Buy a History Fix shirt!
In the Black Hills region of South Dakota stands a massive American monument, the faces of four US presidents blasted into the side of a mountain. George Washington represents the birth of the nation. Thomas Jefferson represents its growth. Theodore Roosevelt development and Abraham Lincoln preservation. Mount Rushmore National Memorial hosts more than 2 million visitors each year who gaze upon the stoic stone faces of our forefathers and feel… proud. Proud of what we’ve accomplished as a country. Proud of our freedom, our liberty which these four men fought hard to help us achieve. But not everyone looks upon those faces with pride and patriotism. For some Americans, it’s more like a deeply seeded festering resentment, anger, outrage, and sadness. Because what most of those 2 million visitors do not know, what they do not learn during their visit to the park, is that the mountain upon which those faces were carved is sacred land, stolen from native people during the Black Hills gold rush of the 1870s. But not only was it stolen, it was desecrated, destroyed, defaced. Because, you see, the mountain was already a memorial, the Six Grandfathers, who stood side by side, stoically watching over Lakota lands until they were erased by the faces of their enemies. Let’s fix that.

Support the show!

• Join the Patreon
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• National Park Service "Mount Rushmore National Memorial"
• Native Hope "The Six Grandfathers Before It Was Known As Mount Rushmore"
• Ted Ed "The dark history of Mount Rushmore"
• Readers Digest "The Racist History of Mount Rushmore"
• National Geographic "The Strange and Controversial History of Mount Rushmore"
• PBS American Experience "Native Americans and Mount Rushmore"
• Iowa State University "Report seeks to recognize meaning of Mount Rushmore for Native people"
• National Park Service "Charles E. Rushmore"

Shoot me a message!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

This week, I'll explore the peculiar true story that inspired William Peter Blatty to write the book and screenplay for the 1973 hit film "The Exorcist." This is the story of a boy around 14 years old who experienced something truly bizarre back in 1949. And unlike Regan in the exorcist, whose story is completely fabricated, this one is well documented, with lots of credible witnesses. And while we’ve known his story for quite some time, we only just learned his identity a few years ago. And he’s not at all what you’d expect. Let’s fix that.

Support the show!

• Join the Patreon
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• Father Raymond Bishop's Case Files
• The Washington Post "Priest Frees Mount Rainier Boy Reported Held in Devil's Grip"
• Skeptical Inquirer "Who is Roland Doe, the Boy Who Inspired the Exorcist?"
• Saint Louis University "SLU Legends and Lore: the 1949 St. Louis Exorcism"
• The Guardian "Boy whose case inspired The Exorcist is named by US magazine"
• Wikipedia "The Exorcist"
• Collider "What is the Highest Grossing Horror Movie of All Time?"
• The American Society of Cinematographers "Owen Roizman on Filming The Exorcist"
• The New York Post "Deaths, injuries, and a fire: How the original "Exorcist" set was its own horror movie"
• The New York Post "What really happened to Ronald Hunkeler, who inspired 'The Exorcist?'"

Shoot me a message!

It’s January of 1692 and there’s something very wrong with 9 year old Betty Parris. Her father, the minister Samuel Parris, rushes to her bedside. Betty screams. Her body writhes under the blankets, twisting and contorting into grotesque shapes. She grunts, she moans, she snorts, and shrieks. She grabs a candle from the bedside table and hurls it across the room uttering a shrill scream as if defending herself from some invisible apparition. Soon, Betty’s 11 year old cousin Abigail Williams is similarly afflicted. The girls are tormented, tortured, terrified, but by what? Parris calls in a doctor who takes one look at their bizarre behavior and quickly makes up his mind. This is the devil’s work. When accusations and confessions of witchcraft follow soon after, the snowball begins its descent, growing and growing as it rolls into one of the most haunting events in American history. But what caused the madness of the Salem Witch Trials? There were no witches in Salem. How did the peculiar outbursts of a 9 year old girl lead to the deaths of 25 innocent people and 2 dogs? Was it conspiracy? Insanity? Unchecked patriarchy? Religion gone wrong? Was it food poisoning? And most importantly, could it happen again? Let’s fix that.

Support the show!

• Join the Patreon
• Buy Me a Coffee
• Venmo @Shea-LaFountaine

Sources:

• Smithsonian Magazine "A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials"
• History.com "Salem Witch Trials"
• Peabody Essex Museum "The Salem Witch Trials of 1692"
• Penn Today "Possessed: the Salem witch trials"
• History.com "Salem Witch Trials: Who Were the Main Accusers?"
• Wikipedia "Salem witch trials"

Shoot me a message!