EP 138: The Truth Behind the Milgram Experiment

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Torreon Massacre. This was a massacre that took place in May of 1911 in the Mexican city of Torreon, Coahuila, in which roughly three hundred Chinese immigrants were murdered by members of the Mexican Revolution. This was nearly HALF of the Chinese population in Torreon! Following their murders, their bodies were mutilated and robbed and their homes and businesses were destroyed. A later investigation found that this massacre was the result of…you guessed it: racism. Mexico would not issue an official apology for the massacre until 2021; one hundred and ten years after the tragedy! This incident in History has been kept hidden with no statues or monuments marking the disaster. In fact, when a statue was erected to memorialize the victims, it was vandalized and removed. The victims of this massacre were thrown in unmarked graves that have now been covered by roads and playgrounds. All the more reason for us to talk about this horrific incident and to shed light on something that History would rather we forget. Hasty History BONUS episodes are no-nonsense, crash course, cram session History lessons. No cocktail segment, no ads, no bloopers. Just a quick download of some heavy History content. Submit your topic suggestion for future Hasty History episodes at [email protected]. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the tragic deaths of adult actor Vic Morrow and two children Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (as well as the injuries of six others). This tragedy occurred as a result of an accident that happened in 1982 on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. You see, on July 23rd of that year, director John Landis told the operator of a helicopter that was being used on set to hover dangerously low over the ground in order to capture a particular scene. This, amongst other violations, caused the helicopter to get caught in the pyrotechnic explosions, leading to the horrific deaths of Morrow, Le, and Chen. What’s possibly worse is that, of those on set that night watching the horrendous tragedy occur, were the parents of both of the children. This awful incident would lead to Landis becoming the first ever film director to be charged with a death on the set of a feature film. For nearly a decade after the incident, a slew of civil and criminal actions against those involved would take place…which would eventually lead to a very unsatisfying and disappointing end. Hasty History BONUS episodes are no-nonsense, crash course, cram session History lessons. No cocktail segment, no ads, no bloopers. Just a quick download of some heavy History content. Submit your topic suggestion for future Hasty History episodes at [email protected]. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Kentucky Meat Shower. This was an incident that occurred on March 3, 1876 near Olympia Springs, Kentucky, in which pieces of what was believed to be red meat quite literally fell from the sky. What?! We have to dive right into this one because you all need to hear the wild, confusing, disgusting, and mysterious details ASAP! Hasty History BONUS episodes are no-nonsense, crash course, cram session History lessons. No cocktail segment, no ads, no bloopers. Just a quick download of some heavy History content. Submit your topic suggestion for future Hasty History episodes at [email protected]. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Saskatoon Freezing deaths, a series of deaths of indigenous people in the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan area between the late 1970s and into the early-2000s. It was discovered that the Saskatoon Police Service were taking indigenous people on what became known as “Starlight Tours” in which they would pick up an indigenous person (sometimes because they were drunk, sometimes due to disorderly behavior, and sometimes for no reason at all), drive them outside the city limits, and leave them stranded in subzero temperatures with no alternate fate but a horrendous death. This was all brought to light when, in January of 2000, a man named Darrell Night survived one of those horrendous tours and filed a complaint against the Saskatoon officers involved. This is an awful and shocking story that many have attempted to erase from History. So let’s just get right into it. Hasty History BONUS episodes are no-nonsense, crash course, cram session History lessons. No cocktail segment, no ads, no bloopers. Just a quick download of some heavy History content. Submit your topic suggestion for future Hasty History episodes at [email protected]. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. The Great Molasses Flood was quite literally a flood of molasses that swept through Boston, Massachusetts in January of 1919. And while a flood of sticky molasses may sound amusing, this incident would turn tragic with 150 people injured and another 21 dead. Professor and Civil Engineer Mark Rossow put it perfectly when he said of the incident, “First you kind of laugh at it, then you read about it, and it was horrible.” So let's talk about it! Hasty History BONUS episodes are no-nonsense, crash course, cram session History lessons. No cocktail segment, no ads, no bloopers. Just a quick download of some heavy History content. Submit your topic suggestion for future Hasty History episodes at [email protected]. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

