History Fix

I am back with the final installment of my 3 part series on Victorian London serial killer Jack the Ripper. I'll spill all the gory details of the death of the 5th and final of the "Canonical Five" victims, Mary Jane Kelly. We'll look at modern interpretations of the killer's MO and criminal FBI profile. We'll also delve into some of the theories and suspects. Who was Jack the Ripper? Was he a Polish barber? An American doctor? A cotton merchant? Or perhaps a prince, second in line for the English throne?Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources:Morbid “Jack the Ripper”Absolute Crime “Jack the Ripper’s Killing Spree As It Happened”Absolute Crime “Why Was Jack the Ripper Never Found?”Casebook.org “Jack the Ripper”University of Michigan “Ripper Records: An Archive of Jack the Ripper and the 1888 Whitechapel Murders”Wikipedia “Dear Boss Letter”Wikipedia “Saucy Jacky Postcard”Wikipedia “From Hell Letter”The Jack the Ripper Tour “Profiling Jack the Ripper”Elliot Leyton “Hunting Humans”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

I'm back again in part 2 of 3 to uncover more of the story of Jack the Ripper. In this episode, I'll continue the timeline from last week, walking you through new developments in the case. We'll look at dead end clues and false suspects, including 3 letters supposedly written by the killer. I'll also take you through the final moments of the third and fourth Ripper victims - Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes - who were killed less than an hour apart during what came to be called the "double event." Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources:Morbid “Jack the Ripper”Absolute Crime “Jack the Ripper’s Killing Spree As It Happened”Absolute Crime “Why Was Jack the Ripper Never Found?”Casebook.org “Jack the Ripper”University of Michigan “Ripper Records: An Archive of Jack the Ripper and the 1888 Whitechapel Murders”Wikipedia “Dear Boss Letter”Wikipedia “Saucy Jacky Postcard”Wikipedia “From Hell Letter”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

This episode is the start of History Fix's first ever THREE parter! I initially thought I could cram it all into two episodes but pretty quickly realized it would take at least three. So, Spooktober is going to spill over a bit into November this year but I'm not hating it. In this episode, the first of three about the infamous Victorian era London serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, I'll set the scene in which the murders took place, explaining much needed context for understanding that world. I'll also walk you through what we know about the lives and final moments of the first two Jack the Ripper victims: Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols and Annie Chapman. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources:Morbid “Jack the Ripper”Absolute Crime “Jack the Ripper’s Killing Spree As It Happened”Casebook.org “Jack the Ripper”University of Michigan “Ripper Records: An Archive of Jack the Ripper and the 1888 Whitechapel Murders”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

Spooktober continues with a strange and mysterious tale this week. But how strange and mysterious is it really? I’m talking, of course, about the infamous Bermuda Triangle, a loosely defined area off the southeastern coast of the United States where countless ships and even airplanes have experienced strange anomalies, many even vanishing without a trace. In this episode, I’ll seek to answer the question: is the Bermuda Triangle really all that dangerous? And, if not, where did its notorious reputation come from? Let’s fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Encyclopedia Britannica “What is known and not known about the Bermuda Triangle”History.com “What Is the Bermuda Triangle?National Geographic “The mystery behind the Bermuda Triangle”EBSCO “Bermuda Triangle” Encyclopedia Virginia “Sea Venture”NOAA “What is a rogue wave?”Boater Exam “6 Prevailing Bermuda Triangle Theories”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

Last week's episode on the zombies of Haitian Vodou naturally led me to New Orleans. This week I'll fill you in on the gruesome acts of infamous female enslaver Delphine LaLaurie, who notoriously tortured and abused the people she enslaved at her French Quarter mansion in the 1830s. But this story has been quite twisted and sensationalized through the years as New Orleans tour guides scramble to sell historical ghost tour tickets. So how much of Delphine LaLaurie's story is true and how much was fabricated to meet the desires of an ever more desensitized audience... and at what cost? Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: “Retrospect of Western Travel” by Harriet Martineau“Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans” by Jeanne DeLavigne“Journey Into Darkness: Ghosts and Vampires of New Orleans” by Kalila Katherina Smith“Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era” by Tiya MilesHistory.com “Arson uncovers torture chamber in mansion of New Orleans enslaverNew Orleans Historical “The LaLaurie Mansion”Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans “What really happened at the LaLaurie House?”Wikipedia “Delphine LaLaurie”Wikipedia “Harriet Martineau”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

