History Fix

In this episode I finally explore a topic I've wondered about for a long time: circumcision. How did an ancient punishment for prisoners turned religious ritual become a medical procedure carried out by over 80% of Americans? What triggered doctors to start recommending circumcision for all newborn boys starting in the late 1800s and why doesn't the rest of the world do it too? What about the ethical implications of perfo...

Consider this the third and final installment of my war with Japan triptych. In this episode, we'll discuss the top secret "Manhattan Project" led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer that led to the development of the first atomic bomb. We'll uncover the motives behind creating such a dangerous weapon and for using it on two cities in Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to civilian casualties of up to 300,000 ...

I had planned to take this week and next off but I can't leave y'all hanging without your fix on Christmas! This week I'm bringing you a special mini fix episode about the Christmas Truce of 1914. This remarkable ceasefire that happened spontaneously all along the Western Front during the first winter of World War I has shocked and inspired the masses ever since. But despite tons of eyewitness accounts and tangible e...

After talking about the Pearl Harbor attack last week and how it prompted US involvement in World War II, I realized I glorified the aftermath pretty hard. Yes, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor did directly lead to the US declaring war on both Japan and Germany. Yes, US involvement in World War II undeniably helped bring that war to a close. However, the US reacted in other ways at home that weren't quite as glorious. This ...

I feel pretty well versed when it comes to World War II. I understand fairly well what was happening in Europe at least with Germany and whatnot. I know that the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (84 years ago today) was the event that drew the United States into the war. But Pearl Harbor wasn't bombed by Germany. It was bombed by Japan. Wait, what? Japan? What does Japan have to do with Nazi Germany and World War II?...

To follow up my perspective seeking conversation with Gray Parsons of the Secotan Alliance, I sat down next with Chief Marilyn Berry Morrison of the Roanoke-Hatteras Tribe. I asked Chief Morrison the same question: why do you think the misconception exists that Indigenous Americans no longer exist in the eastern part of the United States? She had similar thoughts to share. Chief Morrison spoke a lot about fear and shame stemming fr...

This week, I sat down with Gray Parsons of the Secotan Alliance to get to the bottom of a common misconception. It seems, to me at least, that there's a notion in our country that Indigenous Americans no longer exist in the eastern states, that they were either killed or forced to relocate west. Gray's response provided the much needed perspective I was seeking. Join us as we chat about Wingina, the first Indigenous Ameri...

This week I’m shattering preconceived notions that Indigenous Americans north of Mexico didn’t build cities. That they organized, instead, into only small, nomadic villages. Because, for around 800 years there was a great city, the largest pre-Colombian city north of Mexico, a city that, if you were to have visited in the year 1200, is theorized to have been larger than both London and Paris at that same time. In fact, it held the ...

Riding on the coat tails of last week's jewel heist episode, I'm back this week with the intriguing history of the Hope Diamond.  The story of the Hope Diamond is convoluted. It changed hands many times, stolen on several occasions and was gradually cut down from 112 carats to just 45 and a half today. Known for its rich blue color and red phosphorescence, the Hope Diamond is extremely rare and highly coveted. But, a big ...

Two weeks ago on Sunday, October 19th something rather extraordinary happened at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. During broad daylight, thirty minutes after the museum opened for the day, and as hundreds of visitors streamed inside, 8 pieces of France’s crown jewel collection valued at an estimated 102 million dollars (but actually priceless when considering historical value) were stolen in less than 8 minutes. I don’t often co...

This week I'm concluding my Spooktober series by covering the story of the mysterious "ghost ship" Mary Celeste. The Mary Celeste was discovered adrift and unmanned around 400 nautical miles from the Azores Islands in December of 1872. The last recording in the ships log had been made some nine days before and it appeared that, since then, the ship had been sailing itself. But what happened to Captain Briggs, his wif...

This one is not for the faint of heart! This week, in honor of Spooktober, I'm digging in to the story of Gilles de Rais, a French noblemen and military leader who fought alongside Joan of Arc to lift the siege of Orleans during the Hundred Years War. But that, turns out, isn't Gilles' only claim to fame. In the years following, he was responsible for kidnapping and then brutally assaulting, torturing, and murdering ...

As it sometimes does, this week's topic presented itself to me. Determined to find out why the little known story of a woman most people have never heard of needed to be told so badly, I dug in. Join me to uncover the story of Grace Sherwood for yourself, the only woman ever to be convicted of witchcraft in Virginia. We'll examine the factors that led to Grace's conviction and the "recipe" for witch hunts t...

Welcome to Spooktober! It's my favorite month on History Fix because I get to bust out all of the spooky stories I've been saving. This week, we're talking about the notorious serial killer who operated in New Orleans in the nineteen teens known as the Axeman. The Axeman attacked strictly Italian grocers, breaking into their houses with stolen axes to bludgeon them to death. This guy has been embraced by popular cult...

I'm back again this week with four more "lost cities" for you. First we'll explore the  Egyptian city of Thonis-Heracleion that literally sank beneath the Mediterranean Sea and was rediscovered some 1,200 years later. Next, we'll hop over to Jordan to discover the ancient Nabataean city of Petra with it's grand facades etched into the red rock landscape. After that it's off to Cambodia to learn ab...

We'll be visiting 8 lost cities over the next couple of weeks! This week we'll journey to an ancient city of mythic proportions that most thought to be fictional until it was actually discovered in the mid 1800s: Troy of Homer's Iliad fame. Next we'll make our way to southern Pakistan to explore the ruins of the completely unknown and yet stunningly advanced city of Mohenjo Daro. Then we'll hop the pond to ...

William Shakespeare is undoubtedly one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. Author of over 30 plays and over 150 poems, he masterfully knit together over 20,000 English words, all out inventing some 1,700 of them, to beautifully capture full ranges of complex emotions and subtle nuances of human nature that still capture audiences over 400 years later. Pretty impressive for a 16th century man from a modest family with onl...

In this week's episode, I delve farther into one of the character's from last week's episode about the War of the Roses: Richard III. Richard is a highly misunderstood historical figure, whose reputation was tainted by later Tudor propaganda during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the son and granddaughter of his usurper, Henry VII. But how much of that reputation was deserved? And, possibly more interesting...