Doomed to Fail - Women's History Month! Yay! (Sad noisemaker sound followed by popping balloons and probably some crying)

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

Join me as I ramble through our Women's History episodes! Find them anywhere you listen to podcasts! Learn some stuff! Cry with me!   Ep 1 - Part 1: Catherine the Great & Peter III Ep 4 - Part 2: A World of Love to You - Eleanor Roosevelt & Lorena Hickok Ep 23 - Part 1: Our Lady of the Night - Mary Shelley Ep 50: Let them have Portillo's: The saga of Marie Antoinette Ep 90 - Echoes of the Sky: Amelia Earhart's Enduring Influence Ep 93 - Disaster at Shift's End: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Ep 94 - The Most Fashionable Nazi Collaborator: Coco Chanel Ep 97 - A Famous British Woman is Missing!!!: It's Agatha Christie this time Ep 98 - The Never-ending Story: Henrietta Lacks Ep 129 - Mother of Sparrows: The Vengeance of Saint Olga of Kiev Ep 145 - Witch Trials: Not just in Salem! Ep 155: Don't go chasing waterfalls in Honduras - Lisa Left Eye Lopes Ep 176: Who's to say Virgin Blood doesn't stop aging? - Elizabeth Bathory Ep 178: The Miracle Worker & The Miracle - The Helen Keller story Ep 180: The Beast of Belsen - Irma Grese Ep 181: Hitler's Favorite Film Maker - Leni Riefenstahl Ep 182: Hitler's Least Favorite Spy - Virginia Hall Ep 185: Mapping the Earth from Space - Dr. Valerie L. Thomas & her career at NASA Ep 186: Flying the Skies above India & Breaking Barriers - Sarla Thukral Ep 204: Fancy a Duel after the Opera? - Julie d'Aubigny Ep 207: Hey Ladies!!! - Sappho Ep 220: One for you, Sixteen for me - Sybil & her Multiple Personalities Ep 231: Wash your hands! - Typhoid Mary Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

Hello and welcome to Dooms to Fail. My name is Taylor and along with my friend Fars, we bring you stories of historical disasters and failures. We started off as a relationship podcast. We were just talking about, you know, historical and true crime and places where relationships kind of blew up in smoke and crazy things happened because of them. And then it kind of bloomed into just telling you interesting stories and ways that we're finding that all of history is connected, which we know. All times are unprecedented, which we're. we unfortunately know as well. So, you know, none of this is new, but all of it is interesting. So we're learning a lot about history and we hope that you join us or have joined us and really enjoy the show because we really enjoy making it.

We have over 200 episodes. They kind of run the gamut of different topics, but one of the ones that we have a lot of episodes on is Women's History and it is Women's History Month. So the past couple years, I have done like a Women's History Month, a couple episodes on it. This year I might do like one or two because we've taken some breaks,

for travel and such. But I want to tell you a little bit about the women's history episodes that we have. And you can find them all on our website, doomed to failpod.com. We're on Simplecast, we're, you know, iPhone podcast, Spotify, wherever you get them. We're also on YouTube. If you don't have any of those things, you can find it on YouTube. It's all free. There's no ads. We just hang out. So let me tell you some of the stories. And you can find them by searching just doomed to fail pod and then the names of the people in these stories. And you know, I don't want to tell women's history like women are perfect. I won't tell women's history like women are nuanced, women are complicated,

then women's stories should be told. So we started at the very, very beginning, our very first episode, episode one, part one. We used to do two stories per episode, now we'd do them separately. We kind of tell the stories to each other, but episode one, part one,

then Catherine the Great and her husband, Peter. I describe him in this episode as a wet noodle because he kind of sucks. He's nothing like in The Great, the show, but you should, you know, watch that anyway. But Catherine the Great is really interesting. We do have a lot of stories on Russian history, because Russia is so fascinating. But Catherine did things like travel all around Russia,

