Stuff You Missed in History Class

This 2016 episode examines a Christian mystic of medieval Europe who was way, way ahead of her time. If she had lived a few hundred years later, and been male, people probably would have called her a renaissance man. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Tracy and Holly talk about the trickier aspects of researching a story like Arsinoë's, as well as women trying to find agency in Arsinoë's time. Discussion of Sissieretta focuses on how the press covered her appearances, and how many of the issues and racist treatment she faced still persist for Black performers today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Sissieretta Jones was a Black operatic and popular music singer in the early 20th century. And she was famous in her day, but then kind of vanished from the papers when she retired. Her last years were lived in relative obscurity.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

The Ptolemies were a Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt during the Hellenistic period. And in a lot of ways Arsinoë II really set the standard for the generations of Ptolemaic queens that followed her. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This 2015 episode covers a landmark legal moment. The ruling in this infamous U.S. Supreme Court case stated that segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities were equal. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Holly and Tracy talk about the appeal of Duke Kahanamoku, his story being illustrative of the problematic nature of cultures being subverted in an effort to get along with others, and his love of naps. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Part 2 of our coverage of Duke Kahanamoku's life delves into about what happened to Duke after that sudden onslaught of Olympic fame, and how it wasn’t really what Duke expected.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Kahanamoku became world-famous as an Olympic swimmer, and his love for sports of all kinds started from his childhood on Oahu. Part one covers his early life, up through his first Olympics and the start of becoming a global surfing icon. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Today, we revisit a December 2017 episode about Skellig Michael. This small island off the west coast of Ireland recently became a film star, but Skellig Michael has a rich history all its own. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Tracy and Holly discuss where they're at a year into the pandemic. Tracy also talks about how frustrated she was researching this week's episodes, and how exhausting it is to see the same things repeating. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

The comparison of the modern pandemic to the 1918 pandemic continues in part two. This time, the show covers ventilation, supply shortages, and vaccines.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Now that we’ve lived through a year of a global pandemic, our approach to looking at the 1918 flu pandemic had shifted. We’re revisiting the events of 1918 with new perspective, comparing then to now.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This is a revisit of our 2013 episode on the often avante-garde French designer Paul Poiret. He got rid of corsets, introduced the concept of lifestyle branding, and used draping rather that tailoring to create his dramatic designs. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Holly and Tracy talk about what a jerk Cornelius Vanderbilt was, trivia about the Grand Central story, and Tracy’s first visit to Grand Central Terminal. Then they discuss the myriad levels of confusion possible regarding names in the story of Zoe and Theodora.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Over almost 30 years in 11th-century Constantinople, sometimes Zoë ruled alongside one of her husbands, sometimes she and Theodora ruled together, and in the end, Theodora ruled alone. All against a backdrop of distrust and intrigue and possibly murder. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Grand Central's story starts with one of the wealthiest names in U.S. history, but it also is in many ways the story of the city itself since the 1800s, because Grand Central was such a pivotal element in the growth of Manhattan.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This 2014 episode covers the incident in 1959, in which nine students ventured into the Ural mountains for a ski hiking trip, and never returned. While much speculation has swirled for more than half a century, no one knows for certain what caused them to abandon their camp to die in the cold. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Holly and Tracy talk about Holly's childhood perceptions of Isadora Duncan and how the famous dancer broke convention. They also talk about the peccadillos of Duncan's autobiography, and her relationship with sexuality. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

The comforts afforded by fame were forever clouded for Duncan by an ongoing series of tragedies, leading right up to the famous – and horrifying – way her life ended. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Duncan, often called the mother of modern dance, had an unconventional upbringing, and a VERY unconventional life. Her early life was full of struggle but seemed overall quite happy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This 2012 episode covers the 1936 Berlin Olympics and African-American sprinter Jesse Owens, as well as the games as Nazi propaganda. More nations than ever participated, and the Olympic torch was used for the first time. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Tracy and Holly talk about how young everyone had been during the Mississippi Freedom Summer, voter suppression, and Holly's trick to stop crying when recording. There's also talk of how topics get added to phone lists. and Cobb's violin playing. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

W. Montague Cobb was the first Black person in the U.S. to earn a PhD in physical anthropology, worked to debunk racist theories in the field, was an activist for desegregation and Medicare, and was an anatomy professor at Howard University.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

