History Fix

In 1586 Sir Francis Drake arrived off the coast of present day North Carolina with a massive fleet, ships heavy with Spanish gold and riches he’d stolen privateering in the Caribbean, South America, Florida. He came to check in on the Roanoke colony - a group of 108 Englishmen who had set up a fort on the North end of Roanoke Island, part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. He came bearing these stol...

John White stares at the sun bleached skull. Empty eye sockets stare back. This was surely one of Grenville’s men. But 15 stayed behind to hold Fort Raleigh. Where were the rest of them? “Governor White,” one of the men speaks up, “we should go.” White nods, but go where? He’s still rattled from the news he was given back at the ship, still trying to make sense of it. As they’d clamored into the b...

In 1587, John White arrived on Roanoke Island, part of the Outer Banks of present day North Carolina. He was part of an expedition sent by Queen Elizabeth I of England to establish a permanent colony in the Americas. White was to be the governor of this new colony. But this wasn’t his first time on Roanoke Island. He had been part of an earlier expedition in 1585. An expedition that did not end we...

She could play the piano by ear at the age of 3 and was accepted into the prestigious Julliard school of music at age 8. By 19 she was headlining at Café Society, the first racially integrated club in New York City. She went on to become a successful Hollywood film star, fierce Civil Rights activist, and the first Black woman to host her own television show. She counted Frank Sinatra, Billie Holid...

“Okay, Houston we’ve had a problem here. This is Houston, say it again please. Uh, Houston we’ve had a problem.” That 7 seconds of audio has been immortalized throughout time, history, and culture. Even if that was your first time hearing the original audio, you’ve definitely heard the quote “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” That’s astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of NASA’s Apollo 13 mission to the m...

The winter of 1609 to 1610 is referred to as the “Starving Time” in Jamestown, Virginia - England’s first permanent settlement in the Americas. A perfect storm of events - poor harvest, disease, violent relations with indigenous neighbors, an influx of new settlers without any new provisions, and an actual hurricane led to the starvation and death of around 80% of Jamestown settlers that winter. S...

Chief Powatan stands shrouded in flickering shade amongst the forests of coastal Virginia, his arm raised, wooden club poised to strike the man who lay cowering beneath him. This man, with his pale skin and fair hair, is one of them. The ones trying to claim their ancestral lands. The ones who steal their precious food and burn their villages to the ground. This man must die. Suddenly, a streak of...

It’s 1719, Daniel Defoe flips through the freshly printed pages of his latest novel. It took him just six months to write but he has a good feeling about this one. He runs his finger along the title page, “The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” printed in bold black ink. He feels good about this story, a story that landed on his lap, really. And his hunch would prove correc...

In 1522 Catalina Suarez finally arrived in New Spain, excited to see her beloved husband after 3 years apart. Soon after her long awaited arrival, however, her excitement was deflated. She immediately learned her husband, Hern​​án Cortés, had been having an affair with his enslaved indigenous translator Doña Marina, who was often called La Malinche. And worse, the two had a child together. No matt...

"When we gazed upon all this splendor at once, we scarcely knew what to think, and we doubted whether all that we beheld was real. A series of large towns stretched themselves along the banks of the lake, out of which still larger ones rose magnificently above the waters. Innumerable crowds of canoes were plying everywhere around us; at regular distances we continually passed over new bridges...

The decade of the 1920s is often referred to as the “Roaring Twenties.” You can probably picture it now: jazz trumpets blare while women in shiny dresses dance the Charleston with their beaus and sip fancy martinis. It’s fast, it’s loud, it’s fun, it’s one big party, like New Years Eve every night. Night clubs, cocktails, rock and roll, all of these cultural staples evolved out of the roaring twen...

Upon his death in 1547, England’s King Henry VIII was interred in a vault beneath the floor of St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. He had chosen this spot, specifically because it was where his beloved 3rd wife, Jane Seymour had been buried a decade earlier. It’s sweet right? Together in life and death, like star crossed lovers, buried side by side. But did you know, Henry never intended to rem...

