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,...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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:"...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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":...
info_outline
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,...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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 become Robert Eggers completists with an episode on The Northman! Join us as we learn about berserkers, slavery in the Viking era, textiles, and more!
Sources:
Ben Cartwright, "Making the cloth that binds us. The role of textile production in producing Viking-Age identities," in Viking Worlds: Things, Spaces, and Movement eds. Marianne Hem Eriksen, Unn Pedersen, Bernt Rundberget, Irmelin Axelsen, and Heidi Lund Berg (Oxbow Books), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvh1dgwk.15
Marie Louise Stig Sørensen, "Gender, Material Culture, and Identity in the Viking Diaspora," Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 5 (2009): 253-69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45019127
Eva B. Andersson, "Tools, Textil Production and Society in Viking Age Birka," in Dressing the Past, eds. Margarita Gleba, Cherine Munkholt, and Marie-Louise Nosch (Oxbow Books). https://www.jstor.org/stbale/j.ctt1cfr7jb.13
Eirnin Jefford Franks, "Gender in the Viking World," in The Norse Sorceress: Mind and Materiality in the Viking World, eds.LESZEK GARDEŁA, SOPHIE BØNDING, PETER PENTZ (Oxbow Books, 2023). https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.5699282.8
Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_northman
Stephen Barker, "10 Behind the Scenes Facts About the Northman" Screen Rant, available at https://screenrant.com/the-northman-behind-the-scenes-facts/
Gabriella Paiella, Interview with Robert Eggers, GQ, available at https://www.gq.com/story/robert-eggers-the-northman-interview
Thomas K. Heeboll-Holm, "Piratical Slave Raiding: The Demise of a Viking Practice in High Medieval Denmark," Journal of Scandinavian History 46, 4 (2021)
Ben Raffield, "The Slave Markets of the Viking World: Comparative Perspectives on an Invisible Archaeology," Slavery and Abolition 40, 4 (2019)
Ruth Mazo Karras, "Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age," Scandinavian Studies 62, 2 (1990)
H. David Brumble, "Berserks and the Tragedy of Warrior Individualism," Street-Gang and Tribal-Warrior Autobiographies (Anthem Press), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2272801.17
Michael P. Speidel, "Berserks: A History of Indo-European "Mad Warriors"," Journal of World History 13, no.2 (2002): 253-90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20078974
Anatoly Liberman, "Berserks in History and Legend," Russian History 32, no.3/4 (2005): 401-11. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24663272
Owen Rees, "Going berserk," Medieval Warfare 2, no.1 (2012): 23-6. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48578628
Erika Ruth Sigurdson, "Violence and Historical Authenticity: Rape (and Pillage) in Popular Viking Fiction," Scandinavian Studies 86, no.3 (2014): 249-67. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/scanstud.86.3.0249
https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/lewis-chess-pieces/