November 11, 2015 • 36 mins
Part two of our live show is the Q&A portion of the evening. Our audience asked such amazing and insightful questions that it resulted in some great discussion about assassinations.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm tracybe Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. On Monday, our
podcast was the episode part of our live show from
(00:21):
New York site. Holly and I talked to Brian Young,
who's the author of a children's illustrated history of Presidential
Assassination about as you Might Expect Presidential assassinations and also
his book, and we had planned all along to make
that live podcast recording part of the show into an
episode of the podcast so that all of you could
hear it. But we were generally expecting that the Q
(00:43):
and A part of the show that we did after
we finished our sort of planned out discussion to be
this weird hodgepodge of questions that would skip around and
really wouldn't be like one cohesive thing, because you know,
that's often how Q and A sessions go, right, that's
whatever is on their minds, It usually skip around. However,
we had the world's best audience, Seriously, we really did.
(01:07):
They asked great questions. They were interesting and insightful and concise,
and most of them were about the assassinations and the
attempts that we had just been discussing. So it became clear.
I mean, I think we were literally leaving the venue
and walking back to our hotel when both of us,
independently of each other, were like, we need that Q
and A Part to be a podcast. Also, Yeah, because
(01:29):
Brian is so uh well researched in this area. He
knows so much and he's so passionate about history. His
answers on these amazing questions that people came up with,
We're just so thoughtful and interesting and informative that like,
there was no way we wanted to keep that to ourselves.
Now we did. We are keeping some bits to ourselves
(01:51):
into the audience. He was there with us, Yeah, not
so much. That's just about the presidential assassination. Yeah. And
as a note, because we did not have an audience,
Mike uh, we repeated the questions so that everyone could hear.
So this really helped since the audience questions weren't really
captured in the recording. So what we've done just to
(02:12):
try to spare you of odd fuzzy quiet spaces where
we've tried to snip out or shorten the pauses and
the times when they were maybe asking questions that just
weren't audible. Yeah, And the last thing is because this
Q and A really followed on the heels of the
live podcast we had just recorded, some of the questions
definitely reflect back to that part of the show. So
(02:32):
if you haven't heard Monday's episode episode, a good idea
to check that one out before you listen to this one.
So let's hop right in. We're first going to begin
with a question for Brian about how he dealt with
Squeaky From and the Manson family in the book. So,
how did ideal with Squeaking From in the book? Um?
(02:54):
So the general four chapter, Uh, it's it's interesting where
I didn't get into the whole like, yes, she was
a follower of Manson, and it was sort of like
that was a little crazy, Like I didn't get into
that much detail. And it was one of those things
again where like I didn't want to be the person
presenting that rabbit hole of information to kids. Um, I
(03:15):
wanted parents to kind of do that. I mean, I
really do think this book is a partnership between kids
and parents. Um. And I think most books like this
should be. I mean, I don't think there's a book
like this, but you get what I mean, and it's
important that gerald Ford was there and what the circumstances were,
and that I kind of classify her under the delusional category.
(03:36):
And by the time all of the all of the
stories are assembled chronologically, so by the time they get
to gerald Ford, they kind of are attuned to the
fact that some of these people are just delusional. And
so when it's like she found this guy, that that
kind of twisted the ideas in her head, like I
don't think that that's a bridge too far for them
(03:56):
to cross, and so that's that's kind of how I
handled it, and that there's there are some illustrations in
that portion of the book. And the interesting part of
the story is that like she had a loaded weapon
and she was able to fire it and like it
magically didn't go off because she didn't have the bullet
chambered and they were able to tackle her in time.
And it's more incredible that like it happened in California
(04:21):
and Ford just stayed in California and like two weeks
plus later, like um, there was another assassination attempt and
it was just like a woman who was like I'm
upset about my politics, and she took a shot at him,
and like, if I were Ford, I'd never go back
to California. I tried to figure out what exactly her
politics were after I read the book, and I could
(04:43):
find an answer to that anywhere that that was sort
of like the vague answer that was given like every time.
And I my best guess was the pardon of Nixon UM,
because a lot of people that was sort of what
people were upset at that time about UM. But I
couldn't find anything elusive that she talked about it, and
so I didn't want to include it. And I tried
(05:04):
to keep the book fairly nonpartisan, like it was, it
was very I tried to remain sort of balanced and
insofar as like, yes, the Trail of Tears was was awful,
but it happened, and and this was what Jackson did
because he thought it was right. I don't think any
of the presidents that I talked about in the book
thought they were like purposely harming America or destroying anything.
(05:27):
So I tried to approach it that way. Well, and
that's that's the more and just from a writing standpoint,
that's the more interesting way to approach it anyway, because
like mustache whirling villains are pretty boring. Yeah, nobody thinks
they're the bad guy. No, And and that's what it
was the same thing with handling all of the assassins too. Um,
(05:48):
you know, there were a couple of like anarchists or
or man. Even the guy who tried to kill Garfield,
or who did kill Garfield like, he wasn't just like
a good guy. He was the guy who made Garfield
like the president because he wrote that speech that everyone
listened to that he happened to retitle after the election
(06:10):
to make it relevant to Garfield. Um, but no, it's
it's it's like no one, no one in this book
thought they were the bad guy, not the assassin's, not
the presidents. And so I didn't want to approach anybody
like that. I wanted to try to get at what
people's reasons were, honestly. I mean, even John Wilkes Boo Booth,
like I said, I mean, I don't think he tried
(06:33):
to kill I don't think there's any good reason to
kill the president. But for Booth, he thought he was
doing what was best for his country. And I didn't
want to to to I wanted to humanize them so
that people can see that people can make really bad
decisions for what they think are the right reasons. Yeah,
(06:53):
this is like a big moral load for it stems
from my loves Star Wars and the hol Anikin stuff.
Wouldn't go down that path, I promise, I understand it's
always relevant to me. But um, other questions, what do
we got? So, did your daughter have interactions with the
(07:16):
editor and the editor did the editor have to edit
your daughter? No? No, all all my daughter did were
the like I kind of handled her and it was
all just her. Her only contributions were she did a
portrait of each president and for three of the assassination,
the successful assassinations, she did renderings of them. She found
(07:38):
nothing interesting about Garfield's assassination, so she was just like,
I don't care about Garfield, which is kind of why
that's probably I think for most people, like on average,
like the hardest one to name, especially since Garfield I
don't with with McKinley, um people have his name around
(07:59):
with Garfield, like, I don't think people associate him with
very much um and and so I think he was
just sort of the most forgettable and I have no idea,
like I can't get an answer out of her why
she didn't want to do that one other than it
was just like I don't know so but no, there
was no interaction with with the publisher, the editor and her.
It was that they kind of let me take care
(08:21):
of all of that. Else. I know we had a
hand over here. Yep. Um. So Brian's take on this
Stephen Sondheim play Assassins, I have not seen it, I know, right,
That's the reaction that I get every time I hear that.
I have listened to the score a lot um because
(08:43):
I was gonna say, my wife is just really into
like Stephen Sondheim and musical, so I've heard the score
and stuff. But it wasn't like anything I sought out.
It wasn't like I wonder if this is going to
reveal anything that I'm going to have to put in
the book. It was it was, it was. It didn't
feel like necessary. Um, it didn't feel like necessary research
for me. Same with Sarah Owl's wonderful Assassination vacation, Like
(09:07):
I just didn't go there for this. I was just
going to say that we still get emails sometimes about
the time that I said that I don't care for
some time on the podcast, and that was like two
years ago. I think I don't really either. I'm so sorry.
