November 21, 2023 • 13 mins
On this day in 1953, the Piltdown Man, supposedly the remains of a missing evolutionary link between apes and humans, was revealed to be a hoax in the press.
On this day in 1934, at 17-years-old, Ella Fitzgerald became the first female performer to win Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, history fans. We're taking a break to stay
ahead of the holidays, but we've got plenty of classic
shows to keep you busy.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi again everyone, it's Eves and welcome to this Day
in History Class A show where History waits for no One.
The day was November twenty one, nineteen fifty three. The
pilt Down Man, the supposed fossil remains of a species
(00:30):
of extinct hominin, was exposed as a hoax. Charles Dawson
was an amateur antiquarian who lived in Lewis, Sussex. He
claimed that in nineteen o eight he began to find
fossilized remains in a gravel formation at Piltdown Common. Major
evidence of early humans in the British Isles had not
yet been uncovered, so his discoveries were potentially groundbreaking. They
(00:55):
attracted the attention of Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the
Geological Department of the British Museum. Woodward and Dawson continued
to search the gravel pit and discovered fragments of a cranium,
jaw and teeth. They suggested that all of the fragments
belonged to one individual. At a meeting of the Geological
Society of London. On December eighteenth, nineteen twelve, Woodward announced
(01:18):
the discovery of the Piltdown remains. He proposed that the
Piltdown Man represented an unknown species of extinct hominin that
was the missing evolutionary link between apes and early humans.
He dubbed the Piltdown Man Ioanthropist Dawsony or dawn Man
after Dawson. From nineteen thirteen to nineteen fifteen, more fragments
(01:40):
were excavated from the site and another one nearby. Dawson
died in nineteen sixteen. Many scientists accepted his view that
the fragments all belonged to the same individual, but others
believed that the fragments came from more than one source,
possibly a modern man and an anthropoid eight. In nineteen fifteen,
Garrett Miller published the results of a study that concluded
(02:03):
that the jaw was that of a chimpanzee. This conclusion
was supported by other scientists, but debate continued over the
origin of the Piltdown remains. People began to doubt the
legitimacy of the Piltdown Man in the nineteen twenties. In
nineteen thirties, when other early human remains began to be
discovered around the world, plus it was determined that the
(02:25):
Piltdown gravels were not as old as they were once
thought to be. By the nineteen forties, more advanced dating
technologies had been developed. In nineteen forty nine, paleontologist Kenneth
Oakley and colleague C. R. Hoskins tested the Piltdown remains
using a kind of chemical analysis called fluorine testing. It
was determined that all the fragments were from around the
(02:46):
same time period, but were much younger than suggested, possibly
somewhere around fifty thousand years old rather than five hundred thousand.
That meant that the Piltdown Man could not be the
missing link between apes and humans. In nineteen fifty three,
after an improved method of florine analysis had developed, Oakleigh
physical anthropology professor Joseph Wainer and Oxford anthropologist Wilfrid Lgrose
(03:11):
Clark determined that the jaw and teeth were not the
same age as the skull. They reported their discovery in
the Bulletin of the Natural History Museum on November twentieth,
nineteen fifty three. The next day, the hoax was announced
in the press The remains included fragments of a six
hundred year old human cranium, the jaw and teeth of
an orangutan, and the tooth of what was likely a champanzee.
(03:34):
The fragments had been stained with chromium and an iron
sulfate solution, and the teeth had been artificially abraded to
simulate where. On top of that, the remains were not
even from Britain. The Peltdown Man was a hoax. A
number of people have been pegged as the perpetrator of
the hoax, including Dawson and a museum volunteer turn keeper
(03:55):
of zoology at the museum named Martin A. C. Hinton.
