This week I'll explore the social history of the cannabis plant including its use since ancient times as a fiber, medicine, and for its psychoactive properties both ritualistically and recreationally. I'll explore how cannabis first made its way to the Americas and how it became a main crop of colonial planters that they were actually required by law to grow. I'll explore it's use in 19th century American medicines and do some digging to find out why it came to be banned in 1937 following an influx of Mexican immigrants who brought recreational use of "locoweed" or "marijuana" with them. You're in for a wild ride!

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Sources:

• NPR "The Mysterious History of Marijuana"
• CBS News "The man behind the marijuana ban for all the wrong reasons"
• DEA "Drug Scheduling"
• Wikipedia "History of Cannabis"
• American Addiction Centers "History of Marijuana"
• History.com "Marijuana"
• University of Georgia "History of Marijuana Regulation in America"
• Nature Magazine "A Potted History"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Why Is Marijuana Illegal in the US?"
• Mount Sinai "Herbal Medicine"
• FindLaw "Marijuana Possession Laws by State"
• American Association of Medical Colleges "Alcohol related deaths are spiking. So why don't we take alcohol addiction more seriously?"
• Associated Press "US poised to ease restrictions on marijuana in historic shift, but it'll remain controlled substance"
• Wikipedia "Datura stramonium"
• National Park Service "Wildlife in the Tropical Rainforest"

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Thomas Alva Edison has always been portrayed as the greatest, most prolific by far American inventor. The man obtained over a thousand patents in his lifetime and is credited with inventing or improving upon devices that changed our world, our lives forever: the lightbulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, telegraphs, telephones, x-rays, and batteries. The list goes on. His contemporaries were blown away. But in recent decades, many have come to doubt Edison’s genius. More recent Edison critics take a look at his impressive body of work with scrutiny. "He didn't really invent all of those things," they say. Modern minds are split on Thomas Edison. He’s either a great American hero, inventor of our modern world, or an idea stealing fraud who ripped off other great minds and claimed the credit. But who was he really? Was Thomas Edison the real deal or do we need to rewrite the history books, giving back credit where credit is due? Let’s fix that.

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• Library of Congress "Life of Thomas Alva Edison"
• National Park Service "Edison Biography"
• US News "Many Minds Produced the Lightbulb That Illuminated America"
• Forbes "Nikola Tesla Wasn't God and Thomas Edison Wasn't the Devil"
• Ranker "Here Are All The Things That Thomas Edison Didn't Actually Invent, But Took The Credit For Anyway"
• Wikipedia "Thomas Edison"

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Check out zipOns from befree Adaptive Clothing here! This week we'll take a look at the 6 Hanoverian monarchs: George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV, and Victoria. We'll examine how George I, a German, came to be king of Great Britain and Ireland despite being only 57th in line for the throne and how German monarchs continued to rule the country for the next 187 years and beyond. What mark did the Hanover dynasty leave on Britain? How does it still effect them today? I think you'll be surprised to learn just how German Britain actually is!

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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• Buy Me a Coffee
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Sources:

• Historic Royal Palaces "The Georgians"
• History Hit "The 6 Hanoverian Monarchs In Order"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "House of Hanover"
• UK National Archives "The Death of Queen Anne"
• PBS "What Illness Did King George III Have?"
• German History Society "Britain and Germany: A Love-Hate Relationship?"
• BBC "Queen Nazi salute film: palace 'disappointed' at its use"
• The Guardian "Genetic study reveals 30% of white British DNA has German ancestry"
• The Telegraph "How German the Royal Family Actually Is"
• Indian Express "How German Are the British Royals?"

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Check out zipOns from befree Adaptive Clothing here! In the 1950s a mysterious man appeared at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. He looked normal enough, just a regular looking mid-thirties white guy in a suit there on a business trip. But when he presented his passport to airport officials, they were puzzled. The passport was unlike any they had ever seen before. It listed the man as being from a nation called Taured, a nation they had never heard of, a nation they were pretty sure didn’t exist. When asked to point out Taured on a map, the man became confused. He pointed to the Principality of Andorra on the border of France and Spain. “It’s supposed to be right here,” he said “it’s been here for over a thousand years.” He couldn’t understand why his country was no longer listed on a world map. Airport officials took the man to a hotel room for the night until they could interrogate him further the next day. They placed two guards outside the room to ensure he didn’t escape but in the morning, the mystery man from Taured was gone without a trace. In the years since, many have speculated that the man from Taured came from another dimension, an alternate reality in which Taured really did exist between France and Spain. But how much of this story is actually true and how much is just the product of the game of historical telephone? Let’s fix that.

