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Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, it's Eves checking in here to let you

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Speaker 1: know that you're going to be hearing two different events

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Speaker 1: in history in this episode, one from me and one

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Speaker 1: from Tracy V. Wilson. They're both good, if I do

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Speaker 1: say so myself. On with the show. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to this day in History class. Today is July four.

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Speaker 1: Gertrude Bell was born on this day in eighteen sixty

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Speaker 1: eight in the English town of Washington. Gertrude Bell was

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Speaker 1: a real person, but she really seems like the hero

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Speaker 1: of a novel that I would love. She was a

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Speaker 1: Victorian lady adventurer, and a poet and a diplomat. Basically

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Speaker 1: a daring, brilliant, eloquent archaeologist who was the first woman

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Speaker 1: to earn a first class degree in modern history at Oxford.

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Speaker 1: At the time, most Oxford universities did not offer enrollment

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Speaker 1: to women at all. She went to Lady Margaret Hall,

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Speaker 1: which is one of the few Oxford constituent universities that

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Speaker 1: did not. Only is she completely not a fictional character,

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Speaker 1: her diplomatic work really helped shape the Middle East. Her

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Speaker 1: uncle was a British ambassador in Iran, and Bell traveled

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Speaker 1: there in eighteen nine two. By that point, she had

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Speaker 1: already taught herself how to speak Persian, which was one

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Speaker 1: of many languages that she knew. This visit to her

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Speaker 1: uncle really sparked a lifelong passion for the Middle East,

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Speaker 1: but she didn't stay there for very long. She traveled

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Speaker 1: the world until the start of World War One, exploring

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Speaker 1: mountaineering and working as an archaeologist. Once the war started,

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Speaker 1: she wound up working for the Arab Bureau and Cairo.

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Speaker 1: Along with T. E. Lawrence also known as Lawrence of Arabia,

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Speaker 1: she was the only woman who was working for the

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Speaker 1: British government in the Middle East. She later on became

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Speaker 1: the secretary to the British High Commissioner, Sir Percy Cox.

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Speaker 1: The work she did involved working with the local people

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Speaker 1: to convince them to join sides with Britain to fight

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Speaker 1: against the Ottoman Empire. She became convinced during all of

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Speaker 1: this that Iraq needed to be an independent nation and

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Speaker 1: it needed to have an Arab leader simultaneously. She was

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Speaker 1: kind of a colonialist. She had a lot of the

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Speaker 1: same mindset as a lot of other hardcore colonialists at

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Speaker 1: the time, but she was also really dedicated to the

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Speaker 1: people who were living in what would become Iraq. So

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Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen she wrote Self Determination in Mesopotamia and

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Speaker 1: that wound up earning her a spot at the nineteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen Peace Conference in Paris. In nineteen twenties, she wrote

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Speaker 1: Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia. In nineteen twenty one,

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Speaker 1: there was a conference in Cairo that established the modern

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Speaker 1: borders of Iraq, and she was there. And she also

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Speaker 1: helped Fassa You, the first the King of Syria. When

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Speaker 1: popular support in Iraq, he became its first king on

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Speaker 1: August three, nineteen one. After all of this, Gertrude Bell

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Speaker 1: became the honorary director of the depart Bit of Antiquities

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Speaker 1: in Mesopotamia. She helped establish the Iraq Museum. She was

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Speaker 1: also the person who found a bigger location for it

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Speaker 1: in ninety six, but she died suddenly on July twelfth

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Speaker 1: of that year of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills.

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Speaker 1: That was just less than a month after the museum opened.

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Speaker 1: It was just shy of her fifty eighth birthday, and

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Speaker 1: the monarchy that she helped establish in Iraq lasted for

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Speaker 1: thirty seven years through three kings, ending with the July

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Speaker 1: Revolution on July fourteenth. Thanks to eve's Jeff Cote for

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Speaker 1: her research work on today's episode and Tatari Harrison for

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Speaker 1: her audio work on all of these episodes. You can

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Speaker 1: learn more about Gertrude Bell on the November nineteenth and

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Speaker 1: twenty six episodes of Stuff You Missed in History Class,

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Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to This Day in History Class

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Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, and whatever else you get

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Speaker 1: your podcasts. Tune in tomorrow for the end of a

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Speaker 1: tribunal that lasted almost four hundred years, but today's often

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Speaker 1: are associated with some sketch comedy. A quick content warning

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Speaker 1: before we start the show. This episode contains mentioned of

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Speaker 1: Nazi eugenics, so if there are children around or you

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Speaker 1: are sensitive to this kind of topic, you might want

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Speaker 1: to skip it. Hi Um Eves, Welcome to This Day

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Speaker 1: in History Class, a show that reveals a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about history day by day. The day was July four,

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Speaker 1: ninety three. Nazi Germany passed the Law for the Prevention

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Speaker 1: of Genetically Diseased Offspring. The law mandated the forced sterilization

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Speaker 1: of people with disabilities and further the goals of Nazi eugenics.

