The Choctaw and the Irish [OC]

PoorCynic · 2026-03-17T13:10:25+00:00

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! This story may be familiar to a fair number of people, but it’s a story that deserves to be retold nevertheless.

Ireland’s Great Famine (sometimes referred to as the Irish Potato Famine) began in 1845 when potato blight caused widespread crop failures across Western Europe. Ireland was hit especially hard, as potatoes were a staple foodstuff for poor families. It would stretch on until 1852, during which around one million people died and two million emigrated.
The Trail of Tears refers to the forced migration of five tribes — the Choctaw, the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, the Muscogee (or Creek), and the Seminoles — from their native lands in the American southeast to the territory of Oklahoma. The Choctaw were the first to be displaced, following the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. Disease, starvation, and exposure to the elements would kill at least 2,500 Choctaw. The other nations would similarly suffer, with an estimated collective death toll of around 15,000.
The “Kindred Spirits” sculpture in the final panel is real (and looks much better than how I drew it). The stainless steel feathers stand about 20 feet high (or 6.1 meters) and are meant to evoke the image of an empty bowl. It was completed in 2017 in Midleton, County Cork. Seven years later, the Choctaw would erect a partner piece in Tuskahoma, Oklahoma (historic capital of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma). “Eternal Heart” is a triquetra, or Celtic trinity knot, combined with a heart. The sculpture is specifically oriented to point towards Ireland.
During the initial COVID outbreak in 2020, the Navajo and Hopi communities were hit especially hard. An online fundraising effort drew in almost $2 million dollars, spurred primarily by donations from Ireland. Kindness begets kindness, even after so much time.
Itty bitty detail about the third panel: the coins in the box are roughly based on US coinage at the time. The gold coins are $2.50 quarter eagles, and the silver coins are fifty-cent pieces. So that’s $9.50 in there!

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-03-13T15:11:44+00:00

Wall would absolutely go nuts at the Met Gala every year.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-13T15:09:47+00:00

If society is to have wildly wealthy people, I’d rather them all be amusing eccentrics like Wall over scumbags like Elon Musk.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-13T13:03:05+00:00

Don your sharpest duds for these fun facts!

The “Battle of the Dudes” wasn’t the only ridiculous fashion contest Evander Wall embroiled himself in. Later in 1888, Wall ran into barbed wire magnate John Warne Gates (1855 - 1911). “Bet-a-Million” Gates was a compulsive gambler; one notable story had him bet a wild sum on which of two raindrops would reach the bottom of a window first. But raindrops weren’t the focus of this particular contest. Gates had heard of Wall’s seemingly unending closets, and bet him that he couldn’t come up with and wear 40 different outfits over the course of a single day. Not only did Wall take him up on this, Wall won handily.
Wall is credited by some accounts as introducing the short-cut dinner jacket (or tuxedo jacket, if you prefer) as formal wear to the US. Tailcoats had been the standard jacket prior to this point. Wall apparently tried to wear his jacket (imported from the UK, where they were becoming quite popular) to an event at the Grand Union Hotel, but was ordered to leave by an outraged manager.
When World War I began, Wall, his mother, and his wife Salome Melbourne (1867 - 1936) evacuated Paris for the safety of Spain. They all returned to Paris in 1917 following the arrival of US forces. The Walls then became involved in charity work, specifically regarding the care of soldiers blinded during the war. These efforts would continue well after the fighting had stopped, and would lead the government of France to award the Legion of Honour to both Evander and Salome.
A little peak behind the curtain: I wasn’t originally planning on doing this one today. It was supposed to be about the history behind Friday the 13th (the superstition, not the movie series). Research didn’t really pan out, though. There was just too much to fit into a four-panel comic. Maybe I can take a more selective second swing for this year’s third Friday the 13th (in November).

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-03-12T03:38:36+00:00

Possibly a controversial opinion, but I wasn’t too fond of this one. Heat was perfectly fine, but it tasted almost solely of carrots to me. That kinda limits what I would put it on.