I can appreciate Snheim's technical mastery, I do not personally
(09:27):
enjoy listening to it as a thing to do for fun. Well,
and I have that I have that musicals thing where
I don't like to watch people sing because you see
in their mouths. It's really gross. I can't handle it.
It is so gross. That's also why you never watched Glee.
That is like a torture chamber to me, Like, if
(09:48):
I ever, if I've ever suspected of a crime and
people want to like torture the truth out of me,
they can just show me American Idol and Glee over
and over and I'll be like, I'll give it up.
I'll give it up. Don't maybe look at their mouth
that I I think we had this exact conversation one
time on that podcast we used to be on. I think,
so it's icky. I can't do it. And also they
make faces that are private time basis, do you know
(10:12):
what I mean? Like they make really a motive singer.
I can watch opera because they're acting a little bit
more and it's not quite as but ummmmmm no, thank you.
Another question, uh you, sir? So he want so if
(10:34):
I had to explain to the plot of Taxi Driver, um,
Taxi Driver comes up. But I did not get into
the plot of Taxi Driver. I would have liked to,
because I really love Taxi Driver, and I really love
Scorsese movies. And what was germane to the story was
that that movie influenced him and that there was assassination
(10:55):
and a potential assassination in the movie, and that Jody
Faster was in it. And those are the three key
details that I put in the book, because I mean,
you're hard pressed to find anybody of a generation younger
than mine. I feel like that's interested in movies made
before anyway, And so Taxi Driver, like to an eight
(11:18):
year old, just seems like, I don't know what's the point, really,
like they're gonna need to be way older for all
of the context anyway, So they just need to know
the highlights and the I mean, there is an illustration.
Aaron Kuberak, who did the illustrations, did um cheated portraits
of each of the assassins, and I think um, his
(11:39):
portrait is one of my favorites because it does have
Jody Foster from Taxi Driver in it, and it's just
a really interesting You'll have to to look at it.
It's just a great portrait. I feel like we stumbled
into your next children's book, which is the illustrated Scorsese
for children that he did that himself with Hugo. If
(12:04):
you are a little foggy about the more recent presidential
assassination attempts in history, you may not recall why Taxi
Driver is relevant to all this, so long story short.
John Hinckley Jr's attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan was
in part an imitation of that movie and an attempts
to impress Jodie Foster, who had a leading role in it.
(12:28):
And now we're going to take a quick break because
we talk about the answer to the next question for
quite a bit. It goes on for a while and
it's really informative. So before we get into that, let's
pause for a brief word from one of our great sponsors.
Next up, we have a question about how these assassinations
and their attempts have affected the nation, and answering this
(12:48):
took us all down a bunch of different roads, from
the sort of galvanizing effects that an assassination attempt tends
to have on the general public to the evolution of
the Secret Service, which we don't really talk about it here,
but there is a whole section of the book that's
about exactly that. So let's jump in. So he wants
(13:11):
to know the the effect of assassination and what it's
had on on the country is that isn't um? I
think for my daughter, I think the effect was immediate
when I told her that first time, like President Lincoln
was assassinated, and she was gobsmacked that that was that's
(13:32):
the word I can use, right, Okay, she was gob smacked, um,
that that was something that could even happen, because it's
just not it's not It didn't feel pleasant to her
that somebody would do that. Um. And going through the book,
I think it's important, I think, and maybe this is
(13:52):
me being too much of a an artist or something
and wanting people to get something out of it themselves.
But there's like nothing pleasant that opens with any of this,
the countries and turmoil, and there's sort of that picture
painted that like no one likes any of this happening,
and that the people who are doing it, for the
(14:12):
most part are just disturbed individuals and they probably needed
help and this is not okay, and that no rational
human being is going to say this is a logical
choice for me to make, and just that devastation on
her face when she found out it was a possibility.
I think is is the reaction has on like a
(14:34):
mass scale for everybody. Um, but I'd be more interested
to hear you guys think of. I mean, you guys
read it pretty objectively, and well, what I initially think
of when that question comes up is, actually, um, I
am old enough to remember when Reagan was shocked. I
was nine when it happened, and I remember like that
(14:56):
being really a shock wave moment, Like I remember walking
in the door. I can tell you about the little
pete teared skirt outfit I was wearing, and my older brother,
who was a good bit older than me, like that,
he greeted me at the door off the school bus
and said the president was shot. And I think I
said some swear words like you you know, because that's
the kind of nine year old I was, I'm sorry,
it's true. Uh, And he was like, no, It's true.
It's on TV and we were watching it, and I
(15:16):
just remember it being an oddly Again through the lens
of a nine year old, it seems like a very
galvanizing moment where everyone was very upset about it, and
it didn't matter about your politics. It was just horrible
that this had taken place. Um. There's a moment in
the book, UM, and it happened when Reagan was being
brought to the hospital UM, which is another interesting thing,
where Reagan was almost like, no, I'm fine. It's a
(15:37):
cracked ry of oh no, I'm coughing up blood. And
then they're like, okay, let's take him to the hospital.
And Reagan was sort of joking about it. And I
think this is part of why I thought it was
really important to humanize the president, whoever he was, whichever party,
and whatever I felt their politics were. Um. Reagan gets
into the operating room and says, I hope you're all Republicans.
(15:58):
And the surgeon was a pretty prominent liberal Democrat and
he said, sir, today, we're all Republicans. And I think
that was a really powerful moment. I really wanted to
include moments like that in the book where I could
because I think that's what happens when when our leaders
are attacked like that. Um. There was another one with UM,
(16:22):
well that's that's actually kind of a lighter story. But
UM there are examples of that where it's like we
have to come together and like overcome this because that's
not this is not how people act or should act,
and that we all, like, despite our political differences, come
together because human life is valuable, regardless of what the
(16:42):
opinion of that human life is. You can also see
as you read all these stories in the book, the
progression in how much UH safety insurance surround the office
of president. Like when you when you think about ages
ago in the past, king's riding into battle with their
(17:03):
men right and putting their own lives at risk anie
field of battle. Then we sort of get to the
earliest assassination attempt in the United States with UH, with
somebody basically being like, oh, that guy just tried to
kill the president. We're standing around here, we should probably
knock him down. UH. And it's so you sort of
(17:27):
see gradually that Okay, now there are some guards posted
outside where the president is sleeping. Now we have an
actual secret service, Like now this sort of grows into
this whole thing and now we have like dudes running
alongside the armored car there. There there are moments like
that in the book to where where there are steps
sort of taken along the way. Uh. We talked about
when the Secret Service kind of came around. Um, the
(17:50):
book goes into I think Garfield's assassination was actually a
big step in fixing a lot of this stuff. Um.
Back when Garfield was president, when the party's changed hands
with the White House, like everyone in Washington got fired,
Like everyone lost their job. It didn't matter if you
were a department level position or like the guy working
(18:11):
at the post office in DC, Like everyone lost their job.
And everyone from the new party came in and they
just started seeking work um to fill all those positions again.
And it was very partisan. And anybody could I mean,
like you could like go get that appointment at the
White House like today you go to the White House, uh,
(18:34):
and it's it's kind of a big process. You've got
to get tickets from your congress person, and they've got
to go through a background check before you can even
get to the security checkpoint to get into the house.
