Gummy & Jean's Hysterical History

I Can't Believe We Have to Do This Episode. Well, Miranda Rights...we just talked about it two weeks ago. Now we realize maybe we should keep up with what is on the Supreme Court docket, because lord have mercy on our souls. Let's talk about the case that overturned what we didn't even think would be overturned. Like, ever.

The beginning of slavery in the United States began as soon as the New World was found in 1492 by Columbus, establishing centuries of cruel treatment and forced labor. In part one of this story, we dive into how Native Americans participated in the early slave trade. Then, you are not in an episode of SVU, but you will hear us read you your Miranda Rights. Tune into the story of how this became a requirement across the US and the case that brought it to the Supreme Court.

Hot in the news after Kim Kardashian donned it on the red carpet, we take a look at the history of Marilyn Monroe's iconic white dress. The destruction of Black Wall Street in Greenwood, an affluent black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the early 20th century. Hear about the rise, the fall, and the massive cover up.

An ancestor of Winston Churchill who served as a royal mistress to James II. Same-sex "marriages" between women in the United States over a century before the Supreme Court legalizes it.

Part two of the investigation into Hitler's remains. Then, the amazing story of a Jewish boxer who survived the concentration camps and death marches.

We walk through conspiracy theories of Hitler's escape from his bunker at the end of the war. However, scientists claim there is one set of remains that unmistakably identifies that the Fuhrer is dead: his teeth. During the latter half of the episode, we talk about how Andrew Jackson kills a man in a duel over horse race betting.

Michigan versus Ohio. Not the football rivalry, but the Toledo War. The one where the two states fought over a strip between the states that is present day Toledo. Our second story focuses on espionage within the FBI. Of course, the Soviet Union is involved, too.

Us Ohioans apparently have been lying about our statehood despite the white barns across the state touting our bicentennial in 2003. Your play, North Carolina. Julius Caesar gets kidnapped but then is in charge of his kidnappers? Even convincing them to increase the ransom they are asking for because Caesar himself was offended by the amount they demanded? Yes. This happened.

You know that big fire that happened on October 8th, 1871? No, not the Great Chicago Fire where a cow started it. The other one that happened on the same exact night. The other one that happens to be the most disastrous fire in U.S. history. We are going to be talking about the forgotten tragedy that happened that night in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. For a lighter story, Gummy walks us through several origin stories of the hand gesture known as the high five. Stories put the origin around the 70's, but nobody can confirm the actual first use case of this now common gesture. Hey, at least we all enjoy a good high five, though!

Robert Liston , born in 1794, was a Scottish surgeon noted for his speed and skill in an era prior to anesthetics. Known for his skill performing amputations, speed made a difference in terms of pain and survival for patients. Then, is our infrastructure garbage in the US? Jean thinks so. Walk (or drive) through a brief history of urban transportation and how personal automobiles shaped urban planning in the United States. This is the Road to Ruin.

How did the German population accept the actions of the Nazi regime during the rise of the Third Reich and during WWII? The Third Wave was an experimental social movement created by California high school history teacher Ron Jones in 1967 to explain just that. Welcome to the emerging oil crisis of 2022. To gain some insight, Jean walks us through the 1970's energy crisis and how geopolitical conflicts can shape disruptions worldwide.

Plot twist: LGBTQ+ people have always existed! I know, even our resident gay Whitley is completely shocked. This week, we are talking about lavender marriages in 1920's Hollywood. A lavender marriage is a male–female mixed-orientation marriage, undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the sexual orientation of one or both partners. The glitz, the glamour, the gayz. In the latter half of the episode, Whitley rants about Vladimir Putin yet again and continued aggressions in Eastern Europe. This week...the conflict between Russia, Georgia, and two separatists Georgian provinces. We can all guess who gets unnecessarily involved in this one. Will we ever learn?

Okay, hear us out. The history of glass. That's the first story. Riveting, really. After that, Gummy takes us through the life of Madame de Pompadour, official chief mistress of King Louis XV from 1745 to 1751. Learn how she rose to power and influenced the French court. Outro music: Heartbreaking by Kevin MacLeod

What the HELL is happening in Eastern Europe? To even begin to answer that question, Bean will take us through a brief history of Crimea, why this location is strategically important, and how it catapulted Ukraine and Russia to the current crisis. And on a lighter note, vampires? Yes, vampires. Gummy talks through how New Englanders believed that tuberculosis endemics involved these sinister demons. Also, learn that consumption is actually another name for tuberculosis, and this story is why that may be the case.

Yes! We are finally diving into the GILDED AGE. This story has pettiness. It has wealth. It has rivalry, and it has two incredible women vying for the queendom of New York Society in the late 1800's. During the latter half of the episode, Gummy tees up her mistress stories by detailing the romantic and political life of royal mistresses. We can't wait to share more of these stories with you this season!

