512 - Best of the Year (Part I) - My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Us.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
We have a little gift for all the Christians and
non believers alike on this magical day.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Which is December twenty fifth, Christmas.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
We're combining two of our listener favorite stories and making
them into the Best of the Year quilt episode.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
That's right, So first George is going to revisit the
story of Locusta, the Poisoner of Rome.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
And then Karen will tell the story of aviation legend
Amelia Earhart and her mysterious disappearance.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So, as you guys know, we have a holiday tradition
where we make donations throughout the month of December to
charities that make a real difference in people's lives.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
So today we're making our final donation of ten thousand
dollars to an organization called Feeding America that we're part
of a nationwide network of over two hundred food banks
and sixty thousand meal programs so people can access food
without judgment or stigma.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
And they work with lawmakers to make it easier for
people to get food by expanding access to food assistance programs.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So, if you like to join us in getting to
this very important cause, go to their website at Feeding
America dot org.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
You can also explore their volunteer opportunities like helping out
at a food bank, hosting a food drive, or donating
to your local food pantry.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Let's all find ways to look out for each other
in the coming year.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
So get cozy and enjoy the special best of the
Year quilt episode.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
And happy holidays whatever you celebrate.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, good blue goodbye.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
I'm going to tell you what I think might be
the oldest story we've done. Maybe, No, you did a
really old one once. Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Remember when I did the weather in fourteen, like thirteen.
It was like when the weather was so bad for
a year and a half that everyone just like dued.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
This is fucking older. No, this is older.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Are you about to tell me a Bible story?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
I'm going to tell you a biblical fucking stuff. Yeah,
I'm gonna, but we are going to go back to
the early days of the Roman Empire, so that the
earliest like Gladiator fucking.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Day pretty early.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, early. And it does sound like something straight out
of Game of Thrones and actually was probably a likely
source of inspiration for George R. R. Martin. This is
the story of a woman that what you're gonna get.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
I don't know. I'm just yeah, I'm ready for it.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
This is the story of a woman some people describe
as history's first documented serial killer. Oh, this is the
story of Locusta, the poisoner of Rome. Yes, yes, you're
ready for her?

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Please, Hi, let's do it. So there are very limited
primary sources about Locusta. She's only briefly mentioned in surviving
histories of Rome. Of course. It's just like everyone's moved on.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, they're over it, Italians, let's not talk about it.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
No one was talking about her when I went to Italy, right.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Well, but the main sources for the story we're an
episode of an adorable podcast called History for Weirdos, which
is super lovely. It's his married couple, they're very smart,
and an article from All But That's interesting by Genevieve Carlton.
So we don't know much about Lacusa's early life. We
know she was born in gaul Gau l This is

(03:17):
the region of the Roman Empire that overlaps with modern
day France and Belgium. Like you knew that though I thought.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I honestly thought Germany, and I was like, you should
say Germany and just sound really smart. And then I
was like, no, the other voice that's finally grown in
my head that goes, don't do it, don't you?

Speaker 3 (03:31):
And try so don't know?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Is incept? Don't you incept?

Speaker 3 (03:34):
You're kidding yourself up.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
She's born sometimes around fourteen eighty so, And of course
you know this as well, either at the end of
the reign of Augustus or the beginning of the reign
of Time Tiberia.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yes, what's it Tiberius? Yeah, it's because I watched uh, what's.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
It called gladiat Or two.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Starring Paul mescal It's the PBS series from the seventies,
and I keep wanting to.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Take all but you got it right, So congratulates something stuck.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
I mean, it feels good.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
You should be happy for yourself.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
So these two men were Rome's first and second act,
the whole, the whole first syllable. No, I wouldn't. I
wouldn't have gotten Tiberious if I had heard time Claudius.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Thank you. I wondered where he was Claudius.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
There you go. And before them, Rome had been a republic.
We're not going to get into the weeds about Rome.
Can we not, Yes, we.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Cannot for sure, really rather not, but I will tell
you that just this one thing. Yeah, I was so
blown away when I went to Rome to see these
uh places that they used to meet.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
They're fucking huge.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
So like you know when you're thinking about it and
you're just like, oh, friends, Roman's countryman type of stuff,
and you're like, oh, they're probably like on a weird
little rock or you're thinking of like some Monty Python
movie or whatever, Like they're all standing in a circle
in a marketplace.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Now these things were like fifteen story buildings.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Wow, like and.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
They're still standing.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Change and they're still standing.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
And then there's like metal statuary on top of that.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Like it was, Yeah, I'm blowing.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
What a time I want to go, But stop it
because we're not getting into the weeds. I'm totally done. Essentially, though,
The Empire emerged after a series of civil wars destabilized
the Republic. Julius Caesar, your bff, a senator, tried to
seize power and install himself as a dictator, which is
why he was famously assassinated. But Augustus, the first Emperor,

(05:33):
was his nephew, and he eventually overpowered the senators who
had conspired against Caesar. So this is where we are now. Okay,
so right around this time, this is where Lauqusta ends
up in the city of Rome. She's a young woman
and I looked at the like one or two drawings
of her that I don't know what time period they're from.
They could be modern, they could be old. But I

(05:54):
cast her as Jessica Chestain. Oh, just for fun and interesting. Yeah,
that's just was my immediate thought. Got it. And it's
likely that she had been enslaved or brought there as
a captive of Julius Caesar's campaign in gaul So had
the campaign where she's from, and she ends up there,
so it's probably brought over slavery campuses somehow. During her

(06:17):
upbringing she learned a huge amount about herbs, plants and
poison making, but there's no record of how it's likely
that this knowledge would have been passed down within her
family as it was, and this period, Loqusta is born
into the end of the Republic and the beginning of
the Empire, is the beginning of what's actually a pretty
great fucking time to be a Roman citizen. It sounds

(06:40):
pretty sweet, it's where they get the saying bread and circuses,
which I've never heard before, but Ali thankfully put in here,
and you're noddinglink you've heard of it.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Well, it's the thing that they talk about. More like,
that's how they distract us. And then that everybody's corrupt
in the government and they give us our bread and circus.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
That's what it says here. The emperors keep the people happy,
boy writing free food and entertainment, including the gladiator, and
then they fuck off and do their own thing, and then.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
We all fight about like the Kardashian of gladiators right
over here.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
They got more food and circuses than I did, and
how that person doesn't deserve as many circuses because they're
lower than me, and I'm yeah, And then we fight
with each other and ignore the fucking.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Oligarchs and the billionaires don't pay tax and.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
The billionaires don't pay taxes, and corporations are in the
fucking country. Yeah, what where are we going?

Speaker 1 (07:26):
An empire? You say, Okay, I guess.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
So this is where kind of the beginning of the opulent,
technologically advanced city of Rome, the expanding empire around it.
It's good to be fucking wealthy, in Rome at this time.
But of course, at this point in time, it's not
good to be a person living in one of the
areas Rome is conquering. But within the city of Rome,
even an average Roman citizen, life's pretty stable and conditions
are comfortable, you know, Comparatively.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
It's no Victorian England. This is the two times I know, yeah,
pretty much. And this.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yes, this period of time is called the Pax Romana,
and it will last about two hundred years, and then
the Empire will decline and fall, and after that it's
the Dark Ages, super fun, and then it's lights out
for Europe until the Renaissance. Yeah, so that's where we're
at right now, in this kind of wine and roses.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Hell yeah, a lot of parades, a lot of like right, yeah,
a lot of flowers being dropped down from high Yes.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
This is around when the movie Gladiator takes place, or
a little Gladiators a little later, but around this time.
But while normal people are enjoying themselves, the ruling class
is still constantly full of infighting, jockeying for power and
assassinating one another. It's kind of their thing. This presents
an opportunity for a girl from Gaul with a deep

(08:44):
knowledge of plants and poisons. You got to use what
you know, So.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Why don't we know it anymore?

Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's like, is that what's in the Vatican secret.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Libraries or whatever?

