Hashtag History

We have a Leah Takeover Episode! This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the mystery of DB Cooper. On November 24, 1971, a then-unidentified man hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, traveling from Portland to Seattle. During the flight, the hijacker informed the crew that he had a bomb and demanded $200,000 in ransom, plus four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. After landin...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the 1986 Challenger Explosion. This was an absolutely tragic incident in American history in which the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after lift-off, killing all seven of its crew members. This incident was exceptionally devastating because one of the passengers onboard wasn’t a NASA astronaut. Rather, a thirty-seven year old s...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the Newport Sex Scandal. This scandal was revealed when the United States Navy conducted an investigation in 1919 in which they were looking into the gross and deceptive tactics ordered upon a group of Navy personnel to impersonate gay men in order to catch gay men…being gay men, something that was illegal at this time in history. Fifteen members...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the first French Revolution, a period in time that lasted from 1789 to 1799, in which the French people revolted against the monarchy and feudal system, amongst other things. To keep it brief, the primary reasons were the total social and economic inequality that existed – and had existed for a long time – in France. While the people were struggl...

WE ARE BACK FOR SEASON FIFTEEN! This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the Collyer Brothers. Homer and Langley Collyer were two brothers, living a rather interesting life in Harlem, New York City, in the early-1900s. You see, they were the OG HOARDERS. And when I tell you they were hoarders, I do mean that they were HOARDERS. Not only were they hoarders but they also set up traps thro...

Hey, everyone! Rachel and Leah are back! We are so excited to begin a BRAND NEW season of the podcast this upcoming week! But, before we could do that, we wanted to provide you with A MAJOR UPDATE to the podcast. After nearly five years of releasing new episodes every single week, we have decided to make a small change to the format of the podcast and release our episodes on a biweekly basis. Same...

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Torreon Massacre. This was a massacre that took place in May of 1911 in the Mexican city of Torreon, Coahuila, in which roughly three hundred Chinese immigrants were murdered by members of the Mexican Revolution. This was nearly HALF of the Chinese population in Torreon! Following their murders, their bodies were mutilated a...

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the tragic deaths of adult actor Vic Morrow and two children Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (as well as the injuries of six others). This tragedy occurred as a result of an accident that happened in 1982 on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. You see, on July 23rd of that year, director John Landis told the operator of a h...

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Kentucky Meat Shower. This was an incident that occurred on March 3, 1876 near Olympia Springs, Kentucky, in which pieces of what was believed to be red meat quite literally fell from the sky. What?! We have to dive right into this one because you all need to hear the wild, confusing, disgusting, and mysterious details ASAP!...

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Saskatoon Freezing deaths, a series of deaths of indigenous people in the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan area between the late 1970s and into the early-2000s. It was discovered that the Saskatoon Police Service were taking indigenous people on what became known as “Starlight Tours” in which they would pick up an indigenous person (...

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. The Great Molasses Flood was quite literally a flood of molasses that swept through Boston, Massachusetts in January of 1919. And while a flood of sticky molasses may sound amusing, this incident would turn tragic with 150 people injured and another 21 dead. Professor and Civil Engineer Mark Rossow...

This week on Hashtag History, we are joined by New York Times bestselling author, Amber Hunt, to discuss her newest book, Crimes of the Centuries. She discusses some well-known cases with us (such as the Salem Witch Trials, the 1982 Tylenol Poisonings, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire) as well as some lesser-known cases (such as that of Pearl Bryan, Stanford White, and Theora Hix). Follow...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the relationship between husband and wife/president and First Lady, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. I think it’s common knowledge (right?) that this married couple were actually cousins, yeah? But is it also common knowledge that Franklin Roosevelt was rumored to have had a number of affairs, right? And that Eleanor perhaps had her own affair…wit...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the Milgram Experiment which was a series of psychological experiments conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram in which he was testing the blind obedience of a participant to an authority figure. These were the experiments where one participant would serve in the role of a “teacher” while the other played a “student”. The teacher would ask the...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing Lucille Desiree Ball, best known - of course - as the star of the I Love Lucy show. Ball would set numerous precedents with the I Love Lucy show by using three cameras and 35 mm film in front of a live audience, being the first pregnant woman shown on television, and being the first interracial marriage on television. She would star in over 70 fi...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing Mark Weinberger, known as “The Nose Doctor”. To put it bluntly, Weinberger, a doctor who opened up his own practice in Indiana, was performing hundreds of unnecessary - and sometimes, negligent - sinus procedures on patients. In fact, according to a Vanity Fair article, he recommended surgery to 90% of his patients! 90%! That is an overwhelming n...

WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE POOR AUDIO QUALITY! This week on Hashtag History, we are going to be looking at a very interesting event in History that resulted in a common phrase or psychological term that most of us are familiar with today: Stockholm Syndrome.  This psychological condition derives its name from the 1973 Stockholm Bank Robbery. On August 23, 1973, a man named Jan-Erik Olsson (a convict) at...

Due to obnoxious audio and technical issues, we are playing a re-run this week of one of our most popular episodes. Hope you enjoy and we will see you next week with a brand new episode! This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing hidden presidential illnesses. Between the fact that most people had no idea during Franklin D. Roosevelt's lifetime that he was paralyzed from the waist down, J...

This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing Santa Cruz's infamous Mystery Spot. The Mystery Spot is roughly 150 feet of WTF? It is this small location hidden up in the redwood forests where the laws of gravity don't appear to exist. It’s where you can stand on what appears to be a level table but, once you are standing on top of it, your body takes on a 45 degree angle. Or you can plac...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the Y2K Bug, also known as Y2K Problem or simply Y2K. This refers to a historical incident…that never really happened. At least not to the degree that it was proposed it would. As a recent survey reports, some 46% of people believed that - when the year changed from 1999 to 2000 - all hell would break loose. This was because it was believed that...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the origins of the AMBER Alert system. We here in the United States (as well as a number of other countries) have a system known as the AMBER Alert. I’m sure all of our American listeners (and maybe some of our international listeners too) are nodding their heads along right now, thinking back to a time when they saw an Amber Alert scroll across...

Welcome back for Season Fourteen of the Hashtag History podcast! As tradition dictates, the first episode of every season is a Leah Takeover Episode! This week on Hashtag History, we will be diving into a very specific and very niche portion of World War II History: The Navajo Code Talkers. For those of you unfamiliar with the Navajo Code Talkers, they were a group of over 400 Navajo men recruited...

We're back! In a special, bonus episode, Rachel and Leah returns to the podcast after NINE MONTHS AWAY to update you all on what has been going and what is coming next. We share some very sad news, but also share some really exciting news. We are happy to be back and are so grateful for all of your support during our absence! Get ready for us to officially return for Season Fourteen of the Hashtag...

This week on Hashtag History, we interview Carol Daly, one of the lead investigators on the Golden State Killer case. She was also the first woman appointed as Undersheriff with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, the first woman appointed Chair of the Board of Prison Terms…and so many more firsts for women in the Sacramento law enforcement! In this episode, Carol shared with us details about...

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing Joseph James DeAngelo, also known as the Golden State Killer. DeAngelo tormented the State of California - particularly here in the Sacramento area (very, very close to where we live) - for more than ten years committing burglaries, rapes, and murders. Due to his widespread crimes, it took investigators more than four decades to piece together th...