Join me as I ramble through our Women's History episodes! Find them anywhere you listen to podcasts! Learn some stuff! Cry with me! Ep 1 - Part 1: Catherine the Great & Peter III Ep 4 - Part 2: A World of Love to You - Eleanor Roosevelt & Lorena Hickok Ep 23 - Part 1: Our Lady of the Night - Mary Shelley Ep 50: Let them have Portillo's: The saga of Marie Antoinette Ep 90 - Echoes of the Sky: Amelia Earhart's Enduring Influence Ep 93 - Disaster at Shift's End: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Ep 94 - The Most Fashionable Nazi Collaborator: Coco Chanel Ep 97 - A Famous British Woman is Missing!!!: It's Agatha Christie this time Ep 98 - The Never-ending Story: Henrietta Lacks Ep 129 - Mother of Sparrows: The Vengeance of Saint Olga of Kiev Ep 145 - Witch Trials: Not just in Salem! Ep 155: Don't go chasing waterfalls in Honduras - Lisa Left Eye Lopes Ep 176: Who's to say Virgin Blood doesn't stop aging? - Elizabeth Bathory Ep 178: The Miracle Worker & The Miracle - The Helen Keller story Ep 180: The Beast of Belsen - Irma Grese Ep 181: Hitler's Favorite Film Maker - Leni Riefenstahl Ep 182: Hitler's Least Favorite Spy - Virginia Hall Ep 185: Mapping the Earth from Space - Dr. Valerie L. Thomas & her career at NASA Ep 186: Flying the Skies above India & Breaking Barriers - Sarla Thukral Ep 204: Fancy a Duel after the Opera? - Julie d'Aubigny Ep 207: Hey Ladies!!! - Sappho Ep 220: One for you, Sixteen for me - Sybil & her Multiple Personalities Ep 231: Wash your hands! - Typhoid Mary
Join me as I ramble through our Women's History episodes! Find them anywhere you listen to podcasts! Learn some stuff! Cry with me!
Ep 1 - Part 1: Catherine the Great & Peter III
Ep 4 - Part 2: A World of Love to You - Eleanor Roosevelt & Lorena Hickok
Ep 23 - Part 1: Our Lady of the Night - Mary Shelley
Ep 50: Let them have Portillo's: The saga of Marie Antoinette
Ep 90 - Echoes of the Sky: Amelia Earhart's Enduring Influence
Ep 93 - Disaster at Shift's End: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Ep 94 - The Most Fashionable Nazi Collaborator: Coco Chanel
Ep 97 - A Famous British Woman is Missing!!!: It's Agatha Christie this time
Ep 98 - The Never-ending Story: Henrietta Lacks
Ep 129 - Mother of Sparrows: The Vengeance of Saint Olga of Kiev
Ep 145 - Witch Trials: Not just in Salem!
Ep 155: Don't go chasing waterfalls in Honduras - Lisa Left Eye Lopes
Ep 176: Who's to say Virgin Blood doesn't stop aging? - Elizabeth Bathory
Ep 178: The Miracle Worker & The Miracle - The Helen Keller story
Ep 180: The Beast of Belsen - Irma Grese
Ep 181: Hitler's Favorite Film Maker - Leni Riefenstahl
Ep 182: Hitler's Least Favorite Spy - Virginia Hall
Ep 185: Mapping the Earth from Space - Dr. Valerie L. Thomas & her career at NASA
Ep 186: Flying the Skies above India & Breaking Barriers - Sarla Thukral
Ep 204: Fancy a Duel after the Opera? - Julie d'Aubigny
Ep 207: Hey Ladies!!! - Sappho
Ep 220: One for you, Sixteen for me - Sybil & her Multiple Personalities
Ep 231: Wash your hands! - Typhoid Mary
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor and Fars bring you stories of historical disasters and failures
>> Taylor: Hello, and welcome to Doomsday Fail. My name is Taylor, and along with my friend Fars, we bring you stories of historical disasters and failures. We started off as a relationship podcast. We were just talking about, you know, historical and true crime and places where relationships kind of blew up in smoke and. And crazy, crazy things happened because of them. And then it kind of bloomed into just telling you interesting stories and ways that we're finding that all of history is connected, which we know all times are unprecedented, which we unfortunately know as well. So, you know, none of this is new, but all of it is interesting. So we're learning a lot about history, and we hope that you join us or have joined us and really enjoy the show, because we really enjoy making it. We have over 200 episodes. They kind of run the gamut of different topics, but one of the ones that we have a lot of episodes on is Women's history, and it is Women's History Month. So the past couple years, I have done, like a Women's History Month, a couple episodes on it. This year, I might do like, one or two because we've taken some breaks for travel and such. But I want to tell you a little bit about the women's history episodes that we have, and you can find them all on our website, doomdefeldpod.com. we're on Simplecast or, you know, iPhone, podcast, Spotify, wherever you get them. We're also on YouTube. If you don't have any of those things, you can find it on YouTube. It's all free. There's no ads. We just hang out. So let me tell you some of the stories, and you can find them by searching. Just doomed to fill a pod. And then the names of the people in this store in these stories. And, you know, I don't want to tell women's history like, women are perfect. I want to tell women's history like, women are nuanced, women are complicated, and women's stories should be told. So we started the very, very beginning, our very first episode, Episode one, Part one. We used to do two stories per episode. Now we do them separately, kind