
James R. Vineyard - The man who shot and killed a fellow legislator - and got away with it
24/12/2025 | 17 min
The American wild west was probably not as wild as pop culture would have us believe. However, sometimes it was far crazier. Such as when a lead miner turned politician pulled out a gun and shot a fellow delegate on the floor of the Wisconsin territorial legislator - and got away with it. This is the story of James R. Vineyard. Sources https://genealogytrails.com/wis/brown/murderofcharlesarndt.html https://www.facebook.com/jamesrvineyardmemesforleadminingteens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Russell_Vineyard Image: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=184187677453857&set=a.184187660787192 History Dispatches is part of the Airwave Media Network: www.airwavemedia.com Interested in advertising on History Dispatches? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Krampus
23/12/2025 | 15 min
St. Nicolas is famed for bringing gifts to good children. But in the Alpine regions of Europe, there is a legend about a grotesque creature - half human, half goat - that comes to punish naughty children. This creature - with horns and a long forked tongue - would beat bad children with birch rods - and even carry them away to be eaten. Today, this creature has become a world wide phenomenon. This is the story of Krampus. Sources https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/krampus-could-come-you-holiday-season-180957438/ https://www.history.com/articles/krampus-christmas-legend-origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gruss_vom_Krampus.jpg History Dispatches is part of the Airwave Media Network: www.airwavemedia.com Interested in advertising on History Dispatches? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ghost Fleet of the Potomac
22/12/2025 | 16 min
30 miles south of Washington DC, in a small part of the Potomac River, lies an area called Mallows Bay. This bay is not home to a handful of shipwrecks or even a dozen. Or even 30 or 40 wrecks. Mallows Bay has over 200 wrecked vessels dating back to the 1920s. This is the story of the Ghost Fleet of the Potomac. Sources https://savingplaces.org/places/ghost-fleet https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/press/mallows-potomac/ https://projects.wamu.org/the-ghost-fleet/ Image: By Amaury Laporte - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghost_Fleet_of_Mallows_Bay_009_-_Accomac_Shipwreck_Close-Up.jpg History Dispatches is part of the Airwave Media Network: www.airwavemedia.com Interested in advertising on History Dispatches? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harry Colebourn and a bear named Winnie
19/12/2025 | 12 min
Most people probably know that Winnie the Pooh was based upon the stuffed toy bear of Christopher Robin Milne - the son of author A.A. Milne. But there is another tale behind the famed bear - which involves a Canadian veterinarian, a black bear cub, and World War 1. This is the story of Harry Colebourn and a bear named Winnie. Sources https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2015/nov/24/winnie-the-pooh-inspired-by-a-real-bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Colebourn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_(bear) Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_Colebourne_and_Winnie.jpg History Dispatches is part of the Airwave Media Network: www.airwavemedia.com Interested in advertising on History Dispatches? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Radium Girls
18/12/2025 | 15 min
With the discovery of Radium in 1898 it began to be used in numerous applications. The most famous was a glow in the dark paint. Thousands of women applied for jobs painting watch dials and other instruments, and to keep their paint brush extra fine, they were instructed to lick the brush. This would all be fine, if a bit unsanitary, except that radium is radioactive, and dozens of these women started to die. This is the story of the Radium Girls. Sources https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2018/01/04/the-radium-girls-at-the-national-archives/ https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2019/03/radium-girls-living-dead-women/ https://www.britannica.com/story/radium-girls-the-women-who-fought-for-their-lives-in-a-killer-workplace Images: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1928-05-13/ed-1/?sp=58 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:All_women_or_girls_using_radium_paint_with_no_protection_or_warnings_in_1922,_from-_USRadiumGirls-Argonne1,ca1922-23-150dpi_(cropped).jpg History Dispatches is part of the Airwave Media Network: www.airwavemedia.com Interested in advertising on History Dispatches? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices



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