meet people of different religions, who spoke different languages, who, you know, were doing different things and saying, like other leaders have, like, in the past, like in the ancient past, like it was like Cyrus is Great who talked about later in the Persians. When they took over an area, they were like, I don't care who believe, what gods you believe in. Like, that's not anything that I'm interested in. I just want to like, you know, be in charge, take some tax money. You do you. So Catherine, the Great is a great example. of that. Obviously, as soon as her son, who is also a freaking wed noodle, he, like, meant then he'd made a law that women couldn't be in charge,

blah, blah, blah, because we can't have nice things. But that was our very first episode. Episode four, part two is about Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. So Eleanor Roosevelt, obviously the wife of Franklin Roosevelt, they had a interesting relationship, I believe that they loved each other, Eleanor and Franklin. They were, you know, like, they were like cousins. They were like third cousins. her uncle was TR who was a distant cousin of FGR.

And FGR had an affair with a woman named Lucy Mercer and when he was in, when they were like in their 20s. So they had like already had a bunch of kids and FGR was, he was a secretary of the Navy. He was a governor of New York. And then when he was in his late 20s, early 30s, that's when he got polio and had to be bedridden for a while. And so when he got that disease, it was an opportunity. to be like, what do we do? Do we stop the ambitions that we have for this man? Or do we continue them, even though he cannot be in the spaces where he needs to be? And they continued them with Eleanor

going to those places, right? So she went to the meetings and the events and traveled around the state, traveled around the country, went to D.C. on his behalf to say things like, you know, frankly, would say this and whatever, to be able to keep his name out there. And it worked. And obviously, you know, FGR became president. But during their relationship, you know, he, had many affairs and she had a girlfriend named Lorena Hickok. She was a reporter assigned directly to cover the First Lady. They were good friends. They were more than good friends. All of the things but I think that those relationships

kind of worked for for everybody. When FCR passed away Lucy Mercer was at his side. I don't know, I mean wasn't happy about that but it was enough that like I think that they were okay and let her do the things that she did that we remember her for as such an excellent excellent first lady. So there's that. Episode 23, part one, is about Mary Shelley. So Mary Shelley obviously wrote Frankenstein, and it was a gloomy summer in Geneva. It was a gloomy. We learned later because of a volcano. So volcano erupted, and then it made a year where most of the world had just like a layer of

like ozoney ash, basically up in the trade winds, which you also know about if you listen to our show. And because of that, it was gloomy. And Mary Shelley, and her husband, who is a weirdo, and his friends, and they wrote scary stories, obviously, and she wrote Frankenstein, and it was wonderful. Later, her husband would die kind of needlessly in a boating accident. He, like, knew who's always going to. I think he was, like, a romantic poet in both career and in self-identification, but she kept his heart in her desk drawer, so that's fun. Learn about Mary Shelley. Episode 50 is about Maria Antoinette, who I think is also super misunderstood. said she never said let them eat cake she was super young she had to cross a literally a literal line

that said once you cross this line you are no longer German you are French and she had to like be French and Jolie sings and learn a whole new system when she was really just a girl and then later in life when they imprisoned her like before she is is uh I don't know killed for for the revolution you know they take away your children and then make her children say awful things about her and she just wanted to be a good mother. So like, not perfect, but like not a monster. Episode 90, Amelia Earhart, who you have to love, never turned 40. She died when she was 39, but she, you know, busted a bunch of records.

And then actually since then, I've gotten this book. It's back here in my bookshelf, but I have a book that has like a little recording of her when she went across the Atlantic for the first time. So just super cool, breaking barriers. She's also a social worker, a fashion designer. All of that, like Amelia Hart look is very on purpose. So she's super cool. Duh.