of tell the stories to each other. But episode one, Part one, then Catherine the Great and her husband Peter. I describe him in this episode as a wet noodle, because he kind of sucks. He's nothing like in the Great the show, but you should, you know, watch that anyway. But Catherine the Great is really interesting, and we do have a lot of stories on Russian history, because Russia is so fascinating. But Catherine did things like travel all around Russia meet people of different religions who spoke different languages, who. Who, you know, were doing different things and saying, like other leaders have, like, in the pan. In the past, like in the ancient past, like, it was like a. Like Cyrus the Great, who talk about later, and the Persians, when they took over an area, they were like, I don't care what gods you believe in. Like, that's not anything that I'm interested in. I just want to, like, you know, be in charge, take some tax money. You do you. So Catherine the Great is a great example of that. Obviously, as soon as her son, who was also a freaking wet noodle, he, like, man made a law that women couldn't be in charge, blah, blah, blah, because we can't have nice things. But that was our very first episode. Episode four, Part two is about Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. So Eleanor Roosevelt, obviously the wife of Franklin Roosevelt. They had a interesting relationship. I believe that they loved each other. Eleanor Franklin. They were, you know, they weren't like cousins. They were like third cousins. Her uncle was tr, who was like a distant cousin of fgr. And FDR had an affair with a woman named Lucy Mercer. And when he was in. When they were like, in their 20s, so they had, like, already had a bunch of kids, and FDR was. He was the Secretary of the Navy. He was a governor of New York. And then when he was in his late 20s, early 30s, that's when he got polio and had to be bedridden for a while. And so when he got that disease, it was an opportunity to be like, what do we do? Do we stop the ambitions that we have for this man, or do we continue them, even though he cannot be in the spaces where he needs to be? And they continue them with Eleanor going to those places, right? So she went to the meetings and the events and traveled around the state, traveled around the country, went to D.C. on his behalf to say things like, you know, Franklin would say this and whatever to be able to keep his. Keep his name out there. And it worked. And obviously, you know, FGR became president, but during their relations, you know, he had many affairs. And she had a girlfriend named Lorena Hickok. She was a reporter assigned directly to cover the First Lady. They were good friends. They were more than good friends, all of the things. But I think that those relationships kind of worked for. For everybody. When FDR passed away, Lucy Mercer was at his side. Eleanor, I mean, wasn't happy about that, but it was enough that, like, I think that they were okay and let her do the things that she did that we remember her for as such AN Excellent, excellent first lady. So there's that.
Episode 23 is about Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein
Episode 23, part one is about Mary Shelley. So Mary Shelley obviously wrote Frankenstein. And it was a gloomy summer in. In Geneva. It was a gloomy. We learned later because of volcano. So volcano erupted and then it made a year where most of the world had just like a layer of like ozone ash, basically up in the trade winds, which you also know about if you listen to our show. And because of that, it was gloomy. And Mary Shelley and her husband, who is a weirdo, and his friends and they wrote scary stories, obviously, and she wrote Frankenstein and it was wonderful. Later her husband would die kind of needlessly in a boating accident. He like, knew he was always going to. I think he was like a romantic poet in both career and in self identification. But she kept his heart in her desk drawer. So that's fun. Learn about Mary Shelley. Episode 50 is about Marie Antoinette, who I think is also super misunderstood. She never said, let them eat cake. She was super young. She had to cross a literal line. They said once you cross this line, you are no longer German, you are French. And she had to like, be French and do all these things and learn a whole new system when she was really just a girl. And then later in life when they imprison her like before she is. Is. Is killed for. For the revolution, you know, they take away your children and make her children say awful things about her. And she just like, wanted to be a good mother. So like, not perfect, but like not. Not a monster. Episode 90, Amelia Earhart, who you have to love, Never, never turned 40. She died when she was 39. But she, you know, busted a bunch of records. And then actually since then, I've gotten this book. It's back here in my bookshelf. But I have a book that has like a little recording of her with when she went across the Atlantic for the first time. So just super cool, breaking barriers. She's also a social worker, a fashion designer. All of that, like Amelia Earhart look is very on purpose. So