Brooklyn
Did That Really Happen?
This week we've got a listener-requested episode on Brooklyn! Join us as we travel back to 1950s Ireland and New York and learn about Irish dances, golf, Coney Island, 1950s immigration, and more! Sources: Source Paul Rouse, How Golf Took Root in Ireland, Irish Examiner, available at https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport-columnists/arid-20472471.html John T. Ridge, Dance Halls of Irish New York, available at https://nyirishhistory.us/article/dance-halls-of-irish-new-york/ Linda Dowling Almeida, Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995 (Indiana University Press, 2001),...
info_outline
Benedetta
Did That Really Happen?
In this definitely NSFW episode, we're traveling back to 17th century Italy with Benedetta! Join us as we learn about the trial of Benedetta Carlini, comets, convent theater, and more! Sources: https://daily.jstor.org/lesbianism-at-the-convent/ Judith C. Brown, Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (1986, Archive.org) Rudolph M. Bell, "Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archives: An Exchange," Renaissance Quarterly 40, no.3 (1987): 485-511. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2862521 Image of the comet over Heidelberg:...
info_outline
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to Edwardian England with Kind Hearts and Coronets! Join us as we learn about man traps, municipal baths, executing nobility, suffragettes doing awesome stuff like smashing windows and flying hot air balloons, and more! Sources: National Trust Collections: Humane Mantrap with No Teeth: https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/832217 Henry Yau, "Student Spotlight #2: Man Traps," The Museum of English Rural LIfe: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-views/student-spotlight-2-man-traps/ Keith Fitzpatrick-Mathews, Man Traps and Spring Guns and Burymead,...
info_outline
A League of Their Own (2022)
Did That Really Happen?
We don't have a new episode this week, so we're releasing a Patreon episode from the vault: 2022's canceled-too-soon series, A League of Their Own. Join us as we learn about the AAGPBL's weird code of conduct, WWII-era mail censorship, and more! Sources: Full text available at https://www.aagpbl.org/history/rules-of-conduct https://www.aagpbl.org/teams/rockford-peaches/1944 Lisa Taylor/Justina Moloney, "Passed Censor," Folklife Today: American Folklife Center & Veterans History Project, Library of Congress (28 August 2017). https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2017/08/passed-censor/ ...
info_outline
Nuremberg
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1940s Germany (yup, this is a heavy one, folks) with Nuremberg! Join us as we learn about real-life figures like Douglas Kelley, Emmy Goering, Howie Triest, and more! Sources: James Wylie, “The Battle to Be ‘First Lady of the Third Reich.’” Daily Telegraph (London), November 14, 2019, 22,23. EBSCOhost. Richard J. Evans. 2015. The Third Reich in History and Memory. Oxford University Press. EBSCOhost. George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality. New York: Howard Fertig, 1985 "Frau Goering Gets Year, but is Freed," New York Times, 22 July 1948, available at...
info_outline
The Testament of Ann Lee
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 18th century Manchester (and America!) with The Testament of Ann Lee! Join us as we learn about Ann Lee's life with her awful husband Abraham and fellow spiritual leader Jane Wardley, shaker spirituals, pacifism, and more! Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pacifism/ Ngram for Pacifism: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pacifism&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 George Fox on peace: https://quaker.org/legacy/minnfm/peace/fox_1651.htm Tolstoy, "The Law of Violence and...
info_outline
The Terror (Season 1)
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're cracking open the Patreon vault to deliver unto you a bonus episode on Season 1 of The Terror! Join us as we learn about the horrors of the Franklin expedition, including lead poisoning, proof of death, and creepy old diving gear. Sources: https://www.divingheritage.com/deanekern.htm https://www.whitstablemuseum.org/exhibit/diving/ https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~cmi/dive/diveHist.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/archaeologists-get-eerie-first-look-inside-arctic-shipwreck-franklin-hms-terror-180973011/ Wikipedia:...