In twenty six teen, researchers published an article that concluded
new evidence suggested Dawson was responsible for the hoax, though
he may not have acted alone. They said his quote
hunger for acclaim may have driven him to risk his
reputation and misdirect the course of anthropology for decades. I'm
(04:18):
Eve Jefcote and hopefully you know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. Thanks for going on
this trip through history with us. We'll see you again
tomorrow with another episode. Yes sammamimimimimimimimimsmsmimmerers.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Hello and welcome to this Day in History Class, a
show that belts out the greatest hits of history one
day at a time. I'm Gabelusier, and today we're celebrating
the stage debut of legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald AYK
the first Lady of Song. The day was November twenty first,
(05:09):
nineteen thirty four. At seventeen years old, Ella Fitzgerald became
the first female performer to win Amateur Night at the
Apollo Theater in Harlem. She had prepared a dance routine
in case she was called on stage to perform. However,
at the last minute, Ella made the fateful decision to
(05:31):
sing a song instead. What happened next earned her the
twenty five dollars prize and placed her firmly on the
path to stardom. Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia,
on April twenty fifth, nineteen seventeen. She took an interest
in dance in the third grade and loved showing off
(05:53):
her moves to her friends on the way to school
and at lunchtime. Ella's love of jazz came partly from
her mother, who listened to artists like Louis Armstrong and
the Boswell Sisters. As a young girl, Ella tried to
emulate the sound of lead singer Connie Boswell, later saying quote,
(06:13):
my mother brought home one of her records, and I
fell in love with it. I tried so hard to
sound just like her. Ella's life took a tragic turn
in nineteen thirty two when her mother died from injuries
sustained in a car crash. The loss hit Ella hard,
and she sank into depression. She dropped out of high
(06:34):
school and eventually got in trouble with the law. She
was sent to a reform school in Hudson, New York,
where she was frequently beaten by her supposed caretakers. Ella
eventually ran away from the reformatory and survived the next
two years by singing and dancing on the streets of
depression era Harlem. At the time, the neighborhood was bursting
(06:57):
with talented black performers, and the new ruly opened Apollo
Theater was at the center of the action. After opening
in early nineteen thirty four, the theater quickly made a
name for itself as the place to see top tier
talent perform. One result of this glowing reputation was that
Apollo audiences expected to see the best. That meant they
(07:21):
were eager to accept and encourage strong performances. But the
flip side was that when a performance didn't meet that
high standard, the crowd was just as passionate invoicing its displeasure.
The rowdy reactions could be so brutal that the crowd
at the Apollo soon became known as the world's toughest audience.
(07:43):
Near the end of its first year, the Apollo Theater
began hosting a weekly amateur night where aspiring performers could
enter their names in a drawing for the chance to
compete on stage for prize money. But with a crowd
like the one I just described, the state were far
higher than just a cash prize. A positive response could
(08:05):
make your career, but a poor one could just as
easily break it. Ella Fitzgerald may not have taken that
risk on November twenty first, if not for two of
her friends who dared her to enter the drawing with them.
As she later explained, quote, it was a bet. We
just put our names in. We never thought we'd get
(08:25):
the call, But shockingly, Ella did get the call that night,
though the timing couldn't have been worse. In the off
chance that she was called on stage, Ella had planned
to perform a snakelike dance routine popularized by Harlem artist
Earl Snake hips Tucker. However, just before Ella's name was called,
(08:48):
a talented local dance duo called The Edwards Sisters closed
out the evening's main show. Ella was mortified by the
idea of following an act that she once described as
quote the dancing as sisters in the world. The Edwards
Sisters had actual costumes, their routines were flashy and polished,
(09:10):
and here was Ella, a disheveled, houseless teenager, about to
perform her street corner routine on the biggest stage in
town in front of a notoriously demanding audience. Decades later,
Ella described the moment she took the stage, saying, quote,
I looked and I saw all those people, and I said,
(09:32):
oh my gosh, what am I going to do out here?
Everybody started laughing and said what is she going to do?
