All Episodes

Ep. 164: It’s October 17, 1781 in Yorktown, Virginia. The sound of a drum breaks through the early morning quiet. A single British drummer beats his drum somewhere in the distance. The patriot’s eyes widen at the sound. Their jaws drop. They know this beat. It means truce. It means surrender. After a 20 day siege, the British are out of food. They are out of artillery. They are trapped. They have no choice but to surrender. The men assemble. American General Washington stands

Mini Fix # 36: We all know about the Boston Tea Party. You do, especially if you listened to or watched last week’s History Fix episode. But, I failed to include one, somewhat significant detail. At the time that this protest occurred, the dumping of $3 million worth of tea into Boston Harbor in December of 1773, and for many years afterwards, we had no idea who these men were who participated. Since, we’ve been able to painstakingly cobble together a list of at least 116 nam

Ep. 163: Tea has a long and rich history dating back to ancient China. But, when you think about where in the world they drink the most tea now, one country in particular probably comes to mind. It does for me anyway: England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, whatever you want to call it. Those guys. They really do love a cuppa tea. Tea is notably absent, for the most part, however, in the United States where coffee reigns supreme. I mean, we have some ice tea drinkers here

Ep. 162: Derek McLennan is excited. His metal detector is beeping, a high pitched tone, clear and strong. He knows what that means. It’s 2014 and he’s walking the grounds, the glebelands of the Church of Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway. He begins to dig, sifting through the packed Earth, inching his way deeper and deeper. An hour passes before finally, a familiar glint in the soil, unmistakably silver. Derek carefully extracts the long narrow object. It looks like a spoon p

Ep. 161: Derek McLennan is excited. His metal detector is beeping, a high pitched tone, clear and strong. He knows what that means. It’s 2014 and he’s walking the grounds, the glebelands of the Church of Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway. He begins to dig, sifting through the packed Earth, inching his way deeper and deeper. An hour passes before finally, a familiar glint in the soil, unmistakably silver. Derek carefully extracts the long narrow object. It looks like a spoon p

Ep. 160: When thinking about wars, they tend to have a pretty obvious cause. The American Revolution - independence from Great Britain, the Civil War - slavery, World War II - Hitler trying to take over the world, Vietnam - the spread of communism. There’s a clear goal to all of these wars, something they are trying to achieve or prevent. The same cannot be said, however, about World War I. World War I, or the Great War, had, possibly, a larger impact than any other war ever.

Ep. 159: It’s August of 1905 in the small village of Commugny, Switzerland. Jean Lanfray, a French laborer stands before three coffins, weeping. “Tell me I haven’t done this!” he sobs. “I loved my family. I would never do this.” In the coffins lay the bodies of his wife and two daughters, ages 6 and 2. Jean shot them all with his rifle after a day of binge drinking. At the trial, his defense paints a picture of Absinthe madness. They call in a psychiatrist who claims that onl

Ep. 158: I have talked about a lot of Tudors. If you want to go back and do some digging, I have episodes about the War of the Roses and Richard III which explain how the original Tudor monarch, Henry VII, won the throne on the battlefield without much of a claim at all, beginning the unlikely Tudor dynasty. I have episodes about his son, Henry VIII, of course, and all of his six wives. I have an episode about Mary I, eldest daughter of Henry VIII and the first queen regnant

Ep. 157: My youngest son has always been a precocious child, speaking full sentences at a year and a half old. I’ll never forget one night, when he was probably 2 years old. I was laying him down in his crib, tucking him in at bedtime. I covered him with his blanket and laid my hand on his head, if only to feel his soft, warm baby hair. “Goodnight buddy,” I said, expecting a “night night mama” in return. What he said instead unsettles me to this day. “I used to be a grown up,

Ep. 156: Picture Japan. Maybe you’re thinking of Mount Fuji towering in the distance, framed by cascades of pink cherry blossoms. Perhaps a buddhist temple perched serenely beside a lake dotted with lotus flowers, ever floating, gliding slightly in the mostly still water. Japan seems… nice. It seems calm. It seems peaceful. In the back of our minds maybe we know Japan was on the wrong side of World War II. There was Pearl Harbor and all that. But we don’t tend to let it taint

