0:00

I see London, I see France,

0:02

I see Lincoln's underpants People like

0:04

to give gifts. Some people like to

0:06

give underwear. But perhaps my book, I

0:08

See Lincoln's Underpants, is a better option

0:10

for someone you love. It's one

0:12

size fits all, it's black and white and red

0:14

all over, and it never

0:17

needs to be laundered. I

0:19

See Lincoln's Underpants by me, Mick Sullivan,

0:21

is available now for anyone who is

0:23

curious about the past, loves to learn,

0:25

and can appreciate a laugh every now

0:27

and then. I

0:36

have powered it with a truth spell.

0:38

There it was, a fully open lotus

0:40

flower. A magic

0:43

healing spell conjured from rainbow

0:45

energy. This is the subterranean

0:47

realm of the universe. A San Francisco

0:49

teenager finds out falling into the lands

0:51

of Vedic mythology was just the

0:54

beginning of his story, and it's

0:56

far from over. Listen and subscribe

0:58

to Shadow Realms Season 2, everywhere

1:00

you get your podcasts. You're

1:05

listening to an Airwave Media

1:07

Podcast. Yes,

1:12

indeed everybody, it's episode

1:14

86 of the Past and the

1:16

Curious, and for the month of

1:18

November, I have not had a voice. I

1:21

did miraculously find two

1:23

days where I had a

1:25

voice and was able to record the two stories, but

1:28

by and large, I've

1:30

been pretty froggy. I sound a little

1:32

froggy still, but it's much, much better.

1:36

My voice in the actual story parts is

1:39

great, don't worry. I mean, not great. I'm

1:41

not like James Earl Jones or anything, but

1:43

you know, it's... I

1:45

sound like myself, okay? So, whatever,

1:48

I don't want to belabor the point. Let's

1:50

get into the episode. We're talking

1:52

Walt Whitman, and we're talking Dr.

1:54

Mary Edwards Walker. Two people who

1:56

I'm pretty certain crossed paths at

1:58

some point or came big... very close

2:00

to doing so, who

2:03

were both involved in efforts in the Civil

2:05

War, but both of their stories are so

2:07

much bigger and so much broader than that.

2:10

I can't wait for you to learn about them. Let's

2:21

go. When a young man named Walt

2:23

Whitman heard Ralph Waldo Emerson say America

2:26

needed and was destined

2:28

to have its first great

2:30

poet, something must have

2:32

clicked in his mind. Did

2:35

he think, hey, that

2:37

poet can be me? Maybe.

2:42

Many other people could have had the same thought,

2:44

though. The auditorium in New

2:46

York was full of other people, just

2:48

as eager to hear Mr. Emerson lament

2:51

about the lack of language lyricists in

2:53

the land that he called home. That

2:57

could be me. The

3:05

Emerson guy on stage, his friends called him

3:08

Waldo, was one of America's

3:10

most important cultural figures of the

3:12

time. He was a writer and

3:14

a philosopher who had learned at

3:16

Harvard and founded a new philosophical

3:19

and artistic movement in America called

3:21

Transcendentalism. So

3:23

plenty of people came as he toured the

3:25

eastern United States reading the same

3:28

essay over and over and over again

3:30

about the need for a truly American

3:32

poet. Sounds

3:35

like a riveting evening, doesn't it? Well

3:37

Walt thought so, and despite

3:39

having very little formal education and

3:42

coming from a struggling family, Walt

3:45

Whitman, a sometimes journalist,

3:47

was set on a path to

3:49

fulfill Emerson's prediction. One

3:51

way or another. Walt

3:58

grew up relatively poor. First,

4:00

farther out on Long Island, and

4:02

then in Brooklyn. Actually,

4:04

he lived with his family well into

4:06

adulthood and regularly shared a bed, by

4:09

necessity, with one of his brothers. His

4:12

father pulled him out of school after about

4:14

six years of education and put

4:16

him to work earning money for the family. Walt

4:19

knew his father's occupation of carpenter and

4:21

farmer weren't for him, so

4:24

while running errands for a local office,

4:26

he created an education of sorts for

4:28

himself, being near New York City meant

4:30

he could visit libraries and museums and

4:33

see art pretty easily. He

4:35

also read constantly, but

4:38

perhaps his greatest education came from

4:40

his habit of striking up conversation

4:42

with nearly everyone he met. You

4:46

can learn a lot about human nature, life,

4:48

and plenty of other stuff, just

4:50

by getting to know people. In

4:53

New York City, he got a job working for a

4:55

newspaper. At this time, it

4:57

was common for certain types of businesses

4:59

to be grouped together in big cities.