The Mississippi Summer project of 1964, now known as Freedom Summer, was a in part a voter registration project that was met with an extremely violent and deadly backlash. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This 2018 episode covers Gertrude Stein, an icon in the world of modernist literature. Alice B. Toklas is often described as her partner and assistant, but she was also a published writer, and "assistant"really doesn't cover how important she was to Stein's life and work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Tracy and Holly talk about Spain's effort to spread the smallpox vaccine, and how Balmis handled things. They also discuss fear about vaccines, bodily autonomy, and what does and doesn't gross them out. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

With the smallpox vaccine established, Spain’s wanted to deliver it to its colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean. Francisco Xavier de Balmis carried the vaccine from Spain to the Americas using a chain of young boys who acted as living vaccine hosts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Once Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine, it spread from England, where he lived, to other parts of the world. Meanwhile, events were unfolding that led the Spanish Empire to launch a huge expedition to take the vaccine to its colonies.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This 2013 episode covered the Nazca lines in the desert about 200 miles southeast of Lima, Peru, between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The glyphs have remained intact for centuries, and have been avidly studied since their discovery in the late 1920s. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Holly and Tracy talk about how many things don't make it into episodes, sometimes due to cutting for narrative structure, and sometimes due to translation of sources. They also discuss Emilie Du Châtelet and the various ways her story is told. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Du Châtelet challenged the philosophic and scientific world of her time, but she's often eclipsed by her far more famous lover. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Tello is often called some variation of the father of Peruvian archaeology or the first indigenous Peruvian archaeologist. And his work was playing out across a backdrop of constant unrest and conflict, both for his country and his profession.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

A throwback to 2013! Sir Joseph Paxton was a 19th-century botanist who became instantly famous for the hall he designed for the Great Expo of 1851. After the expo, the Crystal Palace moved to a new location and became the centerpiece of the world's first theme park. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Holly and Tracy talk about the fascination of the Griffith story and how contemporary journalists covered Griffith's crime, as well as how his story ties to Disney history. Tracy also discusses how delightful it was to pull together the research on Andrew Crosse. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

In the early 1800s, Andrew Crosse observed a strange thing happening on an electrified rock in his lab, and he was catapulted into the public spotlight. But before that and after, his life and home at Fyne Court were filled with eccentric delights.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

While the Griffith name today is associated with the Los Angeles park and the observatory, during his time, G.J. Griffith was associated with other things: real estate, social climbing, and a horrifying domestic abuse scandal. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Part two of this 2018 classic delves into the only known successful coup d'etat in U.S. history, when a white mob enacted a violent plan against their town’s black community, and overthrew the duly elected government of Wilmington, North Carolina. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Tracy and Holly chat about Olympe de Gouges and the less-than-robust information about her life's details. When talking about John Dalton and color vision, discussion of emotional attachment to color and accessibility issues related to color vision deficiency. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