This week on Hashtag History, wet are joined by New York Times bestselling author, Amber Hunt, to discuss her newest book, Crimes of the Centuries. She discusses some well-known cases with us (such as the Salem Witch Trials, the 1982 Tylenol Poisonings, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire) as well as some lesser-known cases (such as that of Pearl Bryan, Stanford White, and Theora Hix). Follow Hashtag History on Instagram @hashtaghistory_podcast. Citations for all sources can be located on our website at www.HashtagHistory-Pod.com. You can also check out our website for super cute merch! You can now sponsor a cocktail and get a shout-out on air! Just head to www.buymeacoffee.com/hashtaghistory or head to the Support tab on our website! You can locate us on www.Patreon.com/hashtaghistory where you can donate $1 a month to our Books and Booze Supply. All of your support goes a long ways and we are endlessly grateful! To show our gratitude, all Patreon Supporters receive an automatic 15% OFF all merchandise in our merchandise store, a shoutout on social media, and stickers! THANKS FOR LISTENING! - Rachel and Leah --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the relationship between husband and wife/president and First Lady, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. I think it’s common knowledge (right?) that this married couple were actually cousins, yeah? But is it also common knowledge that Franklin Roosevelt was rumored to have had a number of affairs, right? And that Eleanor perhaps had her own affair…with a woman? Learn all about it in this week's episode! Follow Hashtag History on Instagram @hashtaghistory_podcast for all of the pictures mentioned in this episode. Citations for all sources can be located on our website at www.HashtagHistory-Pod.com. You can also check out our website for super cute merch! You can now sponsor a cocktail and get a shout-out on air! Just head to www.buymeacoffee.com/hashtaghistory or head to the Support tab on our website! You can locate us on www.Patreon.com/hashtaghistory where you can donate $1 a month to our Books and Booze Supply. All of your support goes a long ways and we are endlessly grateful! To show our gratitude, all Patreon Supporters receive an automatic 15% OFF all merchandise in our merchandise store, a shoutout on social media, and stickers! THANKS FOR LISTENING! - Rachel and Leah --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the Milgram Experiment which was a series of psychological experiments conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram in which he was testing the blind obedience of a participant to an authority figure. These were the experiments where one participant would serve in the role of a “teacher” while the other played a “student”. The teacher would ask the student a question and, if the student got the answer incorrect, the teacher was instructed to administer an electric shock to the student. With each incorrect answer, the shock levels were incrementally increased all the way from 15 volts to 450 (which is a fatal level). When you watch the video footage of these experiments, you can see that many of the “teacher” participants hesitate and even refuse to administer such intense shocks to the innocent “student”. But, shockingly (no pun intended), Milgram would find that - with the right amount of pressure applied to the “teacher” from an authoritative figure - every single participant was willing to go up to 300 volts, and a whopping 65% of the participants were willing to administer the maximum voltage levels of 450! Milgram, whose Jewish parents had immigrated to the United States during the first World War, was particularly inspired by Nazi Germany and how so many members of the Nazi Party obeyed authority so blindly when they murdered thousands upon thousands of innocent Jews during the Holocaust. As was revealed during the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi leader after Nazi leader professed that they only did what they did because they were following orders from authorities. The results of this test are pretty disturbing, to say the least. Lucky for us…they may not be true. For one, the device used to inflict electric shock upon innocent participants…wasn’t actually real. And those innocent participants…they were members of Milgram’s own staff. But that’s not even the most surprising revelations about the Milgram study to surface in more recent years. Australian psychologist Gina Perry has reevaluated the experiment and found that much of the raw data does not reflect Milgram’s final conclusion. In fact, that 65% number that we got earlier - the number of participants willing to blindly follow orders - is actually only based on a tiny fraction of those that ultimately participated in the test. Over 700 people took part in the Milgram Experiment, and yet Milgram’s final results derive from 40 of those participants. Additionally, Milgram’s gauge on “obedience” was skewed. Even if a participant refused to inflict electronic shock on the other participant upwards of twenty times before they complied, Milgram documented this as blindly obeying.  