On April 15, 1920, two men who were delivering the payroll to the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts were killed in broad daylight.
The payroll was taken by the killers, and they jumped into a getaway car.
A few weeks later, two Italian immigrants with known ties to radical anarchist groups were arrested for the murder. It became one of the most controversial criminal cases in US history.
Learn more about Sacco and Vanzetti, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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This episode was originally released in 2016 in the days after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It is re-released every year on the anniversary of the incident.
A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.
Notes and Reading:
* Most of the specific history of the White Horse was learned from "Sanctuary: the Inside Story of the Nation's Second Oldest Gay Bar" by David Olson, reprinted in its entirety on the White Horse's website.
* "Gayola: Police Professionalization and the Politics of San Francisco's Gay Bars, 1950-1968," by Christopher Agee.
* June Thomas' series on the past, present, and future of the gay bar from Slate a few years back.
* Various articles written on the occasion of the White Horse's 80th anniversary, including this one from SFGATE.Com
* Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States.
* Radically Gay, a collection of Harry Hay's writing.
* Incidentally, I watched this interview with Harry Hay from 1996 about gay life in SF in the 30's multiple times because it's amazing.
American history isn’t a single linear story. There are periodic changes to the political order where political parties and affiliations are reordered.
According to political scientists, there have been six different political eras in American history. Each era was a reflection of issues that confronted the country at the time.
Learn more about America’s six political eras and what caused them on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The space race officially began on October 4, 1957, at 7:28 PM Moscow Time. That was when Sputnik was launched into orbit as the first artificial satellite, and from that moment, it was on.
But when did the space race end? That is a much trickier question and there is no formal answer.
However, I think an excellent case can be made for July 17, 1975.
Learn more about the Apollo/Soyuz Test Program and the handshake that ended the space race on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
As Illinois reopens, Chicago area artists Lori Lippitz of the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, Lynne Jordan of Lynne Jordan and the Shivers, Juan Dies of Sones de Mexico and D2x reflect on what the last 15 months have been like, how the pandemic has shaped their music, and what they’re looking forward to as full capacity crowds come back.
For thousands of years, food storage was one of humanity’s biggest problems. Even if you could grow or hunt sufficient calories when food was abundant, it was very difficult to store those calories for when food was scarce.
One man made a huge advancement in our ability to store foods, which now allows us to enjoy fresh produce all year round.
Learn more about Clarence Birdseye, and the invention of frozen foods, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Standards make everything easier. When everyone can agree on a standard way to do things, regardless of how it is done, it can reduce confusion and facilitate progress.
You’d think if there was one thing that would be standardized everywhere, it would be the side of the road everyone drives on. I mean, there are only two options.
Yet, there is no global standard for what side to drive on.
In 2002 the BBC did a poll where they named the top 100 Britons in history. It had many people you have probably heard of, including Isaac Newton, Princess Diana, John Lenon, and Queen Victoria.
The person who was ranked #2, however, is someone that many people outside of the UK might not have heard of. Yet, he really is one of the most important people when it came to the development of the modern world.
Learn more about Isambard Kingdom Brunel on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
László Polgár was born just after World War II in Hungary. His field of study was the nature of human intelligence. After studying the lives of over 400 great intellectuals from throughout human history, he came to a startling conclusion: geniuses weren’t born, they were made.
So he set about conducting an experiment on his own children. The results were astonishing.
Learn more about Judit, Susan, and Sophia, the incredible Polgar sisters, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
On May 7th, 1824, in Vienna, Austria, the musical world changed forever.
The assembled crowd in the Theater am Kärntnertor heard one of the most groundbreaking and revolutionary musical performances in history.
However, there was one person in attendance who didn’t hear the performance.
The composer, Ludwig van Beethoven.
Learn more about Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and how it changed the musical landscape forever, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