Rikers Island, 1957. A plane crashes at the prison site. Who comes to the rescue? A large group of prisoners. Our first story takes us through this whirlwind event, what happened, and the criminals who turned heroes. The second story takes us through an overview of The Winter War, a conflict between Finland and Russia during WWII. Finland finds itself in a precarious position where they must forge friendship with Nazi Germany to preserve their own sovereign state.

Gravensteen is a beautiful medieval castle built in 1180 and located in Ghent, Belgium. This historical landmark has been repurposed over the years as a court, mint, prison, and factory. With all of this history, what stands out the most? An event in November of 1949 when 138 students from the University of Ghent stormed the castle to protest a hot topic: the price of beer. During the second part of the episode, we go on a journey told from the source, Aimo Koivunen. Using a translated version of his memoir, we live two weeks during WWII where Aimo escapes the pursuit of the Soviets while overdosing on methamphetamine, a drug commonly used during the war to combat battle fatigue. On this harrowing journey, Aimo manages to out-ski his troop, find himself with no food or weapons, ski through the middle of a Soviet camp, burn down a house, and blow himself up...twice.

Gummy tells the story of Margaret Ann Bulkley, more famously known as Dr. James Barry. Barry lived as a man in both public and private life, at least in part in order to be accepted as a university student and to pursue a career as a surgeon. Barry's biological sex became known to the public and to military colleagues after a post-mortem examination. We love a good underdog story. Then, Jean takes us through the patented technology of Horsey Horseless, a horseless carriage (read: automobile) with a wooden horse head on the front. This story dives into the pains of shifting technologies and the human ability to adapt, illustrated by how and why the Horsey Horseless patent even came about.

Thank you all for joining us for an incredible first season of G+J's! We will spend a couple of months reimagining the podcast for our return in early 2022. For our last episode, Gummy takes us through a journey of the disaster that was the 1904 Olympic marathon. Per usual, it's a great story where it just keeps getting worse and never really gets better by the end. On brand, Gummy!

Are you ready to be confused? If so, perfect. We are talking about daylight saving time this week and how chaotic and broken it is. Once we've completely scrambled your brain, Emily will tell us a soothing story about a psychiatric hospital in London (yikes!). It's going to be fun!

WARNING: The first story of this episode centers on infamous serial killer Ed Gein. We discuss his gruesome crimes and the items he fashioned using human flesh. For a more lighthearted story on spiritualism, skip to the second half and learn more about Cora L.V. Scott, a sensational medium and trance lecturer.

This week, Gummy and Jean branch out and invite their first guest onto the show! Tune in as the group talks about why witches ride brooms, how a religious war sparked witch trials worldwide, and how the rise of spiritualism came to the United States.

Co-host Theodore the Dog joins us on today's episode, which focuses on the origins of Halloween and the lesser known "Shit-eating Nun." Don't google that last one. You will have unsavory (or not depending on who you are?) search results. Welcome to Spooky Season!

Hello Yankee brothers. This week we will dive into the life and story of Iva Toguri, a WWII Japanese-American radio host for Radio Tokyo, which broadcasted to Allied soldiers in the South Pacific during World War II. Toguri quickly became inaccurately identified with the name "Tokyo Rose," an alias coined by Allied soldiers to describe the female broadcaster. Following the end of WWII on the Pacific front, Toguri was detained by the United States military before being released for lack of evidence. When Toguri tried to return to the U.S., she was subjected to a public outcry, prompting the FBI to renew its investigation of Toguri's wartime activities. She was subsequently charged with eight counts of treason. Her 1949 trial resulted in a conviction on one count, for which she spent more than six years out of a ten-year sentence in prison. Years later, investigators pieced together the history of irregularities with the indictment, trial, and conviction. This included confessions from key witnesses who had perjured themselves during their testimonies. Toguri received a pardon in 1977 from U.S. President Gerald Ford.

From the 1790's to the Civil War and all the way to the present: vaccination mandates, and resistance to them, has continued to thrive. We've got to tell you - policies for the protection of public health have long been the responsibility of the government in the United States, but are vaccine mandates legal? Find out in this week's episode (spoiler alert: they are...).

Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust—the "Final Solution." He was tasked with facilitating the logistics involved in the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps during World War II. Eichmann joined both the Nazi Party and the SS in 1932. He returned to Germany in 1933, where he joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, "Security Service"). He was appointed head of the department responsible for Jewish affairs, particularly focused on emigration, which was encouraged through violence and economic pressure. Beginning in 1939, Eichmann and his staff arranged for Jews to be concentrated in ghettos in major cities with the expectation that they would be transported either farther east or overseas. In June of 1941, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, creating a two front war. During this time, the Jewish policy changed from emigration to extermination. Eichmann and his staff became responsible for Jewish deportations to extermination camps. After Germany's defeat in 1945, Eichmann was captured by US forces, but escaped and moved around Germany to avoid re-capture. He eventually moved to Argentina using false papers. Information collected by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, confirmed his location in 1960. A team of Mossad agents captured (read: kidnapped) Eichmann and brought him to Israel to stand trial on 15 criminal charges, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people. During the trial, he did not deny the Holocaust or his role in organizing it, but claimed that he was simply following orders. He was found guilty on all of the charges and was executed by hanging in June of 1962.