John Dalton is far more famous for his work in atomic theory. But he wrote one of the first thorough descriptions of what he called “anomalous vision” – meaning that he realized he wasn’t perceiving color the same way as other people.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Olympe de Gouges is known primarily for her 1791 pamphlet “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen.” But her writing and political activity went far beyond that one pamphlet, and she was actually executed for a completely different reason. Tracy's Research: Douglas, Allen. "Gouges, Olympe de 1748–1793." Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, edited by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2007, pp. 657-658. Gale In Context: Global Issues, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2896200277/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=GPS&xid=2979d54d. Accessed 5 Jan. 2021. "Marie-Olympe de Gouges." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, vol. 23, Gale, 2003. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631008043/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=GPS&xid=01a0e821. Accessed 5 Jan. 2021. HESSE, CARLA. "Gouges, Olympe de." Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter, vol. 2, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006, pp. 993-996. Gale In Context: World History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3446900357/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=GPS&xid=a40a2b9c. Accessed 5 Jan. 2021. "Marie-Olympe De Gouges." Historic World Leaders, edited by Anne Commire, Gale, 1994. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1616000246/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=GPS&xid=110589b6. Accessed 5 Jan. 2021. Lyons, Matthew. “Execution of a Feminist.” History Today. Vol. 70, Issue 11, November 2020. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/execution-feminist Columbia College. “Olympe de Gouges.” https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/olympe-de-gouges Kuiper, Kathleen et al. “Olympe de Gouges: Additional Information.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Olympe-de-Gouges/additional-info#content-5 Woolfrey, Joan. “Olympe de Gouges (1748—1793).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/gouges/ “The Trial of Olympe de Gouges,” LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOUTION, accessed January 7, 2021, https://revolution.chnm.org/d/488. Vanpée, Janie. “Performing Justice: The Trials of Olympe de Gouges.” Theatre Journal. Volume 51, Number 1, March 1999. Via Project Muse. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34586 Diamond, Marie Josephine. “Olympe de Gouges and the French Revolution: Construction of Gender as Critique.” Dialectical Anthropology , 1990, Vol. 15, No. 2/3 (1990). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29790339 Nielsen, Wendy C. “Staging Rousseau's Republic: French Revolutionary Festivals and Olympe de Gouges.” The Eighteenth Century , FALL 2002, Vol. 43. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41467908 Scott, Joan Wallach. “French Feminists and the Rights of 'Man': Olympe de Gouges's Declarations.” History Workshop , Autumn, 1989, No. 28 (Autumn, 1989). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4288921 Brown, Gregory S. “The Self-Fashionings of Olympe de Gouges, 1784-1789.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Volume 34, Number 3, Spring 2001. Via Project Muse. https://doi.org/10.1353/ecs.2001.0019 Mousset, Sophie. “Women's Rights and the French Revolution: A Biography of Olympe De Gouges.” Routledge; 1st edition, July 2017.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This much-requested 2018 episode covers how open racism and hotly contested elections led to a climate of unrest and white supremacist violence in late 19th-century Wilmington, North Carolina. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the travel thoughts that the show's recent Unearthed! episode brings up. Talk also turns to the various biases that people have had when looking at history, and how that can obscure the ways we interpret information. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this second part of the year-end Unearthed! for 2020, topics include art, music, edibles and potables, and exhumations and repatriations, and potpourri. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Time for a wrap up of things unearthed in the last quarter of 2020! Part one includes updates, books and letters, Vikings, mummies, and some other stuff. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2016 classic delves into knitting. which has been around for a long time. Exactly how long isn't entirely clear, but we do know a good bit about how knitting has traveled with us humans through time. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about how small details that get changed in the retelling of history change the context of the larger story, as well as some of the ways that histories like this week's offer new ways to think about topics that hadn't been previously considered. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Denis made several missteps - some of them criminal - as he tried to prove his superior knowledge in the science of transfusion. Due to his hubris and enemies in the medical community, he found himself involved in a court case that took a very strange turn. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the 17th century, Europe was obsessed with science – and very competitively so. When it came to blood transfusions, there was a great deal of conflict in France's scientific community. And Jean-Baptiste Denis was right in the middle of it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2015 episode covers the story of Violet Jessop, who was a shipwreck survivor -- several times over. She traveled the world aboard some of the most famous ocean liners of all time. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about why Holly loved studying Wilfrid Voynich, when scurvy became a jokey disease, and the need for a good multivitamin and getting a little sunshine. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Scurvy is a deficiency in vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, and its story goes way back in history – all the way to our evolutionary ancestors living more than 60 million years ago.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’ve talked about the Voynich manuscript many times over the years, but the man for whom the manuscript is named has his own fascinating story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2017 episode revisits roses, which humans have painted, written about, and assigned symbolic meaning for centuries. But this much-beloved flower predates mankind, and it's a little difficult to track our early relationship with cultivating it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On today's episode, Tracy and Holly discuss their levels of familiarity with O. Henry and have a food digression. Talk then turns to how Rudolph became so popular so quickly, and how far reaching the Rudolph story is in culture. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Most of us grew up with the story of the sweet little reindeer that was picked on by his peers, and becomes the hero who saves Christmas. But Rudolph is unique in that he became part of Christmas tradition almost the moment he was introduced in 1939. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