That question was on everyone's mind, and at the last
possible moment, Ella changed the answer. Instead of dancing, she
would sing as amateur knight. Mc Ralph Cooper begged the
(09:54):
jeering audience to give the girl a chance. Ella asked
the band to play a hogy Karmi song called Judy
Liwuden live Wut. There's only one in the line of
the Sun. That's Junie You're your Barn. She was familiar
with the tune because Connie Boswell's cover version had been
(10:17):
one of her mother's favorite songs. Unfortunately, Ella was so
nervous that when the music began, she forgot the words.
The crowd started booing her, so Cooper returned to the
stage and asked one last time for their patients. He said, quote,
this young lady's got a gift she'd like to share
(10:37):
with us tonight. She's just having a little trouble getting
it out of its wrapper. Let's give her a second chance.
This time, the words came easily, and by the end
of the song the crowd was demanding an encore. Ella
happily obliged by singing another hit from the Boswell Sisters.
The object of my affections.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Want to go, but he wants to do one of.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They pick up my high affection and change. Her performance
brought down the house and won her the competition, but
more importantly, it helped the shy, self conscious girl realize
that she belonged in the spotlight. As Ella later said, quote,
(11:28):
once up there, I felt the acceptance and love from
my audience. I knew I wanted to sing before people
the rest of my life. She got started on that
dream right away by entering and winning every talent show
in town. A year later, she began performing with the
Chickweb Orchestra, and then made her first recordings soon after.
(11:52):
All told, Ella Fitzgerald recorded more than two hundred albums
and two thousand songs in her lifetime, selling over forty
million albums in the process. She won thirteen Grammys, the
NAACP Image Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal
of Freedom. Her fifty plus year career took her to
(12:15):
some of the greatest venues in the world, including twenty
six performances at Carnegie Hall, but the most important show
she ever played may have been that first one at
the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where a young girl with
a rocky past found her place in the world by
doing what she loved. I'm Gabe Luzier and hopefully you
(12:38):
now know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. You can learn even more about history by
following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDIHC show,
and if you have any comments or suggestions, you can
send them my way at this Day at iHeartMedia dot com.
Thanks as always to Chandler Mays for producing the show,
(13:01):
and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here
again tomorrow for another Day in History class.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey there, history fans. We're taking a break to stay
ahead of the holidays, but we've got plenty of classic
shows to keep you busy.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi again everyone, it's Eves and welcome to this Day
in History Class A show where History waits for no One.
The day was November twenty one, nineteen fifty three. The
pilt Down Man, the supposed fossil remains of a species
(00:30):
of extinct hominin, was exposed as a hoax. Charles Dawson
was an amateur antiquarian who lived in Lewis, Sussex. He
claimed that in nineteen o eight he began to find
fossilized remains in a gravel formation at Piltdown Common. Major
evidence of early humans in the British Isles had not
yet been uncovered, so his discoveries were potentially groundbreaking. They
(00:55):
attracted the attention of Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the
Geological Department of the British Museum. Woodward and Dawson continued
to search the gravel pit and discovered fragments of a cranium,
jaw and teeth. They suggested that all of the fragments
belonged to one individual. At a meeting of the Geological
Society of London. On December eighteenth, nineteen twelve, Woodward announced
(01:18):
the discovery of the Piltdown remains. He proposed that the
Piltdown Man represented an unknown species of extinct hominin that
was the missing evolutionary link between apes and early humans.
He dubbed the Piltdown Man Ioanthropist Dawsony or dawn Man
after Dawson. From nineteen thirteen to nineteen fifteen, more fragments
(01:40):
were excavated from the site and another one nearby. Dawson
died in nineteen sixteen. Many scientists accepted his view that
the fragments all belonged to the same individual, but others
believed that the fragments came from more than one source,
possibly a modern man and an anthropoid eight. In nineteen fifteen,
Garrett Miller published the results of a study that concluded
(02:03):
that the jaw was that of a chimpanzee. This conclusion
was supported by other scientists, but debate continued over the
origin of the Piltdown remains. People began to doubt the
legitimacy of the Piltdown Man in the nineteen twenties. In
nineteen thirties, when other early human remains began to be
discovered around the world, plus it was determined that the
(02:25):
Piltdown gravels were not as old as they were once
thought to be. By the nineteen forties, more advanced dating
technologies had been developed. In nineteen forty nine, paleontologist Kenneth
Oakley and colleague C. R. Hoskins tested the Piltdown remains
using a kind of chemical analysis called fluorine testing. It
was determined that all the fragments were from around the
(02:46):
same time period, but were much younger than suggested, possibly
somewhere around fifty thousand years old rather than five hundred thousand.
