POLL: Pick the Next Extra History Series! "Women in History" (Patreon)

It's time for the Extra History poll! Where you get to vote on what our next extra History Series is about. Our four Patreon suggested topics are listed below.

The Radium Girls

Something is wrong with the women who work at the United States Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey. Factory-line workers, they're responsible for the fine detail work of applying luminescent paint to the numbers and hands of watches sold to the US military, so troops can tell time in the dark. They spend their days hunched over, encouraged to lick brushes to get a fine point on them before dipping it in the radium paint. Told the substance is safe, the girls paint it on their faces, lips, and teeth for fun. But now those teeth are falling out, their jaws are collapsing, and they've become weak and sterile. The culprit? Radioactive radium paint, which is doing irreversible damage to these young women. To get justice, several women file lawsuits against the company for unsafe working conditions—a trial that will be one of the earliest, and most spectacular, instances of employees suing their workplace. Coverups, media frenzies, and grisly deaths will ensue—until the "Radium Girls" get their justice, and US labor law changes forever.

Empress Maria Theresa

Never in history did a woman rule the Habsburg dominions—except once. For forty years, between 1740 and 1780, Empress Maria Theresa presided over a great swathe of Europe, including Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands, and Parma. And what a four-decade period it was. Coming to the throne during the War of Austrian Succession—fought against her great rival Frederick II—she also fought the Seven Years' War and embarked on one of the greatest periods of reform ever witnessed by the Austrian state. But while statues of this imperious monarch still dot European cities she once ruled, her reputation is not wholly positive. While revered in Austria, in cities like Prague her brand of "enlightened absolutism" is often called tyranny. Similarly her cruel policies toward Protestants and Jews, both of whom she expelled, were seen as regressive in a Europe that was moving toward greater religious freedom. As Europe entered an age of liberal revolution, Austria instead became more staunchly conservative—an interesting counterpoint to nations like France.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

As Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine feuded with the Pope, led troops during the Second Crusade, reformed maritime law and courted scandal—and that was just the first act of her life. One of the most clever, powerful and wealthy women of the Middle Ages, Eleanor took the unprecedented step of annulling her marriage to the King of France in order to Marry the King of England, who she liked better anyway (though she had to avoid getting kidnapped by his brothers, first). Unfortunately, Henry II of England turned out to be only lightly better than Louis VII of France, and after fulfilling her duty of giving Henry sons, she decided to pack herself off to a castle and form the "Court of Love," a refined court that popularized the medieval ideas of chivalry and courtly romance. Then, estranged from her second husband, she decided to back her son Henry the Young King in a revolt against his father—an action that got her imprisoned. Free after sixteen years, and now a widow, she became the matriarch of the most ridiculous family of the Middle Ages. When she wasn't corralling her foolhardy eldest son, King Richard the Lionheart (and bailing him out of captivity), she was cleaning up after her treacherous younger son King John and making her daughters queens of Sicily and Castile. And all of this while constantly screaming at her kids to please stop usurping each other. She died, presumably of exasperation, at the age of 82. Join us for the story of an amazing woman, the inspiration behind the Queen of Thorns from Game of Thrones, and the unofficial patron saint of mothers whose children do stupid things all the time.

Sojourner Truth

The woman who would come to be known as Sojurner Truth—famed lecturer, spiritualist, women's rights activist, and abolitionist—was sold at auction alongside a flock of sheep when she was nine years old. Born into slavery in New York state, she grew up speaking Dutch and suffering abuse through a series of enslavers. In 1826, she escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, and became embroiled in the religious awakening sweeping the United States. Believing herself called by God to travel across the country preaching abolitionism, she changed her name to Sojurner Truth and became an expert speaker on the evils of slavery. Also championing women's rights, delivering her most famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851. (Truth, it should be noted, did not use southern speech patterns like "ain't"—she was a northerner, and it was others who changed the written version to resemble how Americans thought enslaved people spoke.) During the Civil War, she helped recruit for the United States Colored Troops and was employed by the National Freedmen's Relief Association, trying to improve living standards for African-Americans. She rode streetcars to protest segregation and pushed for land grants for former slaves. Still active into her 70s—she campaigned for President Grant in 1872—she's known as one of the greatest advocates for women's rights, racial equality, equity, desegregation, and abolition of the death penalty. When she died at the age of 86, Frederick Douglass delivered her eulogy, saying, "she has been for the last forty years an object of respect and admiration to social reformers everywhere."

Cast your vote(s) below and let us know what series you would like us to air on Extra History!

Current Schedule:  Tulip Mania: Non-Fungible Tulips --> Ethiopian Empire: House of Solomon --> Your Vote!

***Friendly reminder: The poll will end at 11:59 PM PT on Thursday, March 31st. You can vote for as many choices as you want! This style of voting helps us see what people are most interested in without having to make tough decisions between a couple of close favorites. ***