Ep. 154 & 155: In 1847, 150 members of the all male student body at Geneva Medical College in New York were tasked with an unexpected mission. The Dean had received an application for admission to the school. Nothing crazy there, the Dean received applications often and was responsible for deciding whether or not these hopefuls would be accepted. This time was different though, because the applicant was a woman. At the time, 1840s, there weren’t many medical schools in the Un

Ep. 153: I’ve been to New Orleans a number of times. It’s a really cool city. If you ever get a chance to go, you totally should. On my most recent trip, we took a walking tour of the French Quarter and one of the stops was, of course, Jackson Square. Jackson Square is the heart of the French Quarter which is the historic district of New Orleans. It’s dominated by the St. Louis Cathedral directly in the middle with the Cabildo, the former seat of the Spanish colonial governme

Ep. 152: Since the times of slavery, most historians have gotten at least one thing very very wrong. Historians long proposed that white women in the United States were simply passive enslavers. That they enslaved people because their husbands enslaved people. They pointed to legal structures at the time that prevented married women from owning property. Sure, white women managed enslaved people because they ruled over the domestic sphere as housekeepers. But, for far too lon

Ep. 151: In 1861 a book was published. This book, titled “Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl” told an unbelievable story, the story of an enslaved Black girl who went to great lengths to avoid sexual abuse by her enslaver. A girl who cunningly twisted this very system of abuse to work in her favor. A girl who, now a woman, spent seven years lying in a tiny crawl space above her grandmother’s porch, watching her own children play through a peephole she had whittled in the w

Ep. 150: On October 16, 1859, all was not quiet in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. On this night, a pack of belligerent raiders attacked the arsenal there, determined to arm themselves for a rebellion that would take down any soul who stood in their way. The townspeople sprang into action to protect themselves, to protect their families. These raiders were armed and dangerous. They had taken hostages. They had killed. Soon, a shot was fired, taking down George Turner who was only th

Ep. 149: Nowadays, if something happens to you, you get injured or sick and need immediate medical attention, you call an ambulance right? You call an ambulance and you expect that ambulance to arrive quickly and, if needed, you expect to receive emergency, life saving emergency care in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Today, ambulances are staffed by emergency medical technicians or EMTs who are trained to save lives during emergencies or while en route to the hospi

Ep. 148: I’d tell you my name, but you already know it. Even if you haven’t heard it spoken aloud yet. You may not know how to pronounce it, it’s not an easy one. But even if you can’t say it correctly, you know it. These symbols on the screen behind me tell you my name. These 12 symbols. Each one represents a sound that we can make with our mouths, our tongues, our larynx and lungs. And when you make the sound of each symbol you say my name: Shea LaFountaine. Those sounds, r

Ep. 147: Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if something is real or imaginary, fact or fiction, especially if that thing came from thousands of years ago. Take the writings of Plato, ancient Greek philosopher. Plato wrote in the form of dialogues, conversations, almost always involving his teacher Socrates. And in these dialogues, he told stories that taught lessons, we call these parables. Jesus did the same. He didn’t write them down but his followers did. Jesus told all sort

Ep. 146: ​​I like to cover holidays. You’ve probably realized that by now if you’ve been listening for a while. They’re perfect for History fixing because everyone knows about them and yet no one knows anything about them. Why do we carve pumpkins on Halloween? Why is Saint Patrick’s day celebrated more in America than in Ireland? What the heck is up with the Easter bunny? Holidays are great fodder for fixing and once I dig into the roots of them, I’m often surprised by how w

Ep. 145: Circumcision was not something I ever really thought about until I had two sons. When you have a baby boy a decision is suddenly thrust upon you, at least in the United States. I mean, there are lots of decisions thrust upon you: what are we going to name him? What about a middle name? What kind of diapers should we buy? Which car seat? Lots of questions, lots of decisions. One of them is next level though. Because, at some point, someone is going to ask you if you w