O. Henry’s writing is taught in many schools because of his stories like “Gift of the Magi,” but it’s rarely mentioned that during his life, he fled to Honduras to avoid prosecution for embezzlement.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This classic is from 2014. In 1826, liquor was forbidden at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Cadets smuggled alcohol into the barracks anyway, and a defiant Christmas party turned into a riot when two officers attempted to break up the festivities. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss the difficulty people may have with Civil War history and how surprisingly exciting Constitutional scholarship can be. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly is joined by Kerry Sautner, Chief Learning Officer of the National Constitution Center, to discuss the museum's mission, unlikely career paths to history, and how talking about the Constitution brings people together. You can visit the National Constitution Center at: https://constitutioncenter.org/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy was a distortion of the history of the U.S. Civil War that’s still affecting the world today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Were revisiting a 2016 episode about the uprising of the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire during the Hellenistic period, which is an integral part of the Hanukkah story. After the restoration of Jewish religious freedom, the Maccabees started another revolt to obtain total independence. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the animated version of Ibn Al-Haytham's story, Omar Sharif, waffle cones, and what to do with holiday leftovers. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Stuff You Missed in History Class host Holly Frey interviews The TEN News host Bethany Van Delft. The TEN News is 10 minutes of news and information for curious kids ages 8-12 (and their parents are allowed to listen, too). Each episode looks at what's happening in the world and provides context and reporting on the stories kids want to know more about. Informative and fun, New episodes of The Ten News publish every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Waffles are popular and commonplace on tables and as street food around the world, but they’ve evolved a lot over time to become the syrup vehicle most of us think of them as.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Ibn al-Haytham made massive contributions to the world’s understanding of light and vision through experiments that he did during a prolonged house arrest in the early 11th century. He also wrote about medicine, philosophy, astronomy, math and ethics.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This is a holiday throwback to a 2017 episodes. Tasty treats associated with winter holidays have some slightly hazy origins, because the evidence of their histories was eaten. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss the issue of final resting places illustrated by Jim Thorpe's story, the pronunciation of poinsettia, and plant toxicity. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Poinsett was a statesman who was connected to some very important moments in our nation’s history, with mixed results. He’s also credited with introducing the holiday plant named after him – the poinsettia – into the U.S. from Mexico.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The conclusion of our three-parter on the life of Jim Thorpe covers his time as a professional athlete, and his life after the end of his athletic career – including two pieces of his story that have tragically continued long after his death.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode is our 2016 live show from the Dallas Museum of Art about the Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin is described as the father of the modern Olympic Games, which took a few years to really take off. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about football, Jim Thorpe, and the morality of trick plays in sports in previous decades. They also discuss the complexities of amateur status in sports and other areas. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After the 1908-09 football season at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Thorpe seemed to be headed for a career in baseball. But the offer to return to school and possibly qualify the Olympics altered that path. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Jim Thorpe was an incredible all-around athlete, famous around the world. In part one, we’ll talk about his life before and during his time at Carlisle, including some context about Carlisle and similar boarding schools. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2018 classics covers Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, who was the first Native American woman to earn a medical degree. She lived at a time when a lot of change was happening in the United States as a whole, and among Native Americans and the Omaha tribe she was part of specifically Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the three people who are linked together in the story of the surgical treatment for cyanotic babies, including stories that didn't make it into this week's episodes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 1944, Thomas developed a surgical treatment for babies with cyanotic heart conditions. Thomas was a Black man working at an institution whose only other black employees did janitorial work, and he had not attended medical school – or even college.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Helen’s story is tied to Vivien Thomas and Alfred Blalock in the surgical treatment of blue baby syndrome. She was the one who suggested that Alfred Blalock try to find a surgical approach to congenital heart conditions like tetralogy of Fallot. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2016 episode covers Icelandic history. A fishing territory dispute between Iceland and the U.K. started off with a cordial tone, but escalated into a serious conflict. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the sexism that held back Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin,the desire to see her lecture notes, and stories from their education. Talk then turns to Maria Anna Mozart and the gaps in the record that lead to different interpretations of the Mozart family dynamics. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Maria Anna Mozart is often left out of brief accounts of her brother’s life. But his sister was sharing the bench with him and was also considered an impressive and accomplished musician.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was an astronomer who made a lot of firsts. She grew up in a society that didn’t really prioritize education for girls, and she was determined and creative about getting around that. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode from 2015 covers the Night Witches, an all-female bombing regiment in the Soviet Air Force. Flying biplanes meant for dusting crops and training new recruits, they dropped 23,000 tons of bombs on German forces in WWII. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss the wealth of unearthed stories that came up this time around, as well as their favorite finds from this batch. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Part two of our autumnal unearthing report includes shipwrecks, exhumations, repatriations, and quite a bit about Vikings, and a bit of potpourri.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It's once again time to take a look at things that have been literally and figuratively unearthed over the last few months. In part one of this Autumn 2020 edition, we'll talk about books and letters, edibles and potables, animals, and some other stuff.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Happy Halloween! To celebrate, we're revisiting a 2014 episode. Candy and Halloween go hand-in-hand, but when did candy become the standard for trick-or-treating, and who invented the holiday's most famous sweet treats like candy corn?  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about their experience with tarot cards and readings, and about the bad rap black dogs get. Happy Halloween to all of our listeners who celebrate it! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

