The books used in the composition of this podcast included:
“Every Last Tie,” by David Kaczynski
“Unabomber: A Desire To Kill,” by Robert Graysmith
“Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski,” by Chris Waits
“Harvard and the Unabomber,” by Alston Chase
“Madman in the Woods,” by Jamie Gehring
The musical intro for both parts of the podcast was: “In Five Straight Rows,” by The Mini Vandals
The outro was: “Break Your Lock and Key,” also by the Mini Vandals
Adolf Hitler intended the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a coming out party for his Aryan Master Race. African-American Jesse Owens crashed the venue by winning four gold medals.
At the Penn Relays, he won the long jump and the 100 meter dash. Unfortunately for Eulace Peacock, the sprinter completely tore his hamstring during a preliminary heat, an injury so severe that Peacock was unable to make the 1936 Olympic Games.
Owens qualified easily, winning the 100 and 200 meter sprint and the long jump competition at the Olympic trials at Randall’s Island. His chief American competition came from Ralph Metcalfe in the 100 and Mack Robinson in the 200, Robinson the older brother of future Brooklyn Dodger, Jackie Robinson. Eighteen black Americans qualified for the US Olympic team, two of them women, almost four times the number of African-American competitors at the 1932 Olympic games in Los Angeles.
For a gold medal in the 100 meters, Jesse Owens would have to win four consecutive races, but the competition in Monday’s first two heats was minimal, several sprinters in the Big Ten much tougher competition. Jesse cruised easily to victory, in the first heat by seven yards and the quarter finals by four yards, breaking his own world record in a time of 10.2 seconds. While Owens victories were not a surprise, what was astonishing was the response of the crowd when his name was announced and after he crossed the tape in first place. Anticipating that a German crowd politically attuned to the current Nazi master race theories would ignore or even vent hostility toward a Black American, instead the massive crowd roared their approval.
Elsewhere in the stadium, Two German athletes were generating their own excitement. Hans Woelke and Ottilie “Tilly” Fleischer won gold in the men’s shot put and women’s discus, respectively, the first track and field Olympic gold medals ever won by Germany. Afterwards, they were summoned to Hitler’s personal box, where both were personally congratulated by Hitler and Hermann Goering. Later in the afternoon, when three Finns swept the medals in the 10,000 meters distance race, they were also invited to Hitler’s box and congratulated.
But by the time the event concluded, and with the weather getting progressively colder with rain starting to fall, Adolf Hitler left the arena before the high jump medals ceremony and without a personal invitation to the black American Johnson. This did not go unnoticed especially by the American press who focused the first day’s coverage on the perceived snub. It also was noticed by Henri de Baillet-Latour, the President of the International Olympic Committee, who was hoping to lower the volume on politics and did not want Hitler to become the focal point of the current games. He is said to have either forbidden Hitler to personally congratulate winners or to have told Hitler that he needed to congratulate every winner, regardless of race or country of origin. The most popular interpretation is that Hitler, figuring that at least one black man, Jesse Owens was a shoe in to win at least one medal, then decided to stop publicly congratulating any of the winners.
Later that afternoon, at 4:30 he participated in the long jump semi-final that served to eliminate ten of the remaining sixteen competitors. Both Owens and Luz Long broke the existing Olympic record, jumping well over 25 feet to the delight of the crowd and setting up a climactic final. Owens faulted on his first jump of the finals and his German competitor regressed to 25 feet, four inches but on his second jump Long pressed Owens to the limit with a leap of 25 feet, 10 inches. Owens responded like a true champion establishing a new Olympic record with a jump of 26 feet. When Long faulted on his third and last try, Owens had won his second gold. Not to leave anything on the table, his final attempt measured 26 feet, 5.5 inches another Olympic record. Long was the first to congratulate him after the American landed in the sand, the crowd also roaring over this exceptional feat. Together, the two athletes walked on the track arm in arm, in clear view of the spectators including Adolf Hitler.
But, after sharing this moment of sportsmanship, Long was conveyed to a private room under the stands where he was personally greeted and congratulated by Hitler and his entourage. There would no such interaction by Hitler with Jesse Owens or any other black member of the American contingent. Hitler did also privately meet and greet with Helen Stephens, the 18 year old American phenomenon who won the Womens 100 meters, underlining Hitler’s apparent desire to ignore any success on the part of Black Americans, even unofficially.
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Adolf Hitler wanted the 1936 Berlin Olympics to be a coming out party for his Aryan Master Race. Jesse Owens crashed the venue by winning four gold medals.