Speaker 2 (08:55):
All the sorcery plant fucking recipes, all.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
This stuff that really to help us.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
So in her early career in Rome, Lacusta works with
two other women to make poisons for wealthy clients. The
three of them are often referred to as sorceresses. Lacusta
becomes independently wealthy for doing this. Fucking get it, girls,
She would have used hashtag boss bitch, yes, if she
had Instagram do it? You know. Lacusta makes a name
for herself.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
She's boss bitching but writing it on the wall yeah,
ro numeral somehow.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
But I can't read. She makes a name for herself.
She's hired by members of Rome's elite to help them
carry out assassinations in their various power struggles, and by
fifty four AD, when she's about forty years old, she's
been arrested and convicted on multiple occasions. However, her powerful
clients get her off every time. Yeah, we don't know

(09:49):
about all the poisons. Loa custa uses. Unfortunately those are
secrets now, but records show that she used belladonna or
Deadly nightshade as well as arsenic and the litany of
other poisons. I think you have to imagine Sally from
the Night before Christmas, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, just a skinny, pale girl that's like, oh, I like.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
To combine things, a little of this, and it sounds
like she also knows how to create new poisons from
different combinations. So she's fucking smart.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Also, I didn't realize that until now. It's like, oh, yeah,
there was all kinds of.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Poisonings happening, like palace intrigues type stuff. Yeah, those rich
people aren't just gonna have poison on it, like they
have to buy.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
It right somewhere.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
They don't make it themselves.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
I just realized that, Yeah, poisoners.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah. So by this point we're on Rome's fourth emperor,
Claudius Augustus. The first emperor had essentially consolidated power and
set Rome on this path to growth and conquest, and
then there were two other emperors until Claudius. Claudius marries
his niece, a woman named Agrippina, who had already been
married like, oh, my god, drama and whose first husband

(10:55):
had died, possibly by poisoning. Agrippina has a son from
that previous marriage. His name when I'm trying to guess, Yeah,
you don't have to.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Let it start with nell. Okay, start it.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
You're gonna know the name, and so you're gonna think
I wish I had known, Oh Nero.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
So Nero obviously doesn't really have a particularly strong claim
to the Roman throne because he's the son of the
second wife, you know what I mean. But Agrippina is like,
but let's change that. I'm the new wife or I'm
the wife. Let me figure this out. Agrippina convinces Claudius
to change his will, making her son Nero, the heir

(11:37):
to the throne. This is in spite of Claudius having
a biological son, and after Claudius changes his will, Agrippina
wants to make sure that he doesn't have time in
life to change it back. You know what I'm saying.
So she turns to Lucusta, who by this time is
well known among Roman elites. Agrippina and Lucusta wait for

(11:58):
a day when Claudius's most loyal servant has the day off.
They had days off back then, that's nice. Interesting. They
poison a dish of mushrooms, which is Claudius's favorite food,
and it's unclear if the mushrooms themselves are poisonous or
if she applies poisoned to the mushrooms. We don't know
how she saw Tad and sean Tade. Other people say

(12:18):
he was actually poisoned by Belladonna brud into a tea regardless.
The story goes that Claudius gets sick. His doctor comes
to see him, and I don't know why every single
doctor who went to see any patient ever was back then.
Wasn't first like you're being poisoned, right, because everyone's fucking poisoned, right,
It was.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
So common, especially in the.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Palace, right yeah, like kind of should be number one.
Number two is like gout or whatever, you know, I
don't know what do they get. The doctor gives Claudius
a feather to stick down his throat to induce vomiting.
That's doctors, then.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
I mean that's it also, but that's how they did
it in the vomitorium, right right, right.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
But the feather has been coded in more poison, and
we don't know if Agrippina did this or if the
doctor was involved.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
How they're locking it down.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, Okay, Claudius dies.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
After Claudius dies, Agrippina, who hired Luqsta, has Lucesta jailed
for the poisoning, which seems like a bad idea because
you just talk right and you're like, oh, I didn't
do this on my own, right, I don't get it.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
It's a weird move, clearly, like a paranoia move.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Because also it's all going to be down to her obviously, Yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Get rid of the evidence, but like the evidence can talk.
But this doesn't matter because her son Nero quickly frees
her because he also needs her help. So Claudius's biological
son is a man named give me the first letter b.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
R.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Britannicus. Oh, I got them now, I'm not gonna He's
named this because the Romans had recently expanded the empire
to Britain around his time of birth. I don't know Britannicus. Sure,
my name is Georgia, Like, I don't what am I
going to be? You can't judge? I can't. You can't,
I truly can't. Britannicus still has a powerful claim to
the Roman Throne. Sadly, he's only thirteen years old when

(14:01):
his pops dies in fifty five, ad Nero pardons Lucusta
and quickly hires her to kill thirteen year old Britannicus,
which is like, just send him to a fucking island.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
They can't.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's always killing with them, so much killing, so much killing.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
He wants her to make his death appear to be
of natural causes. At thirteen. Lucusta attempts to poison him
with arsenic but it doesn't work, and Nero has her
flogged for this. I don't think that's the best thing.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Locusta flaw.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, oh okay, but they try again. Nero throws a
dinner party. Wine is served. The Romans would serve their
wine diluted with water, blah blah blah. Basically, before Britannicus
takes a sip of his wine, his taster, who's specifically
they are to test for poison, takes a sip, says
it's fine, and then Britannicus is like, oh, top me

(14:50):
off with that kind of that water. Turns out that
water with the poison. Oh, so the tester didn't drink it. Again,
Britannicus drinks it. It's probably Belladonna. And thing is Britannicus
has epilepsy. The other people at the dinner party know this,
so when he basically stops being able to speak, Nero's like, oh,
he's just having a seizure, which is like, again, let's

(15:11):
start with poisoning.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, in the place if you're like, well, there's the
heir to the throne. Yeah, I'm sure there's no problem.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
No, we're all fine. Yeah. Britannicus is brought to another
room to recover, but it's where he ultimately suffocates and
dies at thirteen. According to lore, the poison locusta used
was known by the Romans to turn a victim's skin red,
and Britannicus is buried very quickly after his murder. This
is so Game of Thrones. Yeah, right, with his face

(15:38):
painted with a white chalk to hide his red skin.
People just aren't really paying attention, I feel like back.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Then, or they're just not staring into the face, maybe
for very long.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Or they're like I'm not the one to say anything.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well, right, there's poisoners everywhere, poisoners.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
That's the fucking king or whatever, and you're just like,
that's not for me.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
I get to tell you if anybody wants to watch it,
I Claudia is a pretty amazing It's like old British
incredible actors kind of is like they're doing a play
on a TV stage. Yeah, and all of this stuff
is like the steaks are insane.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Okay, Yeah, I'm into it.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Because then it's like if you live and you're the
one that doesn't get poisoned, you get to have like
all of Germany, right, you get to help do you
like Scotland, you can have it.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
We have stuff all the way up in Ireland.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
But then someone's coming for you too. Yeah, you know
that's right. I can't poison everyone, and whatever poison you,
I know something. But just because he has that chalk
on his face, just before his burial, it starts to rain,
showing the red skin under the white chalk. So it's
immediately known throughout Rome that Britannicus has been poisoned.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
There's also probably like a no snitching on you know
Nero policy going.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Oh yeah, he'll kill you immediately, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, like just keep your mouth shut. Nero rewards Lucusta
for securing the throne for him. He pays her he
gives her land, and he ultimate tasks her with opening
up a school to teach other people to be poisoners.
It's a happy ending.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, that is really positive.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah. He also grants her immunity for all future crimes.
Does that sound familiar?