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• Snopes "The Mystery of the Man from Taured"
• All That's Interesting "Inside the Legend of the Mysterious Taured Man"
• Wikipedia "John Zegrus"
• Reddit post by user taraiochi
• UK Parliament "Frontier Formalities"

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This week, we'll get lost in the mind boggling mystery that is the Dyatlov Pass case, when 9 experienced hikers died under suspicious and unexplainable circumstances while traversing Russia's Ural Mountains in 1959. When a group of ski/hikers led by 23 year old student Igor Dyatlov failed to return after a 3 week journey, search parties were sent. They quickly found the group's abandoned tent, cut open from the inside. Not long after that, the bodies were discovered. But the condition of the bodies raised more questions than it answered. No single theory adequately explains how the 9 hikers died. Was it an avalanche? Weapons testing by the Russian military gone wrong? A yeti??? When Russia reopened the investigation in 2019, Swiss avalanche researchers used an unconventional method to try to prove or disprove the avalanche theory. They reached out to the creators of Disney's animated film "Frozen" to get their snow animation code. What did their simulations tell us? Is it case closed for the Dyatlov Pass incident or does the mystery persist?

Check out photos from the hiker's cameras here

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Sources:

• BBC News "Dyatlov Pass"
• History.com "The Dyatlov Pass Incident: Why the Hiker Deaths Remain a Mystery"
• National Geographic "Has Science Solved History's Greatest Adventure Mystery at Dyatlov?"
• Smithsonian Magazine "Have Scientists Finally Unraveled the 60 Year Mystery Surrounding 9 Russian Hiker's Deaths?"
• Live Science "Russia's 'Dyatlov Pass' conspiracy theory may finally be solved 60 years later"
• Wikipedia "Dyatlov Pass Incident"
• Collider "'Frozen' May Have Helped Solve a Half-Century Old Mystery"
• Business Insider "Animation used for 'Frozen' helped solve a mysterious 62-year-old avalanche case"

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I'm back this week with yet another inspiring underdog story... but make it Christmas! This week, I'll trace the origins of one of the most beloved Christmas characters, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, all the way back to his roots on the desk of a department story copywriter in 1939 Chicago. Robert L. May was down on his luck when his boss at Montgomery Ward asked him to write a children's book that the store could hand out to customers at Christmas time. He was in debt, his wife was dying of cancer, he was struggling to support his 4 year old daughter, and he was far from achieving his dream of becoming a great American writer. But, just like his underrated title character, Robert rose to the occasion and gave the world something it needed, something that mattered.

Read May's original Rudolph manuscript and listen to his daughter Barbara May Lewis read it here!

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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Sources:

• Time Magazine "The Surprisingly Sad True Story Behind 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'"
• NPR "The History of 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'"
• Chicago Tribune "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer..."
• Wikipedia "Robert L. May"
• American Business History Center "Gimbel Brothers Department Stores: Dust to Dust"
• On Location Tours "'Elf' Filming Locations"
• Wikipedia "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"
• The Hollywood Reporter "'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' Most Beloved Holiday Movie, Poll Finds"
• Wikipedia "Johnny Marks"

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Just in time for the 121st anniversary on Tuesday, I bring to you the story of two brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, who changed the world forever with their groundbreaking first flight on December 17th, 1903. Though it lasted just 12 seconds, it marks the first powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight, something humans had tried and failed to do for centuries. Join special guest Adonis A. Osekre and me as we delve into the story of the Wright brothers to uncover just how remarkable their achievement really was.

Purchase "Windswept Dreams: The Wright Brothers' Legacy from Kitty Hawk's Dunes and Beyond" by Adonis A. Osekre

Check out askadonis.com

Support the show!

• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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• Buy Me a Coffee
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Sources:

• "Remarkable Women of the Outer Banks" by Hannah Bunn West
• "Windswept Dreams: The Wright Brothers' Legacy from Kitty Hawk's Dunes and Beyond" by Adonis A. Osekre
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Wright Brothers"
• National Air and Space Museum "Meet the Wright Family"
• National Air and Space Museum "Who Were the Wright Brothers?"
• National Air and Space Museum "Before the Wrights Were Aviators"
• National Air and Space Museum "Researching the Wright Way"
• National Air and Space Museum "You Just Invented the Airplane, Now What?"
• National Air and Space Museum "Katherine Wright: the Wright Sister"

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I'll pick up where I left off last week, with the storming of the Bastille and the fall of the "ancien regime." We'll explore how, over the next few years, this new France will become more of a hellscape than a paradise. As a radical group, the Jacobins, seizes control, distopia ensues with the September Massacres of 1792, the "Reign of Terror" spanning 1793 to 1794, and the executions of the monarchy. We'll explore how this chaos paves the way for France's next ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte, to seize power for better or for worse. And, we'll look at 4 takeaway lessons from the French Revolution that we can still learn something from today.

Support the show!

• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
• Buy some merch
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• Age of Revolutions "4 Cautionary Tales from the French Revolution for Today" by Christine Adams
• biography.com "Louis XVI"
• history.com "French Revolution"
• history.com "Marie Antoinette"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "French Revolution"
• US Office of the Historian "The United States and the French Revolution"
• Chateau de Versailles "Death of Louis XIV"
• UTEP "What the French Revolution Can Teach Us About Inflation"
• Napoleon.org "The Republican Calendar"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Charlotte Corday"
• The Collector "Marie Antoinette's Death: How Did She Die and Why?"
• Five Minute History "Napoleon: Hero or Tyrant?"

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