It’s January 16th. This day in 1903, film of the electrocution of an elephant, Topsy, is being viewed in kinetoscopes across the country. Topsy was executed on Coney Island a few weeks earlier.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the story of Topsy’s death lands at a moment when there are lots of changes in the way Americans thought about electricity, corporal punishment, animal rights — and how the death evokes the spectacle and bloodlust of the lynching era.
Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.
Find out more at thisdaypod.com
This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.
Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.
If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com
Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod
Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia
The Plot To Blow Up Hell Gate Bridge (1942) w/ Rebecca Seidel
The Beer Summit (2009) [[Archive Episode]]
The Szilard Anti-Nuke Petition (1945)
The Ft Ontario Holocaust Refugees (1944) w/ Sarah Botstein
The Lost Robert E. Lee Oath Theory (1975) w/ John Reeves [[Archive Episode]]
Hubert Humphrey Takes Center Stage (1948) w/ Samuel G Freedman
Skylab Crashes Back To Earth (1979)
Nativists vs Catholics in Philadelphia (1844) [[Archive Episode]]
L'Enfant Maps Out DC (1791) w/ Scott W Berg
Napalming Harvard's Soccer Field (1942)
The Great American Roadtrip (1956) w/ Eddie Alterman [[Archive Episode]]
The Abortion Pill Protest (1992) w/ TJ Raphael
Readmitting Rebel States (1868)
Flag Burning Is Free Speech (1989) w/ Michael Liroff
Superman vs KKK (1946)
Nightwalking w/ Bianca Giaever
Lift Every Voice and Sing (1900)
The Seligman Affair (1877) w/ Zev Eleff
The Challenger Disaster Final Report (1986)
Death On The Lot: Hattie McDaniel's Fight w/ Hadley Meares and Brian Steele
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Criminal
Ear Hustle
Song Exploder
The Truth
the memory palace