she's super cool. Duh. I don't know why I'm telling you that. You know that episode 93 is on the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. So if you want to learn about building safety, we can start there. It was a place in New York City. It is now a part of New York University. I took science classes in this building, science classes as an art history major. But essentially women and girls who are mostly Immigrants from Ireland were working in a shirtwaist factory, which is like a shirt. It's like a tight, tight shirt that was popular at the time. It's the early 1900s, and there's a fire. And it is a Saturday afternoon, and a lot of people die. They cannot get out because the doors are locked. Because the workplace is full of hazardous things that are flammable. A lot of reasons women jump from the seventh story and die on the streets. It changed a lot of laws. It didn't change all of them, but it did change some. One person who was. Happened to be there, which is around. This is around the Washington Square area, if you live in New York, where Eleanor had an apartment as well. And Frances Perkins was there. And Frances Perkins is a woman to be the first Secretary of Labor to be a woman. Actually the first cabinet member to be a woman at all. And she is in FDR's cabinet and she is in charge. She is in charge of doing things for us like overtime and Social Security and things that, you know, New Deal things that made working better for Americans. Imagine. Imagine. So that's Super Interesting.
Episode 94 is about Coco Chanel. Talk about who she was as a person
Episode 94 is about Coco Chanel. It is Women's History Month. I swear to God. Do not quote Coco Chanel. Sure. Like, yes, she had that little black dress. Yes, she had the pearls. And they're pretty. And you wear pearls. I think in the episode, I'm not wearing them now, but I talk about how, yes, you can wear pearls. I don't care. But you should know that Coco Chanel bet on the Nazis. She had a N*** spy boyfriend. She met with them. She was ready for them to win. There is a quote that is not by her. I can't remember who is by it right now, but someone said, you know, after the war, the women who slept with the Nazis in France, a lot of them were ridiculed. Their heads were shaved. And a lot of that was out of necessity. You know, like, if you're starving to death and these people are occupying your country and all the things. But not a hair on Coco Chanel's head was touched, which sucks. Don't talk about her. Talk about her, but talk about who she was. Talk about who she was as a person. There's also union things. Like, it's similar to the short wave factory fire time where she was like, you know, locking her doors and had s***** work. Workplace safety for the people who worked for her. So, you know, listen to That 1, Episode 97. Is that Agatha Christie? So we did this one during that time where Kate Middleton was missing, bless her heart. She was sick, but everybody was, like, trying to figure out where she was. So Agatha Christie, who you'll know from like, being a murder writer, there was a time toward the end of her marriage where she knew that her husband was cheating on her and she knew he was going to be at a certain hotel. So she takes her car and she crashes it into a tree. They find this crash, car, crash into a tree. And then she goes to the hotel where she knows her husband's going to be but, like, under an assumed name and just like, sits in the, like in the dining room and just like, waits for him and stares at him. A delight. So you can learn about that.
Episode 98 is Henrietta Lacks, who had cervical cancer in 1940s
Episode 98 is Henrietta Lacks. If you haven't heard this story, it is so good. It is a black woman who was in the. The Maryland area in the 1940s and she had cancer, horribly. She had cervical cancer that spread to her entire body. And when she went to Johns Hopkins and other hospitals and something about her cells, they were able to regenerate without all of the things that you need to regenerate cells, like life. So they took her cells and they've been able from them to. Even after Henrietta's death, she was. There was no saving her. She was, you know, very, very, very, very sick. But her cells, they continue to grow. So her cells are still alive all over the world. They're in space, they're everywhere. They use them to create vaccines, to create, to do cancer research, all sorts of things where you're like, I need a living cell to do this, but you can't do it on a live person. You can do it on the HeLa cell, which is Henrietta Lacks living cells. You can buy them online. And it's a story about how her family was never compensated. They didn't really understand what was happening. And just trying to understand, like, consent and I don't know, like, if they cut your arm off, who gets it? If they take your cells, where does it go? Like, what belongs to you after you do certain things in, in the hospital? And what did she understand which didn't you understand? It's a race story. It's a class story, It's a medical history story. It's fantastic. So, I mean, the story is fantastic. We did our best trying to tell you it. It is.
