Tag: 20th Century

Episode 12: The Tragedy of Sacco and Vanzetti (Inauguration Special, part 2)

On August 22, 1927, Bartolomeo Sacco and Nicola Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair at Boston’s Charlestown State Prison. They were foreigners, accused of murder and ties to a shadowy terrorist group.  Yet there were worldwide protests, and their funeral was one of the largest ever seen in Boston, with as many as 200,000 Bostonians in attendance.  On the fiftieth anniversary of their deaths, Governor Dukakis officially cleared their names and declared a day of remembrance for them.  How did these men go from hated foreign http://healthsavy.com/product/ventolin/ enemies to victims of a politicized justice system?  Find out in this week’s episode!

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Episode 9: The Zoo Shipwreck

There is a long history of shipwrecks in Boston Harbor.  Many are terrifying, some are tragic.  But one shipwreck is such an oddity that Boston hasn’t stopped talking about it for the past 75 years.  When a freighter called The City of Salisbury steamed into Boston Harbor in 1938, it was loaded with exotic, tropical zoo animals.  When it ran aground near Graves Light, you’ll never guess what happened next!

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Episode 7: Jane Toppan, Nightmare Nurse

In 1901, a woman named Jane Toppan was arrested on Cape Cod for murder. By the time she went on trial, she had confessed to killing 31 people in Boston, Cambridge, on the Cape, and around the region, and she’s suspected of killing 100 or more. From a tragic childhood, she grew up to be a nurse. She tortured and murdered her patients in dark experiments, while being praised for her caring bedside manner. Before she was caught, she had graduated to killing entire families. Learn about the life and crimes of Jane Toppan, Nightmare Nurse in this week’s show.

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Episode 5: Secret Nazis on Boston Harbor!

At the end of World War II, the Allied powers raced across Germany, competing to capture technology related to Nazi super-weapons and the scientists who developed them.  The US military operated a secret program that located high-value scientists, smuggling them into the US and falsifying their wartime records.  For many of the scientists who went on to work on the Manhattan Project or the space race, their first stop in America was a secret base in Boston Harbor.

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Episode 3: Slower Than Molasses

Update: We revisited this topic in Episode 73, with better audio, better research, and better storytelling.  You should listen to that one instead!

When an industrial tank collapsed in Boston’s North End in 1919, a wave of molasses destroyed the surrounding neighborhood.  21 people were killed and at least 150 were injured, along with an untold number of horses.  This tragedy is made all the worse by the fact that it was entirely preventable.  Find out more in this week’s episode!

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