This episode is brought to you in part by W Publishing Group, publisher of The Hidden Peace,

finding true security, strength and confidence through humility, written and narrated by Joel Matamale.

Available now, everywhere you get your audio books.

Dynamic Voices for a diverse church. This is Pass the Mic.

Welcome to Pass the Mic. I'm Executive Producer Bo York and much like last week's episode we're doing things a little bit differently.

A few months back, Jamar and I had the chance to sit down and talk a little bit about the role that history plays in our understanding of the world around us.

If you're familiar with this podcast, you know Dr. Jemar Tisbee is a historian and somebody who has a passion

for studying and teaching history as it relates not just to understanding

where we've been, but as a tool for understanding where we're going.

And more specifically, the power that stories have in our understanding of history, both for good and for ill.

For example, let me start by telling you this story.

It's the story of a poor Irish immigrant by the name of Catherine O'Leary, who on a crisp October morning in 1870

gathered her pale, stool, and lantern to go and milk a cow.

This seemingly normal and insignificant ritual that surely Miss O'Leary had performed many a time before

would become one of the most talked about events of that decade.

Because as she went about her work, placing the lantern in its usual spot, the aforementioned

cow kicked the lantern over igniting the barn and connected shed into a blaze.

That inferno would quickly spread to what is now known as the Great Chicago Fire,

killing approximately 300 people, destroying 17,000 structures,

and leaving more than 100,000 residents homeless.

It's an incredible, if not tragic story

that was etched into the collective mental histories

...