And and then you can ask for a job, and
it's not gonna work because the only person there's a
stone faced security officer going like please leave now, um.
(18:54):
But so so Garfield, he was assassinated by a guy
who up showing up and saying like, um, I should
be the consul of Paris. Um. I was joking about
it earlier, but he had written a speech um that
before from about some other people and after Garfield, one
(19:15):
literally changed the names in the speech to match Garfield
and said like this speech was the thing that changed
the country's mind to make you win this election. I
should have a position in this administration. And he kept
coming back over and over and over again, and he
kept saying like I totally deserved this job of consul
of Paris, and they're like, you're you're a crazy person,
(19:37):
please leave, like and they were really polite about it.
But then he borrowed fifteen dollars and bought a gun
with that and started stocking Garfield and UM. I found
it really interesting that the first time he was going
to shoot Garfield he didn't go through with it because
Garfield's wife was there and he didn't want to cause
(19:59):
that distress of her having to see it personally, so
he waited until later and then shot and killed him. Um.
I mean it took a few days, but um. And
then Chester A. Arthur who took over like his big
signature flagship thing. The thing we know Chester A. Arthur four.
If anything other than a reference in Diehard three, is
(20:20):
that a civil service reform. They made it so that
you your job was based on competency, not this political
partisan office seeking, because that was what they blamed the
assassination attepped On and so um. The book, as it
progresses chronologically, you see every step the country sort of
takes to get away from the fact that it would
(20:41):
be almost unthinkable today for anyone to get close enough
for that to happen in that situation. I have no
idea if that's answer to your question. We've kind of
gone down a very long road here. We have time
for still more questions. I think the hardest to research
was the Kennedy one, because I like read the Warrant report,
and I don't know if you've seen the Warrant report,
(21:02):
but it's like that thick um and that that was
just me like, man, that's a lot of work. Um.
It wasn't narrowing in the least. It was just a
lot of time. One of the ones that was that
was a lot of hard was like, there's no there's
no photo reference of Richard Lawrence, who was the first
presidential assassination, So like the illustrations in the book are
(21:27):
based on photographs and things, but Aaron had to take
sort of artistic license to render Richard Lawrence. Um. I
found the Kennedy assassination like really, um, it was really difficult,
just emotionally. Um. Scout really really really wanted to watch
the Supprofter film and I didn't know how comfortable I
(21:49):
was with that, and uh, you know, she kind of
talked me into it, like, you know, if we're gonna
do this, I'd like to watch it. And we watched
the one that was like they've like digitally got rid
of all of the I mean, if you watch the
original Supruder film, it's just all over the place and
you can't really track what's going on, Like you know
what's going on if you freeze frame it, you can tell.
(22:09):
But they like digitally fixed all of it and straightened
it all out, and it was I think that was
probably the most difficult moment, like making the decision to
say like we're gonna watch this and and we're gonna
go through with like understanding why this happened. Um. I
think that was probably one of the most striking moments
making the whole book. But else you got the question
(22:33):
is do I get letters from from children after reading
the book? And I have and and uh, the letters
I'm more, uh the kind of reveal more are actually
from teachers. Um. There are. I get letters a lot
from teachers who actually use the book to teach, and
I hear sort of through them that kids have gotten
really interested in it because they're they're connecting with the
(22:55):
stories and actually kind of biting off pieces of history
that that they wouldn't ordinarily be able to it at
sort of that eight to twelve age. UM. And and
so that's sort of what's most gratifying, UM to me.
The question was did I consult with any developmental psychologists
(23:16):
or teachers? I did have. Um, the editor had a
he he runs a social studies department at a school district,
and and he's one of the ones who like uses
the book. He really loves it. I don't believe a
developmental psychologist was involved in any way. And Uh, And
maybe that was a mistake on someone's part, but I
don't know, um, I mean like getting letters from scarred children. Yeah, well,
(23:40):
I mean the thing is is like when I I
think about going back to when I was like eight
and ten and twelve, and there are things that my
parents and and and everyone in my generation like we
got away with with watching or seeing, like when I
was like seven and eight, Like nobody batted an eyelash
at me, throwing RoboCop on, you know, and RoboCop Um.
(24:04):
RoboCop is something like I wouldn't show my kids right
now and my kids now, I mean Scout Um. When
we started, Scout was eight, she's twelve now, and I
still wouldn't be like Scout, let's watch RoboCop Like it
wouldn't happen. Like I think kids, um are more resilient
than we give them credit for, just personally, because I
was more resilient because I was exposed to like all
(24:24):
kinds of horrible things in movies like RoboCop Um. I
don't know why I'm focusing on RoboCop extremely there's like
a weird Peter Weller situation brewing. Yeah. My mother, on
the other hand, had huge problems with violence, so there
was no RoboCop in my world until I was a
grown up, and I was shocked at how much just
shooting people repeatedly in the Chester. Yeah, like ED two
(24:46):
o nine is is pretty striking to a kid. Oh No,
I was deep into. I mean, I love violence. I
love violence to this day, which is funny because I
myself and like the least violent person ever. So whatever
study correlate those two things, I'm clearly outside of. But uh,
but as an entertainment tool, I think it's um. But
(25:08):
but I think it was important to me, and I
think important to some of the Social Studies department director
that that I kind of went through the book with that.
I think it's important not to sugarcoat stuff for kids,
especially stuff that actually happened. Um. And sometimes you might
want to delay it to figure out how you're gonna
have the conversation. Like I really really wish um. I
(25:31):
was driving my kids to school the day the news
about Sandy Hook happened and we were like listening on
NPR and it was like not okay for the kids,
and I was like, I wish I would have had
like a buffer of time to figure out how we
would talk about it instead of like all of us
just bawling in the car. Um So, so this was
me able to figure that out. And I think the
(25:52):
social studies teacher that I work with, um, he sort
of agreed. Um. And maybe that was just a confirmation
by us. I was just looking for somebody that would
sign off and be like, yeah, thumbs up, the educator approved.
But um but I I think I was on the
right track, and the teachers I've heard from have agreed
with me. But I I haven't received any like really
(26:13):
bad hate mail yet from somebody going like I can't
believe you. You know. The only hate mail I have
God is people who haven't read the book that see
the title and say, how dare you like try to
bring this to children, And it's like, don't give it
to them if you don't feel like your kid is
able to handle it. I think that's very important. Like
my kids are really um weird kids that are sort
(26:37):
of like cultivated with my sense of like academia and
culture and things like that. Um So, Like Scout is
also super into like Charlie Chaplin films, which is something
that none of her friends can relate to whatsoever. And
she's also super into like the Three Stooges, and it's
like she's twelve, Like why would she know about the
Three Stooges. So like, my kids are like a special case.