I don't know what I'm telling you that. You know that. Episode 93 is on the Triangle Shirtways Factory Fire. So if you want to learn about building safety, we can start there. It was a place in New York City. It is now a part of New York University. I took science classes in this building, science classes as an art history major. But essentially women and girls who are mostly immigrants from Ireland were working in a

shirt with Saturday, which is like a shirt, it's like a tight shirt that was popular of the time. It's the early 1900s. And there's a fire and it is a Saturday afternoon and a lot of people die. They cannot get out because the doors are locked because the workplace is full of hazardous things that are flammable. A lot of reasons women jump from the seventh story and die on the streets. It changed a lot of laws. It didn't change all of them, but it did change some. One person who happened to be there, this is around the Washington Square area, if you live in New York where Eleanor had an apartment as well. And Francis Perkins was there. Francis Perkins is the woman to be the first secretary of labor to be a woman, actually the first

cabinet member to be a woman at all. And she is in FDR's cabinet. And she is in charge of doing things for us like overtime and social security and things that, you know, New Deal things that made working better for Americans. Imagine. Imagine. So that's super interesting. Episode 94 is about Coco Chanel. It is Women's History Month. I swear to God, do not quote Coco Chanel. Sure, like, yes, she had that little black dress. Yes, she had the pearls and they're pretty and you can wear pearls. I think in the episode, I'm not wearing them now, but I talk about how, yes, you can wear pearls.

I don't care. But you should know that Coco Chanel bet on the Nazis. She had a Nazi spy boyfriend. She met with them. She was ready for them to win. There is a quote that is not by her. I can't remember who was by it right now, but someone said, you know, after the war, the women who slept with the Nazis in France, a lot of them were ridiculed, their heads

were shaved, and a lot of that was out of necessity. You know, like, if you're starving to death and these people are occupying your country and all the things, but not a hair on Coco Chanel's head was touched, which sucks. Don't talk about her. Let's talk about her. But talk about who she was. Talk about who she was as a person. There's also union things. Like, it's similar to the shortwaist factory fire time where she was like, you know, locking her doors and had shitty workplace safety for the people who worked for her. So, you know, listen to that one. Episode 97 is that Agatha Christie. So we did this one during, you remember that time where Kate Middleton was missing. Bless her heart, she was sick. But everyone was like trying to figure out

where she was. So Agatha Christie, who you'll know from like being a murder writer, there was a time toward the end of her marriage where she knew that her husband was cheating on her and she knew who's going to be at a certain hotel. So she takes her car and she crashes it into a tree. They find this crashed car, crash into a tree. And then she goes to the hotel where she knows her husband's going to be, but like under an assumed name and just like sits in the, like in the dining room and just like waits for him and stares at him. A delight. So you can learn about that. Episode 98 is Henrietta Lax. If you haven't heard this story, it is so good. It is a black woman who was,

in the Maryland area in the 1940s, and she had cancer horribly. She had cervical cancer that spread to her entire body. And she went to Johns Hopkins and other hospitals and something about her cells. They were able to regenerate without all of the things that you need to regenerate cells like life. So they took her cells and they've been able from them to, even after Henrietta's death, she was, there was no saving her. She was, you know, very, very, very, very sick. But her cells, they continue to grow. So her cells are still alive. All over the world. They're in space. They're everywhere that use them to create vaccines, to create, to do cancer research, all sorts of

things where you're like, I need a living cell to do this, but you can't do it on a live person. You can do it on the Hela Cell, which is Henrietta Lax's living cells. You can buy them online. And it's a story about how her family was never compensated. They didn't really understand what was happening and just trying to understand like consent and I don't know like if they cut your arm off who gets it if they take yourselves where to go like what belongs to you after you do certain things in the hospital and what did you understand what didn't you understand it's a race story it's a class story it's a medical history story it's fantastic so I mean if that story is fantastic we did our best trying to tell you it is that was episode 98 episode 129 and again in between

is there's episodes on all sorts of things, and I'm sure women are mentioned, but these are the ones that stood out to me. But one 29 is Olga of Kiev. So the Elka of Kiev-Kiev is a saint. She was a leader in the, you know, Kiev-Ukrainian area that we know now. And her husband was killed. And she set off on a path of revenge that is like, Game of Thrones epic. There is a thing that she was a part of called the Red Funeral. So you know George R.R. Martin knew all about. it. And she just the revenge, I'm not even going to tell you things she did because it's so cool. So that she did out of to revenge, avenge her husband and get revenge everybody else is wicked. And then she became a saint, which is, I don't know what the rules are, but they're vague.

