History Honeys

Grant helps us lighten up and have some fun for once! Cedar Point is one of America's oldest and greatest amusement parks, changing and growing along with, and then setting, the trends of family entertainment. Would Boeckling recognize what's happened to his summer resort, or feel pride at the continued reinvention? Is history cyclical no matter where you look? How many past episodes have connecti...

Happy Valencrimes Day! Alaina teaches us about Chicago's famed serial killer: HH Holmes. A career swindler and criminal, Holmes left a trail of wives, properties, and bodies in his wake. The question is, how reliable are these stories, and how can we be sure when so much evidence was destroyed or lost? Links! The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America...

As people get mythologized, the ideas they had and work they did that go against the dominant narrative are left behind. In this episode, Grant takes a look at the politics of four people cast in other roles since their deaths. Does issue activism in the US lead to anti-capitalism, or the other way around? How can these beliefs create alliances when the details can be so very different? Will the F...

Alaina launches another series as we look at the fiasco that was the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri! The fiar contained many notable firsts, but was also a center of scientific racism and mismanagement. What horrors has Judy Garland been disguising all these years? Links! Official Guide to the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition Official Daily Program, June 16 Interactive map of the fairgrounds...

Happy New Year! Another New Year's special, another pair of topics. First, Grant takes us back 600 years to resolve the Great Western Schism and make sure we have the proper amount of Popes. Then, Alaina tells the story of a mine disaster in Butte Montana, bookended by the labor disputes that set the stage for it, and were set off by it. Links! The Montana Sedition Project Rox in the Box - The Dec...

Hollywood's Golden Age was built on a particular set of conditions. Studios owned the entire chain of production, distribution, and exhibition; and what they couldn't own, they used their influence to control. The dream factory made miracles, but it had a terrible appetite. Why are B-movies emulated, when their original purpose was to provide cheap thrills and fill holes in the schedule? What is t...

Alaina's Disney series is back with an episode on the 4th and (so far) final theme park at Walt Disney World Resort: Disney's Animal Kingdom. Work began just after Hollywood Studios opened, and took 8 years and nearly a billion dollars to finish. Over a relatively short life this park has had it's own share of oddities and development, growing into one of the finest park experiences anywhere. Is t...

Grant combines two of his running themes with an armed rebellion staged by an unusual Christian sect. The mid-1800s were a time of global upheaval, that in China manifested as the deadliest civil war of all time, hastening the end of the Imperial dynasties. Millions died in battle. Millions were executed by armies. Millions more died due to man-made famine. How thin is the line between a silly cul...

Welcome back to our annual bone-chilling Halloween special! Alaina teaches us about graveyard traditions, haunted theaters, and the dark beginnings of farmersonly.com in the state of Indiana. Enjoy the season of spookums! Links! Let There Be Light at Springdale Cemetery The Slippery Noodle Inn Rivoli Center for the Performing Arts The Silent Scream of Melania Trump on Inkshares Please help our sho...

Grant starts October with a creepy topic. In 1947 a rancher thought he may have found pieces of a flying disk, and a military press release agreed. Over the decades to come this story blossomed into a wide-reaching global conspiracy with bodies, buried treasure, and the keys to every mystery since. How do legends develop? How does fact intersect with belief? Who names their child Trudy Truelove? L...

Alaina brings the show close to home. In fact, withing walking distance of our home! The Prairie Avenue District is a small part of Chicago's Near South Side neighborhood that was the hottest piece of real estate around at the end of the 19th century. We learn about the history of the neighborhood, some buildings that survive from the period, and some of the misadventures of their residents.  Link...

In 1974, Portugal's autocratic regime was overthrown by a nearly bloodless coup. Rather than descent into chaos or public executions, it was a revolution of steady transition to democracy and soldiers wearing flowers. Can democracy come from an undemocratic act? Who holds the responsibility in decolonization? Can you crack the song code? Links! This Week report from May 2nd, 1974 E Depois do Adeus...

