On New Year’s Eve, your intrepid hosts were back in Gotham’s historic East Village. We had a steam at the Russian Baths (1892), tipped a few at McSorley’s Old Ale House (1854), and felt sincerely humbled by the way you’ve helped this thing of ours grow. It was just an idea ten months ago, but now we’re within sight of 100,000 downloads. Thank you for your support. We wish you all the best in 2014.
We climb into the Wayback Machine to bring you Yule Tide memories from Christmases past. Hear about A Charlie Brown Christmas shocking CBS, the Grinch, Apollo 8, and the origin of the mysterious Steve Martin/Paul Simon/Billy Joel bootleg performance of Silver Bells. All this, plus the chatteratti’s big question about Santa Claus’s ethnicity and much more under the tree, on the last Angry History of 2013.
December 16, 1960, two passenger planes collide over New York City. One crashes on Staten Island. The other rips open the heart of Brooklyn’s Park Slope, destroying homes, lives and a neighborhood’s sense of peace. Owen and Dean speak with two witnesses to the horror: Owen’s dad, Tom, and his best friend, Bruce. Carnage, disbelief and the crushing sadness for the little boy who brought out the best in one of America’s great neighborhoods.
Fifty years ago, Americans experienced a black swan event – a shot that literally came out of nowhere and changed the nation’s course. With a generous helping of archival audio, Owen and Dean share how pioneers in the young medium of television covered the JFK assassination the day it happened. What they got wrong. What they got right. How the assassin compared to others who have targeted presidents. This week, on the Angry History Show.
The sick, achy Abraham Lincoln visited the dedication of Gettysburg National Cemetery. Some panned his remarks, and he faced grim prospects: More dead, losing the Civil War, and being thrown out of office. We look back on that 272-word speech — featuring the oldest known recording of an actor reenacting it for the Gramophone — and give a nod to several alternate history works: What if the battle had gone the other way?
October 28, 1940. In an effort to outdo ally Adolf Hitler, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini demanded Greece’s Ioannis Metaxas surrender ports and other strategic areas or face war. Metaxas responded with a single word, “Oxi!” No! The defiant Greeks beat the Italians, delivering the Axis powers their first defeat. This forced Hitler to delay his invasion of the USSR into the Russian winter, a move that ultimately sealed Nazi Germany’s fate.
To mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, Owen and Dean dig deep into the man before he was the legend. Hear the Nobel Peace Prize winner joke on “The Tonight Show”, share his story with Merv, use Greek to explain loving your oppressors and express his willingness to lay down his life for the cause of justice.
In this Angry History Extra, Owen and Dean discuss two movies just released for home viewing: “Star Trek Into Darkness” and “World War Z”. The guys dive into the follow-up to the 2009 Trek reboot and the Brad Pitt film that shares only a title with the epic novel by Max Brooks. And, as always, there’s some history along the way.
New York City, June 1904. When flames consumed the paddleboat General Slocum, it claimed over 1,000 lives, mostly mothers and children – the city’s largest loss of life until 9/11. Join us in McSorley’s Old Ale House, a 160-year-old bar that sits next to 11 East 7th Street, one of many homes devastated by the tragedy. It’s a tale of corporate greed and government incompetence that killed the neighborhood once known as Little Germany.
December 7, 1941 – In the hours after the Japanese betrayal at Pearl Harbor, a handful of teams deployed to cities around the nation to interview the average person-on-the-street about the attacks and the new normal: America at War. Seventy-two years later, Dean and Owen examine these amazing, very personal recordings. It’s America, in her own words.
