Family Plot

Here we go!  Another little bit of history that really matters.  In 1942, following Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 which allowed  the military designated Military zones and control who lived in them in the United States.  The order did not mention Japanese American citizens or concentration camps by name, but effectively that'w who was targeted and what was created in...

We do a deep dive into the Brazilian Lead Masks Case, a Case that takes us back to 1966 where two dead men are found laying down wearing suits on a hill in Niteroi, they appear to have laid down, put on homemade masks made of lead and simply...died.  We look into Brazil at that time, a nation only recently taken over by a brutal military regime,and where burgeoning scientific beliefs intersected w...

We have  quite the episode for you here.  This time we head back to 1942 to meet a small Jewish family, the Frank family.  They are a mom a dad and two daughters living in Germany watching the country become a nightmare for Jews like themselves.  Otto, the father, led them over to the Netherlands where he had business contacts.  However, soon the Nazis  occupied and controlled the Netherlands and...

In this episode we set the Elevator of History back to 1835 where we witness the ;'penny paperss' papers sold for one cent instead of six that featured stories people WANTED to read, rather than news by and for a political party.  These papers brought us separate sections on news, finance, sports and featured on the scene reporting and lurid true crime details.  But it was the New York Sun that la...

This episode is so full of weird tasty historical goodness you'll want a second course.  Arthur talks an afternoon with Dean and a vist from his girlfriend and we discuss Toronto and Canada in the 20's and 30's and the introduction of a millionaire with no heirs and a wicked sense of humor who died on October 31st 1936 and for the next ten years set off a fertility contest that became talked about...

What a show!  WWe dive deep into the life of Shirley Temple Black, from her young life as a precocious little girl with a smile, to her mother's enrolling her in the Meglin Kiddies Dance School at the age of three, to her subsequent discovery a few months later, hiding behind the piano when Educational Pictures director Charles Lamont came to the school looking for talent.  She at first joined the...

In this episode , we look into the life of Emma aka Grandma Gatewood.  Born in rural Ohio at the tail end of the 19th Century, she was the 7th of 15 children raised in a one room cabin, sleeping four to a bed, her only moments of peace were walks from her family home.  At 19, she met PC  Gatewood, an Elementary school teacher who also treated her with unkindness and violence.  Her only escape was...

In this episode, we set the Elevator of History to the Kentucky portion of the Appalachians where we check out the Packhorse Librarians.  Women, funded by the WPA, who brought books into the hoots and hollers of Kentucky, providing reading and kinship in rural communities who otherwise would have no access to books.  They traveled on mules and horses carrying books in saddlebags and pillowcases to...

Jump on the Elevator of History with us and ride it back to America's involvement in World War I.  When the US brought over a segregated unit of Black Men that were mostly a labor batallion, then they were loaned to the French Infantry who gave them French helmets, equipment, weapons and rations and put them on the front lines.  For 191 days, the longest of any unit in the war they stayed on the f...

TW - This episode we drop a few 'f' bombs, and a few other words we would not normally use.  But we are dealing with an act of domestic terrorism that has been concealed by polite history.  We discuss the rRise of Black Wall Street in the Greenwood District of Oklahoma.  How discovering oil in the early twenties brought people of all colors to to the young state of Oklahoma unintentionally creatin...

This week, we step away from doom, gloom and reminders of the fact that we are currently under an authoritarian administration thaat does not value human life and only serves to protect the billionaire class to talk about a magical event that happens every February in the tiny city of  Montpelier, Vermont.  It seems that, since 2002 when people in Montpelier on Valentine's day morning, they find t...

Such an episode.  One of three episodes for Black History Month this Month, we cover the amazing life of Frederick Douglass, born a slave, he managed to sneak an education which propelled him to Freedom and so much more.  He learned letters and managed to improve his education by challenging white school children and allowing them to correct him, watching men in lumberyards and shipyards mark word...

Man this week is a powerful episode.  Arthur talks dating, mental health, and art and we share our reasons for supporting the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and why we support #AbolishIce and #FreeMinnesota.  Then we dig into the story of teenager Grace Darling and how she, with a little help from her father, rowed out in a tiny rowboat (specifically a coble) to help 8 people who had survi...