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Not at all, not in anyway fast forward immunity.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Some accounts say that Lauquesta is given enslaved people and
prisoners to test her poisons on. That's just a rumor,
and this is where the idea comes from that she
is the first known serial killer, which is so funny,
Like you don't think about like you think of serial
killer as a recent thing, right, it was probably happening a.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Lot, just the second the first human brain that got
a weird little yeh screw fallout of it type of thing.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Sorry, that's an oversimplification.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
No, that sounds psychopathically, but from what I've read, I.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Mean, especially back then, Yeah, it was much before it
was a sin, you know what happened all the time.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Definitely, And some people say that at this point she
just starts poisoning people because she enjoys it. Sounds like
just good at it, you know, I'm not just as
a higher assassin. We don't know much about what else
happens to Lucusta for about fifteen years until she's in
her mid fifties. During this time, Nero has made a
lot of enemies. In fact, during this time period, Nero
actually murders his own mother. I fucking put him in

(18:20):
the throne. Yeah, like thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Just ungrateful. Yeah, a little bastard totally.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
In sixty eight eighty, Nero is unseated by a man
named Galba and is forced to flee Rome.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Sorry but right there, if I was like, Goalba's now
in charge, I'd be like, yeah, no, this isn't going
to last.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Why because you never do.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, that's not you don't have any us.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
At the end, Galba is fucking Goalba.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Oh my god, it's over.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Let's all get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
You gotta get out of room.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
And Nero dies by suicide. Shortly after this, the new
Emperor your best friend, Galba overturns Locusta's immunity because that
can be done as well. Yes, we've heard it comes
as part of a purge of all of Nero's closest advisors.
So for fifteen fucking years, Locusta was living the good life. Yeah,
and you know, nothing lasts, No, it doesn't. Time is

(19:11):
of construct.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
The pendulum swings and swings.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Exactly flat circle. Gaba accuses Lucusta of killing more than
four hundred people and sentences her to death, so she
is executed. Although it's not known exactly how. There are
two legends, the story always begins with her being marched
through the streets of Rome in chains shame ball of
Game of Thrones, yes, yep. Some say she is then

(19:35):
strangled or burnt, or a combination of the two. Public
executions are common in Rome and often take place during
gladiator games, like there's that entertainment circus that you wanted.
In addition to burning, other methods of execution include crucifixion,
which seems like it's reserved for special circumstances, as well

(19:56):
as exposure to wild beasts. That's a hell now, I
mean they're all hell now, they're all.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Pretty but not Yeah, but yeah, what did just you
just get thrown in a pit with a bunch of coyotes?

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Oh god?

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Well, anyway, that's the end of Locusta's story as we
know it, which there isn't a ton Let's get Jessica
Chestain on the line and fucking get them exactly right.
Pictures fucking movie out here.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Also, if you have a history podcast where you go
into this part of Roman history in depth, I'll listen
to it.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
I tell you no history for weirdos. They clearly went
to school like us.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Should I go there first?

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, they know what they're talking about.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
They're good explains, they're.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Good explainers and they like have details off the top
of their mind in a way that I.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Don't understand because they studied.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Because they studied and probably didn't drink themselves into oblivion
in their thirties. You know.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
I think the thing about people who learned a lot
and stayed in school, yeah, is that it's because they
read books and got what was happening. And then we're like,
oh my god, this is a great factoid, which I
feel like you and I are both the kind of
people had we not been born with these brains that
would we would have been those people. But like this,
sitting in the seat and then being told what to

(21:12):
do totally, the distractions and the time away from drinking
all of that disinterest.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, and I'm fine with that. We're not all going
to be We're not all supposed to be the same.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
No, but I feel like these days, you know, history
for weirdos. There are people who got really good at
teaching because they understand what's interesting about history or like that.
It's here's how you bring into history to life where.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
This podcast will kill you a great example. Oh so smart.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Learning about that kind of stuff where it's like, oh,
often we put a mental block up.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, it's like, oh history I did, that's boring. It's like,
it's so not boring, boring. I'm a big fan of history,
I really am. And that is everything we know about
the woman who was possibly the first serial killer, Locusta
of our Rome. Wow, that was great, thank you.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
You want to dip into Roman, the Roman Empire, everyone's
a while to tell me about it.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
I am here for it.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Okay, we have to. There's a whole there's a whole
time period.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Thousands and thousands of years thousands of years ago.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, Wow, good, I'm glad you like that.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah that was great, thanks, wonderful.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
All right, well we did it. We got some beautiful
This has been like huge, well rounded episode.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
That's what we're like, you know what I mean, it's like,
I feel like we're able to get in there and
really produce.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Everything is handed to us as we walk in the door,
every single.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Thing ford because we were born with it. They can't
hand that to me.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
You can't hand that to you.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Can't print that up on a copier and a different
part of the building I've never seen.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
No, you can't. No. Well, thank you guys for being
here and being part of this. So appreciative.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, we really love it.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
And one last thank you to all are Ceramic Ceramicists
Ceramicists artists from ninth anniversary.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Including Emily aka Pottery Mama, Missy aka Young Yenta, Sam
Regal with that beautiful mug, and Lindsey Cook with the
Altered Moments figurine every good. I've just been like talking
to you this whole time and listening to you with
these beautiful things behind your head, and I'm so distracted,
and I keep just going, Oh, you.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Know we do is take these and put them down
here and put these things up here so these guys
get a little time in the sun.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah right, definitely, we're interior designers.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
We are We're going to fill up these shelves with
all of the beautiful.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
It's just so nice that we have the kind of
listeners that and you guys have been like this from
day one.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, that like we go like, hey, can.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
We have a thing about like hey, will you do
those well realmium employers And then it's like, boom, cure.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's my specialty. Yeah, boom, And I'm funny and creative.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, it's incredible, And like the response, the ceramic response
is to the point where the post office is kind
of mad. It's wonderful, just like you're the early days,
George would go to her post office box.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
And they'd be like, what's murder? They get mad about
the word murder on being like listen, listen. It's been
around for at least since Slow Custos time, truly, so
I'm going to turn it around. I've got a one eighty.
I would love a one eighties.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Okay, good, because Women's History Month just ended this week,
and yet.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
It feels to me like we should continue remembering women,
shouldn't we in.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Case we're wiped off the face of the planet here
in America, you know.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
In case we're Handmaid's tailed.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
There's so much going on in the world, and I
think talking about the women whose shoulders we all stand on.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Is a good idea.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Love it no matter what the story is, definitely, and
I like the idea that.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Sometimes there's people who listen to our podcast and they
do have, you know, their young daughters in the backs.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
See, here's a story you can let them listen to.
We'll try not to say the F word very much.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
I'm gonna try. Let's seef I can get through an
entire story without cursing.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Haha or without saying fuck. Okay.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
So I'm going to tell you the story today of
an American icon who, by boldly chasing her dreams, made
an indelible imprint on our culture. But despite her extraordinary life,
she's most famous for the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death,
arguably one of recent history's greatest unsolved mysteries. For nearly

(25:33):
a century, searchers have tried to force a satisfying conclusion
to her story, and they've always come up short. But
because all the focus has been on how she died,
the way she lived, including her many accomplishments and her advocacy,
is often forgotten. So today I'm going to tell you
the story of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yes, right, Oh my god, I've been like following the stories.
I just always click on the stories of they think
they found this, they think they found that. Here's the next,
Like I cannot not click on those.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Yeah, because it's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
It's like they have to find something someday that's conclusive.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's a legit mystery. Okay, tell me everything. Okay.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
So the sources for this story today are writer Doris L.
Rich's book, a biography Amelia Earhart, which is a primary
There's also a PBS documentary series that's American Experience that's.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
All about her.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Fucking love American Experience, and they're one of the best shows.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
If you're just looking for something, I like, if you've
an empty day and you're trying to feel enriched while
still being completely entertained, American Experience will do the job
for you.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, I don't care if you don't give a shit
about the fucking dust ball. You'll be fascinated by the
dust ball while you do your nails.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
And I have to say home, Jim, I was raised
by my father forcing me to watch PBS material and
so furious where we'd be like right after Happy Days
with Ende, turn it over, let's see what's on BBS,
And then we'd have to watch an opera.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
We'd have to watch Carl say, again.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
A coincidence that you're here owning your own fucking business today?
Probably not?

