native american

Audio: Salem

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Salem, Massachusetts, which has a strong historical connection to the famous witch trials that took place there in the 1690s. Salem lies on Massachusetts Bay between Salem Harbor and Beverly Harbor, lying alongside the Danvers River, which feeds into the harbour. It’s around 20 miles or 35 kilometres north of Boston. The witch trials took place in a small settlement just outside Salem proper then known as Salem Village, but later renamed Danvers, and we’ll likely touch on both throughout. Salem today has a population of around 44,000, while Danvers is home to around 28,000. The area had long been occupied by the indigenous Native American tribe the Massachusett before the arrival of Puritan settlers from England in the 1630s. For obvious reasons, Salem today is one of the most popular destinations in the US to celebrate Halloween, attracting over half a million visitors each year.

This Hallowe’en episode is the debut episode of Season 6. After a longer-than-planned hiatus we are back producing a new season. You’ll notice a few changes in location of your co-hosts during this season.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. With additional music from Ivan Duch, and Boston.

Some further reading material is provided below:

“The People Here” – Interrogating Indigenous Dispossession of the Land Occupied by Salem State University – interactive timeline and more
A great range of Digital Books are available on the website of the Salem Historical Society
“What Did Champlain See in the Cape of Islands” – Cape Ann History
Chronicles of Danvers , Whaling and Old Salem: a chronicle of the sea,
Description of the Salem Flag and Danvers Flag
Some further videos and podcasts about the Witch Trials is as follows: TED talk; History of Witchcraft Podcast; Stuff You Should Know; American History Tellers Series; Our Fake History.
Letter in the Salem News about recognising Benedict Arnold as a hero
History By the Sea blog has articles on Salem Common and the War of 1812 among other topics, while streetsofsalem also talks about the War of 1812
History of Salem-based ship the Friendship
ThoughtCo: The Full Story of Jefferson’s Embargo Act
Fosters Daily Democrat: report on Danvers explosion; and clip of WBZ news report
Salem’s Top Employers and demographics
Recent Witchcraft Victims Memorial

Map of Salem with an over-representation of spookily named businesses

Thanks to all our patrons who support the show. We really appreciate your continued backing of us. If you want to join them, more information is available at www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

Wyoming audio

In this episode we’ll be talking about the US state of Wyoming, also known as “the equality state” and “the cowboy state.”
Admitted to the US as the 44th state in 1890, Wyoming has always been among the least populous states in the nation. Roughly rectangular in shape and located in the western part of the country, straddling the continental divide, Wyoming is the 10th largest state by area, and its current day population is just over 585,000, making it the second-least densely populated state after Alaska. The climate here is semi-arid and continental, drier and windier than the rest of the U.S., with greater temperature extremes.
The state is famous as the home of the first US National Park, Yellowstone and the first US national monument, Devil’s Tower. Historically important industries include coal, cattle and tourism.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Hong Kong, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Switzerland. (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella)

Here are a few things you may want to read/watch more about:

To get a good overview of the geography of this place, PBS has a great film that takes you all over the state. You can find it on YouTube.
The images of Yellowstone National Park that were promised are in the gallery below.
Jim Bridger, the famous ‘mountain man’ who plays a small role in The Revenant is profiled by Brittanica here.
The Union Pacific featured prominently in this episode. It’s still going today, and you can learn more about its chequered history over at Wikipedia.
Crowheart Butte, the site of the epic battle between two Native American chiefs, is profiled by Wyoming Tales and Trails here.
We spoke at length in this episode about the shady story behind women winning the right to vote in Wyoming. You can dive deeper into that whole story thanks to WyoHistory. The site also has tons of deep dives into other elements of the state’s history, many of which were mentioned in this episode.
‘Fantastic Yellowstone’, the archival film that’s featured in this episode, traces the history of the national park and is available here on the Internet Archive.
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The music you heard in this episode was from the following sources;

Banjo Improvisation by Abishai via Free Music Archive
A Tribute To Red Cloud (Jyeahtáyela Ahlowanpi Wan) by Common Man Singers is available on YouTube
Papa, Help Me Across by Uncle Woody Sullender via Free Music Archive

A massive thanks to all of our patrons on Patreon who are supporting season 3. If you’d like to join them and see what rewards are available for supporters, and get a peek behind the curtain check out www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast. We really appreciate every penny!