There's More to That

• Why Are There So Many Shipwrecks in the Great Lakes?

  Beneath the waters of the Great Lakes, thousands of shipwrecks, hulking carcasses of a bygone era, have been hiding for generations, just waiting to be revealed. Once someone stumbles upon one of these sunken treasures in Lake Michigan or Lake Superior, Tamara Thomsen gets a call.Thomsen is a maritime archaeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Maritime Preservation and Archaeology program. Her job is to investigate and survey shipwreck sites. Over the years, Thomsen has added some of these ships to the ​​National Register of Historic Places. And she and her colleagues have also unearthed dugout canoes that were fashioned thousands of years old by the Indigenous people who lived on this land.In this episode, host Ari Daniel speaks with Thomsen about how she took up this profession, why she views shipwrecks as time capsules, why so many vessels met their watery grave on the Great Lakes, and how one stays warm at depth when diving for these wrecks for hours at a time.To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes about the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, the return of a set of important belongings to the Lakota community and a baseball field resurrected in a World War II-era Japanese internment camp, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Ali Budner, Cleo Levin, Genevieve Sponsler, Sandra Lopez-Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz / Images by Zach Whitrock / Wisconsin Historical Society and public domain.

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• The ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ Sank Half a Century Ago. We’re Still Fascinated.

  Half a century ago, on an unseasonably warm fall day, the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald set off from the western edge of  Lake Superior with a cargo full of iron ore. Within hours, a ferocious storm gathered in strength, ultimately producing 50-foot waves and sinking the prized vessel. There were no survivors. The exact cause of its demise remains unknown.Over the decades, many ships have faced a similar fate on the Great Lakes, a part of the world that some say is more dangerous than the open ocean. But the tragedy of the Edmund Fitzgerald looms the largest in our collective national memory — and it led to changes in the maritime industry that dramatically improved the safety of shipping.In this episode, host Ari Daniel speaks with author John U. Bacon about what made the Edmund Fitzgerald famous even before it sank, what we know and don’t know about the crew’s final moments, and the ship’s lasting legacy.Read more coverage of the sinking of the Fitzgerald here.To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes about the return of a set of important belongings to the Lakota community, the search for the remains of three fallen World War II airmen, and the role that enslaved Africans and Southern colonists played in launching the American Revolution, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Ali Budner, Cleo Levin, Genevieve Sponsler, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz / Photo by Lake Superior Maritime Collection at the University of Wisconsin-Superior Special Collections and Archives, Bob Campbell / Images by mdnahidkha23 via Adobe Stock, Newspapers.com and public domain

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• Birds, Bats and Bugs: The Teeming World Above Our Heads

  The skies above us are filled with legions of migrating birds, bats, bugs and microbes. And yet we know little about their movements and intentions, mostly because this ethereal world has largely been inaccessible for research. But new technologies are providing a window into how animals use their aerial habitat to travel and hunt.The burgeoning field is called “aeroecology,” and researchers are revealing just how substantially humans are altering the world overhead—with deadly consequences for flying animals. The new insights are giving us ways to make the air safer for these creatures.In this episode, host Ari Daniel speaks with Dustin Partridge of the New York City Bird Alliance as he directs the intermittent shutdown of the iconic Tribute in Light to protect disoriented birds during 9/11 this year. And we hear from Smithsonian contributing writer Jim Robbins about what aeroecology is telling us about the ecosystem above.To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes about the army of people devoted to saving native bees, the prehistoric cave that entombed animals for millennia and the sex lives of dinosaurs, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Cleo Levin, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Our music is from APM Music.Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz / Photos by malik / Jim via Adobe Stock / Dina Litovsky and public domain.

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• A Chance for Healing, 170 Years After a Lakota Massacre

  This fall, 69 belongings made their way home to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. These items, which included buffalo robes, blankets, moccasins and a doll, had been taken from the Lakota community after the Blue Water Massacre in 1855, the first major ambush on a Native American community by the U.S. Army. It would become the start of a decades-long campaign against the Plains tribes that would end with the death and displacement of numerous Native Americans.The return of the belongings offers a modicum of closure, but the pain of the massacre lives on among those on the reservation today. In this episode of Smithsonian magazine’s podcast “There’s More to That,” host Ari Daniel speaks with Ione Quigley and Karen Little Thunder, two members of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, and Smithsonian contributing writer Tim Madigan about the journey of these belongings from their birthplace to a museum and back.To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes about the search for the remains of fallen airmen from World War II, a baseball field resurrected in a Japanese internment camp and a deeper look at lesser known stories of the American Revolution, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Cleo Levin, Sandra Lopez Monsalve, Pedro Rafael Rosado and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Our music is from APM Music.Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Photos by Gary Whitton / Nawaphon via Adobe Stock and public domain.

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• How Superman Became a Character for the Ages

  This summer’s big blockbuster, Superman, marks the latest installment of the Man of Steel — a character whose identity has evolved over the decades, connecting with the concerns and ideas of the day. Even the phrase he may be best known for — “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” — has changed to suit new vibes and new markets. Superman’s persona transcends any one classification. He is Kal-El, an alien sent to Earth by parents with hopes of a better life for their child. He is Clark Kent, a good ole boy from Kansas who moves to the big city and works a 9 to 5. Completing the trifecta is his identity as a formidable superhero who battles fictional enemies including Lex Luthor and real-life villains like Hitler and Stalin.Because Superman has alternated between being the mouthpiece of American power and that of the disenfranchised and oppressed, he has often been misunderstood. In this episode, host Ari Daniel speaks with Smithsonian contributing writer Samantha Baskind about what these different “Supermen” have meant throughout history and what it means for his legacy today.To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes about the search for the remains of fallen airmen from World War II, the magic of what lies beneath the city of Rome, and a deeper look at lesser-known stories of the American Revolution, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Our music is from APM Music.Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz / Photos: Swim Ink 2, LLC / Corbis via Getty Images and public domain.

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