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Probably not.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
I think PBS enriched my life. Did my father ever
give them a diamond donations? Not only not once? And
I'm sure I sall do this.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
He sued them for money? Oh no, sued PBS for damages,
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
But my mom would always like walk through and he'd
be watching something and really enjoying it, you know, like
a documentary on the automat or whatever.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Had to watch that the last time I went home, amazing.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
But my mom would always go, Jim, you have to
give them money, and he would go, bullshit, they're not getting.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
A dime out of me.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
And that was like his proud stance, and he refused
to give them MONEYBS.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
It's the ultimate, like he's gonna finally rip somebody else's sight.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
You're fighting the wrong fight, bro.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Meanwhile, he has absolutely given them money, and it was
just a bit basically he's doing to.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Piss my mom off.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
You right, Okay, he's not really a douche bag, because
truly with the Kilgaratt family has gotten there absolute phill
from from free toe bags.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Do you guys have from them? That's how you know?

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Oh so anyway, there's also a two part national geographic
podcast called Overheard. Did you know there was a national
geographic podcast?

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (28:15):
I love it? Oh.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
I also sorry this should go up into the top,
but since we didn't do it, I'll just say it now.
On TikTok this morning, I learned that the Southern Poverty
Law Center has just launched their own podcast, just at
the beginning of this month, and it just covers all
the stories, all of the things that they're like, basically
them fighting for Americans in every way, the fact that

(28:38):
they've been doing it for one hundred years, all these things.
Go listen to the Southern Poverty Law Centers podcast, Get
them some numbers.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Share it with friends, get that thing going.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Because it sounded great the little like clip and what
I heard, I was like so excited that they're starting that.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Amazing. Now let's start your store.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Goodbye. Now to the story.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Here's my writing. When I go in and edit Marin's writing,
the story of Emil Aarhart. Story begins in late July
of eighteen ninety seven. Okay, she was born in the
northeast corner of Kansas in a town called Atchison. Okay,
it looks like it's I would guess two hours north
of Kansas City. Okay, way up there in the corner,
there's the Amelia Earhart dot org website and they have

(29:20):
a museum there that I think is built in her house.
Oh wow, but they have the best tope bags that
I'm absolutely gonna get.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
It's weird that just I brought up toebag.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, that's right because I was just looking on the
website and it's just a painting of the house and
that's the toe bag.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Okay, we all need those murderinas.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Let's be Yeah, let's buy all the merch at the
Amelia Earhart nat How.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
You can spot a marderino in the wild at the
farmer's market. Is that she's a fucking always said the effort.
She's a random I'm still on page one. I thought it,
stop it. I've had too much fucking rose. Let's go.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Okay, let's really focus on what we're supposed to be doing. Okay,
so she's.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Born in Atchison in July of eighteen ninety. Her father, Edwin,
is a lawyer from humble beginnings. Her mom, Amy comes
from a very prominent local family and a fun fact,
actually like a badass fact. Amy Earhart was the first
woman to hike to the top of Pike's.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Peak Wow in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Cool. So she's from adventuring DNA makes sense, So things
aren't always smooth sailing for the Earhart family. Edwin has
good in bad years financially. He takes job opportunities wherever
they come. We later learned that it's because he's an alcoholic.
And that's the way my mom grew up, where it's
like he does good for a little while he's a lawyer,

(30:37):
and then he blows it and then has to and
then goes off the wagon and then has to I
can't say that that's exactly what happened in this family,
but I'm recognizing it from what my mom told me
about when you have like the long term alcoholic that
then gets better for a long time and then goes
back it's awful. So they move around a ton, and

(30:59):
then when a Amelia isn't moving around with her parents
and they're just trying to go get him another job.
She stays for long stretches at her grandparents' home. So
Amelia does have a younger sister named Muriel. They're just
about two years apart, so they're very, very close, and
they're not your typical turn of the century girls because
of course, at the time girls had to wear long skirts.

(31:22):
But Amelia and Muriel spend their weekends in bloomers because
it's easier to play in them. I love it, and
these girls love playing. Amelia is the daring ring leader,
and she can often be found with her little sister
climbing over fences, shooting rifles, collecting bugs.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Doris L.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Rich, Amelia Earhart's biographer, writes about an incident when Amelia
is seven years old and Muriel is four and they
are going sledding. So Amelia is about to head down
a big snowy hill, so she does something most little
girls would be conditioned not to do. Instead of sitting
up on the sled and holding this string like that,
she lays down on her stomach.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
She pushes off first, face first, just do it, So
she pushes off.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
She starts racing down the hill, flying down, and then
she sees here comes a horse drawn carriage that's coming
directly down her path, across her path, I should say,
she starts yelling out to the driver because she can't stop.
So she's yelling, but he can't hear her, he can't
see her. So up on the top of the hill,

(32:27):
Mural is watching her sister as she is about to
crash in so Amelia at the same time is like
I'm about to die. So instead of panicking, what she
does is she puts her head down as low as
she can, and somehow the timing works out perfectly.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
And she just goes right under the wagon.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Like Christmas Vacation when they go under the fucking semi truck. Yes,
exactly like that.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Or like when I was about six years old and
I was riding my bike in front of my parents
and their friends, and I went up in the O'Hara's
big old gravel driveway that was like a quarter of
a mile alone, and I was coming back down, racing
back down, and my parents can hear a car that's
going eighty miles an hour and they watch as I

(33:09):
just go directly in front of the car, like the
car's going so fast it didn't have time to put
on the brakes, so I just went like that. And
as I came into our driveway, my dad just picked
me up off my bike and slapped me on the
ass and I ran into the house. They never spanked us,
and he like, basically they all thought they were going
to watch me die.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, Amelia Earhart style pet cemetery right for real?

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Okay, So basically she goes under, she comes out unscathed,
and when she finally comes to a stop, Amelia jumps
up and smiles and waves at her sister. And years
later she looks back on this moment and she'll say,
quote that condemned tomboy method saved my life. Had I
been sitting up, either my head or the horses ribs
would have suffered in contact, probably the horses ribs. So

(33:55):
by Amelia's teenage years, she's attended so many different schools
that she basically doesn't have any friends at all. In
one of her yearbooks, this makes Me So sad. There's
a photo of her and the caption reads, quote AE
the girl in brown who walks alone. Oh, just like
cause you have this fuck up dad, right, You're gonna

(34:17):
have to leave anyway, so you might as well not
get to know people at home. Amelia's father has developed
a serious drinking problem. I spoiled that one, but he
struggles to hold down any job. PBS reports quote Amelia
adored her father, but he let her down so often.
She learned early on to be self reliant.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yikes.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
So she starts keeping a scrap book with cutouts of
newspaper and magazine articles about women with successful careers that
are in traditionally male only fields. It's like she's proving
to herself that she can find success without relying on
a man and manifesting that future for herself.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
Essentially.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
When she graduates high school, it's the thick of World
War One. Out of finishing school. They sent her to
finishing school.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Finish what, Yeah, finish.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Walking around with the book on your head.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Finish this.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
So she leaves to go.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Ten to wounded soldiers in Canada, which is so bad us.
She's like, thanks for the thanks for the manners lessons.
I've got to actually go do something about you back yourself.
I'm gonna work with the Red Cross. During this time,
she briefly considers a career in medicine, and then one
day she goes to a flying exhibition in Toronto and
she watches a stunt pilot do their tricks in a

(35:33):
colorful plane, and she's captivated.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
She'll later say quote.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
I did not understand at the time, but I believe
that little red airplane said something to me.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
As it's swished by. It's just such a cool I
never thought about this.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
And I'm sure that my sister has like books that
she's read aloud to her class that's like Amelia Earhart
that I'm sure she knows all the details. But I've
never like really thought about that fact of like when
women are born early and they go through lives with
like say an adventurers spirit in a time where they're
like you better put that skirt on and go.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
To finishing school.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Right, It's almost luckier that she had to move around
a bunch and like an irregular family.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Like your dad wasn't paying attention and enforcing rules, so
she could kind of get away with a lot more.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
And it was kind of like, yeah, fuck it, because
what am I going to do? Go to finishing school
find a man? And then this happened to me, like
I'm going to go do my thing.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Also, like can we just props to the baby sister
or the younger sister who's always like she doesn't get
enough credit, Like the older sister always gets credited like
she showed her how to do it, But like if
you didn't have someone to show how to do it, yeah,
I'm clearly giving us.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
It's about it, it's about it.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
But like if you didn't have someone to show off
to ye, then what would you have done?