The problem with all of this is that Milgram’s Experiment is still so widely known - inaccurately so - and still referred to as factual. Follow Hashtag History on Instagram @hashtaghistory_podcast for all of the pictures mentioned in this episode. Citations for all sources can be located on our website at www.HashtagHistory-Pod.com. You can also check out our website for super cute merch! You can now sponsor a cocktail and get a shout-out on air! Just head to www.buymeacoffee.com/hashtaghistory or head to the Support tab on our website! You can locate us on www.Patreon.com/hashtaghistory where you can donate $1 a month to our Books and Booze Supply. All of your support goes a long ways and we are endlessly grateful! To show our gratitude, all Patreon Supporters receive an automatic 15% OFF all merchandise in our merchandise store, a shoutout on social media, and stickers! THANKS FOR LISTENING! - Rachel and Leah --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing Lucille Desiree Ball, best known - of course - as the star of the I Love Lucy show. Ball would set numerous precedents with the I Love Lucy show by using three cameras and 35 mm film in front of a live audience, being the first pregnant woman shown on television, and being the first interracial marriage on television. She would star in over 70 films over the course of her life, earning the unofficial title of “the Queen of B Movies”. She would later become the first female studio head in Hollywood as president of Desilu Studios. She earned thirteen Emmy nominations and was awarded four, was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honor, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, Crystal Award, the Governors Award, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and TWO stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I’m so excited to talk about her today because I think there’s a lot the general public knows about her - a lot that they don’t know about her - and a lot of features we see in Hollywood today for which she set the precedent. Follow Hashtag History on Instagram @hashtaghistory_podcast for all of the pictures mentioned in this episode. Citations for all sources can be located on our website at www.HashtagHistory-Pod.com. You can also check out our website for super cute merch! You can now sponsor a cocktail and get a shout-out on air! Just head to www.buymeacoffee.com/hashtaghistory or head to the Support tab on our website! You can locate us on www.Patreon.com/hashtaghistory where you can donate $1 a month to our Books and Booze Supply. All of your support goes a long ways and we are endlessly grateful! To show our gratitude, all Patreon Supporters receive an automatic 15% OFF all merchandise in our merchandise store, a shoutout on social media, and stickers! THANKS FOR LISTENING! - Rachel and Leah --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing Mark Weinberger, known as “The Nose Doctor”. To put it bluntly, Weinberger, a doctor who opened up his own practice in Indiana, was performing hundreds of unnecessary - and sometimes, negligent - sinus procedures on patients. In fact, according to a Vanity Fair article, he recommended surgery to 90% of his patients! 90%! That is an overwhelming number! Many of these patients either did not actually need the surgery OR were misdiagnosed with sinus problems when, in fact, they had things like cancer. As medical malpractice and insurance fraud lawsuits began to stack up, Weinberger decided to hop ship and travel to Greece with his third wife to celebrate her thirtieth birthday. While on this vacation, Weinberger disappeared without telling his wife where he was going. She would soon find out that he had left her with more than $6 million in debt. Weinberger would not be found until five years later in the European Alps when his girlfriend spotted him on an episode of America’s Most Wanted. Despite pleading guilty to 22 counts of healthcare fraud in 2011, Weinberger is now a free man…and you are not even ready to hear what kind of scammy operation he is running now. Follow Hashtag History on Instagram @hashtaghistory_podcast for all of the pictures mentioned in this episode. Citations for all sources can be located on our website at www.HashtagHistory-Pod.com. You can also check out our website for super cute merch! You can now sponsor a cocktail and get a shout-out on air! Just head to www.buymeacoffee.com/hashtaghistory or head to the Support tab on our website! You can locate us on www.Patreon.com/hashtaghistory where you can donate $1 a month to our Books and Booze Supply. All of your support goes a long ways and we are endlessly grateful! To show our gratitude, all Patreon Supporters receive an automatic 15% OFF all merchandise in our merchandise store, a shoutout on social media, and stickers! THANKS FOR LISTENING! - Rachel and Leah --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hashtaghistory/support