And I wrote this for kids like my kids, and
(26:59):
there's tons of them out there. Um. But it really
does come come down to I think like, can that kid,
particular kid handle it. I don't know everybody's kids, um,
but you know your kids. So if you think your
kid can handle it or would be interested by it
or um, you know I I one of the things
I do hear from kids is that like they just
(27:20):
are from parents really, Like kids don't email me really, UM,
I hear like second hand reports from parents and the
parents are just like they just love it. They want
to keep putting it together, um, and keep reading it
because the stories are just fascinating. And the fact that
they're using it as that gave way to history. I
don't see how that can be bad. So before we
(27:41):
get back into it, this is the one question that
we forgot to repeat for the audience. So the question
that Brian is about to answer is how the gender
ratio breaks down in terms of who was attempting to
assassinate presidents? I think there are only two to try
to killer president and it was both gerald Ford. Um. Yeah,
(28:06):
so I don't know what was in like the water
in the seventies or something, but like really I don't know,
fair enough, Um, but it was only those two. Um,
And I have no idea why. I don't know. Maybe
maybe men are deserve the crazy reputation way more because
(28:27):
it bears that out at least on the presidential assassination level. Yeah,
that's that's overwhelmingly Yeah. No, I I honestly think going
back and thinking about it's just those two And it
was within like two weeks with like Gerald Ford in California.
In California, it's a pretty specific data set. Women in
California did not like Gerald Ford for reasons that we're
(28:51):
kind of delusional. Yeah, yeah, so I yeah, that's the right.
I hope that answers your question. Yes, Oh, I'm gonna
we need to have another live show and have sab
Bones on with us. So the question, the question, Holly,
was what's a nutritive enema? So here's the thing. Here's
(29:17):
how I found out about them was when you guys
may have seen this, it was a couple of years ago,
was it a couple of years ago, there was like
a series of news reports going around about college students
doing alcohol enemas because they could absorb it faster. It
bypasses your liver like you're off like a rocket instantly.
And someone I think we were talking about it in
(29:37):
a brainstorm at work and someone said something like, well,
you can do that with food too, and I was like, whoa,
And then it came up in your books. So basically
it's the same thing. You're basically doing like a sluice
of blended food stuffs and your colon absorbs the nutrients
very quickly, so that you're getting nutrition when you can't
(29:57):
actually eat and digest. Was that clean enough and not
too gross? I don't it. It was very scientific on
my part. People also used to do this with tobacco there.
I learned that from saw bones. That was sometimes of bones,
just pick that up. It was sometimes a medicinal treatment.
People like to you know, those things in their butts.
(30:24):
It's just like coffee. Animals and what of our upcoming
Halloween episodes, we talked about a lady that was giving
people lots of animals that took outs, and that was
not my research. The animals gross part, I'm really glading
you to. Yeah, nutritive animals. I can't believe that felt
(30:51):
to me to explain it, but it seems it also
seems like kind of a weird high note to take
out the podcast on. It was also the last of
the questions that we had about presidential assassinations, and from
here it did diverge into more general things about the
podcast and various other topics. Also, I wanted to note
(31:12):
that the podcast we talked about in this answer is
the one about Linda Hazard and Starvation Heights, which, since
we are time traveling a little bit with this uh
with this live show podcast, that one was out already.
If you heard that and went multi hour animals, I
want to listen to that episode. So we have so
many people to think New York Comic Con, New York
(31:34):
super Week, Matt who coordinated so many things for us
and his entire team was just spectacular. We also want
to thank the folks at the Domina Center for Classical
Music that worked out to be a great venue for us.
It was absolutely beautiful. And then we have to thank
You're amazing and wondrous fiancee. Yeah, so we gotta thank Patrick.
I didn't thank Patrick at the time because I kind
(31:56):
of I did not want two hundred people to turn
and look at because it seems a little embarrassing sometimes
to be put on the spot. Uh. We basically got
to the venue and we're like, we don't know what
we want to do with the chairs, and he stepped
in and essentially stage managed the whole show for us. Yeah,
he was great. My beloved took some fun pictures and
(32:16):
video for us, and in fact, Brian Young ended up
thankfully recording it for us because we had a little
confusion about how we were going to record the show.
The Brian's and the Patrick like saved our bacons. Thank
you to all of them. But most importantly, our audience
was amazing. They were fantastic. Thank you so much everyone
(32:37):
who came out. We cannot tell you how much we
appreciate it and how much we loved getting to see
you and getting to meet you and just kind of
have that wonderful evening together. It was absolutely spectacular fun
for both of us. So thank you, thank you, thank you,
and yes we do hope to do it again. Yes,
I would do that all the time if I had
the opportunity every time we were promoting it, and that
(32:59):
usually the first comment anytime we promoted it would be
come to and then the place where that comment are lived,
and you and I kept being like, just let us
get through this one first, and then I mean, it
went so much better than we had any right to
hope that it would. So yes, we hope to do
it again, maybe somewhere near you. I also have some
listener mail, So my listener mail is from Jenna. It
(33:23):
is about our redlining episodes, which were not the happier
episodes we've ever done. But this listener mail is actually
pretty positive, so I wanted to make sure to read it,
and so Jenna says, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I have
been enjoying the podcast for about a year and a
half now, thanks to my now husband introducing it to
me on our first road trip together. I live in Fargo,
but have family and France in Chicago, so we're on
(33:45):
the road fairly often. I'll even stop listening to new
episodes for a few weeks before a trip so we
have enough new material to keep us company while we
travel back and forth. I was really excited to have
a tidbit of knowledge about how in one Chicago neighborhood,
redlining was very strongly defeated by a group of mostly
white residents. The Chicago NPR station did a story on
(34:06):
their Curious City show about how in the Beverly neighborhood
down on the far South Side, they're mostly white residents
worked hard to ensure that integration would happen in their neighborhood,
and she gives a link to that episode, which we
will put in our show notes. Currently, I serve as
a pastor and it was during my time in seminary
that I had a teaching field ed site, and it
(34:26):
was in Beverly. My denomination is largely white, and even
in Chicago, the churches are often homogeneous. While my teaching
church was was still mostly white, it was more diverse
than I had thought it would be. And I am
extremely grateful to those who worked to integrate the Beverly neighborhood.
Thank you for your no nonsense approach to issues of race,
the inequality of those who identify within the lgbt q
(34:49):
I A plus community, and the many wonderful women in history.
It gives me so much hope and joy to hear
your unapologetic take on listener feedback that all too often
comes from place of Miss Botney, racism, homophobia or xenophobia, etcetera.
And then she she adds a little note, a little
asterisk from when she mentioned being from Fargo, saying that
(35:09):
almost everyone U put upon hearing this first asked about
the movie or TV show, neither of which actually tastes
place in Fargo, even though the State Welcome Center with
the wood Chipper is down the street from their home.
So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jenna
for writing in with us. We have a couple of
emails about Chicago specifically and steps that the city of
(35:30):
Chicago took to try to prevent white flight into the
suburbs and to try to keep its neighborhoods more integrated,
and some comparisons to Chicago and other cities in the
Midwest and how they have fared since then, and whether
that uh, some of that credit lies with the fact
that the city is more integrated than some other places.
So thank you so much, Jenna. I will put a
(35:50):
note to that story in our show notes. If you
would like to write to us about this or any
other podcast where History podcast at how Stuffworks dot com.
