Blade Runner
Did That Really Happen?
It's a new year, so it's once again time for our annual special episode on depictions of the future! Join us as we take a look at 2019-as-imagined-in-1981's Blade Runner, with discussions of gas flares, Japanese influence on American culture, the resurgence of 1940s fashion, and more! Sources: Ryan Britt, "Blade Runner: How Its Problems Made It a Better Movie," Den of Geek, available at https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/blade-runner-making-of-history/ Roger Ebert Review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blade-runner-directors-cut-1992 Ben Sherlock, "Like Tears in Rain," Screen Rant,...
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Singin in the Rain
Did That Really Happen?
For our last episode of 2024, we're traveling back to 1920s Hollywood with Singin' in the Rain! Join us as we learn about mood music on set, elocution lessons, fan magazines, stunts, and more! Sources: Pamela Hutchinson, "The Silent Era Film Stars Who Risked Life and Limb Doing Their Own Stunts," The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/07/silent-era-film-stars-risked-their-lives-doing-film-stunts "The Evolution of Stunts: Part I," British Action Academy, available at https://www.britishactionacademy.com/blog/the-action-reel/the-evolution-of-stunts-part-one/ Ronald...
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Lisa Frankenstein
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1989 with Lisa Frankstein! Join us as we learn about leg warmers, intuitive people and emotional vampires, the world's biggest contraceptive sponge, tanning beds, and more! Sources: Tori Telfer, "A Brief History of Leg Warmers," Bustle, available at https://www.bustle.com/articles/29436-whatever-happened-to-leg-warmers-hint-animals Rare Historical Photos, "The Legwarmers Craze of the 1980s," available at https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/legwarmers-fashion-1980s/ Ngram, "Intuitive person:"...
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Wicked Little Letters
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1920s England with Wicked Little Letters! Join us as we learn about the real women who appear as characters in this movie, including Edith Swan, Rose Gooding, and Police Officer Gladys Moss! Sources: Audrey Cartron, Women in the Police Forces in Britain, 1880-1931, MA thesis, full text available at https://library.college.police.uk/docs/theses/CARTRON-Women-in-the-police-forces-in-Britain-1880-1931.pdf Sislin Fay Allen, National Archives: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/significant-people-collection/sislin-fay-allen/ History of Women...
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Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1970 with Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret! Join us as we learn about Earth Day, female cantors, espadrilles, supermodels, adhesive pads, and more! Sources: Sources: Kathleen Horton, "The Story of. . . The Supermodel," The Conversation, available at https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-the-supermodel-26388 Sarah Lindig and Natalie Matthews, "The Evolution of the Supermodel," Elle, availble at https://www.elle.com/fashion/g28495/evolution-of-the-supermodel/?slide=25 Google Ngram, "Supermodel":...
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Wasp Network
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1990s Miami with Wasp Network! Join us as we learn about terrorist attacks on Cuban resorts, the Angola Crisis, that McDonald's in Guantanamo Bay, and more! Sources: Central Intelligence Agency National Foreign Assessment Center, "An Analysis of Cuban Military Intervention in Angola and Ethiopia," 31 October 1978, available at https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00634A000400010046-2.pdf "Angola, Independence and Civil War," Britannica, available at https://www.britannica.com/place/Angola/Independence-and-civil-war The Angola Crisis, 1974-1975,...
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Sweet Land
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1920s Minnesota with Sweet Land! Join us as we learn about immigrant marriages, German acceptance in Minnesota, English-only churches, and more! We also debut the new Tina Belcher Film Grading Scale, and award this film a respectable score of Two Butts. Sources: La Vern J. Rippley, "Conflict in the Classroom: Anti-Germanism in Minnesota Schools, 1917-19," Minnesota History 47, no.5 (1981): 170-83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20178699 Tina Steward Brakebill, "From "German Days" to "100 Percent Americanism": McLean County, Illinois 1913-1918: German...
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Godzilla Minus One
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're going back to postwar Tokyo with Godzilla Minus One! Join us as we learn about the rebuilding of Ginza, war orphans, sea mine removal, how Godzilla stands upright in the water, and more! Sources: "Ginza," Tokyo Official Website: https://www.ginza.jp/en/history/2#:~:text=As%20early%20as%20April%2C%201946,Ginza%20%2Ddori%20during%20this%20festival.&text=In%20addition%20to%20the%20regular,goods%20to%20the%20US%20troops. "Post-war Ginza," Old Tokyo, available at https://www.oldtokyo.com/post-war-ginza-1945/ "The Lost Metropolis: 1930s Tokyo Street Life in Pictures," The...
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The Siege of Jadotville
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1960s Congo with The Siege of Jadotville! Join us as we learn about General Tshombe, Dag Hammarsjkold, UN forces in Jadotville, uranium mining, and more! Sources: Frank Swain, "The forgotten mine that built the atomic bomb," BBC (2020). https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200803-the-forgotten-mine-that-built-the-atomic-bomb Moore, W. Robert. "White Magic in the Belgian Congo: Tribesmen Mine Uranium, Run Machines, Study Modern Medicine as Booming Trade Opens Up the Vast Colony's Resources." National Geographic Magazine, March 1952, [321]+. National...
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A Haunting in Venice
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1940s Venice with A Haunting in Venice! Join us as we learn about mad honey, When the Lights Go On Again, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, Meet Me In St. Louis, and more! Sources: Gunduz, Abdülkadir;Şimşek, Perihan;Ayaz, Faik Ahmet, "Worldwide Distribution and Clinical Characteristics of Mad Honey Poisoning Cases," Central European Journal of Public Health (March 2023) Niko Vorobyov, "What It's Like Tripping on Mad Honey, the Hallucinogen That is (Maybe) an Aphrodisiac," Salon, 2022, available at...
info_outlineThis week we're traveling back to the 1930s with Amsterdam! Join us as we learn about Smedley Butler, birding, the Harlem Hellfighters, that story about Mussolini running a kid over with a car, and more!
Sources:
The Press: Vanderbilt Truth (1931) available at https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,930365,00.html
Pete Vack, "A Mussolini Alfa Romeo Mystery," available at https://velocetoday.com/a-mussolini-mystery/
Smedley Butler Mussolini 1931, WWII Editorial Cartoon Project, available at https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/ww2/1931-2/
Jonathan M. Katz, Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2021), 304-334.
Dietrich, Christopher R. W., ed. Diplomacy and Capitalism: The Political Economy of U.S. Foreign Relations. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1sjwpfz.
Erick Trickey, "One Hundred Years Ago, the Harlem Hellfighters Bravely Led the U.S. Into WWI," Smithsonian Magazine (14 May 2018), https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/one-hundred-years-ago-harlem-hellfighters-bravely-led-us-wwi-180968977/
"Remembering the Harlem Hellfighters," National Museum of African-American History and Culture
Stephen Barker, "Amsterdam: 10 Behind the Scenes Facts About the Star-Studded Movie," Screen Rant, available at https://screenrant.com/amsterdam-behind-the-scenes-facts-star-studded-movie/
Amsterdam, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_(2022_film)
Christy Lemire review, Rogerebert.com: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/amsterdam-movie-review-2022
Tim Birkhead, "How Bird-Collecting Evolved into Bird-Watching," Smithsonian Magazine, available at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-bird-collecting-evolved-into-bird-watching-180980506/