As we inch closer to Halloween, we're talking about three of the MANY supernatural canines and hellhounds that have lengthy histories in our collective storytelling. Two are similar and from England, and one is a fun figure from southern Louisiana. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

How did a card game gain a reputation for being connected to mysticism? Tarot's history takes a significant turn in the 18th century, but much of that shift in perception is based on one author's suppositions and theories. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2011 episode today. In 1908, a fire leveled the Indiana home of Belle Gunness. Four bodies were found in the cellar, and it seemed possible that Gunnes might have escaped. When about a dozen more bodies were found, Gunness was revealed as a serial killer. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about the work and life of Bram Stoker, including a brief talk about his mother. And then talk turns to Tracy's new interview with Kate Landdeck, and the glamour of Jackie Cochran. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Dr. Katherine Sharp Landdeck joins the show for a second time, to talk with Tracy about Kate’s new book – but mostly about Jacqueline Cochran – who was an incredible pilot, and one of the driving forces behind the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Dracula is an iconic character, and the man who created him has become almost as much of a source of fascination for many as his famous vampire.. But even Bram Stoker's own life story - at least as he told it - may have some fictional elements. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this 2011 episode, prior hosts Sarah and Deblina cover Pope Stephen VI having his deceased predecessor Formosus exhumed and put on trial in 897. The corpse was found guilty, but this desecration disgusted Romans and made them rebel. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly share stories of their own moments of poor judgement, and the Tracy discusses her interview with Alvin Hall and Janée Woods Weber, creators of the podcast Driving the Green Book. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy talked to Alvin Hall and Janée Woods Weber, host and producer of the podcast Driving the Green Book. Alvin and Janée share their thoughts on the show, the Green Book, and the road trip they took to make the show. You can find the Driving the Green Book podcast here: https://us.macmillan.com/podcasts/podcast/driving-the-green-book/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Demon Core was a sphere of plutonium-gallium alloy that the U.S. made for use in an atomic bomb during World War II. After the war, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory had two separate, fatal criticality accidents while working with it.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2010 episode from previous hosts. Most people are familiar with Jack the Ripper, but Victorian England was also plagued by an odd character named Spring-heeled Jack. Were reports of this bounding scoundrel a symptom of mass hysteria, or something factual?  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about Madame Blavatsky's shocking level of cigarette smoking and the surprising amount of Mother Shipton material Tracy was able to find. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Mother Shipton may or may not have been a real person. She's described as living in 16th-century England, and was everything from an oracle to a witch to the daughter of the devil, depending on which of the many sources you’re reading. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Blavatsky is an iconic figure. She was the founder of the theosophical movement, and lived a life of adventure that’s hard to believe. The impact of her work is undeniable whether you believe her to have been a genuine mystic or a total fraud. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2017 episode covers the story of how, in the 12th century, two children, green in color, appeared in Suffolk, England. The green children were written about in the 12th and 13th centuries as fact, but some people today classify as this tale as folklore. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On this casual Friday chat, Tracy and Holly talk about the genius of Tanaka Hisashige, and Tracy's frustrations at finding the more problematic aspects of Nina Otero-Warren's story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Nina Otero-Warren was from a prominent New Mexico family, and worked in education, politics, and the suffrage movement, focusing largely on Spanish speakers. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tanaka Hisashige was an inventor, a craftsman and an artisan, and he lived during a time that Japan went through enormous cultural, scientific and technological changes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode is from 2017. Whitman is often touted as the best and most important poet in U.S. history, but he also worked as a teacher and a journalist. And his poetry career didn't start out particularly well. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about the business dealings of Hollywood in context with the moral scandals that were playing out in the press at the time, as well as the way films are distributed today versus in Adolph Zukor's time. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Once Adolph Zukor combined his production company, Famous Players-Lasky, with Paramount’s distribution company, he had consolidate two aspects of the industry under one business. His next step was obvious: gain control of exhibition of films as well.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The development of the Hollywood studio industry features a number of people who drove it forward. Today, we're talking about Adolph Zukor and William Hodkinson, and how their work led to the founding of Paramount.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this 2011 episode, prior hosts Sarah and Deblina talk about privateer Alexander Selkirk, who became a buccaneer in 1695. In 1704, after a fight with his captain, Selkirk was put ashore on an uninhabited island about 400 miles west of Valparaiso.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy delve into the unverifiable parts of James Forten's life and the problematic idea of respectability. Tracy also talks about her geographical connection to the Lawson family murders which took place in 1929 and how that informed her knowledge about it as a teenager. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