We're also on Facebook at face book dot com slash
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Are Tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com,
and we're on Pinterest at pentriest dot com slash missed
in History. You can come to our parent companies website,
(36:11):
which is how stuff works dot com. You can put
residential assassinations in the search bar and you will find
various things about various attempts through history. You can come
to our website, which is missed in History dot com,
and you will find an archive of every episode we
have ever done and show notes for all of the
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do all that and a whole lot more at how
(36:33):
stuff works dot com or missed in History dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics, does
it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm tracybe Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. On Monday, our
podcast was the episode part of our live show from
(00:21):
New York site. Holly and I talked to Brian Young,
who's the author of a children's illustrated history of Presidential
Assassination about as you Might Expect Presidential assassinations and also
his book, and we had planned all along to make
that live podcast recording part of the show into an
episode of the podcast so that all of you could
hear it. But we were generally expecting that the Q
(00:43):
and A part of the show that we did after
we finished our sort of planned out discussion to be
this weird hodgepodge of questions that would skip around and
really wouldn't be like one cohesive thing, because you know,
that's often how Q and A sessions go, right, that's
whatever is on their minds, It usually skip around. However,
we had the world's best audience, Seriously, we really did.
(01:07):
They asked great questions. They were interesting and insightful and concise,
and most of them were about the assassinations and the
attempts that we had just been discussing. So it became clear.
I mean, I think we were literally leaving the venue
and walking back to our hotel when both of us,
independently of each other, were like, we need that Q
and A Part to be a podcast. Also, Yeah, because
(01:29):
Brian is so uh well researched in this area. He
knows so much and he's so passionate about history. His
answers on these amazing questions that people came up with,
We're just so thoughtful and interesting and informative that like,
there was no way we wanted to keep that to ourselves.
Now we did. We are keeping some bits to ourselves
(01:51):
into the audience. He was there with us, Yeah, not
so much. That's just about the presidential assassination. Yeah. And
as a note, because we did not have an audience,
Mike uh, we repeated the questions so that everyone could hear.
So this really helped since the audience questions weren't really
captured in the recording. So what we've done just to
(02:12):
try to spare you of odd fuzzy quiet spaces where
we've tried to snip out or shorten the pauses and
the times when they were maybe asking questions that just
weren't audible. Yeah, And the last thing is because this
Q and A really followed on the heels of the
live podcast we had just recorded, some of the questions
definitely reflect back to that part of the show. So
(02:32):
if you haven't heard Monday's episode episode, a good idea
to check that one out before you listen to this one.
So let's hop right in. We're first going to begin
with a question for Brian about how he dealt with
Squeaky From and the Manson family in the book. So,
how did ideal with Squeaking From in the book? Um?
(02:54):
So the general four chapter, Uh, it's it's interesting where
I didn't get into the whole like, yes, she was
a follower of Manson, and it was sort of like
that was a little crazy, Like I didn't get into
that much detail. And it was one of those things
again where like I didn't want to be the person
presenting that rabbit hole of information to kids. Um, I
(03:15):
wanted parents to kind of do that. I mean, I
really do think this book is a partnership between kids
and parents. Um. And I think most books like this
should be. I mean, I don't think there's a book
like this, but you get what I mean, and it's
important that gerald Ford was there and what the circumstances were,
and that I kind of classify her under the delusional category.
(03:36):
And by the time all of the all of the
stories are assembled chronologically, so by the time they get
to gerald Ford, they kind of are attuned to the
fact that some of these people are just delusional. And
so when it's like she found this guy, that that
kind of twisted the ideas in her head, like I
don't think that that's a bridge too far for them
(03:56):
to cross, and so that's that's kind of how I
handled it, and that there's there are some illustrations in
that portion of the book. And the interesting part of
the story is that like she had a loaded weapon
and she was able to fire it and like it
magically didn't go off because she didn't have the bullet
chambered and they were able to tackle her in time.
And it's more incredible that like it happened in California
(04:21):
and Ford just stayed in California and like two weeks
plus later, like um, there was another assassination attempt and
it was just like a woman who was like I'm
upset about my politics, and she took a shot at him,
and like, if I were Ford, I'd never go back
to California. I tried to figure out what exactly her
politics were after I read the book, and I could
(04:43):
find an answer to that anywhere that that was sort
of like the vague answer that was given like every time.
And I my best guess was the pardon of Nixon UM,
because a lot of people that was sort of what
people were upset at that time about UM. But I
couldn't find anything elusive that she talked about it, and
so I didn't want to include it. And I tried
(05:04):
to keep the book fairly nonpartisan, like it was, it
was very I tried to remain sort of balanced and
insofar as like, yes, the Trail of Tears was was awful,
but it happened, and and this was what Jackson did
because he thought it was right. I don't think any
of the presidents that I talked about in the book
thought they were like purposely harming America or destroying anything.
(05:27):
So I tried to approach it that way. Well, and
that's that's the more and just from a writing standpoint,
that's the more interesting way to approach it anyway, because
like mustache whirling villains are pretty boring. Yeah, nobody thinks
they're the bad guy. No, And and that's what it
was the same thing with handling all of the assassins too. Um,
(05:48):
you know, there were a couple of like anarchists or
or man. Even the guy who tried to kill Garfield,
or who did kill Garfield like, he wasn't just like
a good guy. He was the guy who made Garfield
like the president because he wrote that speech that everyone
listened to that he happened to retitle after the election
(06:10):
to make it relevant to Garfield. Um, but no, it's
it's it's like no one, no one in this book
thought they were the bad guy, not the assassin's, not
the presidents. And so I didn't want to approach anybody
like that. I wanted to try to get at what
people's reasons were, honestly. I mean, even John Wilkes Boo Booth,
like I said, I mean, I don't think he tried
(06:33):
to kill I don't think there's any good reason to
kill the president. But for Booth, he thought he was
doing what was best for his country. And I didn't
want to to to I wanted to humanize them so
that people can see that people can make really bad
decisions for what they think are the right reasons. Yeah,
(06:53):
this is like a big moral load for it stems
from my loves Star Wars and the hol Anikin stuff.
Wouldn't go down that path, I promise, I understand it's
always relevant to me. But um, other questions, what do
we got? So, did your daughter have interactions with the
(07:16):
editor and the editor did the editor have to edit
your daughter? No? No, all all my daughter did were
the like I kind of handled her and it was
all just her. Her only contributions were she did a
portrait of each president and for three of the assassination,
the successful assassinations, she did renderings of them. She found
(07:38):
nothing interesting about Garfield's assassination, so she was just like,
I don't care about Garfield, which is kind of why
that's probably I think for most people, like on average,
like the hardest one to name, especially since Garfield I
don't with with McKinley, um people have his name around
(07:59):
with Garfield, like, I don't think people associate him with
very much um and and so I think he was
just sort of the most forgettable and I have no idea,
like I can't get an answer out of her why
she didn't want to do that one other than it
was just like I don't know so but no, there
was no interaction with with the publisher, the editor and her.
It was that they kind of let me take care
(08:21):
of all of that. Else. I know we had a
hand over here. Yep. Um. So Brian's take on this
Stephen Sondheim play Assassins, I have not seen it, I know, right,
That's the reaction that I get every time I hear that.
I have listened to the score a lot um because
(08:43):
I was gonna say, my wife is just really into
like Stephen Sondheim and musical, so I've heard the score
and stuff. But it wasn't like anything I sought out.
It wasn't like I wonder if this is going to
reveal anything that I'm going to have to put in
the book. It was it was, it was. It didn't
feel like necessary. Um, it didn't feel like necessary research
for me. Same with Sarah Owl's wonderful Assassination vacation, Like
(09:07):
I just didn't go there for this. I was just
going to say that we still get emails sometimes about
the time that I said that I don't care for
some time on the podcast, and that was like two
years ago. I think I don't really either. I'm so sorry.
