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Speaker 1: Hey there, history fans. We're off this week so that

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Speaker 1: I can move across country. But don't worry, We've got

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Speaker 1: plenty of classic shows to tide you over. Please enjoy

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Speaker 1: these flashback episodes from the TDI HC Vault.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to This Day in History Class from HowStuffWorks dot

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Speaker 2: Com and from the desk of Stuff You Missed in

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Speaker 2: History Class. It's the show where we explore the past

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Speaker 2: one day at a time with a quick look at

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Speaker 2: what happened today in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's August thirty first. The

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Speaker 2: body of Mary Ann Nichols, who was known as Polly,

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Speaker 2: was found on this day in eighteen eighty eight. She

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Speaker 2: was the first of the five canonical victims of Jack

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Speaker 2: the Ripper. Those five canonical murders happened between August thirty

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Speaker 2: first and November ninth, eighteen eighty eight, in order of

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Speaker 2: when their bodies were found. They were Mary Ann Nichols

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Speaker 2: and Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Edos, and Mary Jane Kelly.

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Speaker 2: And these five murders happened with a series of other

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Speaker 2: killings in Whitechapel in the East end of London. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: eleven total murders are looped together as the Whitechapel Murders.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes all eleven are attributed to Jack the Ripper, but

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Speaker 2: those five are considered the canonical five. All of them

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Speaker 2: were or had been sex workers. All but one was

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Speaker 2: killed while soliciting customers. They were all also intoxicated at

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Speaker 2: the time or were known to abuse alcohol. When Nichols

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Speaker 2: was murdered, she was in her early forties and she

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Speaker 2: had five children. She and her husband had separated, and

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Speaker 2: she had fallen on really hard times. She was living

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Speaker 2: in extreme poverty. She was living in a series of workhouses,

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Speaker 2: and she was getting lodging in rooming houses when she

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Speaker 2: had the money to do it. That money mostly came

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Speaker 2: from begging and from sex work. But she didn't have

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Speaker 2: any money, and if there was no room in the workhouse,

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Speaker 2: she had nowhere to stay. At about two o'clock in

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Speaker 2: the morning on August thirty first, she was thrown out

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Speaker 2: of the kitchen of the rooming house where she'd been

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Speaker 2: staying because she didn't have the money to pay. But

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Speaker 2: she said she would go get the money, and she

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Speaker 2: went out into the street to look for clients. Somebody

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Speaker 2: else from the rooming house saw her a little bit later,

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Speaker 2: and she was very clearly intoxicated. Then, at about three

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Speaker 2: forty five in the morning, two carters were on their

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Speaker 2: way to work through bucks Row, which was basically an alley.

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Speaker 2: One of them saw what looked like a tarp or

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Speaker 2: pile of rags, went over to investigate, and he called

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Speaker 2: the other one over when he realized that it was

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Speaker 2: a woman. They weren't entirely sure whether she was alive

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Speaker 2: or not. They didn't stay to help because they were

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Speaker 2: late for work, but they did tell a constable what

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Speaker 2: they had seen. When the constable came, he realized this

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Speaker 2: was a dead woman, that her throat had been cut

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Speaker 2: from ear to ear, her abdomen and her groin had

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Speaker 2: also been mutilated. And the wake of nichols murder and

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Speaker 2: the killings that followed, the people in Whitechapel were terrified.

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Speaker 2: It became a public panic about the possibility of a

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Speaker 2: brutal serial killer who could have been anyone. It could

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Speaker 2: have been somebody that you know, And in spite of

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Speaker 2: extensive investigations and increased police patrolling in the area, he

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Speaker 2: was never captured. One day, the killings just stopped because

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Speaker 2: nobody knew it was the last killing. They kept waiting

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Speaker 2: for the next killing. We don't know who Jack the

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Speaker 2: Ripper is, of course, He's generally believed to be a man.

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Speaker 2: The name was coined in a letter purportedly from him

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Speaker 2: to the Central News Agency, although probably this was concocted

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Speaker 2: as a publicity stunt by the staff. And since eighteen

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Speaker 2: eighty eight, hundreds of people have been brought forth as

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Speaker 2: suspects for being Jack the Ripper. A lot of these

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Speaker 2: suspects have been doctors or butchers, because the killer seemed

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Speaker 2: to have some familiarity with human anatomy. But really they

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Speaker 2: just range all over the place, everybody from Lewis Carroll

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Speaker 2: to H. H. Holmes, who later lured victims into a

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Speaker 2: so called murder castle during the eighteen ninety three Colombian Exposition.

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Speaker 2: This one led to an exhamation of Holmes's remains in

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Speaker 2: a whole TV series about it, and the Jack the

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Speaker 2: Ripper murders continue to be entrenched in the public imagination.