5:02

So leather shops would be near one another,

5:04

the meat industry took up a whole district,

5:07

clothing factories were in the garment district,

5:09

and all of the print industry in New

5:12

York shared an area in Manhattan. And

5:15

in 1835, a fire broke out

5:18

in the shared print district, and

5:20

since all of the buildings were stuffed to the

5:22

gills with paper, well, the whole place burned to

5:24

the ground. So Walt,

5:26

along with many others, found himself quickly out

5:28

of a job. The

5:32

young man with limited education, but

5:34

an incredible drive to educate himself

5:36

anyway, became a school teacher. That

5:40

lasted for a few years, but around the

5:42

time he heard Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was

5:44

making his way back to journalism and publishing

5:46

and writing short stories, bad

5:49

novels, and some poems on the side.

5:52

But like most people, his first

5:54

stuff was not great. Takes

5:57

a lot of practice and focus to do anything well.

6:00

including writing. After

6:02

getting fired from one newspaper for

6:04

being a little too vocal about

6:06

his anti-slavery views, he

6:08

went to New Orleans, where his anti-slavery

6:10

views would be even less popular, and

6:13

he edited a paper there. That

6:15

lasted for three months. Upon

6:18

his return north, he started a paper of his own.

6:21

The day after he published his first

6:23

issue, guess what? Another

6:25

fire. So he was back

6:27

to the drawing board. Years

6:32

later, he emerged from his trials and

6:34

tribulations with a collection of poetry. About

6:37

a dozen poems, and he worked to

6:39

get them published, thinking that he was

6:41

on his way to being that poet that

6:44

that Waldo guy had been waiting for. I

6:47

have a book of poetry. You're going to love it.

6:50

What's it called? Leaves of Grass.

6:53

What's your name? Walt Whitman. Where'd

6:56

you go to school? Nowhere, but

6:59

everywhere. I learned

7:01

from no one, but everyone.

7:04

Okay, yeah, no thanks. After

7:07

striking out, Walt decided to take

7:09

a very do-it-yourself approach. He

7:12

had some friends with the printing press, and he

7:14

used their equipment and helped to print it himself.

7:18

This was a time when each individual letter

7:20

to be printed on a page had to

7:22

be arranged with a small brass letter stamp.

7:26

It was time-consuming and a difficult process,

7:29

and it is said that Walt himself arranged

7:32

them for his own book. Almost

7:35

no serious author of the

7:38

time would have done such a

7:40

thing, but it was

7:42

the only way to get the book done. And

7:46

when Leaves of Grass was finished, at

7:48

least for the first time, in 1855, he

7:51

mailed a copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

7:55

No one else cared much about the book. He

7:57

sold very few of them. But Emerson seemed to

7:59

be a good friend. Waldo

8:01

wrote a gushing letter to the unheard

8:03

of poet saying that maybe he

8:06

was the poet that America needed. At

8:08

least, that's what Walt heard. It

8:11

must have felt great to Walt, and he wanted

8:13

everyone to know about it, so

8:15

without asking Emerson's permission, Walt

8:18

published the letter. He told

8:20

everyone, and even carried a copy of

8:22

it in his pocket nearly all the time. This

8:25

was kind of against the rules to brag

8:27

in such a manner, but that

8:29

mattered not to Walt. He had

8:32

a career to build. The

8:34

next year, he wrote more poems, which he

8:36

intended to add to Leaves of Grass. I

8:41

have a book of poetry, you're going to love

8:43

it. Emerson loves it. See, look here. What's

8:46

it called? Leaves of

8:48

Grass. Didn't you already publish that?