It’s finally Spooktober! All October long I’ll be telling spooky, mysterious true stories from history, starting with zombies. Zombies are a big deal. They are all over pop culture in movies and TV shows, even video games. People love a good zombie apocalypse story. But the pop culture zombies of today are quite different than how zombies started out. They’re almost a different beast entirely. So where did the idea of a zombie come from? How did they get so twisted? And could zombies possibly be real? Let’s fix all that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Harvard Magazine “The Secrets of Haiti’s Living Dead”The Atlantic “The Tragic, Forgotten History of Zombies”History.com “History of Zombies”Ohio State University “The History of the Zombie in Popular Culture”NPR “Zoinks! Tracing the History of “Zombie” From Haiti to the CDC”New York Times “A Zombie Is a Slave Forever”(Im)possibilities “The History of Zombies”Encyclopedia Britannica “Vodou”University of Delaware “The Roots of Haitian Vodou”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

Despite the results of my recent poll, I'm making the executive decision to cover Francisco Pizarro and the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532. But, trust me, you won't be disappointed. This story is insane. We have rags to riches characters, we have mighty kings, we have brothers fighting amongst themselves, partners backstabbing each other. We have lies and deceit and secret ambushes. We have murder, lots and lots of murder, and we have the rise of a new world order, for better, or for worse. In the end, we’re left with a lot of questions here. How did such a small rag tag group of Spaniards, less than 200 men, manage to take down the largest empire in the world? And what lessons can we learn from mistakes made by the Inca? Yes the Inca. You thought I was gonna say Spanish.  Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: History.com “Francisco Pizarro Traps Incan Emperor Atahualpa”EBSCO “Pizarro Conquers the Incas in Peru”World History Encyclopedia “Pizarro and the Fall of the Inca Empire”National Geographic “Inca Civilization”Encyclopedia Britannica “Francisco Pizarro”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

Of course we’re going to El Dorado! Or, at least, we’re going to meet him? Because, when you take a look at the primary sources, where this myth of El Dorado, the city of gold, really came from, it becomes immediately apparent that El Dorado was never a city at all… he was a person. El Dorado, the gilded one, was first described as a wealthy leader who covered his body in gold dust and then washed it off in a sacred lake. The Spanish simply took that and ran with it. If this king had enough gold that he could wash it away, discard it, every single night, he must be extraordinarily wealthy. In fact, he must live in an entire city made of gold. But that, of course, was a stretch based entirely on cultural misunderstandings and downright greed. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop man after man - Spanish, German, English - from trying, and failing, to find this imaginary city of gold.  Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources:BBC “El Dorado: The truth behind the myth”National Geographic “The real history behind El Dorado, the legendary city of gold”Wikipedia “El Dorado”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

I have wanted to talk about Sir Walter Raleigh for so very long. He had a lot of power and influence during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and impacted the world we know today more than people realize. He's even the one who came up with the name Virginia! And yet, most don't know the first thing about Raleigh. Who was he really? And how did he go from the queen’s favorite golden boy to beheaded at Westminster in the span of just a few decades? Let's fix that. Episodes about the Roanoke expeditions: Roanoke Parts 1 and 2The Found Colony of Roanoke?Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Historic Royal Palaces “Sir Walter Raleigh”History.com “Walter Raleigh”North Carolina Museum of History “The Demise of Sir Walter Raleigh”BBC “Walter Raleigh”Sir Walter Raleigh’s letter to his wife (Matthew Lyons)Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

So many important lessons to be learned from the late and great Dolly Parton! I'm back with a bang this week Fixies to uncover the unexpected legacy left by super famous, super loved, greatly missed Dolly Parton. How does a girl from a poverty stricken tobacco farm in the mountains of Tennessee, one of twelve children, with an illiterate father, come to be one of the most famous performers, business women, philanthropists, and all around enigmas of all time? More importantly, how is it possible to pull all that off while remaining almost universally loved by the masses? What does it actually mean to be a Dolly? Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Dollyparton.com “Dolly’s Story”Wikipedia “Dolly Parton”Country Music Hall of Fame “Dolly Parton”Wikipedia “Porter Wagoner”Fox News “Dolly Parton’s most iconic ‘Dolly-isms’ on beauty, wigs, Botox and living on her own terms”Shoot me a message! The Secret Is OUTThe Secret Is Out tells the coming-out stories of LGBTQ people —...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show