Did That Really Happen?

This week we're traveling back to the late 60s/early 70s with Call Jane! Join us as we learn about religion and abortion activism, hospital abortion boards, and the surprisingly complex history of the snickerdoodle. Sources: News Report by Peter Heller on Abortion, 1969. Oregon Public Broadcasting. Available at https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-153-988gtx44 Linda Greenhouse and Reva B....

This week we're traveling to the 1972 Olympics with September 5! Join us as we learn about journalists like Peter Jennings and Geoffrey Mason, satellite TV, and more! NOTE: Due to a technical issue, there are some sound quality problems on Jamie's audio. We promise these issues will be fixed on our next episode. Sources: Travis Vogan, ABC News Sports: The Rise and Fall of Network Sports Television...

This week we're going back to 1972 with Shirley! Join us as we learn about Barbara Lee, Shirley Chisholm's meeting with George Wallace, the 1972 Democratic Convention, the equal time rule, and more! Note: Due to some microphone-related technical difficulties, this episode has some audio quality issues, but those will be resolved in our next episode.  Source PBS: Equal Time Rule: https://www.pbs.or...

This week we're traveling back to 1830s Germany (and Transylvania) with Nosferatu! Join us as we learn about the folklore of garlic, exhuming suspected vampires, plague ships, and more! Sources: Booseum: Vampires! Carnegie Museum of Natural History, available at https://carnegiemnh.org/booseum-vampires/#:~:text=Garlic%2C%20specifically%20the%20chemical%20compound,would%20%E2%80%9Ckill%E2%80%9D%20a...

This week we're traveling back to the 1980s with American Psycho! Join us as we learn about Wall Street killers, men's skincare products, Page 6, "Hip to be Square", and more! Sources: Cynthia Weiner, "What We Miss When We Talk About the Preppy Killer," Crime Reads (2025), https://crimereads.com/what-we-miss-when-we-talk-about-the-preppy-killer/  James Feron, "Wall St. Analyst Guilty in Murder of...

This week we're going back to the Roaring 20s with Some Like It Hot! Join us as we learn about the Valentine's Day Massacre, speakeasies, Shell Oil, blood typing, and more! Sources: "Prohibition," Mob Museum, available at https://prohibition.themobmuseum.org/the-history/the-prohibition-underworld/the-speakeasies-of-the-1920s/ Legends of America, Prohibition Speakeasies: https://www.legendsofameric...

This week we're traveling back to the ye old internet days of 2015 with Zola! Join us as we learn about Vine, Backpage, Florida strip club rules, and more! Sources: Casey Newton, "Why Vine Died: Closing the Loop" The Verge (2016) https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-twitter-shutdown  John Herrman, "Vine Changed the Internet Forever. How Much Does the Internet Miss It?" New Yo...

This week we're going back to 16th-century Peru with Aguirre, The Wrath of God! Join us as we learn about Spanish women who went on expeditions, the real Lope de Aguirre, the wild stories behind the production of this film, and more! Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of incest and sexual abuse. Sources: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguirre,_the_Wrath_of_God Roger Ebert...

This week we travel back to dinosaur times with 65! Join us as we learn about all kinds of prehistoric weirdness, including pack-hunting dinosaurs, Spanish moss, swamp creatures, the big asteroid, and more! Sources: Emily Osterloff, "How an Asteroid Ended the Age of the Dinosaurs," Natural History Museum, available at https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-an-asteroid-caused-extinction-of-dinosaurs.ht...

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://ww...

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-...

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 Leg...

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...

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...

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/...

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," Minnesot...

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%20reg...

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...

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...

This week we're going back to 1930s-1950s Spain with The Endless Trench! Join us as we learn about Franco on the radio, attacks on hermitages during the Spanish Civil War, Eisenhower's visits to Spain, and more! Sources: Christy Lemire review, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saltburn-movie-review-2023  Julius Ruiz, The 'Red Terror' and the Spanish Civil War: Revolutionary Violence in Madrid (Ca...

This week we're traveling back to the long-ago days of 2006 with Saltburn! Join us as we reminisce about Juicy tracksuits, Jagerbombs, Livestrong wristbands, and other artifacts of our misspent youth. Sources: Christy Lemire review, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saltburn-movie-review-2023  Nicholas Barber, "Saltburn film review: 'Lurid' comedy skewers Britain's super-rich," BBC 5 October 2023...

This week we're going back to 1970 with a patron-requested episode on The Holdovers! Join us as we learn about The Newlywed Game, helicopters, Librium, race and class in the Vietnam War, the surprisingly heated controversies over men with long hair, and more! Sources: IMDB trivia page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14849194/goofs/ US Centennial Flight Commission, History of Private Helicopters: htt...

This week we're going back to 1940s LA with Devil in a Blue Dress! Join us as we learn about Black homeownership in midcentury Los Angeles, Charlotta Bass and The Eagle, postwar jobs, and more! Sources: Kelly Simpson, "The Great Migration: Creating a New Black Identity in Los Angeles," PBS, available at https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/the-great-migration-creating-a-new-black-identity-in-l...

This 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, Irme...

This week we're going back to the 1980s with Charlie Wilson's War! Join us as we learn about the horrific things people used to do with safety pins, Soviet ambitions in the Persian Gulf, Gust Avrokotos, refugees from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and more! Sources: "Advertisement: Maybelline." Seventeen, 07, 1982, 18-19 "Mascara Magic." Seventeen, 05, 1981 "Advertisement: Maybelline." Cosmop...