I can appreciate Snheim's technical mastery, I do not personally
(09:27):
enjoy listening to it as a thing to do for fun. Well,
and I have that I have that musicals thing where
I don't like to watch people sing because you see
in their mouths. It's really gross. I can't handle it.
It is so gross. That's also why you never watched Glee.
That is like a torture chamber to me, Like, if
(09:48):
I ever, if I've ever suspected of a crime and
people want to like torture the truth out of me,
they can just show me American Idol and Glee over
and over and I'll be like, I'll give it up.
I'll give it up. Don't maybe look at their mouth
that I I think we had this exact conversation one
time on that podcast we used to be on. I think,
so it's icky. I can't do it. And also they
make faces that are private time basis, do you know
(10:12):
what I mean? Like they make really a motive singer.
I can watch opera because they're acting a little bit
more and it's not quite as but ummmmmm no, thank you.
Another question, uh you, sir? So he want so if
(10:34):
I had to explain to the plot of Taxi Driver, um,
Taxi Driver comes up. But I did not get into
the plot of Taxi Driver. I would have liked to,
because I really love Taxi Driver, and I really love
Scorsese movies. And what was germane to the story was
that that movie influenced him and that there was assassination
(10:55):
and a potential assassination in the movie, and that Jody
Faster was in it. And those are the three key
details that I put in the book, because I mean,
you're hard pressed to find anybody of a generation younger
than mine. I feel like that's interested in movies made
before anyway, And so Taxi Driver, like to an eight
(11:18):
year old, just seems like, I don't know what's the point, really,
like they're gonna need to be way older for all
of the context anyway, So they just need to know
the highlights and the I mean, there is an illustration.
Aaron Kuberak, who did the illustrations, did um cheated portraits
of each of the assassins, and I think um, his
(11:39):
portrait is one of my favorites because it does have
Jody Foster from Taxi Driver in it, and it's just
a really interesting You'll have to to look at it.
It's just a great portrait. I feel like we stumbled
into your next children's book, which is the illustrated Scorsese
for children that he did that himself with Hugo. If
(12:04):
you are a little foggy about the more recent presidential
assassination attempts in history, you may not recall why Taxi
Driver is relevant to all this, so long story short.
John Hinckley Jr's attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan was
in part an imitation of that movie and an attempts
to impress Jodie Foster, who had a leading role in it.
(12:28):
And now we're going to take a quick break because
we talk about the answer to the next question for
quite a bit. It goes on for a while and
it's really informative. So before we get into that, let's
pause for a brief word from one of our great sponsors.
Next up, we have a question about how these assassinations
and their attempts have affected the nation, and answering this
(12:48):
took us all down a bunch of different roads, from
the sort of galvanizing effects that an assassination attempt tends
to have on the general public to the evolution of
the Secret Service, which we don't really talk about it here,
but there is a whole section of the book that's
about exactly that. So let's jump in. So he wants
(13:11):
to know the the effect of assassination and what it's
had on on the country is that isn't um? I
think for my daughter, I think the effect was immediate
when I told her that first time, like President Lincoln
was assassinated, and she was gobsmacked that that was that's
(13:32):
the word I can use, right, Okay, she was gob smacked, um,
that that was something that could even happen, because it's
just not it's not It didn't feel pleasant to her
that somebody would do that. Um. And going through the book,
I think it's important, I think, and maybe this is
(13:52):
me being too much of a an artist or something
and wanting people to get something out of it themselves.
But there's like nothing pleasant that opens with any of this,
the countries and turmoil, and there's sort of that picture
painted that like no one likes any of this happening,
and that the people who are doing it, for the
(14:12):
most part are just disturbed individuals and they probably needed
help and this is not okay, and that no rational
human being is going to say this is a logical
choice for me to make, and just that devastation on
her face when she found out it was a possibility.
I think is is the reaction has on like a
(14:34):
mass scale for everybody. Um, but I'd be more interested
to hear you guys think of. I mean, you guys
read it pretty objectively, and well, what I initially think
of when that question comes up is, actually, um, I
am old enough to remember when Reagan was shocked. I
was nine when it happened, and I remember like that
(14:56):
being really a shock wave moment, Like I remember walking
in the door. I can tell you about the little
pete teared skirt outfit I was wearing, and my older brother,
who was a good bit older than me, like that,
he greeted me at the door off the school bus
and said the president was shot. And I think I
said some swear words like you you know, because that's
the kind of nine year old I was, I'm sorry,
it's true. Uh, And he was like, no, It's true.
It's on TV and we were watching it, and I
(15:16):
just remember it being an oddly Again through the lens
of a nine year old, it seems like a very
galvanizing moment where everyone was very upset about it, and
it didn't matter about your politics. It was just horrible
that this had taken place. Um. There's a moment in
the book, UM, and it happened when Reagan was being
brought to the hospital UM, which is another interesting thing,
where Reagan was almost like, no, I'm fine. It's a
(15:37):
cracked ry of oh no, I'm coughing up blood. And
then they're like, okay, let's take him to the hospital.
And Reagan was sort of joking about it. And I
think this is part of why I thought it was
really important to humanize the president, whoever he was, whichever party,
and whatever I felt their politics were. Um. Reagan gets
into the operating room and says, I hope you're all Republicans.
(15:58):
And the surgeon was a pretty prominent liberal Democrat and
he said, sir, today, we're all Republicans. And I think
that was a really powerful moment. I really wanted to
include moments like that in the book where I could
because I think that's what happens when when our leaders
are attacked like that. Um. There was another one with UM,
(16:22):
well that's that's actually kind of a lighter story. But
UM there are examples of that where it's like we
have to come together and like overcome this because that's
not this is not how people act or should act,
and that we all, like, despite our political differences, come
together because human life is valuable, regardless of what the
(16:42):
opinion of that human life is. You can also see
as you read all these stories in the book, the
progression in how much UH safety insurance surround the office
of president. Like when you when you think about ages
ago in the past, king's riding into battle with their
(17:03):
men right and putting their own lives at risk anie
field of battle. Then we sort of get to the
earliest assassination attempt in the United States with UH, with
somebody basically being like, oh, that guy just tried to
kill the president. We're standing around here, we should probably
knock him down. UH. And it's so you sort of
(17:27):
see gradually that Okay, now there are some guards posted
outside where the president is sleeping. Now we have an
actual secret service, Like now this sort of grows into
this whole thing and now we have like dudes running
alongside the armored car there. There there are moments like
that in the book to where where there are steps
sort of taken along the way. Uh. We talked about
when the Secret Service kind of came around. Um, the
(17:50):
book goes into I think Garfield's assassination was actually a
big step in fixing a lot of this stuff. Um.
Back when Garfield was president, when the party's changed hands
with the White House, like everyone in Washington got fired,
Like everyone lost their job. It didn't matter if you
were a department level position or like the guy working
(18:11):
at the post office in DC, Like everyone lost their job.
And everyone from the new party came in and they
just started seeking work um to fill all those positions again.
And it was very partisan. And anybody could I mean,
like you could like go get that appointment at the
White House like today you go to the White House, uh,
(18:34):
and it's it's kind of a big process. You've got
to get tickets from your congress person, and they've got
to go through a background check before you can even
get to the security checkpoint to get into the house.
