Historically High

Grab a bucket, because this week we’re diving into the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Our story began when a bunch of 19th-century capitalists took at a swamp at the south end of the Great Lakes and turned it into a trade empire. Chicago became a powerhouse of timber (from the north) and agriculture (the Great Plains to the west). The Union Stock Yards and their slaughterhouse's dumped all that fermenting grease and waste right into the river where it would eventually become a problem. We’ll break down how pine-tar streets, 55 miles of raised plank sidewalks, and 17 massive wooden grain elevators packed with explosive grain dust turned Boomtown Chicago into a three-mile blowtorch, why the deadliest fire that night actually happened up in Wisconsin while Chicago hogged the telegraph lines, and how the ashes gave birth to the modern skyscraper. Most importantly, we are officially making it our personal mission to clear the names of Catherine O’Leary and her innocent cow once and for all—because when you pave your streets in literal turpentine and build seventeen towering flour-bombs along a river of boiling pig fat, blaming the Irish immigrant and her livestock is just lazy journalism.

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Happy Halloween week everyone! In order to get in the spirit, we decided to bring you a truly terrifying serial killer. Dennis Rader was a student of murder. He had rules. During his crimes he transformed into BTK. Bind, Torture, Kill. That's the name he gave himself when he reached out to the media to get the attention he craved. Then, just as he appeared and began his sadistic killings, he was gone. Dennis Rader spent 31 years killing, going dormant, returning to his depraved ways, then he was gone again. BTK had been gone for 13 years. No killings, no interactions with law enforcement or the media. In 2004, he reached out once again. That desire for notoriety would be his downfall. Join us today as we get Historically High on BTK!


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Class, here's the deal...we usually don't condone cheating or shortcuts here at HHU. But we also understand trying to catch up on what the MCU has been up to the last 7 years (Yeah it's been 7 years, feeling old anyone) since Avengers: Endgame. Iron-man is Dr. Doom now? Wait I thought Jim from The Office was Mr. Fantastic in the movie with Patrick Stewart's Professor X. Yeah that did happen and a bunch of other stuff, tv series occurred, we had three Spider-men in one movie. There's a lot to unpack before you go see Doomsday. Let us unpack that for you. Welcome to Class.


Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
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Why did ancient civilizations, on every inhabited continent at different points in history independently decide the world was run by a giant scaled lizard? This week we break down humanity’s ultimate shared mythological trip—from our primate brains mashing big cats, raptors, and venomous snakes into an evolutionary super-predator, to the massive cultural clash between European knights stabbing subterranean gold-hoarders and Chinese emperors deifying benevolent, rain-summoning weather lords. Along the way, we explore ancient apothecaries grinding up dinosaur "dragon bones," Chinese magistrates roasting wooden water gods in the sun to end droughts, and the war between fantasy authors and modern Hollywood over how many legs a dragon is actually allowed to have.

So strap yourself onto Falcor and prepare to get Historically High on Dragons.

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Instagram: @historicallyhighpod
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The Phoenicians conquered the ancient world, not with sword or spear, but with ink, rotting mollusks, and the finest of Lebanese Cedar. In this episode, we take a wild ride through history's ultimate glue guys, starting with a cluster of competitive city-states that never even called themselves Phoenicians. We break down the secrets behind their maritime supremacy, uncovering how their agriculturally inferior homeland led to unmatched shipwrighting and open-sea navigation.
Skills allowing them to pioneer an aquatic Silk Road of sorts and sail all the way to Spain for massive hauls of silver. Along the way, we explore their rich pantheon of gods, their legendary 22-letter alphabet that revolutionized communication, and the explosive rise of their most famous daughter-city, Carthage. Finally, we track their journey through the meat grinder of history. Surviving Persian vassalage, Alexander the Great throwing a literal land-bridge at Tyre, before ultimately disappearing into the Greek and Roman machine—proving how these master traders left behind a blueprint that still shapes the modern world.


Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
for information about our collection and use of personal data for
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