It’s May 1536. Anne Boleyn has just been beheaded at the tower of London. The crowd falls silent. Onlookers are shocked. Some didn’t believe it would really happen. There’s some hesitant cheering, some applauding. The queens ladies in waiting scream, wail, fall to the ground. One rushes forward and gathers Anne’s head in a white cloth. Others drag her body from the stage. Somewhere a cannon fires....

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Henry VIII went down in history, not so much for what he accomplished as king of England but for one tantalizing fact - he had six wives. Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Katherine Parr - these six women are often defined by their association with Henry VIII, she was wife number 2, she was numb...

The year is 79 AD. A bustling Roman port city sits nestled at the base of a mountain. Ships bob in the harbor, their nets heavy with fish and crabs to sell at the markets. Already the vendors have gathered, offering fresh pomegranates, pots of honey, spiced wine. In the forum a group huddles excitedly around a sign, recently erected, announcing the date of the next gladiator battle. Children run b...

Musket fire, soldiers yelling, chaos. It’s the summer of 1782 and Robert Shurtleff lies groaning on the ground, clutching a gash in his forehead. He’s been shot at least twice. He can feel a musket ball lodged in his thigh, another in his shoulder. The skirmish is over but that brings no relief to Shurtleff. A fellow infantryman rushes over in search of survivors. “Hospital,” he says. “No,” Shurtl...

It’s April 1986. Alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden start going off unexpectedly, warning of high levels of radiation. Operators are confused. The power plant is fully operational. Nothing is amiss. The radiation detectors shouldn’t be going off. Soon, other nuclear power plants in Scandinavia start reporting the same thing. Their alarms are going off too. A dangerous amount of r...

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or so they say. But, honestly that’s just not true. For all of known history beauty has been defined by society, not the beholder, and the standards have been set unattainably high. Pale and plump, tan and thin, long hair, now short hair, curly hair, straight hair, big hair, no hair, thick eyebrows, thin eyebrows, thick again, thin again, short, now tall, bl...

The lost city of Atlantis was said to be an ideal, utopian society, flourishing under the noble leadership of 10 princes who swore an oath to the gods to never let greed, arrogance, or hate interrupt the peace of their righteous civilization. It was technologically advanced beyond our comprehension even today, a prosperous maritime trading post, an inspiring world leader. That is, until human natu...

Genghis Khan, the man, the myth, the legend was undoubtedly a fierce and ruthless warrior. The New York Times called him “the original bad boy of history” and tales of his conquests have inspired shock and awe for much of the last millennium. During his reign as Khan of the vast Mongol empire, as many as 40 million people were killed. That’s roughly 11 percent of the world population at the time....

Abolitionist Olaudah Equiano was captured from his home in Africa as an 11 year old boy while his parents were out working one day. He was stuffed below decks of a slave ship, shackled together lying down with hundreds of other captives in what Equiano referred to as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable.” By the late 17th century, Great Britain dominated the slave trade and wealthy plantation o...

Kings, and queens, monarchs and emperors often rise to the throne by birthright alone. There’s no campaigning, no election, no popular vote, no competition whatsoever. They are simply born with the right to rule. They just happened to be the first son of a first son of a first son in a family that was once deemed “royal” for whatever reason and it stuck. Does this make them the best candidate to r...

Towering 450 feet above the Egyptian desert lies the Great Pyramid of Giza, its rugged, crumbling facade a mere ruin of its former glory. It was once clad in blinding white limestone, fit so tightly together the seams were invisible. A capstone of pure gold crowned the top, reflecting the sun’s light for miles like a beacon of triumph for a flourishing civilization. The textbooks teach us that the...

Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. He developed machinery that allowed us to harness the alternating current which is still our main form of electricity to this day. He invented the Tesla coil which is still used in countless modern electronics plus fluorescent light bulbs, neon light, and spark plugs, you know, like, what starts your car. He’s responsible for major...

It’s a summer day in Strasbourg, France. The year is 1518. A woman named Frau Troffea steps into the city square and starts to dance. There’s no music and yet she twists and turns for hours while onlookers watch, confused. Occasionally, she collapses from exhaustion only to get back up and resume her frenzied dancing soon after. This goes on day after day and soon some 400 others have joined her,...