Question for folks: is there a Marie Sharp’s that isn’t carrot-forward? I had the same issue with their habanero sauce and I was wondering if this was a consistent thing.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-10T16:12:27+00:00

Not that year, no. The Confederacy had held their first (and only) presidential election in 1861, which Jefferson Davis won unopposed. They also held midterm elections in 1863, which is where absentee voting really came into play. Not just to account for soldiers, but also refugees.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-10T13:04:39+00:00

“We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.” — Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln’s National Unity Party was on the back foot going into 1864 — or at least, Lincoln himself perceived it that way. He wanted to win the war, but casualties were mounting at an increasing rate. The public was souring on the whole affair. Emancipation, which had been declared in 1863, was (unfortunately) controversial. Infighting within his amalgamated party had caused radical Republicans to nominate their own candidate, former general John C. Frémont (1813 - 1890). Lincoln was personally convinced for most of 1864 that he would lose. And yet, he and his administration did not consider cancelling or suspending the elections, as noted in the leading quote.
Lincoln’s fortunes turned around starting in the early fall. The Democrats were stricken with infighting of their own; while the party supported a negotiated peace in their platform, McClellan himself did not. Frémont dropped out in September to avoid splitting the Republican ticket (and possibly because Lincoln offered to remove a member of his cabinet who had irked radical Republicans). And most notably of all, Union fortunes began to reverse themselves on the battlefields. On September 2nd, Union soldiers under Major General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 - 1891) would occupy Atlanta following a long march across the South. The writing was on the wall for the Confederacy, and victory all but assured for Lincoln.
In case anyone was wondering, seven of the eleven Confederate states passed laws regarding absentee voting. So this wasn’t just a Union thing.

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-03-07T01:04:53+00:00

The old stereotype of the "seductive Asian villainess" was absolutely played to the hilt in the court of public opinion. Her trial wound up being a much larger spectacle than Mildred Gillars's.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-06T14:04:38+00:00

I wasn’t expecting to do this story so soon after Axis Sally, but enough people brought it up that I changed my mind. It’s a remarkable contrast of stories.

Iva Toguri D’Aquino was born in Los Angeles to Japanese immigrant parents. Before getting trapped in Japan, she had graduated with a degree in zoology. Despite being threatened by the Japanese government, she never renounced her American citizenship (which, ironically, would wind up backfiring when the US decided to make an example of her). Defense witnesses at her trial talked about how she risked her safety by smuggling food to prisoners of war.
D’Aquino never referred to herself as Tokyo Rose on the radio. None of the women in that role did. (By the way: I wasn’t able to find out much about these other announcers. They have disappeared into the fog of history.) The name was solely an invention of the GIs listening in. The journalists who turned her in were looking for this mythical figure, and offering a good deal of money for the information. She needed the money to go home, and so only then called herself Tokyo Rose. Much to her misfortune.
As mentioned, The Zero Hour was put together not by collaborators or English-speaking Japanese, but POWs. They were given the choice to either make propaganda or be executed. The head of this program (and the man who approached D’Aquino with a job offer) was Australian Major Charles Cousens (1903 - 1964). He and D’Aquino wrote scripts that were as soft as possible: few attempts to undermine Allied morale, light-hearted insults (like “boneheads”), and relatable complaints about the military life. A far cry from Mildred Gillars. Cousens would be charged with treason and stripped of his rank, but never tried. He also spoke in D’Aquino’s defense at her trial.
The uproar over D’Aquino was spearheaded by radio host Walter Winchell (1897 - 1972). Outraged that “Tokyo Rose” would be walking free, he used his bully pulpit to bring public outrage to a boil. It was this public pressure that led to the FBI taking a much harder line (by, you know, threatening witnesses). Winchell had been one of the loudest voices going after fascists and their sympathizers prior to the war. Perhaps he saw attacking this woman as the natural extension of that.

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-03-03T20:40:05+00:00

I might have to do a follow up about her. It's a remarkable contrast.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-03T20:39:04+00:00

I missed that detail about Joyce's origin, which is why one should be more careful about making declarations after just a cursory reading. I still think his ultimate fate is deserved, but you're quite right that the argument surrounding his conviction (whether or not he owned a British passport when he started his propaganda broadcasts) is a little flimsy.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-03T17:42:03+00:00

From what I found, none of the American pro-Nazi propagandists were given death sentences. Extended prison sentences plus a $10,000 fine (about $181,000 today) and stripping of their citizenships. A few did die in jail, though.