Speaker 1 (36:45):
You would have never had that adventure, spirit nothing, If
you didn't have a baby crying and saying I need
to go to the bathroom all the time, there would
be no nothing to fight again.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
So you're welcome, Laura and Lee eily So.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
By nineteen twenty, Milia is twenty three years old. She's
living back with her parents again. They're now in southern California,
so they really have moved all over the place. One day,
her dad takes her to an event at a long
Beach airfield. Once again, Amelia is transfixed by the stunt pilot,
so this was like a big thing that was happening
at the time. She sees they're offering plane rides for

(37:19):
the low price of five dollars each.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
That's a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Worth about today.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
What you're twenty twenty, twenty twenty, sorry, twenty plane old
twenty nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty is what I should have said.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yep uh.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
And it's five dollars in nineteen. Oh, that's a lot
of money. I'm gonna go sixty eighty very close, but
eighty bucks. That's a fuck ton of money.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
She somehow I did it again.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
I'm so bad that it's just it's a fudge. It's
a fudge worth of money. So she somehow collects up
and gets that money. A couple days later, she goes
back to the airfield and she takes a ride for
the first time in a plane, and she will later say,
quote as soon as we left the ground, I knew
I had to fly. A little quote within the quote says,

(38:03):
I think I'd like to fly. I told my family
casually that evening, knowing full well I'd die if I didn't.
She's like her dream, that's her passion.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
So a year later, Amelia meets with a young female
pilot named Netta Snook the best name of all time.
Ned is an aviation pioneer in her own right, and
she agrees to teach Amelia how to fly. She's charging
a dollar a minute, which would be basically sixteen dollars
a minute in today's money, so it would be like

(38:36):
paying nine hundred and sixty dollars for an hour's flying.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
So it's very expensive.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, snookies.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
After it, Snookie is like, hey, then go find another
woman to teach you how to fly a plane.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
So to pay for her.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Lessons, Amelia takes on a bunch of odd jobs, including
hauling gravel for a local trucking company and working as
a stenographer. Okay, she's like anything I can do. Within
six months, she manages to buy her own small, bright
yellow biplane that she names Canary.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
That is so wild.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
M hmm, she's in it.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
I mean I bought a Vespa when I was young
because I was like, I gotta stop riding on the
back of douchebags vespas and.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Get your own.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
I need my own or I'm gonna keep dating assholes.
So I got my own. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
And then did you go see Quadraphenia at the midnight show?

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Oh? Yeah, I mean I was obsessed.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yeah, when the Vespa kids would come in for Quadrophenia.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Yeah, that was my very favorite one.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
I'm like, I can't get these outfits together, but I'll
pick you of all this so hot. I'm not picking
rocky horror, and I'm not picking heavy metal. I'm picking Quadraphenia.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Helly, Yeah, you are those acid washed jeans.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
So she gets her pilot's liicense in late nineteen twenty one,
and she begins flying in derbys and setting all kinds
of records.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
How old is she?

Speaker 1 (39:49):
So she's twenty three and twenty So she's twenty four, Okay.
I like the idea that they just start air derbys
where it's like, can you fly a plane then come
and do a race?

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, hilariou it's so good.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
So she sets all kind of records, like becoming the
first woman to fly at an altitude of fourteen thousand feet.
But actually she wasn't trying to break that record. She
just wanted to.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
See how high the Cadary could go.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Later, she'll write, quite modestly, quote, although my figure of
fourteen thousand feet was not extraordinary, the performance of my
engine was interesting. I had gone up much farther than
some of the higher powered planes, which should have been
more efficient. So her and the canary are like getting
in there and vibe.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
In nineteen twenty four, Amelia's life changes again as her
father continues to struggle with alcoholism. Her parents get divorced.
Now she's twenty eight, she and her mom moved from
California to Massachusetts to move in with Muriel, who's studying
to be a teacher there in Boston. So Amlie gets
a job there as a social worker. She gets paid

(40:52):
sixty dollars a month, which is roughly how much in
today's money six hundred and ninety one thousand dollars a month.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Okay, So she's now supporting herself and her mother on
this modest income. So basically her expensive hobby of flying
planes has to be paused. But she does find a
local flying community and she's a vocal part of it,
and local newspapers start writing about her fierce advocacy.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
For women in aviation amazing, So even though she.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Can't do it, she's still like, yeah, but we should
get to do it, yea. The good news is she
loves her job as a social worker. She works with
immigrant families and children, mostly from China and Syria, and
she really feels like she's found her calling. Author Susan
Butler tells National Geographic quote, if anything, she was obsessed
with being a social worker. She took it as her

(41:42):
role in life to act as an agent for social
change for women.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
So I kind of like that, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, she was pivoting doing what she could when she could,
and then also making a life doing other stuff that
was also very important.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Her moral compass was there no matter what she was doing.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, she was like, I'm gonna do good and make
change and fight for women.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah. Very cool.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
So then in nineteen twenty eight, a man named George P.
Putnam reaches out and that changes everything in her life
once again.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
Putnam is a.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Wildly successful publisher who is behind one of America's more
notable fascist, Charles Lindberg's smash hit autobiography We of course,
Lindberg was a huge aviating star, very prominent. You covered
his baby's kidnapping.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
I was gonna say you covered that, but okay, it.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
With you in episode one nineteen Fingers Everywhere. Of course
you remember that episode. So Putnam is now on the
hunt for his next aviation superstar. He's been given a
short list of female pilots hoping one of them will
have that elusive and lucrative IT factor. So he sets
up a meeting with now thirty one year old Amelia,

(42:53):
and when he does, she walks in and he can't
believe it.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
She looks a.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Lot like Charles Lindberg. Immediately convinced that she's the one,
so George pitches Amelia the opportunity of a lifetime. He
wants her to take a transatlantic flight, not as the
pilot but as a passenger, and like, it's all for
a publicity yeah, but still the trip would make her
the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Can you imagine I.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Get so nervous when we fly to like on tour
to Europe and stuff, because you're just like, or to
Hawaii when you're just like, so we're just gonna be
like on open ocean for like four or five hours.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, but imagining the first woman who gets to do that,
and you're gonna know that and it's never going to
be changed because you're the first woman to do it.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah, you know, And she's kind of like, look, I
survived that sled, I'll be fine. Yeah, I'm sure that
is a part of it, right, She's like, get me
out there. It'll be good if I do it, Okay,
So she's all in. Of course she thinks it. Mirin
wrote it sounds like a blast, but of course she
also knows there's risks. Writer Anthony Brant notes, quote, it

(44:02):
was still a very dangerous thing to fly the Atlantic Ocean.
In the year after Charles Lindberg flew the Atlantic, which
was nineteen twenty seven, eighteen planes made the attempt, only
three succeeded.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Holy shit.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Airplanes were a mere quarter of a century old. The
North Atlantic is famously stormy. Fog banks are common. Weather
reports at the time were primitive, and navigation was often haphazard.
The plane she flew in was made mostly of sheet metal.
It rattled and roared like an old steam engine like that.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
It was so loud.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, the cabin door had to be tied shut with
a small rope.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Oh my god, and the fucking farting. I was gonna
say meal service.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
But yeah, because it's a tri motor seaplane, it's a
little guy with three people in it. Okay, So all
that in mind. On June seventeenth, nineteen twenty eight, Amelia
takes off in the seaplane piloted by a man named
Wilmer Stalt and co piloted by a man named Lewis Gordon.
But after twenty hours and forty minutes of flight time,

(45:06):
when they finally land in Wales, it's Amelia who steps
off the plane and into instant celebrity. Hey, thousands of
people are there waiting to catch a glimpse of the
daring AVI eight tricks is what they call her, Amelia Earhart.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
Do you think she slept a moment of that twenty
hours in forty minutes.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Probably well, no, probably not, because she was probably thrilled
out of her mind, scared shitless.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
And it was super loud, yeah, and cold, yeah, and windy,
And there's no Barkhart. She just says a little flask
that she's sipping out of from a straw. So newspapers
run countless glowing features and newsreels declaring her the quote
Lady Lindbergh. It's the exact type of publicity George has
worked so hard for. Because now he wants Amelia to

