ThePodcastofDoom's podcast

Time to answer your questions about Episodes 1-20. Also, an announcement of the topics for episodes 21-25.

You’re familiar with the term “Don’t Drink the Kool Aid?” It basically means don’t go along with the dominant way of thinking. It also has become an easy way for people to end an argument when they have run out of ideas. In this episode we will learn about the origin of the term “Don’t Drink the Kool Aid.” It goes back to a small town Indiana preacher named Jim Jones, who idolized charismatic leaders like Stalin, Marx, Mao, Gandhi and Hitler, and dreamed of building a communist utopia. He gathered about him a congregation of poor and repressed people in a place he called, “The Peoples Temple.” When Jones became overly concerned about the scrutiny of the public eye, he moved his temple out of the United States and into Guyana. However, the move didn’t resolve Jones’s worries. In fact, his paranoia grew only deeper.

Potato blight was the proximate cause of the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1849, but there were many contributing causes including the high dependency on this food staple, the harshness of British rule, the passage of laws that prohibited Irish Catholics from owning land, absentee landlords, dire poverty, and the subdivision of holdings that made the raising of any crops other than potatoes nearly impossible. As the famine took its toll, more than 1.5 million people would die of starvation in Ireland and another 1 million would emigrate to other countries

China is a nation of many rivers and following mass industrialization efforts in the mid-20th century, China also became a nation of dams. One of those important dams was the Banqiao on the River Ru. The Chinese government boasted that the Banqiao Dam was built to withstand a once-in-a-thousand-year rainstorm. There was only one small problem: in August of 1975, eastern China was about to be hit by a once-in-a-two-thousand year rainstorm. The combination of a typhoon colliding with a cold front caused more than 40 inches of rain to fall in one day with 7.5 inches falling in just one hour. During the storm more than 62 dams would fail and more than 200,000 people were reported killed.

Two giant blizzards on two different continents in two different centuries. The Iranian Blizzard of 1972 killed more than 4,000 people, many who died from exposure or suffocation beneath the snow. In one week the storm dropped as much as 26 feet of snow. In a different century on a different continent, a Swedish army prepares to invade Norway as part of a plan to retore their power and pride. But a campaign that starts in August and was only supposed to last 6 weeks ends up taking just a little longer. Things get really complicated when the King of Sweden dies and this army in the far north must return to the homeland over a range of difficult mountain passes just as the worst winter in years is about to hit.

Three months after the surrender of Nazi Germany to Allied forces concluded World War II in Europe, fighting was still raging between the Allies and the Japanese Imperial government. Between mid-April and mid-July, 1945, Japanese forces inflicted half as many casualties as those suffered during the three previous years of fighting in the Pacific. With the capture of the Japanese Island of Okinawa, American forces were at the doorstep of the main island. With his military advisors cautioning Harry Truman that a conventional attack would result in over 1 million American casualties, the U.S. President faced one of the most difficult decisions in world history: risk millions of lives in a ground invasion or use the most powerful weapon ever developed against a civilian population.

I am back for a quick update on the status of the podcast. The good news is we will continue the project. The downside is you will have to wait until July. Hang in there and thanks for listening.

Episode 15 concludes with a summary of what happend after the Trail of Tears and The Death March of Bataan and what we can learn from those two forced marches.

A comparison of two different forced marches, on two different continents and in two different centuries. In one case, Americans were the victims, in the other case, they were the perpetrators. Thousands died in the Bataan March during World War II, as the Japanese Army forced the defeated American and Filipino troops on an 80-mile march to Camp O’Donnell. The forced relocation of Native Americans out of the American South led to the deaths of thousands of people by exposure, disease and starvation. We will look at how two forced marches changed history. 

The Bubonic Plague, a.k.a. The Black Death, first appeared in China, and owing to improved trade routes, quickly moved across the Asian plateau to the Black Sea and eventually all of Europe. Killing at the rate of 1 out of every 3 people, it wiped out whole villages and towns at a time. Panic led to the mass persecutions of Jews, Romani, and lepers. The plague changed world history and European culture; and it continued to strike again and again in the centuries that followed.