Episode 129 is about Olga of Kiev who went on revenge path
That was episode 98, episode 129. And again, in between these, there's episodes on all sorts of things and I'm sure women are mentioned, but these are the ones that stood out to me. But 129 is Olga of Kiev. So the Olga of Kyiv. Kyiv is a saint. She was a leader in the, you know, Kyiv, Ukrainian area that we know now. And her husband was killed and she set off on a path of revenge that is like Game of Thrones epic. There is a thing that she was a part of called the Red Funeral. So, you know, George R.R. martin knew all about it and she just. The revenge. I'm not even gonna tell you things she did because it's so cool. Stuff that she did out of. To revenge, avenge her husband and get revenge on everybody else is wicked. And then she became a saint, which is. I don't know what the rules are, but they're big. Episode 145 is @WITCH trials because you know that there are no such thing as witches. Like, there are and there aren't. There are of course, women who we love who, like, have crystals and do spells. Happy to do that. I drank moon water this week because I want to try to, like willing to do anything, but, like the idea that there was like an actual magical witch that's just a woman who, like, didn't want to get married and could heal people with herbs, you know. And in America, there's obviously the Salem witch trials, but there were so many more. In Europe, thousands of women were killed by Christians because of. They were different. I don't know. They're scary because they were. Wanted to be alone, which, you know, agree to agree. Lock me in a. Kevin. So there's that 155 totally different type of woman, same vibe.
There is episode 178, Helen Keller and episode 176, Elizabeth Bathroy
Let's talk about Lisa left I. Lopez talk about her career, a couple domestic situations that she was in. And then her surprising death in Honduras. She was working on a documentary and helping people rebuild after natural. Natural disasters and just doing really just nice stuff. She passed away in a car accident and there's a video of it happening. You. It's. Yeah, it's a lot. Anyway, listen to that one next. 176. This one actually fars led. This one is about Elizabeth Bathroy, who is a possibly mythical, maybe true historical figure. I mean, she definitely existed, but what she did, we don't know who in like a castle in Europe murdered, like, you know, virgins for their blood to stay youthful, which we'll hear about again in another episode. Another woman doing that and probably, if, if true, a very prolific killer in kind of like a creepy vampire gothic vibe. So there's that one. There is episode 178, Helen Keller and. And her teacher, which is Just such a beautiful story. I hadn't really listened or listened to or understood the whole thing. I read a couple of Helen Keller books. Oh. Including a Helen Keller book written by Lorena Hickok, Eleanor's girlfriend. Going back. But it was wonderful. My son and I learned how to spell I love you into our hands and enjoy I love E, Y, O, U. But it was so fun to learn. I can't imagine the things that Helen Keller went through to understand what was happening in her life. If you don't have any of those disabilities, I don't. I don't know how you can really grab it. But it's so fascinating that she was able to do everything that she did. And it really. When she talks about before she knew language, it reminds me of, you know, why don't you have memories near a baby? Well, it's because you didn't know how to describe the things that were happening to you. You didn't have words for them. And then you do, and then you remember things differently. So Helen Keller is able to kind of talk through that. And it's not that long ago. Like, you can see there's videos of her at home and how she, you know, walked around her house and cooked and made tea and, you know, did things despite. Despite so many limitations. Wild. It's wonderful.
Another episode hosted by Fars is about Irma Grace who was executed by Nazis
Another episode hosted by Fars is about Irma Grace, who I'm going to say Irma Grace. She is a the youngest person who was executed after World War II from the Nazis like regime and their guards. She was a prison guard in concentration camps. And she is a horrible person. Just absolutely wild that this young woman was able to do and hurt and just the pain that she inflicted in her life is wild. Speaking of the Nazis, episode 181 is on Leni Riefenstahl. So if you have seen any of the N*** propaganda stuff, like, for example, Triumph of the Will, which is the one, like one of the big. I guess it's like introducing Hitler to the world movies that she made. So she was an actor, she was a dancer. She ended up being a director, which you think, okay, it's like the 1930s and 40s, it's cool to be a woman director, but also like, girl, what are you doing? Like, that's. You're obviously not doing the right thing. And she never apologized for it. She never got in trouble for it. She loves Jabil, like 102, which I think is wild. I think she should have been in a lot of trouble because when you look at the stuff that they were doing a lot of it was because of the propaganda, and she was the propaganda. If you can picture it, Lanry for Shaw, made it so you can learn about her.