8:51

Yes, but now there's more. Say

8:54

thanks. Rather

8:56

than write new books over the next few

8:58

years, Walt just published new versions of

9:00

Leaves of Grass, each with more

9:03

new poetry. You think

9:05

you know Leaves of Grass, huh? Well,

9:08

think again. Now with

9:10

more poems, more beauty, and more

9:12

wonderful Walt Whitman wordplay, yes, their

9:15

song of myself, but

9:17

their song's about everyone else, too.

9:21

You've never read Leaves of Grass quite like

9:23

this, so grab your

9:25

copy and join the chorus

9:27

of everyone sings the body

9:29

electric. But

9:34

in 1861, something big happened. The

9:37

American Civil War began, and it

9:39

captured everyone's attention. Walt's

9:43

brother, George, enlisted, and soon enough, he

9:45

was wounded in action. Over

9:49

close and caring to his family, Walt traveled to

9:51

Washington, D.C. to look after his brother, who

9:54

recovered quickly. But

9:56

while Walt was there, he was moved

9:58

by the thousands of soldiers who

10:00

were hurt and in need of help. There

10:03

were not enough doctors and nurses to care

10:05

for them as they languished in hospital beds.

10:08

So putting his writing career on hold,

10:10

he got a job in the capital and spent all

10:13

of his free time caring for

10:15

wounded soldiers. As you might

10:17

imagine, this time with injured soldiers impacted

10:19

his life. As did

10:21

the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Walt

10:24

Whitman admired Lincoln greatly and

10:27

had been in the audience when Lincoln gave

10:29

his second inaugural speech. Soon

10:31

after, he would also watch the

10:34

president's funeral procession with much grief.

10:38

His most famous poem, Oh Captain,

10:40

My Captain, came from this experience.

10:43

Written in honor of Lincoln, it was from

10:45

a collection of poems he wrote inspired by

10:47

the Civil War. But

10:51

once the dust settled, Walt was back

10:53

to his old ways. Publishing, now with

10:55

actual publishers, mind you, new versions of,

10:58

guess what, Leaves of Grass. Now

11:01

with more poems, better poems, and did I

11:04

tell you Emerson likes it? I

11:06

mean, likes it doesn't really do

11:08

it justice. He loves it. Loves

11:11

it. He loves it.

11:14

And you can't blame him really. It's great. As

11:19

the years went by and each new edition

11:21

of Leaves of Grass grew in length, Walt

11:24

felt the effects of time. He

11:26

had always been an active man, but

11:28

when a stroke damaged his body, he

11:30

knew that he had to take his health into his

11:33

own hands. Walt

11:35

Whitman, now a nationally known poet,

11:37

eulogizer of Lincoln and man with

11:40

a seriously righteous beard, was

11:42

also kind of a fitness guru.

11:45

In fact, researchers recently found a whole

11:47

batch of writings from the 1850s that

11:49

he published in papers

11:53

encouraging and detailing work out plans

11:55

for everyone. His first two

11:57

pieces of advice were get some good

12:00

shoes and get up. So

12:03

if you are ever in need of

12:05

revamping your exercise routine, I

12:07

humbly suggest the wonderful Whitman

12:10

workout. I'll

12:13

find a tough oak sapling as thick as

12:15

my wrist, 12 feet high,

12:18

and with the tree I begin pulling and

12:20

pushing and spiring the good air. After

12:23

I wrestle with the tree a while, I

12:25

can feel its young sap and virtue

12:27

welling up out of the ground and

12:29

tingling through me from crown to toe.

12:32

Then for addition and variety I

12:34

launch forth with my vocalism. Shout

12:37

declamatory pieces, sentiments, sorrow,

12:39

anger, etc. from the

12:41

stock poets or plays,

12:44

or inflate my lungs and sing the

12:46

wild tunes and refrains I heard down

12:48

south. For patriotic songs I'd learned

12:51

in the army, I make

12:53

the echoes ring I tell you. Yes,

12:57

wrestling with a young tree and screaming randomly

12:59

into the air for the sake of your

13:02

lungs is just the start. And

13:05

don't feel weird about it. Walt doesn't want

13:07

you to pay attention to passerby's who might

13:09

think your behavior is strange. You

13:12

shouldn't make yourself uneasy at how it will

13:14

look to outsiders or what they will say.