info_outline
The Secret Agent
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1970s Brazil with The Secret Agent! Join us as we learn about deaths at Carnival, the legend of the Hairy Leg, indigenous servants, and more! Sources: Da-Silva, Elidiomar. (2025). A PERNA CABELUDA, DE RECIFE, PERNAMBUCO: POSSÍVEIS DIÁLOGOS COM A ZOOLOGIA CULTURAL - Barbante - Revista Literária (ISSN 2338-1414) (Da-Silva, Elidiomar. 2025). 13. 20-27. 10.5281/zenodo.17655754. Diario de Pernambuco, Issue from 10 December 1975: https://memoria.bn.gov.br/docreader/DocReader.aspx?bib=029033_15&pagfis=78246 Diario de Pernambuco, Issue from 11 December...
info_outline
The Ghost Bride
Did That Really Happen?
We don't have a new episode this week, so we're cracking open the Patreon vault and releasing one of our bonus episodes on The Ghost Bride! Join us on our journey to 1890s Malacca, and learn about the ghost bride custom, clothing, currency, and more! Sources: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37103447 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-07/ghost-marriages-in-rural-china-continue-to-thrive/9608624 Wenzhang Zhou and Yang Feng, "When Religious Folk Practice Meets Karl Marx: Courts' Response to Ghost Marriage in Modern China," Religions, 14 (2023) Myron L. Cohen, "Souls and Salvation:...
info_outline
Good Night, and Good Luck
Did That Really Happen?
**Note: Due to technical difficulties, there were issues affecting Jamie's audio quality this week. We apologize and promise it will be fixed on our next episode.** This week we're traveling back to 1950s America with Good Night, and Good Luck! Join us as we learn about Red Scare-Era figurse like Annie Lee Moss, Joe and Shirley Wershba, Milo Radulovich, Don Hollenbeck, and more! Sources: Loren Ghiglione, Why Don Hollenbeck Fascinated Me Enough to Write His Biography. History News Network. Available at https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/why-don-hollenbeck-fascinated-me-enough-to-write-h...
info_outlineThis week we're going back to the 1970s with If Beale Street Could Talk! Join us as we learn about the Rockefeller Drug Laws, New York jails, the term "Holy Roller", and more!
Source
Brian Mann, "The Drug Laws That Changed How We Punished," NPR, available at https://www.npr.org/2013/02/14/171822608/the-drug-laws-that-changed-how-we-punish
Fodei Batty, "How to Understand the Complicated History of 'Go Back to Africa'" Washington Post, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/04/26/is-go-back-to-africa-always-an-insult-heres-a-brief-history-of-american-back-to-africa-movements/
African Americans in Ghana, Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-origins/era-7-the-great-convergence-and-divergence-1880-ce-to-the-future/x23c41635548726c4:other-materials-origins-era-7/a/connecting-decolonization-in-africa-and-the-us-civil-rights-movement#:~:text=The%20desire%20to%20repatriate%E2%80%94to,building%20their%20new%20nation%2Dstate.
Heather Ann Thompson, "How a Series of Jail Rebellions Rocked New York--and Woke a City," The Nation, 21 March 2019 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-york-jail-rebellion-1970-tombs-mdc/
Daniel Chasin, "Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: How New York's Bail Reform Saga Tiptoes around Addressing Economic Inequality," Cardozo Law Review 43, no. 1 (October 2021): 273-312
Aleza Van Brunt and Locke E. Bowman, "Toward a Just Model of Pretrial Release: A History of Bail Reform and a Prescription for What's Next," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 108, no.4 (2018): 701-774. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48572970
https://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/probation-and-pretrial-services/supervision/pretrial-risk-assessment/pretrial-release
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/pretrial_detention/
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/jails2024_table3.html
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/incomejails.html
Ngram: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22holy+roller%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Holy Roller (n.),” March 2024.
Gregg Kilday, "Making of 'If Beale Street Could Talk': How 'Moonlight' Oscar Winner Barry Jenkins Brought James Baldwin's 1974 Novel to the Big Screen," Hollywood REporter, available at https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/a-look-making-beale-street-could-talk-1160625/'
Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/if_beale_street_could_talk/reviews
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Beale_Street_Could_Talk_(film)