Owens then had to hustle to the long jump competition which also began at 10:30 AM. Here he faced an athlete from Germany who was his first formidable foreign competition, a 22 year old German; Carl Ludwig “Luz” Long. Long was the current German and European record holder, not quite Owens equal but certainly dangerous if Jesse should falter. And, proving that he was human, Jesse did initially stumble during what should have been an easy qualification. He was charged with his first of three jumps when he typically jogged on the runway and through the landing area just to get a feel for the surface. This American warmup practice was unknown in Europe and despite even the head coach of the American track and field contingent getting into the face of the officials, the practice jump counted. The incident seemed to rattle Owens, his second jump was only 23 feet, 3 inches, short of what he needed to qualify for the next round and more than three feet shorter than his own world record.
Conversely, and fortunately from Nazi Germany’s perspective, the head of the American Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, was adamantly opposed to any interference in American Olympic participation due to politics. Brundage, a wealthy and dictatorial administrator, once famously stated that the Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not to the politicians. He officially travelled to Germany to assess the situation and after a series of carefully choreographed interactions with German officials, he was able to convince the IOC to agree to US participation.
Although he was due to run in the finals of the 200 meters on Wednesday, August 5, Jesse Owens tried to throttle back some of the intensity of the previous 48 hours. He was already the biggest celebrity of the Olympic games and despite his attempt to sleep late on Wednesday morning, his brick guest house swarmed with fans and even athletes crowding around the windows trying to get a glimpse of the American track star.
Jesse would have to hustle for the next few years to make a living with more barnstorming tours and various promotional gigs associated with black clothing stores and dry cleaning establishments.
1972 also brought another Olympics, this the ill-fated games at Munich which involved the terrorist murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes. Despite this tragic event and in spite of some controversy over whether the games should continue they did and Jesse Owens got caught up in mediating another racially charged situation.
Jesse Owens travelled to the 1968 Olympics as a guest of the Mexican government, a consultant to the US Olympic Committee and a radio commentator for the Mutual broadcasting network. Although Owens must have been astonished when long jumper Bob Beamon broke the existing world record by almost two feet, much more impactful was a coordinated protest by two black track athletes, Tommy Smith and John Carlos. Winning gold and bronze respectively, in the 200 meters, while on the victory podium the two athletes raised their black gloved fists during the playing of the American national anthem. While the protest caused a media sensation that reverberated around the world, it prompted great anger from the US Olympic committee and especially Avery Brundage, still the President of the IOC. Owens was sent to meet with a group of athletes to attempt to mitigate the situation and possibly extract a face-saving apology before the IOC punished anyone. He failed miserably to even get any white participants to leave the meeting, the consensus that they supported Smith and Carlos more than he did. Sadly, the lengthy session deteriorated into anger and recriminations. The next day the IOC kicked Carlos and Smith out of the Olympic Village and suspended them from Olympic competition. When questioned as to why it was acceptable for Germans to use the Nazi salute on the victory stand, but that Smith and Carlos’ behavior was unacceptable, Avery Brundage actually replied that the Nazi salute was the accepted national salute in the country in that time period.
Jesse Owens spent the next eight years doing what he had done for some time, public speaking. By now, he would enthrall audiences with yarns about being personally snubbed by Hitler and the help he received from Luz Long and other tales, occasionally admitting to particularly determined journalists that these stories were embroidered so that “people got to hear what they wanted to hear and I got paid for telling them.” He received an honorary degree from Ohio State, awards from the NCAA, induction into the track and field Hall of Fame, the Medal of Freedom from President Gerald Ford and the Living Legends Award from President Jimmy Carter, Owens now perceived as a national treasure without any partisan stigma.
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The books used to compose this podcast included:
“Jesse Owens: An American Life,” by William J. Baker.
Also: “Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics,” by Jeremy Schaap.
The music used in the intro for both episodes was, “Island Woke,” by Freedom Trail Studio. The music for the outro of part one was, “Pouring Out,” by Asher Fulero. The music for the outro of part two was, “Boreal,” also by Asher Fulero.
Of the many political figures involved in Mexico’s 1910 Revolution, Pancho Villa remains the most famous and charismatic.
Like the history of Mexico itself, Villa’s early life and biography is obscured or disputed. Much of the information about Pancho Villa came from his own self-serving autobiography or biased journalism and glorifying newsreels from the time period. What is generally accepted is that Villa was born Doroteo Arango to a sharecropper father and domestic mother on June 5, 1878, in San Juan Del Rio, in the Mexican state of Durango.