That meant that the Piltdown Man could not be the
missing link between apes and humans. In nineteen fifty three,
after an improved method of florine analysis had developed, Oakleigh
physical anthropology professor Joseph Wainer and Oxford anthropologist Wilfrid Lgrose
(03:11):
Clark determined that the jaw and teeth were not the
same age as the skull. They reported their discovery in
the Bulletin of the Natural History Museum on November twentieth,
nineteen fifty three. The next day, the hoax was announced
in the press The remains included fragments of a six
hundred year old human cranium, the jaw and teeth of
an orangutan, and the tooth of what was likely a champanzee.
(03:34):
The fragments had been stained with chromium and an iron
sulfate solution, and the teeth had been artificially abraded to
simulate where. On top of that, the remains were not
even from Britain. The Peltdown Man was a hoax. A
number of people have been pegged as the perpetrator of
the hoax, including Dawson and a museum volunteer turn keeper
(03:55):
of zoology at the museum named Martin A. C. Hinton.
In twenty six teen, researchers published an article that concluded
new evidence suggested Dawson was responsible for the hoax, though
he may not have acted alone. They said his quote
hunger for acclaim may have driven him to risk his
reputation and misdirect the course of anthropology for decades. I'm
(04:18):
Eve Jefcote and hopefully you know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. Thanks for going on
this trip through history with us. We'll see you again
tomorrow with another episode. Yes sammamimimimimimimimimsmsmimmerers.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Hello and welcome to this Day in History Class, a
show that belts out the greatest hits of history one
day at a time. I'm Gabelusier, and today we're celebrating
the stage debut of legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald AYK
the first Lady of Song. The day was November twenty first,
(05:09):
nineteen thirty four. At seventeen years old, Ella Fitzgerald became
the first female performer to win Amateur Night at the
Apollo Theater in Harlem. She had prepared a dance routine
in case she was called on stage to perform. However,
at the last minute, Ella made the fateful decision to
(05:31):
sing a song instead. What happened next earned her the
twenty five dollars prize and placed her firmly on the
path to stardom. Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia,
on April twenty fifth, nineteen seventeen. She took an interest
in dance in the third grade and loved showing off
(05:53):
her moves to her friends on the way to school
and at lunchtime. Ella's love of jazz came partly from
her mother, who listened to artists like Louis Armstrong and
the Boswell Sisters. As a young girl, Ella tried to
emulate the sound of lead singer Connie Boswell, later saying quote,
(06:13):
my mother brought home one of her records, and I
fell in love with it. I tried so hard to
sound just like her. Ella's life took a tragic turn
in nineteen thirty two when her mother died from injuries
sustained in a car crash. The loss hit Ella hard,
and she sank into depression. She dropped out of high
(06:34):
school and eventually got in trouble with the law. She
was sent to a reform school in Hudson, New York,
where she was frequently beaten by her supposed caretakers. Ella
eventually ran away from the reformatory and survived the next
two years by singing and dancing on the streets of
depression era Harlem. At the time, the neighborhood was bursting
(06:57):
with talented black performers, and the new ruly opened Apollo
Theater was at the center of the action. After opening
in early nineteen thirty four, the theater quickly made a
name for itself as the place to see top tier
talent perform. One result of this glowing reputation was that
Apollo audiences expected to see the best. That meant they
(07:21):
were eager to accept and encourage strong performances. But the
flip side was that when a performance didn't meet that
high standard, the crowd was just as passionate invoicing its displeasure.