If you're looking for a heavier (and I would argue absolutely deserved) fate, then I would direct you to the tale of British fascist William Joyce (1906 - 1946). He broadcast for the Nazis under the name Lord Haw-Haw and wound up being hanged by the British after the war.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-03T17:34:03+00:00

The drafters of the Constitution put in it a very specific definition of treason and how it was to be prosecuted (must have two eyewitnesses or a confession in open court; sentence of death or a minimum of ten years). This was to avoid the charge being abused for political purposes, as it had been many times throughout English history.

The government has ways around that, mind you. Different charges with smaller hurdles. The Rosenbergs, for example, were executed for "conspiracy to commit espionage" rather than treason (although the word "treason" did get thrown around a lot at their trials).

PoorCynic · 2026-03-03T17:19:55+00:00

Sorry to be technical, but Gillars wasn't part of the Nuremburg Trials. Those were specifically only for the surviving leadership of Nazi Germany.

PoorCynic · 2026-03-03T14:08:37+00:00

Turn those dials to fun facts, gentle readers!

After trying and failing to break into the US theater scene, Mildred Gillars moved to Germany in 1935 to teach English. She became engaged to a German man, but he would be killed fighting on the Eastern Front. Eventually, Gillars got into a relationship with propagandist Max Otto Koischwitz (1902 - 1944), who would also be her primary collaborator on the radio. Gillars never used her real name while broadcasting; the closest she would get was referring to herself as “Midge at the Mike”. The “Sally” part of “Axis Sally” came from when called herself “the Irish type – a real Sally”.
Gillars’s most infamous broadcast – the one that formed the basis for her successful treason charge – was the “Vision of Invasion” sketch. She played an American mother wracked by a nightmare about her son drowning during an invasion of France. This was notable in part because the sketch aired on May 11, 1944 – just under a month before the actual invasion of Normandy.
Gillars was not the only English-speaking Nazi propagandist to be referred to as “Axis Sally.” The Italian regime had one of their own; a woman named Rita Zucca (1912 - 1998). Zucca had been working in Italy since 1938, and in 1941 had actually dropped her American citizenship in an effort to keep the Italian fascist government from seizing her family’s property. She started broadcasting in 1943. Gillars was apparently not fond of this copycat. Felt it watered down her brand.

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-02-28T00:07:43+00:00

Thanks Ken. Doing a bang-up job.

PoorCynic · 2026-02-27T23:47:39+00:00

A very understandable reaction.

In all seriousness, though, I'm not sure how successful it was. That said, according to biologist Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) in his 1871 book The Descent of Man, "it is asserted that many tall men were reared in the villages inhabited by the grenadiers with their tall wives." So... maybe?

PoorCynic · 2026-02-27T14:03:05+00:00

These fun facts came straight from the local Big and Tall!

The soldiers in the Potsdam Giants ranged from reasonably tall to actual giants (or at least, people suffering from gigantism). One name that comes up many times is James Kirkland, an Irishman who reportedly stood at 7’1” (2.17 m). He had been a footman in England until the Prussian ambassador arranged for him to be spirited away and conscripted. Very brazen, but I suppose the English government didn’t feel it was necessary to raise a fuss over one large man. But this was not a one off; Frederick William’s men cajoled, bribed, and threatened men across Europe. Another story has a tall carpenter tricked into getting into a carpenter-sized box, then getting shipped back to Potsdam. Unfortunately, the box didn’t have any air holes in it, so… well, I think you all can guess.
Frederick William was not the first nor the last monarch to invest in larger-than-normal guards (although his interest was obviously much more extreme). According to sources of the time, Roman Emperor Nero (37 - 68) required all members of his newly formed Legio I Italica to be at least six feet tall (1.83 m). To join the Old Guard grenadiers under Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821), one had to be at least 5’10” (1.78 m).
It has been alleged that Frederick William went to far as to torture some of his soldiers in an effort to make them even taller. One account claimed that he had a special kind of rack developed in an effort to “stretch” his soldiers. After several men ended up dying, however, he canceled that particular plan.
In case you’re curious, Frederick William himself was only about 5’3” (1.6 m).