And and then you can ask for a job, and
it's not gonna work because the only person there's a
stone faced security officer going like please leave now, um.
(18:54):
But so so Garfield, he was assassinated by a guy
who up showing up and saying like, um, I should
be the consul of Paris. Um. I was joking about
it earlier, but he had written a speech um that
before from about some other people and after Garfield, one
(19:15):
literally changed the names in the speech to match Garfield
and said like this speech was the thing that changed
the country's mind to make you win this election. I
should have a position in this administration. And he kept
coming back over and over and over again, and he
kept saying like I totally deserved this job of consul
of Paris, and they're like, you're you're a crazy person,
(19:37):
please leave, like and they were really polite about it.
But then he borrowed fifteen dollars and bought a gun
with that and started stocking Garfield and UM. I found
it really interesting that the first time he was going
to shoot Garfield he didn't go through with it because
Garfield's wife was there and he didn't want to cause
(19:59):
that distress of her having to see it personally, so
he waited until later and then shot and killed him. Um.
I mean it took a few days, but um. And
then Chester A. Arthur who took over like his big
signature flagship thing. The thing we know Chester A. Arthur four.
If anything other than a reference in Diehard three, is
(20:20):
that a civil service reform. They made it so that
you your job was based on competency, not this political
partisan office seeking, because that was what they blamed the
assassination attepped On and so um. The book, as it
progresses chronologically, you see every step the country sort of
takes to get away from the fact that it would
(20:41):
be almost unthinkable today for anyone to get close enough
for that to happen in that situation. I have no
idea if that's answer to your question. We've kind of
gone down a very long road here. We have time
for still more questions. I think the hardest to research
was the Kennedy one, because I like read the Warrant report,
and I don't know if you've seen the Warrant report,
(21:02):
but it's like that thick um and that that was
just me like, man, that's a lot of work. Um.
It wasn't narrowing in the least. It was just a
lot of time. One of the ones that was that
was a lot of hard was like, there's no there's
no photo reference of Richard Lawrence, who was the first
presidential assassination, So like the illustrations in the book are
(21:27):
based on photographs and things, but Aaron had to take
sort of artistic license to render Richard Lawrence. Um. I
found the Kennedy assassination like really, um, it was really difficult,
just emotionally. Um. Scout really really really wanted to watch
the Supprofter film and I didn't know how comfortable I
(21:49):
was with that, and uh, you know, she kind of
talked me into it, like, you know, if we're gonna
do this, I'd like to watch it. And we watched
the one that was like they've like digitally got rid
of all of the I mean, if you watch the
original Supruder film, it's just all over the place and
you can't really track what's going on, Like you know
what's going on if you freeze frame it, you can tell.
(22:09):
But they like digitally fixed all of it and straightened
it all out, and it was I think that was
probably the most difficult moment, like making the decision to
say like we're gonna watch this and and we're gonna
go through with like understanding why this happened. Um. I
think that was probably one of the most striking moments
making the whole book. But else you got the question
(22:33):
is do I get letters from from children after reading
the book? And I have and and uh, the letters
I'm more, uh the kind of reveal more are actually
from teachers. Um. There are. I get letters a lot
from teachers who actually use the book to teach, and
I hear sort of through them that kids have gotten
really interested in it because they're they're connecting with the
(22:55):
stories and actually kind of biting off pieces of history
that that they wouldn't ordinarily be able to it at
sort of that eight to twelve age. UM. And and
so that's sort of what's most gratifying, UM to me.
The question was did I consult with any developmental psychologists
(23:16):
or teachers? I did have. Um, the editor had a
he he runs a social studies department at a school district,
and and he's one of the ones who like uses
the book. He really loves it. I don't believe a
developmental psychologist was involved in any way. And Uh, And
maybe that was a mistake on someone's part, but I
don't know, um, I mean like getting letters from scarred children. Yeah, well,
(23:40):
I mean the thing is is like when I I
think about going back to when I was like eight
and ten and twelve, and there are things that my
parents and and and everyone in my generation like we
got away with with watching or seeing, like when I
was like seven and eight, Like nobody batted an eyelash
at me, throwing RoboCop on, you know, and RoboCop Um.
(24:04):
RoboCop is something like I wouldn't show my kids right
now and my kids now, I mean Scout Um. When
we started, Scout was eight, she's twelve now, and I
still wouldn't be like Scout, let's watch RoboCop Like it
wouldn't happen. Like I think kids, um are more resilient
than we give them credit for, just personally, because I
was more resilient because I was exposed to like all
(24:24):
kinds of horrible things in movies like RoboCop Um. I
don't know why I'm focusing on RoboCop extremely there's like
a weird Peter Weller situation brewing. Yeah. My mother, on
the other hand, had huge problems with violence, so there
was no RoboCop in my world until I was a
grown up, and I was shocked at how much just
shooting people repeatedly in the Chester. Yeah, like ED two
(24:46):
o nine is is pretty striking to a kid. Oh No,
I was deep into. I mean, I love violence. I
love violence to this day, which is funny because I
myself and like the least violent person ever. So whatever
study correlate those two things, I'm clearly outside of. But uh,
but as an entertainment tool, I think it's um. But
(25:08):
but I think it was important to me, and I
think important to some of the Social Studies department director
that that I kind of went through the book with that.
I think it's important not to sugarcoat stuff for kids,
especially stuff that actually happened. Um. And sometimes you might
want to delay it to figure out how you're gonna
have the conversation. Like I really really wish um. I
(25:31):
was driving my kids to school the day the news
about Sandy Hook happened and we were like listening on
NPR and it was like not okay for the kids,
and I was like, I wish I would have had
like a buffer of time to figure out how we
would talk about it instead of like all of us
just bawling in the car. Um So, so this was
me able to figure that out. And I think the
(25:52):
social studies teacher that I work with, um, he sort
of agreed. Um. And maybe that was just a confirmation
by us. I was just looking for somebody that would
sign off and be like, yeah, thumbs up, the educator approved.
But um but I I think I was on the
right track, and the teachers I've heard from have agreed
with me. But I I haven't received any like really
(26:13):
bad hate mail yet from somebody going like I can't
believe you. You know. The only hate mail I have
God is people who haven't read the book that see
the title and say, how dare you like try to
bring this to children, And it's like, don't give it
to them if you don't feel like your kid is
able to handle it. I think that's very important. Like
my kids are really um weird kids that are sort
(26:37):
of like cultivated with my sense of like academia and
culture and things like that. Um So, Like Scout is
also super into like Charlie Chaplin films, which is something
that none of her friends can relate to whatsoever. And
she's also super into like the Three Stooges, and it's
like she's twelve, Like why would she know about the
Three Stooges. So like, my kids are like a special case.