The rowdy reactions could be so brutal that the crowd
at the Apollo soon became known as the world's toughest audience.
(07:43):
Near the end of its first year, the Apollo Theater
began hosting a weekly amateur night where aspiring performers could
enter their names in a drawing for the chance to
compete on stage for prize money. But with a crowd
like the one I just described, the state were far
higher than just a cash prize. A positive response could
(08:05):
make your career, but a poor one could just as
easily break it. Ella Fitzgerald may not have taken that
risk on November twenty first, if not for two of
her friends who dared her to enter the drawing with them.
As she later explained, quote, it was a bet. We
just put our names in. We never thought we'd get
(08:25):
the call, But shockingly, Ella did get the call that night,
though the timing couldn't have been worse. In the off
chance that she was called on stage, Ella had planned
to perform a snakelike dance routine popularized by Harlem artist
Earl Snake hips Tucker. However, just before Ella's name was called,
(08:48):
a talented local dance duo called The Edwards Sisters closed
out the evening's main show. Ella was mortified by the
idea of following an act that she once described as
quote the dancing as sisters in the world. The Edwards
Sisters had actual costumes, their routines were flashy and polished,
(09:10):
and here was Ella, a disheveled, houseless teenager, about to
perform her street corner routine on the biggest stage in
town in front of a notoriously demanding audience. Decades later,
Ella described the moment she took the stage, saying, quote,
I looked and I saw all those people, and I said,
(09:32):
oh my gosh, what am I going to do out here?
Everybody started laughing and said what is she going to do?
That question was on everyone's mind, and at the last
possible moment, Ella changed the answer. Instead of dancing, she
would sing as amateur knight. Mc Ralph Cooper begged the
(09:54):
jeering audience to give the girl a chance. Ella asked
the band to play a hogy Karmi song called Judy
Liwuden live Wut. There's only one in the line of
the Sun. That's Junie You're your Barn. She was familiar
with the tune because Connie Boswell's cover version had been
(10:17):
one of her mother's favorite songs. Unfortunately, Ella was so
nervous that when the music began, she forgot the words.
The crowd started booing her, so Cooper returned to the
stage and asked one last time for their patients. He said, quote,
this young lady's got a gift she'd like to share
(10:37):
with us tonight. She's just having a little trouble getting
it out of its wrapper. Let's give her a second chance.
This time, the words came easily, and by the end
of the song the crowd was demanding an encore. Ella
happily obliged by singing another hit from the Boswell Sisters.
The object of my affections.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Want to go, but he wants to do one of.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They pick up my high affection and change. Her performance
brought down the house and won her the competition, but
more importantly, it helped the shy, self conscious girl realize
that she belonged in the spotlight. As Ella later said, quote,
(11:28):
once up there, I felt the acceptance and love from
my audience. I knew I wanted to sing before people
the rest of my life. She got started on that
dream right away by entering and winning every talent show
in town. A year later, she began performing with the
Chickweb Orchestra, and then made her first recordings soon after.
(11:52):
All told, Ella Fitzgerald recorded more than two hundred albums
and two thousand songs in her lifetime, selling over forty
million albums in the process. She won thirteen Grammys, the
NAACP Image Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal
of Freedom. Her fifty plus year career took her to
(12:15):
some of the greatest venues in the world, including twenty
six performances at Carnegie Hall, but the most important show
she ever played may have been that first one at
the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where a young girl with
a rocky past found her place in the world by
doing what she loved. I'm Gabe Luzier and hopefully you
(12:38):
now know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. You can learn even more about history by
following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDIHC show,
and if you have any comments or suggestions, you can
send them my way at this Day at iHeartMedia dot com.
Thanks as always to Chandler Mays for producing the show,
(13:01):
and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here
again tomorrow for another Day in History class.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
Host
Gabe Luzier
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