Episode 145 is at witch trials, because you know that there are no such thing as witches. Like there are and there aren't. There are, of course, women who we love who like have crystals and do spells, happy to do that. I drank moon water this week because I want to try to like, I don't know, willing to do anything. But like the idea that there was like an actual magical witch, that's just a woman who like didn't want to get married and could heal people with herbs, you know. And in America, obviously the Salem witch trials, but there were so many more in Europe. Thousands of women were killed by Christians because of, they were different. I don't know. They were scary because they wanted to be alone, which, you know, agree to agree. Lock me in a.

cabin. So there's that. 155, totally different type of woman. Same vibe. Let's talk about Lisa L. L. L.I. Lopez. Talk about her career, a couple of domestic situations that she was in. And then her surprising death in Honduras. She was working on a documentary and helping people rebuild after natural disasters and just doing really just nice stuff when she passed away in a car accident. and there's a video of it happening. And you, it's, yeah, it's a lot. Anyway, listen to that one. Next 176.

This one actually, Fars has led this one, is about Elizabeth Bathroy, who is a possibly mythical, maybe true historical figure. I mean, she definitely existed, but what she did if we don't know, who in like a castle in Europe murdered, like, you know, virgins for their blood to stay youthful, which we'll hear about again. in another episode, another woman doing that. And probably, if true, a very prolific killer. And kind of like a creepy vampire gothic vibe.

So there's that one. There is episode 178, Helen Keller and her teacher, which is just a beautiful story. I didn't really listen to or understood the whole thing. I read a couple of Helen Keller books. Oh, including a Helen Keller book written by Lorraine Hickok, Eleanor's girlfriend. going back. But it was wonderful. My son and I learned how to spell, I love you into our hands. I enjoy it. I love E. Y, O, you. But it was so fun to learn. I can't imagine the things that Helen Keller went through to understand what was happening in her life. If you don't have any of those

disabilities, I don't know how you can really grab it. But it's so fascinating that she was able to do everything that she did. And when she talks about before, she knew language. It reminds me of, you know, why don't you have memories near a baby? Well, it's because you didn't know how to describe the things that were happening to you. You didn't have words for them. And then you do. And then you remember things differently. So Helen Killar is able to kind of talk through that. And it's not that long ago. Like you can see there's videos of her at home and how she, you know, walked in her house and cooked and made tea and, you know, did things. Despite despite so many limitations. Wow. It's wonderful. Another episode,

hosted by Fars is about Irma Grisa. I'm going to say Irma Grisa. She is the youngest person who was executed after World War II from the Nazis, like regime and their guards. She was a prison guard in concentration camps, and she is a horrible person. Just absolutely wild that this young woman was able to do and hurt. And just the pain that she inflicted in her life is wild. Speaking of the Nazis, episode 181 is on Lenny.

reef install. So if you have seen any of the Nazi propaganda stuff, like, for example, Triumph of the Will, which is the one, like the one of the big, I guess it's like introducing Hitler to the world movies that she made. So she was an actor. She was a dancer. She ended up being a director, which you think, okay, it's like the 1930s and four days. It's cool that you know, women director, but also like, girl, what are you doing? Like that's, you're obviously not doing the right thing. And she never apologized for it. She never got in trouble for it. She lived to be able to. like 102, which I think is wild. I think she should have been in a lot of trouble because when you look at the stuff that

they were doing, a lot of it was because of the propaganda and she was the propaganda. If you can picture it, then Marie Fisdall made it. So you can learn about her. Episode 182, opposite sides that we have a wonderful heroic American named Virginia Hall. She was a spy. She was a spy. She went over to Europe, studied, learned French, learned German, did all these things. She accidentally shot her own leg off hunting.

that she has like a prosthetic leg but she still wants to be a spy she joins the raf so she joins like the u.s and then she hikes she like like in the end of sited music when they hike over the mountain virginia hall does that several times with one leg to get people across the borders and to save people and it is like meet me in the alley behind the thing style like i picture her in casablanca even though she was in paris but you know what i mean um super fun um episode 185 is on dr Valerie L. Thompson, Thomas. She is a NASA scientist who created so many cool things. So one thing she created was like this vector tool to be able to see things in 3D. So it's like the reason we have holograms. And she was a black woman scientist at NASA in the 1970s, which sounds wild.

