That's History, Babe!

This week on the pod, discover a presidential assassination that history forgot! Join us as we discuss the life and death of William McKinley, one of several cornfed presidents from Ohio. We explore McKinley’s presidency, his personal life and beliefs, and how he met his end at the hands of a loner son of immigrants disillusioned with capitalism. Beneath the surface of the McKinley assassination, we dig deeper into the divisions of class, race, and ethnicity that ran through America at the turn of the twentieth century. Tangents include Jared post to r/gayselfie, Bunny and Deidre’s successful cat cohabitation, Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, and whether anyone deserves to die in Buffalo, NY.SOURCESWilliam McKinley and His America by H. Wayne Morgan (2003)“Robert Merry discusses his book President McKinley: Architect of the American Century”, Q+A, C-SPAN (2017) “Eric Rauchway discusses his book Murdering McKinley", Q+A, C-SPAN (2003)“Scott Miller discusses his book The President and the Assassin”, Q+A, C-SPAN (2011)Fine, S. (1955). Anarchism and the Assassination of McKinley. The American Historical Review, 60(4), 777–799. https://doi.org/10.2307/1844919 "An interview with the President's nurses". The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review. 27 (4): 222–223. October 1901.

She may not have been a coal miner’s daughter, but Mary Harris Jones, aka “Mother Jones”, was a ‘coal miner’s angel’. Clamber into the coal cart with us as we learn how an old lady who loved swearing helped miners and their families battle it out in some of America’s bloodiest labor disputes. Hear how Mother Jones came back from not one, but two, life-altering tragedies to become a champion of the downtrodden, organizing and mobilizing working people into mass union movements. Tangents include Jared’s ruined birthday, the finale of Abe’s apartment-moving saga, and RUDE Parisians.SOURCES“The Mine Wars”, American Experience, PBS (2016)"Miner’s Day was born from tragedy, memorializing the dead and honoring the living", West Virginia Mine Wars Museum"Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America by Elliott Gorn", Book TV, C-SPAN, August 1, 2001Feurer, R. (2026). Illinois Coal Miners Fight for Democracy. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 119(1), 40–43. https://doi-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/10.5406/23283335.119.1.10Mari Boor Tonn (2011) “From the Eye to the Soul”: Industrial Labor's Mary Harris “Mother” Jones and the Rhetorics of Display, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 41:3, 231-249, DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2011.575325

DING DING DING. Choose your fighter!! Will it be: a fifteen year old noblewoman you’ve never heard of OR a thirty-five year old princess who loves Spain and the Pope! Nine Days. One crown. Who will win??? Come with us this week as we explore early modern England’s greatest royal SMACKDOWN, the battle for the throne duked out between Lady Jane Grey and Princess Mary Tudor. Learn how these two dauntless Tudor women faced each other in a fight for the throne, revealing the religious and social divisions that were waiting to tear England apart. Tangents Abe’s moving nightmare, the Massachusetts initiation ceremony, and the name of the thing that you put your head on before they chop it off.SOURCESLady Jane Grey The Nine Day Queen Tudor Betrayal, BBC docuseries"The 'Nine Days Queen' is one of England's most controversial monarchs - here's why", HistoryExtra"The most important document in Tudor history? How a forgotten text triggered a royal crisis" | HistoryExtra"The Myth of the 'Tragic Victim': Reclaiming Queen Jane" | HistoryHit"Ruins of Nine Days' Queen's home to reopen" | BBCDudley, J. (1759). Translation of a Letter written by Lady Jane Grey, to her Sister, the Evening, before she was beheaded in the Tower. Royal Magazine, 1, 24–25.Duran, J. (2023). Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor dissenter and her work. Feminist Theology, 31(2), 226–235. https://doi.org/10.1177/09667350221135058

A tidal wave hits your house. You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re covered in molasses. An unimaginable situation for most of us. But for the residents of Boston’s North End on January 15, 1919, it was all too real! This week, we get stuck in the sticky icky story of one of the most bizarre disasters in American urban history: the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. Come with us as we explore how corporate negligence and government corruption led to over two MILLION gallons of your grandma’s favorite sweetener spilling into the streets of an overcrowded immigrant neighborhood. Tangents include a trip to the DMV, sexploitation, proper care tips for knee scrapes, and eating Corn Pops like a cat!SOURCESMolasses: From the Slave Trade to the Great Flood - Wellesley COAWhy some people say they can still smell Boston's Great Molasses FloodThree Centuries of Molasses in Massachusetts Physics behind Boston’s deadly 1919 Molasses Flood. (2016). New Scientist, 232(3102), 15. https://doi-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(16)32216-3Puleo, S. (2001). Death by MOLASSES. American History, 35(6), 60.“MOLASSES TANK EXPLOSION INJURES 50 AND KILLS 11…” (1919, Jan 16). Boston Daily Globe

This week, we’re exploring the seedy world of televangelism, a religious media phenomenon that swept onto the airwaves in 20th century America. Primped-up preachers begging their factory worker followers for money they don’t have, in exchange of course for eternal salvation, is just one of the milder outrages in this episode rife with scandal, political intrigue, and bizarre personalities. But how did televangelism come to be? Who were (and are) the most prominent televangelists, and what agenda did (and do) their ministries serve? Tangents include the exhausting ordeal of a Leo’s birthday, the holes in Jared’s underwear, and throwing up at King’s Dominion.SOURCESFundie Fridays episode on Pat Robertson“Tammy and the Spiritual Stage” - Chicago Tribune, 1989“The scandals that brought down the Bakkers, once among US's most famous televangelists” by Lauren Effron, Andrew Paparella, and Jeca Taudte, ABC News, 2019“Prey TV: Televangelism and Interpellation” by Kevin Howley, Journal of Film and Video, 2001“Cultivation Theory: Research Starter” by Shari Parsons Miller, EBSCO, 2019“Of God and Greed: Bakker and Falwell trade charges in televangelism’s unholy row” by Richard N Ostling, TIME Magazine, 1987“Televangelism and the Mediated Charismatic Relationship” by David A. Diekema, Social Science Journal, 1991“Oral’s Progress”, TIME Magazine profile, 1972