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Speaker 2: There are hundreds of books about the actual murders and

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Speaker 2: about fictionalized versions of the murders, or novels that base

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Speaker 2: themselves off of the Jack the Ripper story in some way,

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Speaker 2: and of course there are also dozens of movies. Thanks

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Speaker 2: to Christopher Hasiotis for his research work on today's episode,

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Speaker 2: you can subscribe to the Day in History Class on

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever else you get your podcasts,

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Speaker 2: and you can tune in tomorrow for a terrifying dive

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Speaker 2: and a dramatic rescue.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back to this Day in History class, where we

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Speaker 3: reveal a new piece of history every day. The day

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Speaker 3: was August thirty first, nineteen sixty three, Prime Minister of

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Speaker 3: Singapore Li Kwan Yu declared de facto independence for Singapore.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't until two years later, on August ninth, nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixty five, when Singapore left the Federation of Malaysia and

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Speaker 3: became an independent sovereign nation. In nineteen fifty nine, Singapore

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Speaker 3: held national elections and the People's Association Party or PAP

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Speaker 3: won forty three of the fifty one seats in the

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Speaker 3: Legislative Assembly. The PAP was founded in nineteen fifty four

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Speaker 3: as a pro independence political party. After the elections, it

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Speaker 3: became the first fully elected post colonial government. Singapore gained

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Speaker 3: a great degree of self rule and the PAP appointed

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Speaker 3: Li Kwan Yu the Prime Minister of Singapore. The Federation

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Speaker 3: of Malaya was made up of the nine Malay States

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Speaker 3: and the straight settlements of Penang and Malacca. It had

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Speaker 3: replaced the Malayan Union, which was a British Crown colony,

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Speaker 3: and it gained its independence within the Commonwealth of Nations

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Speaker 3: on August thirty first, nineteen fifty seven. The leadership of

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Speaker 3: the PAP thought that Singapore, which was small with few resources,

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Speaker 3: would fare better if it united with the Federation of Malaya.

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Speaker 3: In a nineteen sixty two referendum, seventy one percent of

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Speaker 3: people voted in favor of this merger, and on August

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Speaker 3: thirty first, nineteen sixty three, Prime Minister Li Kuan yu

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Speaker 3: declared Singapore's independence from British rule from the steps of

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Speaker 3: City Hall. In order to push for the merger, he

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Speaker 3: pledged Singapore's loyalty to the federal government in Kuala Lumpur.

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Speaker 3: At the ceremonial rally, Lee said, we have the will

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Speaker 3: and the wherewithal to be a nation in our own right.

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Speaker 3: That is the right that we the people of Singapore

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Speaker 3: today proclaim. But the British government denied that this speech

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Speaker 3: meant Singapore was de facto independent. The federal and British

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Speaker 3: governments questioned the legality and validity of Singapore's claim to

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Speaker 3: powers over its defense and external affairs. The Federation of

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Speaker 3: Malaysia was supposed to be inaugurated on this day to

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Speaker 3: coincide with the date of Malayan independence, but that was

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Speaker 3: postponed until September sixteenth so that the United Nations could

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Speaker 3: have more time to determine whether people in the Borneo

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Speaker 3: territories of Saba and Sarawak wanted to be part of Malaysia.

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Speaker 3: On September sixteenth, Singapore united with the Federation of Malaya,

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Speaker 3: Saba and Sarawak to form Malaysia. The PAP one thirty

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Speaker 3: seven seats in a general election five days later, but

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Speaker 3: that union did not last long. Malayan and Singaporean leaders

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Speaker 3: could not agree on political approach and economic and racial policy.

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Speaker 3: Singaporean politicians were unhappy with provisions in the Malaysian constitution

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Speaker 3: that gave the ethnic Malay majority special privileges, and Malaysian

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Speaker 3: politicians thought that Singapore's mostly Chinese population was a threat

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Speaker 3: to their Malay heritage. The PAP and the United Malays

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Speaker 3: National Organization, the other major political party in Malaysia, accused

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Speaker 3: one another of communalism. Racial violence broke out in Singapore

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Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty four, and Malaysia's parliament voted to expel

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Speaker 3: Singapore from Malaysia. The two parties agreed to a two

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Speaker 3: year truce in September of nineteen sixty four, but tensions

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Speaker 3: did not ease by nineteen sixty five. On August ninth,

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixty five, Singapore separated from Malaysia. The proclamation declaring

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Speaker 3: Singapore's independence was announced on Radio Singapore at ten am

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Speaker 3: that day. Singapore TV also aired a press conference that

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Speaker 3: Lee called for. He explained that the separation needed to

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Speaker 3: happen even though he believed in the merger. Lee's statements

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Speaker 3: had a much sadder tone than his announcement on August

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Speaker 3: thirty first, nineteen sixty three, and the initial response was disappointment.

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Speaker 3: Now National Day in Singapore is celebrated on August ninth.

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Speaker 3: Independence Day in Malaysia is August thirty first. I'm Eve

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Speaker 3: Jefcote and hopefully you know a little more about history

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Speaker 3: today than you did yesterday. Come back tomorrow for another

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Speaker 3: tibit from history

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Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

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Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.