(45:49):
write a memoir that he can then turn into the bestseller.
So this is my experience doing it, got it? George
urges her to quit her job back in Boston, move
into his New York home, and crank out this book.
That's exactly how Lindbergh did it, so he wants her
to do it the same way. Amelia knows that if
she does that, she can parlay all the attention into
some real money, which then she can use to support

(46:10):
her family and pay for her expensive flying lessons.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
She's the original aviator influencer.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yes, hashtag for sure. And also you see these let
me show you some of these early pictures. She's a
gorgeous young woman. She has freckles in her bob hair
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
But she's like, oh, she's the cutest.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
She truly has that face card yeah, that they're all
looking for. And on top of all that, it's going
to give her a platform to share the message she's
carried within her since childhood, which is that women can
do anything.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Men can do awesome.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
In the twenties, when no one was trying to say shit,
they were like, I'm going to smoke a cigarette, jazz
cigarette yez. So Amelia up ends her entire life in
Boston and starts writing a book that will eventually be
titled quote twenty hours forty minutes in it. There's a
section titled women in Aviation, and in that Amelia writes, quote,

(47:03):
while this chapter is called women in Aviation, just as
appropriate a title might have been women outside of Aviation.
There should be no line between men and women so
far as piloting is concerned.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Got it like a female pilot? Nope, just a pilot,
Just a pilot, Yeah, yep.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Amelia's sister Muriel will later say that Amelia was embarrassed
that her claim to fame was being a passenger on
that transatlantic flight, which seems backed up by Amelia's own words.
She was quoted as saying, the boys did all the flying.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
Yeah, that is embarrassing. Yeah for her, who is a pilot.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah, get your own vespa, get.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Your She also describes herself on that flight as quote
just baggage, like a sack of potatoes.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Oh god, that had a sting.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
Well, I think it's She's the kind of person that's like,
if you're going to applaud for me this much, just
wait until you write and fly right, this is nothing.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
She also teases her dream of the future by saying, quote,
maybe someday I'll try it alone. So now it's nineteen
thirty two. Amelia is in her mid thirties and America's
in the throes of the Great Depression. But Amelia has
done extremely well for herself over the past few years.
She's gotten paid endorsements from brands like Lucky Strike, and
she's become the aviation editor of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
That's made up. Yeah, that is what I love it.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
But that's how much of a trend flying once at
the time, which is great.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
You got to get those sponsorships, man, that's right me
and podcasting understand.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
You're truly right about her being the original plane influencer.
So at that point, she'd made enough money to buy
herself a brand new plane, which is the now iconic
fire engine red Lockheed Vega. Amelia is also still devoted
to empowering women.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
She is the.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Founding member and the first president of a group called
the ninety nines, which is the first ever organization for
women in aviation. The ninety nine refers to the number
of the group's charter.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Members amazing so good. Yeah, what if it was like
twenty three The twenty threes doesn't sound the same. The
ninety nine is fucking.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Almost a hundred.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
On a more personal level. Amelia's father, Edwin, has passed
away of cancer, and George Putnam, her publisher, has divorced
his wife. He professes his love for her and proposes.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
I wish I could have seen that.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
She says no.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
He asks again, and he ends up proposing to her
six different times.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Wow, love him, love her, Love it.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Amelia has been skeptical of marriage all her life for
very good reason. Yeah, but she genuinely cares for George,
so she eventually accepts, but she has her conditions. She
tells him she's going to keep her own name, which
at that time was unheard of.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
I'm just that's incredible, Yes, someone who kept her own name.
I want to thank her for fucking blazing the way.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
She blazed it.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
And then on her wedding day, she won't wear a
traditional bridal gown.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
She wears a brown suit. What just like fisk.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
She's like, let me just go to work today.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
She's like, here's the thing. I'm not wearing your stupid
fucking dress. And she also, the morning of their wedding,
writes him a letter which I really love that says, quote,
I may have to keep someplace where I can go
to be by myself now, and then I cannot guarantee
to endure at all times the confinement of even an
attractive cage.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Oh my god, Like she loved that about her, then
you know that's like why he loved her is like,
that's so incredible.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
I think. So, this is my opinion.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
When you are raised feral, it's hard to even want
to have anything traditional, even when the pressure to do
it is so oppressive, because it's like it was literally
she had the kind of household where it's like, go
outside and play for eighteen hours because everything is so
fucked in here. And so then it's like, yeah, I
don't want to go back. I tie myself back to

(50:54):
this that structure that I can't trust. If I couldn't
trust my own father, how can I trust you completely?

Speaker 2 (51:01):
I don't if with that.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
And George Putnam's like, I get it. I'll just keep
asking you.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
But also, a brown suit on your wedding day is
just like badass to a degree where she's like that
isn't just like I'm not gonna be traditional, She's like
fuck yeh, finishing school professor.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, apologies to anyone who thought they were actually going
to play this for their children in the backseat of
the car, like it was never going to happen.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
We were lying to you, but more importantly, we were
lying directly to your.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Children, and you were lying to yourself.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Thought we screamed fuck you.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
So, around the same year she gets married, which is
nineteen thirty two, she publishes her second book, that one's called.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
The Fun of It Kio, I Love that one, Kiki.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
She also announces with that that she's going to fly
across the Atlantic again, but this time as a pilot,
and this time by herself. At the time, no one,
no man or woman, aside from Charles Lundbird back in
nineteen twenty seven, had ever completed a solo, NonStop transatlantic flight,
although ten pilots had died trying.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
No. Yeah, don't like those odds.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
So she's like, uh uh a ten male pilot step away, Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
So immediately Amelia's inner circle, including her husband George Putnam,
start wondering if she's experienced enough to pull off this stunt.
Her own mechanic gives her quote a one in one
hundred chance of surviving.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Cool dude, way to fucking be supportive.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Reminds me of Then the fucking Eagles were like, we
don't want to tour with Linda Ronstadt. We're going to
start her own band.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Like, fuck you go ahead, see how it fucking goes.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Good luck, she's selling out fucking stadiums. Anyway, God, that documentary.
I loved it so much, but it filled me with
a fury that will never go.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
That was the point.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, she wasn't good enough.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
You need it, you need that theory.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, so the idea of making a transatlantic flight alone
makes Amelia Earhart feel alive.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Oh I was gonna be like, take a beta blocker
your notes.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
She's like, I can't this day to day bullshit isn't
good enough. I need to get up and over there.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
What did she do to hype herself up before? Because
before I came in here to record, I put on
yes and by our Grande, Like just to record a
podcast that I've done for fucking nine years. I still
need that, Like I a little too. Secrets being revealed? Yeah, okay, go,
well here's I can tell you.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
She writes a poem that says, quote, courage is the
price that life extracts for granting peace.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Think about it. I can't you gotta pay.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
You must so on a warm May morning, I added
in warm, I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
On a May morning.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
In nineteen thirty two, Amelia takes off from Canada's East
coast in her Lockheed Vega. From the start, it's an exhausting,
difficult journey. Author Doris L. Rich writes, quote, she was
four hours out when she ran into a storm. She
would go high and the plane would ice, then she'd
go down until she could see the waves to get

(53:57):
the ice off.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Oh fuck.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
She had no radio contact with anyone. The manifold on
her engine broke and the flames from the backfire from
it were coming out. There was a gas cage over
her head that began to leak, and the gasoline was
dripping down over her forehead and into one eye.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
And just crash the whole thing into the sea. Yeah,
it's what I would do.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Well, after fifteen grueling hours of flight time, Amelia Earhart
lands her plane safely in Northern Ireland. Amazing, and this
solo flight launches her to all new levels of worldwide stardom.
She's mobbed by fans in London and Paris, and when
she comes back to the United States, her success is
felt as a much needed moment of national joy because

(54:40):
it's still a great depression. She even gets her own
ticker tape parade in New York City. Influencerr I've you
ever seen ticker tape parade footage? It looks so messy,
it looks so awesome, Like if you're down there and
everyone's just thrown shit out the window, and like it's
just such a true moment of glory.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, everybody got to focus on that.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
I have to clean it up?