In 1910, Mexican President Porfirio Diaz was re-elected to his seventh term as the political leader of the Mexican government. Diaz had served as President for 30 of the previous 34 years, so politically powerful that this entire time period is referred to historically as the Porfiriato. Although Mexico’s economy experienced expansion and prosperity during Diaz’s reign, much of the increased international trade, railroad construction and economic infrastructure was financed with European and American capital and benefited foreign entities and individuals and a small group of Mexican elites to the detriment of most of the Mexican population, who barely survived in squalor and deprivation.
Madero had no choice but to employ the reactionary general Victoriano Huerta as the head of the column that headed north to Chihuahua to challenge Orozco. He also personally requested that Villa join the general to oppose Orozco, an overture that Villa accepted. In command of 4800 federales, General Huerta accepted Villa’s men into his fighting force strictly out of necessity, considering Villa a glorified bandit.
Pancho Villa chose this window of opportunity to march his army within a few miles of Mexico City, pausing only to meet personally with Zapata. On December 4, 1914, at Xochimilco, one of the more remarkable meetings in Mexican history occurred when the two men met and came to an agreement as to carving up territory and future military strategy. Two days later, both men’s armies entered the capital, Villa providing Zapata’s forces with weapons and artillery. Obregon had already declared his opposition to Villa and after assassinating some of his longtime political enemies, Pancho decided to leave attacking Veracruz to Zapata and headed North, to consolidate his power in the region.
Because Carranza had support throughout the country, Villa was forced to defend territory that he previously controlled. Both Villa and Zapata abandoned Mexico City, which was then immediately occupied by Obregon. The Carrancistas took everything of value and added more recruits from the poorest sectors of the city, the only alternative within the looted capital was starvation. Villa focused on a long term offensive with an objective of pushing all of the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
Francisco Madero was elected President of Mexico in October of 1911, Diaz having left the country for exile in France. But the united hostility that combined many elements of a rebellion against the Porfiriato now focused their antagonism on Madero. For his part, Pancho Villa was relatively inactive during this time period. He was now amnestied from any possible political or criminal prosecution, had a substantial group of armed supporters to insure his security and looked forward to enjoying a period of relative solitude. Unfortunately, Mexico’s political atmosphere remained chaotic. In the South, rebels under the command of Zapata continued to seize territory and property, especially when it was clear that land reform was not imminent. Madero was forced to use the national army to stabilize the situation and achieve at least a stalemate.
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Of the many political and military figures involved in Mexico’s 1910 Revolution, Pancho Villa remains the most famous and charismatic.
Villa formally requested that Felipe Angeles be permitted to officially join Villa’s military staff. Angeles was a traditional army officer with an expertise in artillery. He served during the Diaz government but was in France when the revolution broke out. Ultimately, he decided that the populist concepts of the revolution were more to his liking and felt Villa best embodied these ideas.
Public outrage over Villa’s Columbus, New Mexico attack prompted Woodrow Wilson to launch a rapidly deployed military expedition under the leadership of the commandant of Fort Bliss, Texas and experienced Apache antagonist, John “Black Jack” Pershing. Commanding six thousand men, split into two separate columns, Pershing crossed the border, without the permission or even cooperation of the Carranza government, which was sensitive to any American incursion. Fleeing south, Villa, attacked any appropriate smaller targets along the way but suffered a serious leg wound at Guerrero on March 28. Pershing’s force quickly located the Villistas and successfully attacked Guerrero but Villa escaped into the mountains where he hid for six weeks, recovering from his gunshot injury. Although Villa was no longer popular in Mexico, the American expedition was considered an invasion and an incident at Hidalgo Parral in which several American soldiers and numerous Mexicans were killed prompted an agreement between the two governments that the Pershing expedition would gradually withdraw
Although at the height of his military effectiveness and power, Pancho Villa was now confronted with fundamental logistical issues. Although the path to the capital was wide open, Carranza ordered the cut off of any resupply, especially of coal which limited the rebel general’s railway mobility. Foreign hostility caught up to Villa personally when the Wilson administration tailored an arms embargo designed specifically for the Villistas. Any attempt to patch up an agreement between Carranza and Villa failed and it became clear that Pancho would never make it to Mexico City before another general, loyal to Carranza, Alvaro Obregon. Obregon, approaching initially from the western state of Jalisco, marched unopposed into Mexico City on August 18, 1914. Carranza joined him two days later. Villa had no choice but to retreat northward back to the state of Chihuahua to regroup, resupply and recruit more soldiers.