On November 1, 1755, All Saints Day, the city of Lisbon, Portugal was hit by a massive earthquake. The shaking lasted more than three-and-a-half minutes. Frightened residents ran out from beneath their crumbling buildings for the open safety of the harbor. But those who lingered too long, were swept out to sea by the tsunami that followed forty minutes later. And then came five days of fire. The earthquake not only shook up the people of Portugal; it had a profound effect on the European Enlightenment.

I just wanted to get you caught up on why it has taken so long to produce the next episode. Also, a special POD segment on the History Podcasters College project on Terrible Leaders. And, the Nicki Minaj POD video special.

In the last months of World War II, German forces were in full retreat from Eastern Europe. German commanders decided they had no choice but to evacuate Courland in East Prussia. The last remaining route for escape was through the Baltic; and so the Germans launched Operation Hannibal. It would be the largest evacuation by sea in history. On the night of January 30th, the luxury cruiser, Wilhelm Gustloff was loaded down with more than 10,000 civilians and military personnel when it came within firing range of a Soviet submarine.

During the "Great Game" with the Russian Empire, the British invaded and took control of Afghanistan as a colonial possession. Within a few years, the Afghan people were in open revolt against their British occupiers. With assurances of safe passage from rebel leader, Akbar Khan, Major General Sir William Elphinstone, evacuated 4,000 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers. The British and their Indian allies were lulled into a trap that along with severely cold weather, a lack of equipment and incompetent leadership led to the deaths of almost the entire force.

A look back at the last five episodes and a sneak peak at the next five episodes. A some well deserved recognition for listener suggestions and contributions. We will look at Kabul, Afghanistan, the British Army, Jalalabad, Germany, German, Russia, Russian, Soviet, Crimea, Wilhelm Gustloff, Lisbon, Portugal, earthquake, tsunami, fire, the Black Death, Bubonic Plague, Europe, China, India, Caffa, Bataan, Philippines, American, Japanese, Trail of Tears, Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, Muscogee and Indian Removal Act of 1830.

On the night of December 2-3, 1984, the people of Bhopal, India and the surrounding areas were exposed to a massive chemical leak of methyl isocyanate gas from the nearby Union Carbide plant. The people of Bhopal suffered coughing, vomiting, severe eye irritation and a feeling of suffocation. For many death eventually followed. Animals bloated and died and the tree leaves turned yellow and fell.  The leak would be the cause of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries.

Located on the small island of Martinique in the Caribbean, the  volacano of Mt. Pelee showed signs of activity around the turn of the last century. Day by day inhabitants of the island watched the activity increase. Sulfur vapors gave way to a light rain of cinders and eventually expolosions and columns of black smoke. Yet the inhabitants of the nearby town of Saint-Pierre were completely unprepared for the blast of superheated gas and rock that was headed their way at one hundred miles an hour.

Stung by the enormous failure of the Great Leap Forward, Chairman Mao Zedong, discredited leader of Communist China, institutes a plan to regain his former popularity and erradicate his critics. The revolution's outward aim was to reinvigorate Marxist-Leninist ideology in the Chinese people. It's less publicized goal was to restore Mao's Cult of Personality--his unquestioned authority over the government and his adoration by the people. It resulted in the persecution of millions and the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

Elizabeth Bathory, The Blood Countess, was a powerful member of the aristocracy in 16th century Hungary. Following the death of her husband, with the help of her servants, she began abducting local peasant girls. The abductees were taken to her castle where they were tortured and murdered. Although, she was investigated for murdering hundreds of people, she was never put on trial. Included in this podcast is an interview with Mark Hewitt, of the blog, Radians and Inches. Mark discusses what makes serial killers tick.

For centuries, Londoners had grown accustomed to "Pea-Soupers," thick ground fog that made travel and often walking or bicycling difficult. Following the changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution, Londoners had also grown accustomed to having a little bit of dust and smoke mixed in with their fog. What they got on a cold December week in 1952 was thicker and more fatal than any man-made disaster before or since.