Gold Fever and Disaster in the Great Klondike Stampede of 1897-98.

Gold Fever and Disaster in the Great Klondike Stampede of 1897-98.

In 1897, the United States was mired in the worst economic depression that the country had yet endured. When newspapers announced that gold was to be found in wildly enriching quantities at the Klondike River region of the Yukon, a mob of economically desperate Americans swarmed north.

Within weeks, tens of thousands of them were embarking towards some of the harshest terrain on the planet, in the middle of winter, woefully unprepared and with no experience at all in mining or mountaineering. It was a mass delusion that quickly proved deadly: avalanches, shipwrecks, starvation, murder.

Today’s guest is Brian Castner, author of STAMPEDE: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike. We discuss a number of characters who joined the Gold Rush, including Jack London, who would make his fortune but not in gold; Colonel Samuel Steele, who tried to save the stampeders from themselves; the notorious gangster Soapy Smith; goodtime girls; Skookum Jim; and the hotel entrepreneur Belinda Mulrooney. The unvarnished tale of this mass migration is always striking, revealing the amazing truth of what people will do for a chance to be rich.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(1107)

The Wunderkind George Forster: Voyaging with Captain Cook at 10 and Dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris in his 20s

The Wunderkind George Forster: Voyaging with Captain Cook at 10 and Dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris in his 20s

A ten-year-old boy gallops across the Russian steppe on a Kalmyk horse, collecting plants for his father while German settlers starve in earth dugouts along the Volga. Seven years later, that same boy...

30 Heinä 43min

Every 2 Weeks a Language Dies: Whether By Assimilation or Targeted Extinction

Every 2 Weeks a Language Dies: Whether By Assimilation or Targeted Extinction

When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake tore through southeastern Turkey in 2023, the government posted that it would provide translation support in seven languages: Turkish, Arabic, Persian, English, Russi...

28 Heinä 59min

The Boston Tea Party Was a Protest Against the East India Company Being Too Big to Fail

The Boston Tea Party Was a Protest Against the East India Company Being Too Big to Fail

The Boston Tea Party is the most misunderstood event in American history. Every schoolchild learns it was an antitax protest, proof that Americans have always hated paying taxes. But the Tea Act of 17...

23 Heinä 48min

The 1873 Global Financial Meltdown that Cause 20 Years of Deflation and Destroyed 2 Empires

The 1873 Global Financial Meltdown that Cause 20 Years of Deflation and Destroyed 2 Empires

On May 9, 1873, as the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed and thousands of speculators were wiped out in a single afternoon, young Salbert von Rothschild and two colleagues from the Schey and Goldschmidt...

21 Heinä 44min

Johnny Appleseed's Trees Were for Booze, Not Pies, and He Dressed Like a Hobo for Marketing Purposes

Johnny Appleseed's Trees Were for Booze, Not Pies, and He Dressed Like a Hobo for Marketing Purposes

The Disney version of Johnny Appleseed has a cheerful barefoot man in a tin pot hat scattering apple seeds for grateful pioneers to bake into pies. The real John Chapman collected his seeds for free f...

16 Heinä 53min

All the World’s Empires Became Nations in Less Than 100 Years, and What That Means for the Next 100

All the World’s Empires Became Nations in Less Than 100 Years, and What That Means for the Next 100

For the last 5,000 years, empires ruled the world — Rome administered hundreds of languages across three continents, and the Ottomans governed Christians, Jews, and Muslims under a single legal canopy...

14 Heinä 49min

Five Cambridge Graduates Became Soviet Spies and Built Stalin’s Empire

Five Cambridge Graduates Became Soviet Spies and Built Stalin’s Empire

The Cambridge Five did more damage to the Western Bloc than any other intelligence outfit of the Cold War. They were five Cambridge graduates who drank gin at the right clubs, moved through the right ...

9 Heinä 58min

Washington’s Power Went Beyond President or General – He Was a Full-Fledged Patriarch

Washington’s Power Went Beyond President or General – He Was a Full-Fledged Patriarch

Washington was the perfect man for an impossible moment — aristocratic enough to command the respect of erudite founders like Hamilton and Jefferson, yet only a mid-level Virginia planter who understo...

7 Heinä 54min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
seitseman
i-dont-like-mondays
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
sita
poks
antin-palautepalvelu
kaksi-aitia
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
hupiklubi
kolme-kaannekohtaa
mamma-mia
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
aikalisa
rss-palmujen-varjoissa
ihme-ja-kumma
lahko
rss-haudattu
loukussa
meidan-pitais-puhua