Category: Episodes

Episode 36 Boston in the Golden Age of Piracy, Part 2

In this episode, we continue our tale of Boston in the Golden Age of Piracy, picking up at the end of the War of The Spanish Succession.  We’ll learn about some of the most fearsome and notorious pirates in history, as well as one of the most ineffective.  We’ll see how one of these pirates gave a founding father his start in public life, which US president’s great grandfather bought a former pirate as a slave, and what other president’s great grandfather decapitated a pirate with an axe.  

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Episode 35: The Boston Symphony Orchestra in World War I

With a partial “Muslim Ban” in place, it’s important to remember that vilifying “enemy aliens” is one of the darkest chapters of our nation’s history.  A hundred years ago, Americans were all too willing to imprison or even deport their neighbors of German descent.  Here in Boston, the preeminent director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was affected, along with almost a third of the orchestra’s musicians.

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Episode 34: Boston in the Golden Age of Piracy, part 1

Shiver me timbers!  This is the first in a two-part series about Boston’s role in the Golden Age of Piracy, from 1650 to 1726.  A few pirates set sail from our city, some preyed on the shipping coming in and out of our port, and even more met their ends on the gallows in Boston.  We’ll hear stories of daring raids and buried treasures, of mutiny, jailbreak, and double crossing.

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Episode 33: The Four Burials of Joseph Warren

Dr. Joseph Warren was the greatest Patriot leader you’ve never heard of.  His many accomplishments led the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, to remark that “The death of Joseph Warren is akin to the death of five hundred Patriots.”  He was so in demand that his body was moved three times after his death at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

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Episode 32: The Gruesome Tale of the Giggler

Everyone knows the story of the Boston Strangler. Fewer people know the tale of The Giggler, Boston’s lesser known serial killer. The victims fit no pattern, they were a young boy and girl, a grown man, and an old lady.  The Giggler would simply feel what he described as an irresistible urge to kill.

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Episode 30: Resurrection Men, a brief history of grave robbing in Boston

Boston, today a city rich with world-class hospitals and medical schools, has a long history of medical innovation.  This week, we take a look at the characters who laid the foundation for these advancements – Resurrection Men. What founding father was a member of a secret grave robbing club?  What were the steps to pulling off the perfect heist?  Tune in this week to find out!

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Episode 29: Wonder Woman’s Real Life Origin Story

Wonder Woman debuted in a December 1941 issue of All Star Comics, just as the attack on Pearl Harbor was drawing the US into World War II.  In the comics, Wonder Woman’s origin story said that she was born to a race of Amazon women from Paradise Island, then disguised herself as the Boston career woman Diana Prince.  In real life, Wonder Woman was inspired by early feminist fights for suffrage and access to contraception, and she was the brainchild of one very unique family who called Cambridge home.  Wonder Woman drew as much inspiration from pinup girls in Esquire Magazine as she did from the suffragists who chained themselves to the gates of Harvard Yard and the founders of Planned Parenthood.  And she was directly inspired by the women in her creator’s life.  Her trademark exclamation “Suffering Sappho,” was taken from one of these women, and her looks and bulletproof “bracelets of submission” were taken from the other.  

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Episode 28: The 1919 Boston Police Strike

This week, we take an in depth look at the 1919 Boston Police Strike and ensuing riots.  In the post-WW1 inflation of the summer of 1919, Boston police officers were earning wages set in 1857.  Around the country, workers were striking, while the upper classes feared a Bolshevik-influenced revolution.  When 72% of the police force walked off the job, lawlessness ruled in Boston for several days.  Governor Calvin Coolidge sent in the state militia, and emerged a hero, paving his way to the White House.  Listen to the story!

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Episode 27: Burned at the Stake!

Despite what a lot of people think, the victims of the Salem witch trials were hanged, not burned at the stake.  However, in the history of Massachusetts, two women were executed by burning them at the stake, one in 1681 and another in 1755.  If witchcraft was a crime against both the state and God, what crime could be worse in Puritan Boston?  A note about the content this week.  We frankly describe acts of brutal violence, and we at times use the racial language of our 17th and 18th century sources.  If you usually listen with children, you might want to listen to this episode alone first and decide if it’s appropriate for them.

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