates In US Dropped Between 2012 and 2022"Shoot me a message! Support the show

Consider this the third and final installment of my war with Japan triptych. In this episode, we'll discuss the top secret "Manhattan Project" led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer that led to the development of the first atomic bomb. We'll uncover the motives behind creating such a dangerous weapon and for using it on two cities in Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to civilian casualties of up to 300,000 people. We'll also consider the question, what now? What does this mean for us today and for future generations going forward? Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: “Duck and Cover” videoNational WWII Museum “‘Destroyer of Worlds:’ The Making of an Atomic Bomb”National Archives “The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”History.com “Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”History Extra “Before the atomic bombs…”Shoot me a message! Support the show

Shoot me a message! Support the show

I had planned to take this week and next off but I can't leave y'all hanging without your fix on Christmas! This week I'm bringing you a special mini fix episode about the Christmas Truce of 1914. This remarkable ceasefire that happened spontaneously all along the Western Front during the first winter of World War I has shocked and inspired the masses ever since. But despite tons of eyewitness accounts and tangible evidence like letters, autographs, and photos, there are many who refuse to believe that the Christmas Truce ever happened. So, what do you think? Is this actual history or merely a myth? Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Imperial War Museums video "How Did the Christmas Truce Happen?"Imperial War Museums "The Real Story of the Christmas Truce" History.com "The Christmas Truce"Institute for Economics and Peace "The Christmas Truce""Western Front Companion" by Mark AdkinForces War Records by Ancestry "The True Story of the 'Christmas Truce'"Shoot me a message! Support the show

After talking about the Pearl Harbor attack last week and how it prompted US involvement in World War II, I realized I glorified the aftermath pretty hard. Yes, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor did directly lead to the US declaring war on both Japan and Germany. Yes, US involvement in World War II undeniably helped bring that war to a close. However, the US reacted in other ways at home that weren't quite as glorious. This week I'm talking about the ugly side of the Pearl Harbor aftermath, when the US government forced some 120,000 Japanese Americans, two thirds of them US citizens, into "relocation centers" or "internment camps" that could just as easily be called concentration camps. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned... lessons we can't afford to forget, especially now. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: densho.orgNational Archives "Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II"Densho Encyclopedia "Picture Brides"Densho Encyclopedia "Executive Order 9066"National World War II Museum "Japanese American Incarceration"Wikipedia "Internment of Japanese Americans"Shoot me a message! Support the show

I feel pretty well versed when it comes to World War II. I understand fairly well what was happening in Europe at least with Germany and whatnot. I know that the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (84 years ago today) was the event that drew the United States into the war. But Pearl Harbor wasn't bombed by Germany. It was bombed by Japan. Wait, what? Japan? What does Japan have to do with Nazi Germany and World War II? This week I sit down with Quin Cho, an expert on the Pacific Theater during World War II, to talk about what was happening in Asia leading up to that fateful attack on Pearl Harbor. He'll fill us in on the rising action, like the Mukden Incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War, that led to the collision of two different war theaters into one big, bad world war. Quin's books: "Rise of the Kwantung Army: Japan's Empire in Manchuria to 1932""Competing Empires in Burma: A Chronicle of the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations in World War 2"Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: The National WWII Museum "Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7, 1941"Office of the Historian "The Mukden Incident of 1931 and the Stimson Doctrine"Office of the Historian "The Chinese Revolution of 1911"History.com "Pearl Harbor"Wikipedia "Zhang Zoulin"Wikipedia "Mukden Incident"Shoot me a message! Shop for History Fix merch here to support the show! Support the show

To follow up my perspective seeking conversation with Gray Parsons of the Secotan Alliance, I sat down next with Chief Marilyn Berry Morrison of the Roanoke-Hatteras Tribe. I asked Chief Morrison the same question: why do you think the misconception exists that Indigenous Americans no longer exist in the eastern part of the United States? She had similar thoughts to share. Chief Morrison spoke a lot about fear and shame stemming from the trauma of the past. She also clued me in to a personal journey she's been on for quite some time, a journey to get state and national recognition for her ancestry and her tribe, the Roanoke-Hatteras, and the unnecessary difficulty involved in the process. Again, this is a must listen! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Native Heritage Project “The Pierce Family of Tyrrell County”“Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South” by Lacy K. FordShoot me a message! Shop for History Fix merch here to support the show! Support the show

This week, I sat down with Gray Parsons of the Secotan Alliance to get to the bottom of a common misconception. It seems, to me at least, that there's a notion in our country that Indigenous Americans no longer exist in the eastern states, that they were either killed or forced to relocate west. Gray's response provided the much needed perspective I was seeking. Join us as we chat about Wingina, the first Indigenous American leader to be killed by the English for resisting colonization, and the shockwaves that act sent out, shockwaves that have mostly been ignored. We'll also discuss barriers to recognition, like an outdated appearance model, bureaucratic red tape, and generational trauma. Don't miss this one! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: "A Description of North Carolina" by John LawsonShoot me a message! Check out This, Again here! Support the show

This week I’m shattering preconceived notions that Indigenous Americans north of Mexico didn’t build cities. That they organized, instead, into only small, nomadic villages. Because, for around 800 years there was a great city, the largest pre-Colombian city north of Mexico, a city that, if you were to have visited in the year 1200, is theorized to have been larger than both London and Paris at that same time. In fact, it held the record for largest city in the now United States for almost 700 years from around 1100 until Philadelphia broke the record in the 1780s. I’m talking about the city of Cahokia which sprawled along the Mississippi River in southern Illinois, a testament to the true scale, potential, and abilities of Indigenous Americans in what is now the United States. Never heard of it? I hadn’t either. Let’s fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: “Cahokia: A Pre-Colombian American City” by Timothy R. PauketatCahokia Mounds Museum SocietyEBSCO “Cahokia Becomes the First North American City”Wikipedia “Cahokia”Wikipedia “Mississippian Culture”Shoot me a message! Support the show