Speaker 3 (55:01):
Yeah, true?

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Why do I think that way? Go on?

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Some people like cleaning.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Okay, So a few months later, she then becomes the
first woman to fly across North America and back. Amelia
is now a global icon through and through. I also
wonder how much of that is, like I'm proving I'm
not a passenger over and over again.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Sure that's like the best way to get yourself to
do something for me. It's like, oh, you don't think
I can't do that? Yeah, I think I'm a passenger.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Or to myself of like, oh, you're really ashamed because
you had that one comedy set that was terrible that
you're remembering from seven years ago, but then got.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
There be the best. I think shame work.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
Shame is a great motivator, but being your career aviator,
even when you're a famous one, takes a ton of money.
So Amelia hits the lecture circuit. She goes on tour
making exhausting back to back town by town appearances. Tell
me about It, Ted Talks, O G Ted Talks. She's

(55:58):
got like the head bike, but it's not next to
anything for no thirty like what's that thing by her mouth? Sometimes?
She earned twenty four hundred dollars in a single week
in Day's Money nineteen thirty to how much would twenty
four hundred dollars a week be?

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Seventy six thousand, fifty five thousand, but still in the
area fifty five thousand dollars a week sane, that's insane.
She started the first podcast.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yeah, she's also using her platform to campaign for women's empowerment,
not only in aviation, but she's trying to get the
Equal Rights Amendment passed.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Like don't rest I love it.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
She's invited to the White House in nineteen thirty three.
She becomes tight with the Roosevelts. Brag brag, brag, Oh
fucking cool, not so fun. Fact about the Equal Rights Amendment.
Though advocates have been fighting to ratify the Equal Rights
Amendment since the twenties, even though it's already met the
required number of state ratifications, for some reason, it still

(56:59):
has not been added to the US Constitution.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Imagine being invited to the White House and wanting to go,
and being proud to go. Yeah, can you like the Roosevelts? Fuck, yeah,
I'd go. Imagine it's just such.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
The end of an era. Yeah, but it's an end
of an era. And what I'm talking about is democracy.
Fucking Jesus.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Oh right, God, Okay.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Nineteen thirty three is a big year for Amilia also
because she breaks her own speed record on a second
flight across North America. She's just getting it done. By
nineteen thirty five, thirty eight year old Amelia has set
records for solo flights from like Honolulu to Oakland, California,
or LA to Mexico City.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
That's just a couple of them.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
I've done those, rights and solo.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
You mean you just weren't talking events.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
She's also campaigning for FDR, and she launches her own
fashion line called Amelia Fashion Brown Suits called brown Suits Only.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
She explains if you could find one of those in
the bin too, and you're like doing shopping and then
something to see fucking Amelia Earhart fashion.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
By Amelia dude.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
So the theory was that all flight clothing, of course,
had been made for men up to that point. So
when you had your nice jotipers or your weird white
shirt or whatever, leather jacket, yeah, like coursewritings. Yeah, So
the idea was they were supposed to be And of
course she always preferred pants anyway. So I looked up
on Amelia Earhart dot org and they had pictures from

(58:28):
the newspaper of the ad of it in it said
sports clothes designed by Amelia Earhart. But then every single
picture in that ad was models wearing dresses. There was
not one pair of pants, which I was.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Like, she never got to say in that she sold
her name.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
As busy as she is, Amelia still gets the itch
to make another big flight, so she writes to her
friends saying, quote, I have the feeling there's just one
more good flight left in my system, and I hope
this is it. It is my swan song as far
as record flying is concerned. My frosting on the.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Cake God rest on your beautiful laurels.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
Sometimes, guys, sorry, I can't joined adult children of alcoholics.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
So I'm going to go ahead and keep on flying across.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
It's a nice little nap on them.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Laurels can't do it.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
So the next year, nineteen thirty six, Amelia announces her
plan to fly around the world. If successful, she'll be
the first woman to ever do it. Obviously, she and
George fundraise for a brand new plane that's built specifically
for this journey. They pay for it too, but it's
so expensive. It's eighty thousand dollars, so they need to

(59:35):
fundraise eighty thousand dollars back then is about how much
in today's money.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Three hundred and fifty thousand, one point eight million.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Dude. Yeah, I've learned nothing.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Your scale just not like that A little bit know
what's happening. So she calls this.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Plane her flying laboratory because it's outfitted with all the
latest technology, but she never learns to use much of it.
Doris l Rich writes, quote, Amelia did not lie radio communication.
There's absolutely no doubt about it. That's like me and emails.
It's so bad, Yeah, for business. She not only didn't

(01:00:09):
bother to learn it. She didn't really find it necessary.
There's a hint here of the ego that all great
explorers and adventurers have. They have a certain faith that
they're going to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
I whan you spend one point something on a fucking plane,
you hope it like flies itself just a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Yeah, you would hope there's an automated aspect to it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Something.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Amelia wants to do the trip by herself, but it's
eventually decided she will need a team, being that she
doesn't like radio communication at all, so she hires three men,
a technical advisor named Paul Mantz, a marine navigator with
radio operation experience named Harry Manning, and a former pan
m navigator named Fred Noonan. So on March seventeenth, nineteen

(01:00:50):
thirty seven, they take off from Oaklean, California. They land
in Honolulu. Then on March twentieth, they take off for
the second leg of this trip, but something goes wrong.
The plane skids off course at the end of the
runway and it crashes. It's a big enough accident that
the plane has to be sent in for extensive repairs.
So this is a deeply stressful moment. For Amelia, she's

(01:01:13):
basically gambled everything on this extraordinarily expensive flight during a
national financial crisis. Y.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Yeah, so, Doris l Rich writes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Quote, after she cracked up the plane in Honolulu, she
felt fear for the first time. The immensity of this
project suddenly hit her. She knew that if she lost
that plane or failed in this, she and George were
dead broke both of them.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
You can tell Doris el Rich is writing from like
it's probably nineteen forty five or something.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Yeah, that's the vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
I gat this is gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Dead broke both of them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
So the crash in Honolulu also rattles Amelia's loved ones.
According to Babs, friends urge her to abandon this mission.
They also express concern over her exhausted and anxious mental state.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Yeah, so it seems like she's kind.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Of pushing it anyway, even though she's scared or she's
worried totally. This includes her husband George, who writes her
a letter promising that they'll figure things out should she
abandon the flight.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Yeah, there's time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
It's okay, but Amelia won't give in.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Give in and regroup a little bit and then come
back stronger than ever.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
I feel like this is that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
You know, there are people who are like, if you're
a serious workoholic, you just can't consider taking a nap
during the day.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
That thing of like rest is for the week. And
it's like, actually, it's a beautiful thing to give to yourself,
and it's okay, it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Is okay, But sometimes you just can't because if you rest,
that means like your momentum will slow, even if it's
just your mental momentum. And clearly she's still on that sled,
still going under that horse drawn carriage.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Yeah, but then it won't go away. You can still
come back after it and like you're gonna be more
clear headed and you're gonna be older and smarter and like,
give yourself a fucking break. Sometimes no, And that shows
why Karen's CEO and I don't have a fucking office
at exactly right Media.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
It's not good. It's not it is not good.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
And she has two podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Yeah, I'm having to start a third, and it's called
It's Fine to do this to yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
It's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
It's fine. That actually would be funny.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
It's Fine.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
A podcast called It's Fine and you just have people
come on and talk about shit that is so not okay,
It's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
It was fine.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
I was fine, fine, No, I liked it. It was fine.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
By the time the plane is repaired, Amelia's team has shrunk.
The technical advisor, Paul and Harry, the marine navigator, the
only guy with radio experience, both back out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
They were like later days, They're like, read the fates. Yeah,
then go take a nap.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Yeahs naptime.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Mercury is in retrograde.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
So now it's Amelia and Fred Noonan. Thanks to changing
weather patterns, they're forced to come up with a whole
new flight plan, so instead of leaving from Hawaii, they're
now taking off from Miami, Florida, and on June first,
nineteen thirty seven, they do just that, this time without
a hitch.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
And then they.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Start on this forty day, twenty thousand mile trip, making
several stops to refuel along the way.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
They soar over.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Africa, through the Middle East, over Southeast Asia, onto New Guinea.
They have another stop before a very long stretch over
the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Are the first people who have ever seen this from
the fucking air? Like, how so wild? But believable.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
On July second, nineteen thirty seven, Amelia and Fred take
off from New Guinea. At this point they've completed nearly
three quarters of this journey, and the goal is to
now get to a tiny sliver of land called Howland Island,
roughly halfway between Australia and Hawaii, truly out in the
middle of the Pacific, and it's only about a mile