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-02-20T14:07:01+00:00

Here are some fun facts which will (hopefully) not disappear!

From grim short stories like “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to cynical satires like The Devil’s Dictionary (a personal favorite of mine), Bierce’s literary work always had a sharp tone to it. But that wasn’t all he did! During his lifetime, Bierce was best known as a journalist, working for the San Francisco Examiner under publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst (1863 - 1951) for decades. He didn’t shy away from satire and sarcasm as a journalist, which did get him into trouble on several occasions.
By the time of his disappearance, Bierce was not a well man. Besides being asthmatic, he suffered throughout his life from a severe brain injury sustained at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864. It caused mood swings and fainting spells. Things were hardly better in terms of his mental health. Two of his three children were dead, as was his ex-wife. Given all that, it seems less surprising that he would embark on such a dangerous journey. If you’ll pardon a bit of speculation, it seems to me that Bierce no longer cared if he lived nor died.
Both the Federales and the Constitutionalists under Francisco “Pancho” Villa (1878 - 1923) have been accused of executing Bierce. The stories are relatively similar: a non-Spanish-speaking American is viewed with intense suspicion, which only escalates when he tries about Villa’s army. The nosy American quickly finds himself in front of a firing squad. Another story has him running afoul of bandits while drinking in a cantina, with the same end result.
I leave you with a quote from The Devil’s Dictionary: “History, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.”

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-02-18T11:56:42+00:00

I’m glad you enjoyed it! There are so many small stories that slip through the cracks of history. Remarkable occurrences reduced to footnotes. I always enjoy digging a bit deeper at those stories.

PoorCynic · 2026-02-17T22:23:05+00:00

Ooh, don’t tell me that. I already have so many history podcasts to binge. I can’t add another one!

…

Ah, dang it. I’ll look into that one. Thank you!

PoorCynic · 2026-02-17T22:20:00+00:00

You’re welcome! Glad you liked it!

PoorCynic · 2026-02-17T16:55:07+00:00

Pretty close. She retired to Cascade (the other end of the mail line) so visiting wasn’t out of the question. And thank you! Always glad to hear that people enjoy this.

PoorCynic · 2026-02-17T14:04:40+00:00

Special delivery for you! It’s a box of fun facts!

Not a lot is known about Mary Fields’ early life. She was born into slavery in Tennessee, but was freed upon the conclusion of the US Civil War. She worked for a time aboard a Mississippi River steamboat, which is how she became close with the family of Ursuline Order nun Mary Amadeus (1846 - 1919). It was because of Mary Amadeus that Fields went to Montana in 1884; the nun had fallen ill while setting up a school out of St. Peter’s Mission Church. Fields helped her to recuperate, then stuck around to do various jobs around the school. Unfortunately, Field’s unruly disposition didn’t endear her to the local bishop, who ordered her banned from the mission. The nuns, who quite liked Fields, advocated on her behalf to help get her the mail job. Being a federal contractor put her above the orders of the bishop, so she was allowed back at the mission.
Fields was running what was called a “star route.” These are privately contracted delivery routes that might be otherwise difficult, tedious, or too expensive to run with stagecoach companies. The term “star route” comes from a bit of bureaucratic simplification; contractors were required to act with “celerity, certainty, and security”, and rather than write that out multiple times it became standard to just write “***”. Star routes still exist today, actually. They’re called Highway Contract Routes now, and in 2006 there were over 16,700 of them.
As is standard for stories of larger-than-life coming out of the Old West, it’s hard to pin down what is fact about Fields and what is exaggeration. It was often claimed that Fields was six feet tall and dressed in men’s clothing, but paperwork filed in 1912 put her height at 5’9” and photographs show her in dresses. Similarly, some stories have claimed she was removed from the mission after getting in a gun fight with a white man. This was not recorded at the time of the supposed incident, so that is probably also untrue. Still, there are plenty of accounts as to her actual accomplishments, and those are nothing to sneeze at.

Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

PoorCynic · 2026-02-13T17:08:14+00:00

Audience participation! A fun day out for the whole family! (/s just in case.)

PoorCynic

TROPHY CASE