All Episodes

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

Ep. 144: August 6, 1945 began as a normal day in Hiroshima, Japan. I mean, kind of. Of course the country was embroiled in a deadly World War and enemy forces, the United States specifically, had been bombing cities for months, unleashing firestorms that had already claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. But, if you could time travel to a Hiroshima sidewalk on the morning of August 6, 1945, it would seem at least a little bit normal. At 8 am that morning, the city w

Mini Fix # 26: When World War I erupted in July of 1914, soldiers as young as 18 rushed off to the trenches to fight. Most were told it would be a very short war. It would be over by Christmas and they’d be home to celebrate with their families. That’s what they were told. But as Christmas of 1914 neared, there was no end to the war in sight. In fact, it was only just getting started. The men, boys really, crowded into filthy cramped trenches in the ground where they were con

Ep. 143: It’s February 1942 and you’re a born and raised American citizen living on a farm in California. Born of immigrant parents, you’ve worked hard your entire life to carve out the life they’d dreamed you’d have here in this beautiful country, this land of opportunity. You’re well aware that 2 months ago the Empire of Japan attacked a US naval base called Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. You’ve seen it in the news. You’ve felt the rumblings of fear growing. Y

Ep. 142: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan… No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost,

Ep. 141: You’ve likely heard of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo, maybe Tecumseh. And if you’re a serious History Fix listener you’ve probably heard of Wingina too, who also went by the name Pemisapan. If you’re scrambling to place the name, I’ll help you out. Wingina was the weroance, or leader, chief, of the Algonquian speaking Secotan people who lived in coastal North Carolina when the first English colonists arrived in the 1580s. Wingina’s story, as we know it, mostly

Ep. 140: You’ve likely heard of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo, maybe Tecumseh. And if you’re a serious History Fix listener you’ve probably heard of Wingina too, who also went by the name Pemisapan. If you’re scrambling to place the name, I’ll help you out. Wingina was the weroance, or leader, chief, of the Algonquian speaking Secotan people who lived in coastal North Carolina when the first English colonists arrived in the 1580s. Wingina’s story, as we know it, mostly

Ep. 139: We know there were vast and impressive cities in the Americas before European contact. The stone buildings and pyramids are still there: Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, Palenque, Tikal, La Danta pyramid at El Mirador, greater in volume than the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the mystical remains of Machu Picchu, nestled in the Andes Mountains of Peru. We know these once great cities flourished in Central and South America because the stones are still there to prove i

Ep. 138: Last week I came to you with the story of the French crown jewels recently stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris. All 8 pieces included diamonds, most of which probably came from India, and many of which were once part of the jewel collection of France’s King Louis the fourteenth. Diving into the world of Louis the fourteenth’s Indian diamond collection, however, led me directly to a stone that I failed to mention last week, a stone that is, quite possibly, the most