Picture it: 1887. Argonia, Kansas. A small Quaker village incorporated only two years earlier elected the first female mayor in the United States. Susanna Salter, who received this honor, was one of a number of women mayors elected during the years after the Civil War when women were renewing their demands for more political rights. Salter was both a member of The Prohibition Party (PRO), as well as an officer in the local Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). PRO is a political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages. It is the oldest existing third party in the United States and the third longest active party at 152 years old. Granted the right to vote in the same year Salter was elected, the WCTU made enforcement of a state prohibition law a prime issue for the Argonia election. The group called a caucus to select a ticket of men whom they considered to be prime choices to fulfill their desired policies. Two men of Argonia felt that the field of politics was not for women and attended the WCTU caucus. They heckled the proceedings and attempted to nominate a candidate. However, they were voted down. After this caucus, these men called a secret meeting of twenty men, where they decided to teach the WCTU a lesson. This faction of men drew up their own ticket of candidates identical to the WCTU ticket, except for one major difference. They substituted Susanna Salter's name for the mayor's office. They assumed that the women would vote for the slate of men that the WCTU had drawn up and that no other men would vote for a woman. In essence, they aimed to embarrass Salter and the WCTU. Candidates did not have to file prior to election day, so Salter appearing on the ballot did not cause any issues. The Republican party in Argonia sent a delegation to her home upon seeing her on the ballot for mayor. They explained the prank by the faction of 20 men and decided to show these other MEN a lesson...by campaigning all day to elect Susanna Salter. The initial intent of placing Mrs. Susanna Salter's ballot was a prank. However, this "joke" ended up electing the first female mayor in the United States.

Hans Schmidt holds a title that no other Catholic priest holds in the United States: the ONLY Catholic priest to ever be executed. Schmidt illegally married, impregnated, and brutally murdered and dismembered his mistress, a one Anna Aumuller. For that crime, he was eventually executed via electrocution. Schmidt was ordained in Germany in 1904. He spent the next four years serving in Germany, but disputes with his higher-ups led to a relocation. This was the start of a pattern of relocation for Schmidt. In 1908, he was transferred to St. John's Parish in Louisville, Kentucky. After a short time serving there, Schmidt was forced to relocate to St. Boniface Church in New York City. This is around the same time that Anna, a young Austrian housekeeper, began working at St. Boniface. On February 26, 1913, Schmidt married Aumuller in a secret ceremony that he performed himself. This is an important note: Catholic priests are banned from getting married and having sexual affairs. Their story reached a gruesome end in 1913, when 31 year old Schmidt learned of Anna's pregnancy. Fearing this information would oust him completely from the Catholic church, he took severe action. On September 2, Schmidt slashed Aumuller's throat with a 12-inch butchers knife in an uptown Manhattan apartment that he had rented for her. He then sawed off her head with a hack saw and sawed her body in half. He stuffed her lower body in one of her pillowcases that had a monogrammed “A” on it. Then, he proceeded to dump the remains in the Hudson River, hoping it would sink to the bottom. Three days later, however, the remains were discovered by two kids in New Jersey. The NYPD turned to the monogrammed pillowcase to locate the murderer. It was distinctive for the police to trace it to a specific company, and the company kept detailed business records. The records for the “A” pillowcase led to Anna's Manhattan apartment. Lead detective Inspector Faurot and his partner went to St. Joseph's to question Schmidt about the blood-stained apartment rented in his name. Within minutes, he confessed to the marriage and murder of Anna, claiming “I loved her. Sacrifices should be consummated in blood.” Schmidt ultimately met his end in the electric chair for his crimes.

We all know the U.S. Secret Service. They've been cemented in our nation's history as the people in black suits with those cute little ear pieces. They have one job and one job only: to protect the president...and investigate financial crimes. Did we say one job? Well, that's what we thought until now. The Secret Service was established after the Civil War as an anti-counterfeiting agency. Their mission was to crackdown on fake currency floating around the US after the war. Estimates have established that between 1/3 to 1/2 of currency in circulation at the time was counterfeited. So how did they come to protect our nation's highest office? 1) The assassination of three presidents over the span of 36 years. 2) The increasingly global role the United States government begin to play on the world stage. 3) The fear of outsiders dismantling our growing nation and attacking our democratic ways. Starting in 1902, the Secret Service assumed responsibility of protecting the President of the United States full-time. From the 1890's to present, the number and scope of protected persons has expanded, as have the Secret Service's responsibilities in the realm of financial crimes.

