A Particularly Cinematic Week of History
Jody ranks history flicks.
Welcome back to the This Day In Esoteric Political History newsletter. Each week, a member of our team (or a friend of the show) gathers together bits of America’s past and attempts to find a throughline that might add a little understanding to our current moment.
Today, you’re in the steady hands of our fearless leader, This Day host Jody Avirgan.
P.S. If you like this newsletter, we’d love if you forwarded it along! Maybe there’s a member of your family you’ve been meaning to check in with?
A quick look at the week ahead in American history.
April 25
1777: Sybil Ludington, 16, rides to warn Connecticut colonists of the British advance
1947: President Harry S. Truman officially opens the first White House bowling alley in the West Wing
2014: Officials from Flint, Michigan switch the city’s water supply to the Flint River, unwittingly introducing lead-poisoned water into homes. Then-Mayor Dayne Walling and other officials toasted with glasses of water.
2019: Joe Biden announces his campaign for the presidency
April 26
1865: John Wilkes Booth is killed by Union Soldiers at a Virginia farm, 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln
1954: The Salk polio vaccine field trials, involving 1.8 million children, begin at the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia.
1986: The world’s worst nuclear power plant accident occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union.
April 27
1773: The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company
1962: Los Angeles police fatally shoot Nation of Islam member Ronald Stokes, galvanizing Malcolm X, who reportedly responded to the news by saying, “They're going to pay for it”
April 28
1994: Former CIA official Aldrich Ames, who had betrayed U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and then Russia, pleads guilty to espionage and tax evasion and is sentenced to life in prison without parole
2002 : The northeastern English town of Hartlepool is gearing up for a mayoral election, where they would end up voting in… the local football club’s monkey mascot to run their government
April 29
1861: Maryland's House of Delegates votes not to secede from the Union
1967: Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title after refusing induction into the United States Army
April 30
1803: Chancellor Robert Livingston and James Monroe sign the Louisiana Purchase Treaty in Paris at a cost of 15 million dollars, doubling the size of the USA
1994: An 18-year-old American named Michael Fay is awaiting his punishment in Singapore for acts of vandalism. That punishment included caning, which caused a media and diplomatic firestorm in the United States. (Editors’ note: our most popular episode so far on YouTube!)
May 1
1934: Eleanor Roosevelt is holding a series of meetings at the White House to plan out a number of camps for women that would give them skills and community as the country tried to claw out of the Great Depression
2003: President George W. Bush delivers his "Mission Accomplished" speech
In which we take the above collection of events and find themes, throughlines, rabbit holes and more.
Listeners to the show know that I find myself saying “man, this would make a great 10-part series” after some of our better conversations. I can’t help but notice that a good number of the events in the calendar this week have been turned into series or films. So, here is my rough ranking of them.
Chernobyl (Max)
I need to re-watch this, but at the time I first binged it, I rated it as just about as good of a historical series as it gets. Like a lot of my favorite historical work, it understood that the real drama lies in the everyday people caught up in world-changing events.
Malcolm X (Paramount+)
I recently re-watched this movie on a plane. And maybe I’m grading on the “airplane curve” that makes all movies on planes seem worthwhile -- but I felt this really held up. (Spike Lee is my favorite director so I’m not sure why I was surprised) I want to do an episode of the show about this movie, because I think its release was a historical/cultural event on its own; and I also want an excuse to dig into how accurate the movie really is.
Slow Burn: Watergate
One of the best podcast series ever. Defined a genre of historical audio storytelling. Leon Neyfakh is still going strong with his FIASCO series.
Manhunt (Apple TV+)
This is the week that John Wilkes Booth is finally caught and killed. Apple has a new series about this story. I’m two episodes in. It’s… fine. I love the concept, I think they do a good job of painting a nuanced picture of the time and not just focusing on Lincoln. The dialogue is pretty rough. I’ll keep going, if only to find out if and how they touch on Boston “Lincoln’s Avenger” Corbett.
The First Lady (not to be confused with First Ladies on Max)
I haven’t watched this series, which includes Gillian Anderson playing Eleanor Roosevelt. But I’ve heard she’s great in it. This clip is promising. I’ll put it on the list.
Some Hitler Bunker Shit
I’m a dad. Approaching middle-age. Why haven’t I watched more about WWII?! It’s a mystery! But anyway, surely there’s some stuff out there about Hitler’s suicide. Surely much of it is schlocky. But let me know if there’s anything worth watching.
There are also a few stories this week that I think could be good fodder for historical series. Sybil Ludington — the teenage, female counterpart to Paul Revere — is one of our favorites. And, of course, why has there not been an Office-style series about the monkey mascot of Hartlepool getting elected mayor?! What are we doing, people?!
I have my running list of other stories we’ve done that I think are great fits for a series. I’ll share it another time.
But, one of them recently came to fruition. Check out this exchange, following up over three years later. I can’t wait to listen.
— Jody Avirgan
A little more esoterica
We’re going to be talking about the Columbia University protests on Tuesday—no not those protests, but the ones in 1968 that have been alluded to frequently in recent days. For now, we leave you with a few front pages from the time, which offer some nostalgia plus a lot of eery similarities.
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