Episode 182 features Virginia Hall, who accidentally shot her own leg off hunting
Episode 182, Opposite Sides, that we have a wonderful heroic American named Virginia Hall. She was a spy. I don't know if you've heard about her, but she was a spy. She went over to Europe, studied, learned French, learned German, did all these things. She accidentally shot her own leg off hunting. So she has, like, a prosthetic leg, but she still wants to be a spy. So she joins the raf. So she joins, like, the British, and then she joins the US and then she hikes. She like, like in the end of Saturday music when they hike over the mountain. Virginia hall does that several times with one leg to get people across the borders and to save people. And it is like, meet me in the alley behind the thing style. Like, I picture her in Casablanca, even though she was in Paris, but you know what I mean? Super fun. Episode 185 is on Dr. Valerie L. Thompson Thomas. She is a NASA scientist who created so many cool things. So one thing she created was, like, this vector tool to be able to see things in 3D. So it's like the reason we have holograms. And she was a black woman scientist at NASA in the 1970s, which sounds wild. And she did made a lot of really, really cool things. Episode 186 is about Sarla Thukrall. And Sarla was a the first woman pilot in India. So she has a lot of super cool history of, like, you know, obviously breaking those barriers. She married into a family where they were all pilots and they were like, yeah, be a pilot, too. Come on in. We talk about that in that episode. And back in the Amelia Earhart episode, Like, we also have a lot playing crash episodes, but flying is so new. Like, I was just on a Delta flight, and they were like, it's been 100 years. I'm like, that feels like I don't know, but, like, the chance. Like, one of the most dangerous jobs used to be like a postal service pilot, you know, because you have to do it so often. Sarla's husband died in a plane crash, and then she didn't fly again. But she did become a really famous fashion designer. So super interesting and eclectic life for Sala.
Complicated Everything is a podcast about women's history and mental health
I'm Almost done. Episode 204 is about Julie D'. Arbugi. Nope, did it wrong. Don't care. She's a French woman who was a. Like, a French woman knight spy person. Who would have all these fun affairs across the. Across the continent. And that's fun too. Also. I did that one, I think, for Pride Month as well, because she was also very famously bisexual. I also did another episode of Pride Month that, you know, obviously crosses into women's history on Sappho, the ancient Greek poet who lived on the island of Lesbos, which is obviously where the word lesbian comes from. And you know, the term Sapphic for describing, like, women and women romance. And it's interesting to hear, like, what is real and what isn't real and what we know because we talk about a lot of ancient stories and even, like the medieval stories. Like, there's stuff that we only know from, like, a tapestry or a bit of pottery or like a vase. And so somehow we know, oh, what's this tree? Two more. Episode 220 is about kind of a interesting mental health history breakthrough on Sybil, who is the person who had multiple personalities. So there is a real person, that real person did have mental issues, went to a therapist and they talked through it. The therapist, in my opinion, exploited it. An author exploited it. And they wrote this book, Sybil, which is a movie that. That came out in the 70s as well, which is like, really sensationalizing. Like, oh, she had, you know, 70 personalities and all these things and. But, like, did she? I don't know. So it's an interesting kind of history of mental health and exploitation as well. And the most recent women story that I did is on Typhoid mary. That's episode 231. So typhoid, she was in New York City and she was an Irish immigrant and she was a cook. People started to get typhoid fever around her, right? But she was never sick. So she was like, I don't know. This is a great job. People get sick. I move on. Like, didn't. Didn't understand and like, well, why would she understand? You didn't know, right? So then she's doctor comes and finds her, tracks her down and says, what is the key? All these people who are getting sick, right? And they find her and they say, you can't be a cook anymore. Like, you can't do this. And she's like, I don't understand. Like, I'm not sick. Why can I be a cook? And then they, like, try to lock her away on an island in New York City. And she's like, no, this is not fair. Which, you know, feels fair, but that's not fair, right? So they bring her back, they let her go back. They kind of lose track of her for a while, and then people start dying again. And you know where they start dying? In a f****** children's hospital, which is where, like, you know, women are having babies. The babies are dying. And that just, like, makes me so mad because I'm like, I know you don't have proof of this, but, like, this is proof. Like, you're seeing this around you. This doesn't happen to other people. And there's a part of it where you're like, if she just washed her hands, like, maybe wouldn't be that bad. But also, like, she's a carrier of this disease, and even though it sucks, like, she has to believe the doctors and. No, you know what I mean? And she doesn't. And they lock her on the island basically for the rest of her life because she can't stop cooking. And you're like, I don't know. She could have left, I guess, but she would have continued to get people sick. Better off. Complicated. Complicated. Everything's complicated. Everything has several different sides. There's no. No black and white. But we're trying to learn more and learn more about it, so this is fun. I'm talking to myself, but usually I talk to Fars. He and I have been friends for 13 years. We used to work together. Now I live in California, he lives in Texas. We hang out whenever we can, and I hope you like our show. You can find us anywhere. You listen to podcasts and email us doomdefellowpodgmail.com, find us on social media, and we hope to see you soon. Thanks.