13:17

If screaming and yanking on trees still isn't

13:19

gonna work for you, you could

13:21

follow his daily hour-long workout routine

13:23

from later in life. Stretches,

13:26

lunges, squats, jumping over a

13:28

fence repeatedly, and finally shadow boxing.

13:30

Or as he described it, pummel

13:33

some imaginary foe with stroke after

13:35

stroke from the doubled fists. When

13:40

Walt Whitman died in 1892, he

13:42

had come as close to fulfilling

13:44

Ralph Waldo Emerson's prediction for a

13:46

truly American poet as anyone else

13:48

had. And he spent those

13:51

last years doing, guess what,

13:54

finishing a final version of Leaves

13:56

of Grass. You

14:00

tired of Lee as a grass yet? I mean,

14:03

yeah. Me too. I'd

14:07

be honest. But, you know, it's my thing, and

14:09

I have another version of it, so here

14:11

we go. This is the last one, I

14:13

promise. I promise. Walt Whitman out.

14:19

Before he died, the book would be

14:21

altered and republished twelve times. It's

14:25

a literary classic, and it all began

14:27

with twelve poems that a guy with

14:29

little education and big ambitions made nearly

14:32

all by himself, printing and all.

14:35

Walt believed in himself even when others

14:37

did not. Of course, whenever

14:39

anyone did believe in him, he made sure to tell

14:41

everyone else about it. And you

14:43

gotta hand it to him. He was a

14:46

unique mix of self-education, talent

14:48

with words, do-it-yourself energy,

14:51

and amazing self-promotion. If

14:54

we could only have seen him wrestle with an oak tree.

14:57

Come here you little twig. You're like,

14:59

uh, I think you're so big.

15:02

You bark and you're wood and you're

15:05

leaves. Walt, I

15:07

know something about leaves too. And

15:09

I'm a poet and I'm gonna send you

15:11

to the heavens cause I'm Walt Whitman. No

15:14

one- Hello,

15:23

and now it's time for You Have Thirty Seconds.

15:27

And, uh, it's a good one this month. My

15:29

name is Ryan. I'm eight years old and I'm

15:32

from Long Island, New York. I'm gonna

15:34

be telling you about Napoleon Bonbur, who was

15:36

a French general. When he

15:38

was only sixteen years old. In the

15:40

1800s he took over most of Europe

15:43

and became emperor. While

15:45

at war with Britain, the British drew him

15:47

small in his newspapers to make him look

15:49

weak. So everyone thinks he's small.

15:52

But that's not true. He was actually

15:54

average to height and was

15:56

the best general in history. Love your

15:58

son, Nick Solven. Thank

16:01

you, Ryan. Great work. Great enthusiasm.

16:03

I loved it. And it made

16:05

timely sense because I

16:07

think this week I'm gonna go see the

16:09

Napoleon movie that's in theaters. Probably not a

16:12

kids movie, but you know, you

16:14

might have heard about it. If you have a

16:16

story you would like to tell for You Have

16:18

30 Seconds, consider this your invitation. Just

16:21

send an audio file to hello at the

16:23

past and the curious dot com. Can't wait

16:25

to hear what you come up with. Nice

16:27

work, Ryan. Quiz

16:30

time. It's

16:33

quiz time. It's quiz

16:35

time. It's time.

16:40

Yeah, you already know it. It's

16:42

quiz time. So how about some

16:45

poems and poetry and poet questions?

16:47

Okay, question number one. Who

16:50

was the first African-American woman to

16:52

publish a book of poetry? Her

17:01

name was Phyllis Wheatley and she published her book

17:03

in 1773, the year before she was legally freed.