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Speaker 1: Sterilization is the process of making a person unable to reproduce.

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Speaker 1: Hitler's deputy, Rudolph Hess said Nazism was applied biology and

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Speaker 1: not see ideology. The Nordic or Aryan race was biologically

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Speaker 1: superior to all others. Through their racial policies, they aimed

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Speaker 1: to eliminate any biological threats to a so called healthy Germany. Eugenics,

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Speaker 1: or the practice of attempting to improve the genetics of

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Speaker 1: a population by increasing the occurrence of hereditary characteristics deemed

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Speaker 1: desirable and reducing the occurrence of those deemed undesirable, was

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Speaker 1: popular in the United States, Brazil, Canada, and many European countries.

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Speaker 1: Forced sterilization and the encouragement of reproduction in people who

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Speaker 1: were determined to be fit to do so were common

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Speaker 1: in those eugenics movements. Not see Eugenics and the Law

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Speaker 1: for the Prevention of genetically Diseased Offspring grew out of

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Speaker 1: existing eugenics policies. German physicians and scientists who supported so

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Speaker 1: called racial hygiene before the law was passed continue to

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Speaker 1: support Nazi policies that ordered mass sterilizations based on scientific

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Speaker 1: racism and false ideas of genetic fitness. With the backing

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Speaker 1: of medical and scientific professionals. The Nazi regime carried out

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Speaker 1: a program of hundreds of thousands of forced sterilizations and

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Speaker 1: euthanasia deaths. The law was based on a voluntary sterilization

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Speaker 1: law created by Prussian health officials in nineteen thirty two.

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Speaker 1: It was co authored by lawyer Falk Rutka, director of

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Speaker 1: Public health Affairs are tour Good, and psychiatrists at Ruden.

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Speaker 1: According to the law, people who were likely to have

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Speaker 1: a child with quote serious physical or mental defects of

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Speaker 1: a hereditary nature should be sterilized. People who were subject

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Speaker 1: to sterilization under the law included people with, in the

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Speaker 1: law's words, congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia, manic depression, hereditary epilepsy,

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Speaker 1: hereditary saint bidases, dance also known as Huntington's care a,

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Speaker 1: hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, and serious hereditary physical deformity. People

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Speaker 1: with chronic alcoholism were also subject to sterilization. The person

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Speaker 1: is subject to sterilization could apply for sterilization. The state

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Speaker 1: physician or the head of a hospital, nursing home, or

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Speaker 1: penal institution could also request sterilization for a person. Applications

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Speaker 1: would be made to the office of the Eugenics Court,

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Speaker 1: which was attached to a district court. Once the court

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Speaker 1: decided a person should be sterilized, the operation had to

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Speaker 1: be done even if it was against the person's will.

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Speaker 1: If necessary, direct force could be used. The law came

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Speaker 1: into effect on January first, ninety four. Though there were courts,

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Speaker 1: the decision to sterilize was often based just on the

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Speaker 1: petition and some testimonies, and the patient was not always present.

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Speaker 1: The three member panel that reviewed titians consisted of two

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Speaker 1: doctors and a judge. Most of the petitions ended with

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Speaker 1: approval of the sterilization. The sterilization method was typically either

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Speaker 1: vasectomy or tubal litigation, and invasive procedure that caused many deaths.

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Speaker 1: Many of the people sterilized were in asylums, but the

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Speaker 1: main targets of the program were people who were not

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Speaker 1: isolated from society and who were of the age to

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Speaker 1: be able to reproduce. The application process courts and physicians

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Speaker 1: and scientists gave the program an air of legitimacy, but

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Speaker 1: in reality, the decision to sterilize just came down to

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Speaker 1: who the Nazis thought would contaminate the gene pool and

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Speaker 1: weaken the national body. They even sterilized people for their

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Speaker 1: anti Nazi beliefs around the world. Some supporters of eugenics

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Speaker 1: praised the policy, and people outside of eugenics movements also

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Speaker 1: thought the policy was a good service for public health.

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Speaker 1: Other people denounced the policy and fear the mass persecution

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Speaker 1: it could cause. The Nazis went on to experiment with

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Speaker 1: ways to sterilize people that didn't require as long of

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Speaker 1: a recovery period. The sterilization of people based on hereditary

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Speaker 1: illness and ambiguous categories of disease morphed into the murder

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Speaker 1: of millions of people in the Holocaust. The sterilization program

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Speaker 1: was largely suspended by nine but by the end of

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Speaker 1: World War Two, the eugenics courts had ordered the sterilization

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Speaker 1: of an estimated four hundred thousand people. I'm Eve Jeff Code,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. If there's something that I missed

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Speaker 1: in an episode, you can share it with everybody else

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook at t D I h

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Speaker 1: C podcast m HM. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,