Voodoo dolls? Check. Being banned from the White House, three times? Check. Gelatin stuffed with red peppers and cabbage? Wow, this episode really does have it all. Gummy tells the story of Alice Roosevelt, daughter to outdoorsy President Theodore Roosevelt. Journey through her scandalous life where she is out to prove everyone wrong and be as offensive and off-putting (yet, fun?) as possible. Then, Jean will take you through the history of gelatin, from its traditional production in 1747 to the horrendous glory days of the Jell-O salad. Buckle up, because we are looking at American history through the wobbly lens of America's Most Favorite Dessert.

Ben Franklin, inventor, founder, and...saucy man? The second part of our pilot episode features the story of one of our nation's beloved sons, who also was (maybe?) in a sex cult called the Hellfire Club. What is the https://rallyshoplocal.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/the-hellfire-club-and-benjamin-franklin/ (Hellfire Club)? The Hellfire Club invited high-society rakes in Britain and Ireland to attend exclusive meetings and, dare we say it, engage in immoral acts. Our story focuses on Sir Francis Dashwood's Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe. Shrouded in mystery, not all members are exclusively known. Our episode investigates the engagement of Benjamin Franklin in these meetings. Our Takeaways Benjamin Franklin occasionally attended the club's meetings in 1758 during his time in England. Records of the club were burned in 1774, leaving no records. Members are assumed and/or linked by letters they exchanged with one another. Benjamin Franklin stayed in Dashwood's home prior to the American Revolution. Franklin praised not only the house but Sir Francis Dashwood, “who,” he said, “having kept the best company in the world, is himself the best existing.” This evidence strongly presents the case that our Bennie boy engaged in immoral acts while staying there. Ben Franklin attended several meetings in 1758 and had an https://hauntedwalk.com/news/sandwiches-for-satan-the-story-of-the-hellfire-club/ (entire cave named after him)!

Our first episode of Hysterical History kicks off with the iconic Eleanor Roosevelt and her (potential - and likely) queer identity. Discover the power of women in 1920's and 30's America. You co-host Whitley Trusler dives into the personal and political lives of Eleanor Roosevelt and her supposed lover Lorena Hickok, known as Hick. Who is "Hick?" Lorena Alice "Hick" Hickok was a pioneering American journalist and devoted friend (read: lover???) and mentor to Eleanor Roosevelt, who redefined the definition of a First Lady. After leaving home at 14, Hickok began her career as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. After a sordid love affair with her roommate fell apart, Hick found her way to New York, eventually taking a position at the Associated Press. She became America's best-known female reporter by the year 1932. The Story of Eleanor & Hick This story piqued our interest after seeing a Tweet about Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt taking a night time plane ride to Baltimore after becoming bored at a White House event. This stood out as a potentially queer moment. While no evidence could be found in the corners of the gay internet of Roosevelt and Earhart, we did uncover a relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok. There are historians who disagree that Eleanor and Hick had a romantic relationship, but let me lay this out for you. Here is what we found: A merely political marriage to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) - she once told her daughter Sara she did not like having intercourse with FDR Eleanor's close circle of friends HAPPENED to be a group of out lesbians Hick receiving a note from her editor at the Associated Press after interviewing Eleanor that read: Don't get too close to your sources. Spending nearly everyday together in New York before the Roosevelt's moving to the White House (concerts, plays, late-night candlelit dinners) Discovery of nearly 4,000 letters the women wrote to each other, some explicitly laying out their more intimate relations We found this wonderful article from AutoStraddle.com called https://www.autostraddle.com/24-very-gay-excerpts-from-eleanor-roosevelts-love-letters-with-lorena-hickok-346115/ (24 Very Gay Excerpts from Eleanor Roosevelt's Love Letters with Lorena Hickok). Groundbreaking. I do not know why historians disagree. Here are a few excerpts: Eleanor to Lorena, March 9, 1933 “My pictures are nearly all up & I have you in my sitting room where I can look at you most of my waking hours! I can't kiss you so I kiss your picture good night & good morning!” Eleanor to Lorena, November 17, 1933 “I'm getting so hungry to see you.” Lorena to Eleanor, December 5, 1933 “Only eight more days. Twenty-four hours from now it will be only seven more—just a week! I've been trying today to bring back your face—to remember just how you look. Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time. Most clearly I remember your eyes with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips. I wonder what we'll do when we meet—what we'll say. Well—I'm rather proud of us, aren't you? I think we've done rather well.” I think it is rather clear the love the two felt for each other and the intense relationship they shared.