17:08

Her writing earned her many fans both

17:10

in America and beyond. She

17:12

influenced many writers after her, but the later

17:15

part of her life is a bit of

17:17

a mystery. Okay,

17:19

question number two. The

17:22

British poet known as Lord Byron

17:24

loved dogs. But when

17:26

he was in school at Trinity College, the

17:28

school had a no-dog policy. Byron

17:31

found a loophole, though. What

17:33

animal did he bring as a pet instead?

17:43

Lord Byron was over the top in a

17:45

lot of ways and this was no different.

17:48

Dude brought a bear to school

17:50

as a pet. A bear. It

17:54

wasn't against the rules, he pointed out. And

17:56

he was right. There was no mention

17:58

of bears anywhere in Trinity College. College's

18:00

rules. Okay, third

18:02

and final question. Is

18:04

the poem The Mahabharata

18:07

the oldest poem in history,

18:09

the longest poem in history, or

18:12

the unquestionable best

18:14

poem in history? Well,

18:25

many scholars who have read The

18:27

Mahabharata say the poem is still

18:29

relevant in many ways today, and

18:32

4,000 years after it was written,

18:34

that's amazing. But it is not

18:36

the oldest poem. It

18:38

is the longest poem at 1.8

18:40

million words.

18:43

That's a lot of words. And

18:45

it would take you over 15 hours nonstop

18:48

to read the poem. In

18:50

contrast, a poet from Scotland

18:52

in the 1800s named

18:55

George McDonald actually is

18:57

famous for publishing a poem that is

18:59

only two words long. The

19:02

title is actually longer than the

19:04

poem itself. The shortest

19:06

and sweetest of songs it's called, and

19:08

the poem come. If

19:13

you ever have to memorize a poem for school, that

19:16

might be a good option. Since

19:28

it was awarded in 1861, the Medal

19:31

of Honor has been the

19:33

United States Armed Forces highest

19:35

military decoration. Today, over

19:37

160 years later, only one single

19:42

woman in all of history has

19:45

been honored with this award. And

19:48

in 1917, that woman,

19:51

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, was notified

19:53

by the United States military an

19:55

agreement with Congress that they had...

20:00

changed their minds and

20:02

she had to Give

20:05

it back Now

20:08

as you might guess Dr. Walker now at the

20:10

age of 84 Had

20:13

some thoughts about this She

20:15

probably had some nasty words to say as well Whether

20:19

she said them out loud matters not because

20:22

her strongest statement came from her

20:24

daily wardrobe from that point on

20:26

and This was very

20:28

much in character because making statements with

20:30

her wardrobe was how she had

20:32

lived her entire life Leading up

20:34

to that 84th year. She

20:36

wasn't gonna stop now Mary

20:40

had been given the Medal of Honor in 1865 which

20:44

meant that by 1917 She

20:47

and the award had been together for over 50

20:50

years and she certainly earned

20:52

it as you will soon see But

20:54

when she got the news that she was officially

20:57

removed from the National Medal of Honor list It

21:00

also came with this information Wearing

21:03

a Medal of Honor if you are

21:05

not an official recipient is against the

21:07

law and Since

21:09

dr. Mary Edwards Walker was no

21:11

longer recognized as a Medal of

21:14

Honor recipient that law applied to

21:16

her It's against

21:18

the law. Are we clear? Oh, yeah

21:21

One hundred percent clear good.

21:24

So what did Mary do after learning this

21:26

information? Well,

21:29

she wore that Medal of Honor Every

21:32

single day for the rest

21:35

of her life What

21:37

are you gonna do take it from an 84

21:39

year old lady who gave her life to helping

21:41

others and was even imprisoned during the Civil

21:44

War yeah, come and get it. There's

21:46

no way you're gonna come out of this looking like a

21:48

good guy Are we clear? Mary's

21:54

wardrobe had gotten her into trouble all

21:56

of her life that spirit might

21:58

have gone back to when she was a child Or

22:01

it might have been with her at birth. What

22:03

we know is that her rural

22:05

New York State parents were free

22:07

thinkers and they made sure that

22:09

their kids were honest, curious, and

22:11

sensible. A big part

22:14

of being sensible in their eyes was a pair

22:16

of pants. That

22:18

was a pretty wild thought at the time. You

22:20

might think, pants? What's

22:23

the big deal? You

22:25

probably got some on right now. If not, I bet

22:27

you've got some in your dresser. At

22:31

this time, American society believed that this

22:33

was a no-no for women.