On January 19, 1916 a group of Villistas stopped a train heading to Chihuahua City, from the United States. They executed 17 American employees, an act that outraged US citizens living in the towns on the Mexican border. Although Villa denied involvement, officially the Carranza government apologized to the Wilson administration and vowed to bring the murderers and Villa to justice. One of the formerly most powerful political forces in Mexico was now a mere criminal. Villa’s response was even more audacious. He proceeded to cross the border near the tiny and isolated town of Columbus, New Mexico. At one in the morning, a firefight broke out between the Villistas and the US soldiers stationed in the town. The Mexican rebels looted the local general store and destroyed a hotel but after some initial confusion, US cavalry and even local townspeople organized a response that drove the invaders out of the town. As dawn broke, the cavalry chased Villa fifteen miles into Mexico before breaking off the counterattack. The Columbus attack killed eight soldiers and ten civilians and wounded several others. Although he was able to seize some nominal amounts of weapons and livestock, Villa never even explained much less justified this wanton and foolhardy provocation.
One wife, Luz Corral, who he married legally in 1911, was recognized by Mexican courts as his heir, but two other women who claimed to be married to him were eventually granted government pensions acknowledging their claim. Officially, Villa had five children but most likely, considering his reputation as a ladies man, there were many more.
Amidst this atmosphere, life went on at Villa’s hacienda. On July 20, 1923 he was returning to Canutillo in a large Dodge automobile, with cash he picked up in Parral for his employees. An aide had recently cautioned him about the expense incurred by a huge entourage accompanying him on his trips to the city. In response, Villa limited his latest bodyguard to five additional individuals crammed into his car. With Villa at the wheel, the Dodge made its way slowly through the streets of Parral. When it reached an intersection that required a turn, a street vendor began shouting Viva Villa, the general’s former rallying cry but on this day a signal to seven assassins who quickly stepped into the street with high powered rifles. They fired over forty rounds of hollow point bullets, nine hitting Villa and killing him instantly. Only one member of the entourage survived.
Over time, Francisco “Pancho” Villa has assumed a larger than life profile in Mexican popular culture. His stature increased to the extent that in 1976, his remains were transferred from Parral to the massive national mausoleum in Mexico City, El Monumento a la Revolucion where he joined such luminaries as Madero and Carranza. In life, Villa was feared and reviled as a volatile killer, bandit and criminal. Today he enjoys widespread international status as a proud nationalist revolutionary and a man of the people long after most of his adversaries and contemporaries have been completely forgotten.
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The books used in this podcast included:
“The Life and Times of Pancho Villa,” by Friedrich Katz and
“Villa, Soldier of the Mexican Revolution,” by Robert L.Scheina.
The Intro music in Part One and Two is:
“Latin Lover,” by Quincas Moreira.
The Outro in Part One is:
“Amor Chiquito,” by Quincas Moreira.
The Outro in Part Two is:
“Vera Cruz,” by Quincas Moreira
In 1925, a diphtheria epidemic threatened to wipe out the town of Nome, Alaska. Hear the incredible story of the men and dogs who saved the day.
Seppala was employed by Hammon Gold as its main dog driver and the supervisor of freight logistics into the remote areas and mining camps that the company operated. But Seppala was also known as the premier dogsled racer in the region having won numerous competitions that were a high profile Alaskan pursuit. A Norwegian and a friend of Jafet Lindberg, he emigrated to Nome in 1900, at the height of the Gold Rush that established the city.
The establishment of a town in such a remote and forbidding location was actually an unplanned spontaneous event that resulted from gold being discovered in the area in mid-September, 1898. Rich deposits of the metal were discovered initially by three individuals who were eventually nicknamed the Three Lucky Swedes, Eric Lindblom, John Brynteson and Jafet Lindberg who was actually Norwegian. This group located these valuable sites in the Anvil Creek and Snake River waterways a few miles off of the coast of the Bering Sea. They legally registered their claims before word of the find became public knowledge elsewhere. However, news of this discovery quickly made it to the outside world and especially to the Klondike region where a previous 1897 gold rush had drawn over 100,000 potential prospectors.
To fill out the new team of drivers Summers contacted another one of his employees, a dog driver who also worked for Leonard Seppala, Gunnar Kaasen. Summers told Kaasen to put together another team and head for the village of Bluff, about forty miles east of Nome. When he got to Bluff he was supposed to get the roadhouse keeper there, Charles Olson, to put together his own team and head 25 miles east to the town of Golovin and wait there. Kaasen was not completely surprised by Summer’s request to assemble a team. Before his boss Seppala left, he made precautionary recommendations to Kaasen as to how to position another subsequent team. Kaasen went along with these recommendations placing the dog Fox as one of the leads. But for the other dog he chose an animal that Seppala did not particularly hold in high esteem, an unusually colored Siberian who was solid black except for a white right paw. The dog’s name was Balto, named after an associate of Norwegian explorer Fritdtjof Nansen. At the time, Kaasen did not think about the choice very much. He had always liked working with the dog and figured that the animal could certainly get the job done. Once the run was completed and the serum got to Nome what difference would it make anyway?