This week, we take it back a few millennia to the time of Ancient Greece, exploring the super gay myths and legends used to explain and sanctify the sexual behaviors of the Greeks themselves. But how did Greek myths define sexuality? How different were Greek ideas of sexual identity from our own? What do we get wrong when we project our contemporary labels onto people in antiquity? And can a couple of buddies get oiled up and wrestle naked and still be just friends?? Tangents include CATS: The Jellicle Ball, why Leos are obsessed with their birthdays, and the possibility of moving Busch Gardens Williamsburg to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.SOURCES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYZCpJmHAqIClarke, W. M. (1978). Achilles and Patroclus in Love. Hermes, 106(3), 381–396. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4476069“Friday essay: the myth of the ancient Greek ‘gay utopia’” by Alastair Blanshard, The Conversation, December 14, 2017Halperin, D. M. (1986). One Hundred Years of Homosexuality [Review of Die Griechische Knabenliebe, by H. Patzer]. Diacritics, 16(2), 34–45. https://doi.org/10.2307/465069 A Problem in Greek Ethics” by John Addington SymondsLovers’ Legends: Gay Greek Myths by Andrew Calimach

Could you and 60,000 of your closest friends beat your landlord in open warfare? If you’re an English peasant in the summer of 1381, then the answer is yes. This week, we explore one of the most seismic uprisings in the history of Medieval Europe, the Peasants’ Revolt! Learn how a ragtag group of farmers sacked London, killed a bunch of important people, and provided revolutionary inspiration for centuries to come. Tangents include the planetary status of Pluto, hot historian Dan Jones, Jared losing it all at poker, Abe’s new apartment (!!!), and Claudia’s long awaited return.SOURCESAnonimalle Chronicle “The Peasants Revolt” by Dan Jones, History Today, 2009 “Joint Action against ‘Bad’ Lordship: The Peasants’ Revolt in Essex and Norfolk” by Herbert Eiden, The Historical Association, 1998 The Chronicles of Froissart by Jean Froissart, 1373-1410 “John Gower, Squire of Kent, the Peasants’ Revolt, and the Visio Anglie” by Michael Bennett, The Chaucer Review, 2018 “Gower and the Peasants’ Revolt” by Ian Cornelius, Representations 131, 2015

In a delayed salute to America’s 250th, we take a look this week at the couple whose certified VILLAINY nearly ended the Revolution and the nation itself: Benedict and Peggy Arnold. Learn about Benedict’s early heroics, Peggy’s sassy bratty kind-of-iconic upbringing, the espionage and wheeling and dealing that led to Benedict’s betrayal of the American cause and defection to the British, and speculate why we’re sitting on the floor instead of on the couch directly behind us. Tangents include Tim Gunn, Fergie national anthem, the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, CT, and an absolutely insane photo of Jared’s butt.SOURCES"From hero to traitor: Benedict Arnold’s day of infamy", National Constitution Center, September 21, 2020 A LESSER TRAGEDY OF ARNOLD'S TREASON, Florie Hutson Heyward, New York Times, March 15, 1931 "Benedict Arnold", National Parks Service Robinson, J. (2012). Benedict Arnold: American Hero, American Villain. On Point, 18(1), 36–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26363381"Valiant Ambition: An Interview with Nathaniel Philbrick", George Washington's Mount Vernon Letter from Benedict Arnold to the Inhabitants of America (1780) "A Philadelphia Belle’s Fateful Marriage to a Traitor", Nancy Rubin Stuart, The Saturday Evening Post, February 13, 2024 "Margaret 'Peggy' Shippen Arnold", New-York Historical Society "The Spying Lady Shippen", History Design Lab, Oberlin College, Eliza Greenbaum Treacherous beauty : Peggy Shippen, the woman behind Benedict Arnold's plot to betray America by Mark Jacob and Stephen Chase (2012) The Colonial Mean Girl Who Almost Ended America Benedict Arnold and The Battle of Quebec | The American Revolution | PBS Benedict Arnold Turns Traitor and Defects to the British | The American Revolution | PBS Benedict Arnold's Raid on Richmond Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered. Interview: James Kirby Martin Nathaniel Philbrick, "Valiant Ambition" 14. Heroes and Villains

This week on the pod, the brilliant buxom scholaress Madison Albertson returns to teach us a thing or two about “living history”, the school of thought behind such storied American museums as Colonial Williamsburg, Plimoth Patuxet, and many others. What do these places teach us about history that books alone don’t? Where did the idea for them come from? How do they shape how we remember our past? And will they hire Jared to sit in a chair and sew? Tangents include Sheetz vs. Wawa, boob shelves, losing your Game Boy in a hospital waiting room, and the best ways to mourn a totaled 2010 Prius.SOURCESGeorge Washington Birthplace National Monument Here, George Washington Was Born : Memory, Material Culture, and the Public History of a National Monument, University of Georgia Press, 2008Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia's Eighteenth Century Capital by Anders Greenspan“To Live Like a Slave” by Curtia James