In 1864, young Daniel Folsom was institutionalized for something that we might consider PTSD. In a letter home to his sister, he promised her, “I shall try and be a man.” Why was Daniel so concerned with his manhood? What did it mean to be a man during the Civil Read more…
The Odd Fellows, the Masons, the Knights of Pythias: all ancient, secret, solemn orders full of the pillars of the community, right? Then what do we make of some of the super weird stuff they did, like pushing each other around on mechanical goats or pretending to be Iroquois sachems? Read more…
Deadpool, Boba Fett, James Bond, Jason Bourne, Winter Soldier and Kill Bill… from the Assassin’s Creed video games to the John Wick series, professional assassins are vilified and valorized in equal measure. Why do some assassins earn our admiration, even affection, while others remain defamed and deviant in the popular Read more…
In the age of #MeToo, rape and sexual assault have been consistently in the news. Debates abound about what counts as rape, whose testimony we should believe, and too often, men with power and privilege get away with it. But though it feels pressing right now, none of those debates Read more…
In 1996, two college students stumbled upon some skeletal remains in the Columbia River in Washington. The body, it turns out, was the oldest ever found in North America. In order to understand the story and controversy of the Kennewick Man, also known as The Ancient One, we need to Read more…
Is space the new frontier? What are the links between the so-called “age of exploration,” and the conquering of the American West, and the United States space program? We will be covering those questions and others in today’s podcast, The Final Frontier: History, Science, and Space Exploration. Listen, download, watch Read more…
Today we are discussing the bone-chilling fear that comes from knowing that all hope is gone, and your death – from the cold, or from a slow moving disease, or from starvation – is only a matter of time. We’re talking about the quest to explore the Arctic. Listen, download, Read more…
The Lalaurie Mansion in New Orleans, Louisiana, is said to be one of the most haunted houses in the French Quarter. The extreme and shocking stories that are told about the Lalaurie house are egregiously exaggerated and overwhelmingly gloss over the real issues of race, gender, and violence prevalent with Read more…
This Halloween, take a minute to notice amputated limbs littering haunted houses, scary stories about reanimated corpses that you tell by the fire while you’re camping, all that rubbernecking on the thruway when there’s a horrific accident, the endless tv shows, podcasts, and books dedicated to grisly murders… or even Read more…
The history of slave rebels and resistance in the Caribbean is a rich and complicated story. Enslaved people in the Caribbean resorted to active resistance much more often than their North American and South American counterparts. Haiti (known then as Saint-Domingue), Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dutch Guianas were particularly prone Read more…