And I wrote this for kids like my kids, and
(26:59):
there's tons of them out there. Um. But it really
does come come down to I think like, can that kid,
particular kid handle it. I don't know everybody's kids, um,
but you know your kids. So if you think your
kid can handle it or would be interested by it
or um, you know I I one of the things
I do hear from kids is that like they just
(27:20):
are from parents really, Like kids don't email me really, UM,
I hear like second hand reports from parents and the
parents are just like they just love it. They want
to keep putting it together, um, and keep reading it
because the stories are just fascinating. And the fact that
they're using it as that gave way to history. I
don't see how that can be bad. So before we
(27:41):
get back into it, this is the one question that
we forgot to repeat for the audience. So the question
that Brian is about to answer is how the gender
ratio breaks down in terms of who was attempting to
assassinate presidents? I think there are only two to try
to killer president and it was both gerald Ford. Um. Yeah,
(28:06):
so I don't know what was in like the water
in the seventies or something, but like really I don't know,
fair enough, Um, but it was only those two. Um,
And I have no idea why. I don't know. Maybe
maybe men are deserve the crazy reputation way more because
(28:27):
it bears that out at least on the presidential assassination level. Yeah,
that's that's overwhelmingly Yeah. No, I I honestly think going
back and thinking about it's just those two And it
was within like two weeks with like Gerald Ford in California.
In California, it's a pretty specific data set. Women in
California did not like Gerald Ford for reasons that we're
(28:51):
kind of delusional. Yeah, yeah, so I yeah, that's the right.
I hope that answers your question. Yes, Oh, I'm gonna
we need to have another live show and have sab
Bones on with us. So the question, the question, Holly,
was what's a nutritive enema? So here's the thing. Here's
(29:17):
how I found out about them was when you guys
may have seen this, it was a couple of years ago,
was it a couple of years ago, there was like
a series of news reports going around about college students
doing alcohol enemas because they could absorb it faster. It
bypasses your liver like you're off like a rocket instantly.
And someone I think we were talking about it in
(29:37):
a brainstorm at work and someone said something like, well,
you can do that with food too, and I was like, whoa,
And then it came up in your books. So basically
it's the same thing. You're basically doing like a sluice
of blended food stuffs and your colon absorbs the nutrients
very quickly, so that you're getting nutrition when you can't
(29:57):
actually eat and digest. Was that clean enough and not
too gross? I don't it. It was very scientific on
my part. People also used to do this with tobacco there.
I learned that from saw bones. That was sometimes of bones,
just pick that up. It was sometimes a medicinal treatment.
People like to you know, those things in their butts.
(30:24):
It's just like coffee. Animals and what of our upcoming
Halloween episodes, we talked about a lady that was giving
people lots of animals that took outs, and that was
not my research. The animals gross part, I'm really glading
you to. Yeah, nutritive animals. I can't believe that felt
(30:51):
to me to explain it, but it seems it also
seems like kind of a weird high note to take
out the podcast on. It was also the last of
the questions that we had about presidential assassinations, and from
here it did diverge into more general things about the
podcast and various other topics. Also, I wanted to note
(31:12):
that the podcast we talked about in this answer is
the one about Linda Hazard and Starvation Heights, which, since
we are time traveling a little bit with this uh
with this live show podcast, that one was out already.
If you heard that and went multi hour animals, I
want to listen to that episode. So we have so
many people to think New York Comic Con, New York
(31:34):
super Week, Matt who coordinated so many things for us
and his entire team was just spectacular. We also want
to thank the folks at the Domina Center for Classical
Music that worked out to be a great venue for us.
It was absolutely beautiful. And then we have to thank
You're amazing and wondrous fiancee. Yeah, so we gotta thank Patrick.
I didn't thank Patrick at the time because I kind
(31:56):
of I did not want two hundred people to turn
and look at because it seems a little embarrassing sometimes
to be put on the spot. Uh. We basically got
to the venue and we're like, we don't know what
we want to do with the chairs, and he stepped
in and essentially stage managed the whole show for us. Yeah,
he was great. My beloved took some fun pictures and
(32:16):
video for us, and in fact, Brian Young ended up
thankfully recording it for us because we had a little
confusion about how we were going to record the show.
The Brian's and the Patrick like saved our bacons. Thank
you to all of them. But most importantly, our audience
was amazing. They were fantastic. Thank you so much everyone
(32:37):
who came out. We cannot tell you how much we
appreciate it and how much we loved getting to see
you and getting to meet you and just kind of
have that wonderful evening together. It was absolutely spectacular fun
for both of us. So thank you, thank you, thank you,
and yes we do hope to do it again. Yes,
I would do that all the time if I had
the opportunity every time we were promoting it, and that
(32:59):
usually the first comment anytime we promoted it would be
come to and then the place where that comment are lived,
and you and I kept being like, just let us
get through this one first, and then I mean, it
went so much better than we had any right to
hope that it would. So yes, we hope to do
it again, maybe somewhere near you. I also have some
listener mail, So my listener mail is from Jenna. It
(33:23):
is about our redlining episodes, which were not the happier
episodes we've ever done. But this listener mail is actually
pretty positive, so I wanted to make sure to read it,
and so Jenna says, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I have
been enjoying the podcast for about a year and a
half now, thanks to my now husband introducing it to
me on our first road trip together. I live in Fargo,
but have family and France in Chicago, so we're on
(33:45):
the road fairly often. I'll even stop listening to new
episodes for a few weeks before a trip so we
have enough new material to keep us company while we
travel back and forth. I was really excited to have
a tidbit of knowledge about how in one Chicago neighborhood,
redlining was very strongly defeated by a group of mostly
white residents. The Chicago NPR station did a story on
(34:06):
their Curious City show about how in the Beverly neighborhood
down on the far South Side, they're mostly white residents
worked hard to ensure that integration would happen in their neighborhood,
and she gives a link to that episode, which we
will put in our show notes. Currently, I serve as
a pastor and it was during my time in seminary
that I had a teaching field ed site, and it
(34:26):
was in Beverly. My denomination is largely white, and even
in Chicago, the churches are often homogeneous. While my teaching
church was was still mostly white, it was more diverse
than I had thought it would be. And I am
extremely grateful to those who worked to integrate the Beverly neighborhood.
Thank you for your no nonsense approach to issues of race,
the inequality of those who identify within the lgbt q
(34:49):
I A plus community, and the many wonderful women in history.
It gives me so much hope and joy to hear
your unapologetic take on listener feedback that all too often
comes from place of Miss Botney, racism, homophobia or xenophobia, etcetera.
And then she she adds a little note, a little
asterisk from when she mentioned being from Fargo, saying that
(35:09):
almost everyone U put upon hearing this first asked about
the movie or TV show, neither of which actually tastes
place in Fargo, even though the State Welcome Center with
the wood Chipper is down the street from their home.
So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jenna
for writing in with us. We have a couple of
emails about Chicago specifically and steps that the city of
(35:30):
Chicago took to try to prevent white flight into the
suburbs and to try to keep its neighborhoods more integrated,
and some comparisons to Chicago and other cities in the
Midwest and how they have fared since then, and whether
that uh, some of that credit lies with the fact
that the city is more integrated than some other places.
So thank you so much, Jenna. I will put a
(35:50):
note to that story in our show notes. If you
would like to write to us about this or any
other podcast where History podcast at how Stuffworks dot com.
We're also on Facebook at face book dot com slash
miss in history and on Twitter at miss in History.
Are Tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com,
and we're on Pinterest at pentriest dot com slash missed
in History. You can come to our parent companies website,
(36:11):
which is how stuff works dot com. You can put
residential assassinations in the search bar and you will find
various things about various attempts through history. You can come
to our website, which is missed in History dot com,
and you will find an archive of every episode we
have ever done and show notes for all of the
episodes Holly and I have worked on. So you can
do all that and a whole lot more at how
(36:33):
stuff works dot com or missed in History dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics, does
it how stuff works dot com
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Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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