22:36

But her family didn't care. They thought that

22:38

19th century dresses and skirts and everything that

22:41

went with them were cumbersome,

22:43

potentially dangerous, spread dirt and

22:45

germs, and made working difficult

22:47

to do. And they had

22:49

a point. So she wore trousers

22:51

every day and worked hard beside her

22:53

family. Even when

22:56

she got married, she had a pair of pants on

22:58

under her skirt. It was not

23:00

traditional, to say the least, but that

23:02

was Mary. She

23:04

had met her husband in medical school,

23:06

and that marriage did not last. But

23:09

her commitment to medicine, healthcare, and

23:12

the well-being of others certainly would.

23:15

In 1855, she became one of

23:17

the very first women to graduate from

23:20

the Syracuse Medical College. Life

23:22

as a rural doctor was not easy, though.

23:24

Many people were hesitant to see a woman

23:26

doctor. So

23:28

when the Civil War began, she quit

23:31

her private practice and headed to Washington,

23:33

DC to help the Union Army. She

23:37

requested a commission, which would make her

23:39

an official military doctor with title and

23:41

pay. But

23:44

nearly everyone in power refused to

23:46

give her respect nor the position

23:48

that she deserved. In

23:50

their eyes, a woman couldn't be a military doctor,

23:53

especially one wearing pants. She

23:56

was allowed to volunteer, which she did.

24:00

of Bull Run, she volunteered among a host

24:02

of others who were there also to care

24:04

for the many wounded soldiers, including

24:07

a woman named Clara Barton and

24:09

a man named Walt Whitman. Mary

24:12

stood out and earned a reputation of

24:15

speaking up for patients when she felt

24:17

that surgeries were too extreme, which

24:19

was pretty often. She helped

24:21

families find their loved ones in many of

24:24

the hospitals and spent hours caring for the

24:26

people most in need. One

24:29

doctor who worked alongside her in Washington,

24:31

DC saw how talented and insightful she

24:33

was, and knowing

24:36

that the military was not going to take care of her, he

24:38

offered to split his salary. But

24:41

Mary refused because he had a family and children to care

24:43

for. By the end of the second year of the war,

24:45

things had changed. In 1863, she was finally sent to the

24:47

South to work in the field with

24:53

many injured soldiers. Wearing

24:55

a military modified version of a

24:57

bloomer outfit, like ones that

25:00

we've covered several times on the past in The

25:02

Curious, she was

25:04

officially named Contracting Acting

25:06

Assistant Surgeon and assigned

25:08

to a Union Infantry Regiment from Ohio.

25:12

She was a civilian, but the

25:15

first woman to serve as a surgeon

25:17

for the United States military. There,

25:20

she saw even more horrors of the war,

25:23

and eventually she saw them up closely, closer

25:26

than she would have liked. There's

25:30

a belief that in addition to her duties as

25:32

a surgeon, she was also acting

25:35

as a spy for the Union Army, and

25:37

this might have led to her being captured

25:40

by the Confederate Army. For

25:42

four months, she was a prisoner

25:44

of war at a place called

25:46

Castle Thunder, which was

25:48

as menacing as it sounds. The

25:50

one-time warehouse in Richmond, Virginia was

25:53

now filled with prisoners of war

25:55

and people the Confederate government considered

25:57

treasonous. The mattresses were

28:00

She wore it as she marched

28:02

alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan

28:04

B. Anthony, and Frederick Douglas.

28:07

But in the 1870s, Mary stopped

28:09

pinning her medal to the so-called

28:12

bloomer costume. From that

28:14

point on, she chose to dress in

28:16

men's clothes, often a tuxedo and

28:18

a top hat. As

28:21

a result, she was arrested nearly anywhere

28:23

she went, New York, New Orleans, and

28:25

everywhere in between. When

28:27

asked why she insisted on wearing men's

28:30

clothes, she replied that they weren't a

28:32

man's clothes, they were her

28:34

clothes. When

28:39

her father died, she was responsible for the

28:41

family home, so she returned to Oswego, New

28:43

York, where she more or less lived the

28:45

rest of her life. She'd

28:48

go on speaking tours, often getting arrested

28:50

for her outfit, and

28:52

she made her feelings about nearly

28:54

everything very well known, from America's

28:56

role in the Philippines to World

28:59

War I and even local crime.

