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.
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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
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Fred Korematsu's Internment (1942) [[Archive Episode]]
Missouri's Early Emancipation Proclamation (1861)
The Bridge To Nowhere (2005)
Nat Turner's Community (1831) w/ Vanessa Holden [[Archive Episode]]
The Steam Tunnel Incident and the D&D Panic (1979)
The Smithsonian, Great Idea (1846)
"Macaca" (2006) w/ Peter Hamby [[Archive Episode]]
Budd Trips Decker at the '84 Olympics (1984)
Clinton Finds Life On Mars (1996)
The Roots of "Roots" (1976) [[Archive Episode]]
Clean Up After Your Dog! (1978)
The Subway Vigilante (1984) w/ Leon Neyfakh
The Irish-American Gun-Runners (1973) w/ Nate Lavey [[Archive Episode]]
Thunderation! The Speaker Demands Bean Soup (1904)
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]]
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