2026 has been an interesting year for us and so far, all the episodes, we've done have had a real world echo to something happening in our world right now.  This was unplanned and this week continues that trend as we discuss the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project.  An attempt in Saint Louis to create a new type of housing for the urban poor was met with removal of any communal or public space, to maximiz...

Wow do we have an episode for you!  First we are joined by Courtney from Book of the Dead Podcast who is an amazing podcaster with an amazing show!  We also take a moment to comment on the murder of Renee Good and while we don't do a deep dive because it is political, we do make it clear that a) it was, in fact, a murder and b) we make it clear that it wasn't right and we are here for those listen...

Our latest episode goes hog wild as we talk about the heroic Ida B. Wells.  From taking care of her brothers and sisters at the age of 16 after her parents and brother died of yellow fever to teaching in black schools to writing for local papers and taking on lynchings in the South.  And this wasn't even forty years after the Brooks Sumner Affair where South Virginia's Senator Preston Brooks attac...

Our annual year-in-review show where we cover things past, things present and things future.  We discuss the year as a whole, what we've learned and how we managed to cope as well as discovering the fact that we are all about Found Family and we enjoy our listeners who reach out to ask if they can join us for dinner!  A feel good end of year wrap up with thanks to a lot of good people. Become a su...

A bit shorter episode this week, the perfect size for that jaunt over the river and through the woods to see grandma...or to run to the store and fight Tobey Macguire for that last dented can of jellied cranberry sauce.  This week we ask the question is Santa a cryptid?  We tell a brief tale of his origin, mention that Saint Nicholas is somehow both the patron saint of children and sex workers and...

We are joined this episode by Kansas City Comedian Dale Hilton to discuss the London Beer Flood of 1814 and the Gorbals Hot Whiskey Disaster of 1906.  We do cover these two strangely historical events and also discuss Beer and how it lead to both the formation of society as well as the invention of refrigeration because people wanted to keep their beer cold.  We also discuss 'Generic' Beer, trashc...

A shorter episode this week but that makes it the perfect length to listen to on your way to Holiday Shopping.  This week we go uplifting as we dig into the life of Beatrice 'Tillie' Shilling.  The child of a master butcher and one of thre girls born and raised in the South of England, she spent her pocket money on tools and penknives, deconstructed devices to see how they fit together and worked...

We begin with a trigger warning, this week we talk about the results of people apparently catching fire spontaneously and the gruesome remains that sometimes leaves behind.  We attempt to go easy but still if you find yourself challenged by some of these descriptions, feel free to skip the episode.  You matter.  What a week!  This week we tackle the burning subject (quite literally( of spontaneous...

Boy, do we have a show for you.  It's Thanksgiving and Arthur is feeling rowdy and wants to fist fight at the back of a Denny's. plus he's hyper fixating on the new LPS!  We dig into the mysterious death of Ohio immigrant and businessman Mitchell Siegel and how that unsolved death led to the creation of the character of Superman.  We also find that Superman has a lot in common with a character nam...

We have so much to tell you about!  In this episode, we dig into the life of Storme DeLarverie, a man who was born to a black mother and white father.  Mom was a servant and Dad was wealthy.  Because he was a child of black and white parents he was never issued a birth certificate and chose to celebrate his birthday on December 24th.  His dad paid for his education but he was raised mostly by his...

So many things in this episode.  Arthur discusses his new mask, Poppi Playtime, and hanging out with his brother who visited from college in this corner and then we dig into the tragedy that was the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, what happened, how it happened and the people who lived through it.  We cover their response and the hope for humanity when this city, founded as part of Mexico in 1776,...

This week we look into the life of Norah Emily Editha Fornario, better known as Netta.  Her body was discovered wearing no more than a black cloak and a blackened silver cross lying atop a mound with a dagger shape carved into it.  The mound was what locals called a fairy hill and to this day, no one knows how her death came about.  We study her life, her fascination with psychic research and how...