29:02

Her views were well thought out and

29:04

critical, which upset a lot of people.

29:08

But she really didn't care. She

29:10

had been upsetting people all of her life. It

29:13

was during her final years in Oswego that

29:15

she got the bad news about her medal

29:18

of honor. The

29:20

rules about who could win such an award

29:22

had changed because some people

29:25

felt it was losing its value with

29:27

so many other people getting one. When

29:30

the rule was altered to only

29:32

include individuals who had displayed great

29:35

honor, bravery and care of others

29:37

while under fire, that

29:39

technically ruled Mary out. She

29:41

was captured by enemies, yes, but she

29:43

was never under fire. So

29:46

that's why they told her and about 900 other

29:49

people that they were no

29:51

longer recognized as Medal of Honor recipients.

29:54

So the only woman to be awarded the Medal

29:56

of Honor had to give it back. Oh,

29:58

you're not getting this back. I'm gonna wear

30:01

it every day until I die. Are we

30:03

clear? Yeah, we're clear. And

30:07

that's just what Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

30:09

did. She wore it, penned to her

30:11

clothes, which happened to be clothes that

30:13

men also wore, until she died in

30:15

1919. Mary

30:18

never lived to see the wrong, made

30:20

right, but in the 1970s her nieces

30:23

spoke up for her and petitioned the

30:25

military to reinstate her award. In

30:28

1977, President Jimmy Carter

30:30

once again awarded Dr. Mary

30:32

Edwards Walker with the Medal

30:34

of Honor and officially added

30:36

her to the distinguished list

30:38

of extraordinary individuals. Nearly

30:42

160 years after

30:44

first winning the award, she

30:47

remains the only woman

30:49

to earn the Medal of Honor in

30:52

American history. The

30:57

Medal of Honor is presented by the American Academy of the United States of America. Yeah,

31:02

okay, episode 86. How about it? That

31:04

was a good one to put together.

31:07

I really enjoyed it. Um,

31:10

I've been trying to work both of those figures

31:12

into an episode for a long time, so I'm

31:14

glad it finally happened. So

31:17

I've got some people to thank, actually some

31:19

siblings for a shout out. Some

31:21

siblings in Denver, Colorado. Some

31:24

siblings called Wyatt and Poppy

31:27

Luke. Wyatt and Poppy Luke,

31:29

hello to you in Colorado.

31:31

Thank you so much for listening. I'm so

31:33

glad you enjoy the show. I'm

31:36

eagerly awaiting your You Have 30

31:38

Seconds because the subject that was

31:40

mentioned in a communication, great

31:43

subject. I love it. So, um, thank

31:46

you all so much for listening. I'm

31:49

in the support. It really means a lot. And

31:52

also there's other people to thank like, oh,

31:54

you, you listening. Yeah, you. Thank you for listening.

31:57

Thank you to everyone who has told anyone about it.

32:00

the show left a review maybe

32:03

gotten a book or given a book

32:05

or asked the library to get a

32:07

copy of I see Lincoln's

32:09

Underpants or The Meat Shower or just

32:12

press play just press play anyone

32:15

who does that thank you so much it's

32:17

I'm glad that I can make the show

32:19

and I'm glad that you are using your

32:21

ears to listen to it so

32:23

maybe if you want to use your mouth to tell

32:25

someone else about it you haven't

32:27

done that yet you know feel free I'll

32:30

talk to you all in December until then

32:33

stay warm unless you're somewhere where it's warm

32:35

in which case enjoy it I'm

32:38

Mick Sullivan and this has been the past and the curious