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Join me inside Japan's Unit 731, a top secret human experimentation and biowarfare camp during World War II. The atrocities committed here against mostly Chinese prisoners are truly unthinkable. In fact, they're so hard to believe, many people straight up refuse to believe it. To this day, the Japanese government has never confirmed nor denied what went down at Unit 731. But when declassified records emerged in the US of all places in the 1990s, it became harder and harder to deny.

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Sources:

• NPR "New details emerge about Japan's notorious WWII germ warfare program"
• The Asahi Shimbun "Former member of Unit 731 fights nightmares, atrocity deniers"
• Pacific Atrocities Education "Immunity for Atrocity: The US Cover Up of Unit 731 and the Corruption of Postwar Bioethics
• Pacific Atrocities Education "Human Experimentation at Unit 731"
• Wikipedia "Unit 731"

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This week I sit down with Jenny Chan, director of Pacific Atrocities Education, to talk about the many "comfort women" who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese government in the years leading up to and during World War II. We've talked about the generals, the battles, the military movements, but we haven't yet focused on the victims. These women from China, Korea, etc. were often tricked or even downright abducted and forced into comfort stations where they were repeatedly abused by members of the Japanese Imperial Army around the clock. But who's telling their story? To this day there are many who deny this sort of government sanctioned sexual slavery even happened. Let's fix that.

Check out the Pacific Atrocities Education website here!

Snag Jenny's book "The Undrowning Lotus" here!

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
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Sources:

• Wikipedia "Nanjing Massacre"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Russo-Japanese War"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Treaty of Portsmouth"
• Harvard Law School "J. Mark Ramseyer"

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I'm back this week with the promised second part to my Women in STEM special. This week, we'll explore the stories of 6 more women who changed the world, beginning with Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein who cracked the elusive Japanese Purple code during World War II. Chien-Shiung Wu made breakthrough discoveries in physics and helped develop the first atomic bomb with her critical involvement in the Manhattan Project. Katherine Johnson helped put the first man in orbit and send men to the moon. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space followed shortly after by Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space. And, a cameo you may not be expecting, Judith Love Cohen, mother of actor and musician Jack Black, helped bring the astronauts home during the failed Apollo 13 mission to the moon.

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
• Buy some merch
• Buy Me a Coffee
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Sources:

• Wikipedia "Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein"
• National Security Agency "Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein"
• National Women's History Museum "Chien-Shiung Wu"
• NASA "Katherine Johnson Biography"
• National Women's History Museum "Sally Ride"
• NASA "Sally Ride"
• National Women's History Museum "Mae Jemison"
• Wikipedia "Judith Love Cohen"

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This week kicks off a two part episode spectacular about women in STEM. Join me to learn about Elizabeth Blackwell who was admitted to medical school as a practical joke and went on to graduate first in her class, becoming the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. Nettie Stevens discovered X and Y chromosomes and got none of the credit. Lise Meitner helped discover nuclear fission. Florence Siebert developed the tuberculosis test that is still used today. Cecilia Payne discovered what stars are made of. And Grace Hopper made computers accessible to the masses all while serving as the oldest ever officer in the US armed forces. Prepare to be amazed!

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
• Buy some merch
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• The College of Scholastica "12 historical women in STEM you've probably never heard of"
• National Women's History Museum "Elizabeth Blackwell"
• Wikipedia "Elizabeth Blackwell"
• National Women's History Museum "Nettie Stevens"
• US Women in Nuclear "Women in Nuclear History: Lise Meitner"
• The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History "Lise Meitner"
• The Royal Society "Florence Siebert: From polio survivor to medical pioneer"
• American Museum of Natural History "Cecilia Payne and the Composition of Stars"
• Yale University "Biography of Grace Murray Hopper"

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This week I'm uncovering the real story of Micaela Leonarda Antonia de Almonester Rojas y de la Ronde, Baroness de Pontalba. And, yes, everyone in this story has a super long name! Micaela is best known for helping to transform New Orleans' Place d'Armes into the Jackson Square we know today. She designed and oversaw the construction of the iconic Pontalba Buildings that flank the sqaure in the heart of the New Orleans' historic French Quarter. As the wealthiest woman in New Orleans, this isn't too surprising. But Micaela's life wasn't all sunshine and roses. Join me to uncover her darkest moments and to squash some pretty far out myths.

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
• Buy some merch
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• Frenchquarter.com "Micaela Almonester Pontalba: The Baroness of Extremes"
• Wikipedia "Micaela Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba"
• The Historic New Orleans Collection "The Woman Behind New Orleans' Famous Pontalba Buildings"
• The Historic New Orleans Collection "How Did Louisiana Become Spanish?"
• Laura Plantation "What is Creole?
• Emerging Civil War "Micaela Almonester, Andrew Jackson, and Myths"

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As we transition from Black History Month to Women's History Month, I've chosen a topic that encompasses both, a topic that addresses a major misconception in American history. What role did white women actually play in enslaving people? For a very long time, historians assumed that women were merely passive enslavers. They enslaved because their husbands enslaved. They were involved only because of their roles as housekeepers. But, when we look at the actual evidence - documents, letters, interviews, etc. - we are forced to consider another reality. In many cases, white women played an active, possibly even dominant, role in buying, selling, punishing, and hiring out enslaved people. Let's fix that.

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• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
• Buy some merch
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• From Naming to Knowing "Women as Enslavers"
• New York Times "Scholars Thought White Women Were Passive Enslavers. They Were Wrong"
• Michigan Law Review "A Different Type of Property: White Women and the Human Property They Kept"
• From Naming to Knowing "Junius Brickle"
• Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
• They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers

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Get ready for a wild ride because this story is bananas! This week, I uncover the unbelievable true story that is the life of Harriet Jacobs. Born enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813, Harriet would go on to escape from slavery in the most remarkable way. I'm talking, hoodwinking various prominent white men and hiding in an attic crawl space for 7 years remarkable. But, most importantly, Harriet would later tell her story to the world, becoming the first woman to author a fugitive slave narrative in the United States. However, despite her bravery in coming out with a story viewed as very taboo and even shameful at the time, the masses refused to believe that "Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl" was true or that it was written by Harriet herself for 120 years. Let's fix that.

Support the show!

• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
• Buy some merch
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• "Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet Jacobs
• PBS "Harriet Jacobs"
• Documenting the American South "Harriet A. Jacobs"
• NCPedia "Norcom, James Sr."
• Wikipedia "Harriet Jacobs"
• Wikipedia "Lydia Marie Child"
• Wikipedia "Nathaniel Parker Willis"

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In this episode, I unpack the dynamic character that is Dangerfield Newby, the real life inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's title character in the film "Django Unchained." For many years Dangerfield Newby was viewed as a villain. He took part in John Brown's 1859 raid on the military arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. These raiders took people hostage. They killed people. But when we take a closer look at their motives for carrying out these violent offenses, when we read the letter removed from the pocket of Dangerfield's lifeless body, a letter written by a desperate and terrified wife, the question emerges: were these men actually villains? Or were they heroes?

Support the show!

• Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)
• Buy some merch
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• History.com “John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry”
• History.com “John Brown”
• Harriet Newby Letters
• Black Past “Dangerfield F. Newby”
• American Battlefield Trust “Dangerfield Newby”
• Emerging Civil War “The Newby Family Fights for Freedom”
• WTRF “Black History: Former slave and Ohioan Dangerfield Newby’s life story ranges from hopeful to horrific”
• Wikipedia “Dangerfield Newby”

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