And she did made a lot of really, really cool things. Episode 186 is about Sarlah Thucral. And Sarlah was a, the first woman pilot in India. So she has a lot of, a lot of lot of super cool history of like, you know, obviously breaking those barriers. She married into a family where they were all pilots and they were like, yeah, be a pilot too. Come on in. We talk about that in that episode and back in the Amelia Earhart episode. Like, we also have a lot of playing crash episodes, but flying is so new. Like I was just on a Delta flight and they were like, it's been a hundred years. I'm like, that feels like, I don't know. But like, the chance, like one of the most dangerous jobs used to be like a postal service.

pilot, you know, because you have to do it so often. Sarlah's husband died in a plane crash and then she didn't fly again, but she'd become a really famous fashion designer. So super interesting and eclectic life for Sala. I'm almost done. Episode 204 is about Jules d'Albouille. Nope, did it wrong? Don't care.

She is a French woman who was a, like a French woman night spy person who would have all these fun affairs across the continent. And that's fun too. Also, I did that one, I think, for Pride Month as well, because she was also very famously bisexual. I also did another episode of Pride Month that, you know, obviously crosses into women's history on Sappho, the ancient Greek poet who lived on the island of lesbos, which is obviously where the word lesbian comes from. And, you know, the term sapphic for describing like women and women romance. And it's interesting to hear like what is real and what isn't real and what we know. Because we talk about a lot of ancient stories and even like the medieval.

stories. Like, there's stuff that we only know from like a tapestry or a bit of pottery or like a vase. And so somehow we know what's history? Two more. Episode 220 is about kind of a interesting mental health history breakthrough on Sybil, who is the person who had multiple personalities. So there is a real person. That real person did have mental issues, went to a therapist and they talked through it. The therapist, in my opinion, exploited it, an author exploited it, and they wrote this book, Sybil, which is a movie that came out in the 70s as well, which is like really sensationalizing, like, oh, she had, you know, 70 personalities and all these things, but like, did she? I don't know. So it's an interesting

kind of history of mental health and exploitation as well. And the most recent women's story that I did is on Typhoid Mary. That's episode 231. So Typhoid Mary, she was in New York City and she was an Irish immigrant and she was a cook people starting to get typhoid fever around her right but she was never sick so she was like I don't know this is a great job people get sick and move on like didn't didn't understand and like why would she understand you didn't know right so then she's doctor comes and finds her tracks her down and says what is the key all these people who are getting sick right and they find her and they say you can't be a cook anymore. Like, you can't do this. And she's like, I don't understand. Like, I'm not sick. Why can't I be a cook?

And then they like try to lock her away on an island in New York City. And she's like, no, this is not fair, which, you know, feels fair, but that's not fair, right? So they bring her back, they let her go back. They kind of lose track of her for a while and then people start dying again. And you know where they start dying in a fucking children's hospital, which is where, like, you know, women are having babies. The babies are dying. And that just like makes me so mad because I'm like, I know you don't have proof of this, but like, this is proof. Like, you're seeing this around you. This doesn't happen to other people.

And there's a part of it where you're like, if she just washed her hands, like, maybe wouldn't be that bad. But also, like, she's a carrier of this disease. And even though it sucks, like, she has to believe the doctors and no. You know what I mean? And she doesn't. And they lock her on island, basically for the rest of her life. Because she can't stop cooking.

And you're like, I don't know. She could have left, I guess. But she would have continued to get people sick. I don't know. complicated, complicated. Everything's complicated. Everything has several different sides. There's no black and white, but we're trying to learn more and learn more about it. So this is fun. I'm talking to myself, but usually I talk to Fars. He and I have been friends for 13 years. We used to work together. Now I live in California. He lives in Texas. We hang out whenever we can. And I hope you

like a show. You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts and email us, Doomedepilod at gmail.com. Find us on social media, and we hope to see you soon. Thanks.