Alaina brings us tales of high seas adventure! For an 80 year period, conditions were right for a wave of piracy. This era has been romanticized and fictionalized to the point it's synonymous with piracy itself. We also take a look at a few specific individuals from the time. Be sure to listen for the end for a followup discussion on an element from our 1933 World's Fair episode that's back in the...

Grant takes us back to the 1800s to talk about the end of all things. William Miller believed he had concrete evidence that the end was nigh, and his friends built a movement that grew to reinterpret all kinds of orthodoxy. Despite their specific predictions having no clear result, the faith continues. Is the truest faith that which survives evidence to the contrary? What holds a community togethe...

In the depths of the Depression, and the shadow of an earlier event, Chicago staged the A Century of Progress International Exposition, better known as the 1933 World's Fair. Alaina takes us through an overview of the Fair's conception, some notable exhibits, and the surviving remains. How much success comes down to blind luck? How much should seeing babies cost? How do you solve a problem like Mu...

In 1886 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle changed the world. Aided by a perfect demographic moment, English literature, pop culture, criminal science, and the way we comminucate about media were all shaped by Sherlock Holmes.  Links! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on Project Gutenberg Sidney Paget's illustrations FairyTale: A True Story Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900) Surviving audio of William Gillette as Sherlock H...

Alaina brings us back to her Disney series, talking about things you won't find there anymore. Is Walt Disney World a living time capsule? What obligation is there to the memories of past guests? Why are some species of birds treated so differently? Links! Discovery Island: The Early Years Abandoned: Discovery Island A story on the Myst experience Shane Perez' exploration of Discovery Island Blast...

Six months ago, Grant mentioned he'd come back to talk more about a significant person, and now he's making good! Hizzoner, Richard J Daley, was Da Mare for over 20 years. Last and perhaps greatest of the big city bosses, he wielded unchallenged power in the city which came with national influence. Even so, he was always the South Side altar boy, diligently studying the financials. Where there is...

Happy Anniversary honey bunches! We're going back to where our show began and hitting some of our favorite themes as Alaina teaches us about some famous shipwrecks of the Great Lakes! Each of these events has at least one folk song about them, too. How much history is lost on lakebeds? IF folk music preserves these stories, do musicians have a duty to the facts? Will anyone from Cleveland ever lis...

Bolivia, just like most of the developing world, spent the end of the 20th century pursuing a neoliberal agenda to gain the benefits promised by wealthier nations. In 1999 that meant privatizing a city's water supply, and the people revolted. By mid-April 2000 the country's trajectory had changed. Why weren't Americans interested in the involvement of American interests? What is the path for impro...

It's part 3 of our Disney series. Disney-MGM Studios opened in 1989, dedicated to the art, craft, and magic of the movies. Today it has a new name and new focus. Alaina teaches us about how the park came to be and how it transitioned. How does creativity shine through a web of license agreements and legal challenges? If the working studios were so needed at the time, why weren't they sustainable?...

As we mentioned in the last episode, we spent the weekend at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo! Here's an account of what we did, what we bought, and who we met during the show! Don't forget to look at the links below for a bunch of stuff we talk about: Album of pictures we took Gextra Life 2016 playlist Adam Fotos Roboism Friendshipping Unlearned The Chicago Podcast Cooperative Sex Crimina...

The Space Race was contested by governments and scientists, but the first explorers were a cadre of stray dogs from the streets of Moscow. These dogs sit at the intersection of mid-century optimism, political posturing, and questionable ethics.  Links! A Chapter on Laika's pop culture memory Soviet Space Dogs , a book of merchandise and tributes to the dogs. Gallery of images from Soviet Space Dog...

In 1899 two newspaper giants were fighting for control of the New York readership, and tried to squeeze their distributors for an extra advantage. Those distributors were self-employed child laborers, who organized themselves and halted the entire distribution system until their demands were met. This drama, a nearly forgotten footnote in US labor history, was dramatized in a commercial flop of a...

Fine art has been carefully curated with standard and expectations passed down through the generations with change coming at a glacial pace. Then, in the 1860s, a set of conditions and a cadre of artists combined to make new art and more. How can a movement be defined without any set membership, ideology, or aesthetic? Is there a place for hierarchy in paining? What the heck is Degas' whole deal?...