(01:04:51):
and a half long island and a half a mile wide.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
That's a hard target, that's a little tiny one.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Tragically, Amelia and Fred struggle to find island. We know
they arrive in the general area because Amelia starts radioing
the Coastguard, who have a ship called Itasca nearby, and
they're receiving her messages. Some of these transmissions are so
crystal clear that the men on the Atasca rush to
the decks thinking that the plane will be overhead. In

(01:05:19):
one of her transmissions, Amelia says that she thinks she's
close by, but she's lost and she only has about
half an hour of fuel left. But because she doesn't
know much about radio transmission, she's sending these messages while
on an improper frequency on the radio. So the Coastguard
is only able to respond to her with Morse code,

(01:05:39):
which neither she nor Fred understand.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
That's an important one, a lot of crucial legata elements.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
Let's not criticize Amil or not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
You know where the story goes from here. The messages
stopped coming in thirty nine year old Amelia Earhart and
forty four year old Fred Noonan and the plane that
they're flying in together disappear almost immediately. FDR dispatches a
huge crew to go look for them. It's made up
of ten ships and sixty five planes, and that causes

(01:06:12):
a lot of controversy because it costs millions of dollars.
It's still the depression. So after two weeks of combing
a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean near Howlen Island
with no results, this search is called off. But George
Putnam has his own search going.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
I forget that, Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
He funds an independent search himself and it goes until
October of nineteen thirty seven. Oh my god, so he
just kind of never stops searching for her. That also
turns up nothing. In January of nineteen thirty nine, two
years after vanishing, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan are legally
declared dead.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
They turn up nothing, not a scrap, So they were
like looking in the wrong area.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
Well, okay, we'll talk about that one second. They're countless.
Theories of what happened during those final moments of Amelia's
last flight all have devoted supporters, as they usually do,
because of the disappearance happened in the lead up to
World War Two. Some people think that Amelia and Fred
were captured by the Japanese military after crash landing on
a Japanese controlled island, and they were either executed for

(01:07:17):
being American spies or they were turned into spies for
Japan and sent back to the US with new identities.
That one's a little.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
While, but what if now we write that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Another theory is that Amelia wound up on an island
called Nika Mororo sorry for that pronunciation, A four hundred
miles south of Howland Island.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Is this where they found her compact?

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
All done?

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Wait?

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
They think they might have lived as castaways there before
dying of thirst or starvation. Some people believe this theory
then take it one step further, suggesting that massive coconut
crabs could have consumed their remains and scattered their bones,
making their bodies harder to find.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Okay, those fuckers are big.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
I mean, it's such a creepy idea. The island had
been inhabited in the past, but it was uninhabited at
the time of this flight. Despite this, intermittent radio signals
were reported from that general area around the time they disappeared,
as if the plane's radio had remained intact and accessible
and they were calling for help. On top of that,

(01:08:24):
in nineteen forty bones are found on Naka Morero. They
have since been lost, so the DNA has never been tested.
Come on, yeah, but again, that island had been inhabited,
so they weren't necessarily their's. Searchers has found on that
island a single shoe, a piece of aluminum, and a

(01:08:46):
jar of freckle cream.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Freckle cream, which.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
Certainly points to a person and maybe a woman having
been there. And for what it's worth, Amelia Earhart had
freckles that she was reportedly very self conscious about.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Oh, first of all, it breaks my heart that she
is so self conscious that she brings freckle cream on
this like adventure. But then I'm like, I wonder if
that was like bare spf at the time where it's
like you had to cover your freckles with this cream
and maybe it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
Would be worse.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Yeah, it was maybe like two for one where she's like,
I need moisture because this Womd's gonna whip around my face.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Sunscreen. It's an early sunscreen. Okay, yeah, I mean yeah,
it's her. It's theirs.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Since you imagined you're just on this island, it's mostly
coconut crabs, and then you're just like bones bones cold cream.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
What if the cold cream was like a sponsor of
the flight. I think since she had to bring in.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
It, it was a sponsor of this podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
Freckle cream.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Freckle creamer clem Amelia Earhart uses it and you can too, No,
because now they love freckles so much that they have
little freckle stamps.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
And they have tattoos of freckles on your fucking face.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
The kids these days, they were their big butts and
they're freckles and their attitudes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
These items are never confirmed as belonging to either Fred
or Amelia, and modern day efforts to search the surrounding
ocean near that island have turned up nothing. Of course,
many people think Amelia's plane simply ran out of fuel
and crashed into the open ocean. Because of the sheer
size and depth of the Pacific, it hasn't been found.
Amelia's sister Muriel thinks this is what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
I'm not happy with some of the dramas about Amelia
where they went into fiction. So essentially, of course, that's
how it always is, where it's like actually simple theorizing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
The hard truth, which presumably was much harder for Muriel,
Amelia's mother, Amy, and her husband George, is that we
simply do not know what happened to her. George Putnam
died in nineteen fifty at age sixty two of kidney problems. Amy,
Amelia's mother, died in nineteen sixty two at age ninety five,
and her sister Muriel passed away in nineteen ninety eight

(01:10:56):
at the age of ninety eight. Wow searchers continued to
hunt for any signs of Amelia Earhart or her plane.
As recently as twenty twenty three, a deep sea exploration
group released an underwater sonar image of what they thought
was the plane, but in twenty twenty four they discovered
it was just a bunch of rocks. Oh no, uh huh,
plane shaped rocks.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
All that in mind.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Instead of focusing on the mysterious ending of Amelia's story,
we can always relish in what we do know about
her life and her bold approach to living it. As
writer Anthony Brandt has said, quote, it wasn't that Amelia
was wilful, rather that she was free. She was calm, fearless,
cheerful in the face of life, and she attracted everybody.
She believed that women should live lives rich in experience,

(01:11:41):
and have careers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
If they possibly could, and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Imagine, and she lived her belief. She was a remarkable
human being, a historic figure, one of those people who,
skirting the farthermost edges of experience, open up possibilities.

Speaker 3 (01:11:56):
For us all.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
And that is the story of pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart Boom.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
High five for Amelia Earhart.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Good job you wow had to be done.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
If you're in the fifth grade and you heard anything
I said that was wrong, please write in at my
favorite murder at gmail dot com because we know you
all to have done reports on her.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Yeah, we're open to corrections always.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
Women should live free.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
It's insane can you imagine?

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
But it really is the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
It is. That was its own horay. I feel like
I do too. Yeah that was pretty great.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Yeah, pretty great.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
And they still send us horahs in comment them. But please,
that was it. Yes, this week, we've done all the
work we need to do. I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
Great, Then stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Gooby Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Speaker 3 (01:12:51):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
is Tessa Hughes.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squillacci.

Speaker 3 (01:13:01):
Our researchers are Mayor McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Dot com and follow the show on Instagram at my
Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Podcasts, or you can watch us on YouTube. Search for
My Favorite Murder, then like and subscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
Goodbye,

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512 - Best of the Year (Part I)

Episode Transcript

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Georgia Hardstark

Karen Kilgariff

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}512 - Best of the Year (Part I)