The serum relay remained a huge story across the United States with local journalists getting hired by national wire services to provide eyewitness accounts. Only hours after his actual arrival, Gunnar Kaasen reenacted his arrival, ambling down the main streets of Nome for photographers and motion picture cameras. Newspaper articles focused on Kaasen as he was the only participant present and because journalists wanted to focus on one dog, Balto was anointed as the main canine hero of the serum run.
During his successful racing career, Seppala’s lead dog was named Suggen and this part Malemute, part Siberian huskie subsequently sired many puppies for Seppala. By 1925, Suggen had been replaced by his son Togo, a diminutive animal, initially a runt believed too small to have any future as a sled dog. Named after the victorious Japanese admiral at the battle of Tsushima, at age six months, Seppala gave the dog away, its new owner maintaining the canine as a pet. Within a few weeks, Togo escaped from his new home by leaping through a glass window and returning to Seppala’s kennel, a journey of several miles that impressed the dog trainer enough to prompt Seppala to keep the dog. But the puppy proved difficult to train, frequently breaking out of the kennel to follow Seppala when left behind and off of the team. On the trail, Togo would distract the group to the extent that Seppala finally decided to harness the dog, if only to control him. Immediately, the younger dog responded, able to keep up with older, larger animals on runs that frequently totaled seventy-five miles a day. Seppala came to believe that Togo, 48 pounds at his heaviest weight, was a once in a life time prodigy that he quickly trained and ultimately designated as a lead dog. By 1925, Togo, aged 12, was so respected by Seppala that he frequently placed the dog by himself, with a long lead in front of the other dogs.
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In 1925, a diphtheria epidemic threatened to wipe out the town of Nome, Alaska. Hear the incredible story of the men and dogs who saved the day.
Within days Kaasen got an offer from a Hollywood film producer to appear in a movie with his dog team. Kaasen and Balto were soon standing on the steps of Los angeles’ city Hall with the mayor and Mary Pickford. Although Leonard Sepalla was annoyed by the attention Kaasen was getting, he did give his employee permission to take the dogs, who he considered inferior anyway, and make the film. In conjunction with the movie deal, a vaudeville style tour was developed and suddenly Gunnar Kaasen was a full blown American celebrity.
An indication of the level of Balto’s profile came when it was announced by the city of NY that a statue to honor all of the participants in the serum drive would be placed in Central Park, a statue of Balto deposited on top of its base. On December 15, 1925 both Balto and Kaasen were present when the statue was dedicated, a monument that remains very popular even today.
Kaasen and his wife soon grew tired of the vaudeville life and the frequent squabbles with Hollywood producers and the tour operator over money. As their celebrity faded they decided to head back home to Alaska, at this point the tour operator having somehow gained ownership of the dog team and sled. How this process unfolded remains unclear but the animals were transported back to Los Angeles where proprietor of a typical side show of oddities and amusements named Sam Houston acquired the dogs. For months they were on display in a small enclosure in dreadful conditions, neglected by their new owner. It was not until a visiting Cleveland businessman, George Kimball, saw the dogs and wanted to rescue them from their plight. Houston agreed to sell the team for $2,000 but gave Kimball only two weeks to raise the money. Kimball returned home and through newspaper publicity and after an overwhelming public response, Balto and his team were extricated and brought to Cleveland and their permanent home, a popular attraction at the city’s zoo. There he and the rest of the team lived in relative tranquility, until Balto, blind and arthritic, was euthanized on March 14, 1933, aged fourteen. His body was preserved and today it is on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
The serum run was Togo’s last long distance endeavor and even then at age 12 he was considered old for a sled dog. By age sixteen the dog was partially blind and could only move with great difficulty. On December 9, 1929 the decision was made to euthanize Togo at his kennel in Maine. He was also preserved and after a lengthy stay in Yale’s Peabody Museum and the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont he was returned to the Iditarod Museum in Wasilla, Alaska, where he can be seen today.
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Publications used to make this podcast included:
“The Cruelest Miles,” by Gay Salisbury and
“And You Thought We Have Vaccine Issues?” by Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated, January 13, 2021
The intro in part one and outro in part two was, “Floating Home,” by Brian Bolger and the outro in part one and intro in part two was, “The Empty Moons of Jupiter,” by DivKid.