These are episodes that we’d love to do as a full-length episode, and we’ve gotten listener quests for most of them. But there’s a book that’s so central to the subject that the book is really the place to go. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

As a child and young man, James was part of the British colonies that rebelled against rule from the throne. As an adult, he made his fortune in sail making, and turned his influence to the causes of abolition and civil rights. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this 2015 episode, prior hosts Sarah and Deblina covered a poet's romance. Robert Browning's early work wasn't as well-received as Elizabeth Barrett's poetry. Yet Barrett mentioned his work in one of her poems, and they started a correspondence that blossomed into love. However, Elizabeth's father remained an obstacle. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss the story of Croesus and how disabilities are represented in the writing of Herodotus. The topic then turns to the Igbo women's practice called sitting on a man, and how the Western world often misunderstands other cultures. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Women’s War was a response to British colonialism in Nigeria. British authorities described the group as a “hostile mob” because they didn’t recognize that the so-called mob was largely a long-established method for Igbo women to hold men accountable. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The story of the ridiculously wealthy Croesus, which was fictionalized in a number of ways, becomes a cautionary tale about pride and hubris, and what really has value in life.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2018 episode is running in honor of Labor Day in the U.S. Memphis sanitation workers stayed off the job starting January 12, 1968 in a strike that lasted for nine weeks. This was the strike that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assassinated on April 4 of that year. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss trying to stay organized, the relevance of the Delano grape strike today, and how Joshua Slocum's story makes us think about our travel yearnings, and the tricky part of his story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Joshua Slocum was the first person known to sail around the world alone. Unlike lighthouse keeper Ida Lewis, he didn’t always enjoy that solitude – and unlike cyclist Annie Londonderry, he actually made the journey he became famous for.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Delano Grape Strike, which led to an international boycott of table grapes as grape workers in California tried to get better pay, working conditions, and union contracts covering their work.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2018 episode covers Elbridge Gerry, who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. Gerrymandering is the drawing of political districts to give a particular party or group an advantage or disadvantage, and it's named after him. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about how this week's topic shifted from its original plan. They also discuss how slavery in the U.S. capital has been handled in media. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On the second part of the discussion of White House history, Holly and Tracy first cover the gardens and landscaping, and then dig into discussion of how slavery is a part of the very foundation of the building. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today’s White House has 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms. But that hasn’t always been the case. It also was not always called the White House, of course, and it has a LOT of history.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2016 episode covers a time in the the 20th century when the U.S. and Mexico had agreements in place allowing, and even encouraging, Mexican nationals to enter the U.S. to perform agricultural work and other labor in the American Southwest. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about their personal thoughts on Symmes's hollow Earth theory, and then talk about their experiences with canning and winning prizes at state fairs. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Canning dramatically changed how people around the world have dealt with food. Early canning efforts were kind of stabs in the dark, though – we hadn’t figured out the microbiology component yet. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 1818, something about the rings of Saturn - we don't know what, exactly - led John Cleves Symmes to conclude that the Earth was hollow. And he spent the rest of his life promoting this strange idea. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2013 episode covers Johann Beringer, the University of Wurzburg's chair of natural history and chief physician to the prince bishop in 1725. He was also unpopular, and some of his colleagues sought to discredit him. There are two versions of the story -- but which is true? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the use and misuse of tear gas, and then a theory that links L. Frank Baum's work "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" to Coxey's Army. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Jacob Sechler Coxey led the first protest march on Washington, D.C. in the 1890s, with a plan to create jobs for the nation's unemployed population with projects that would build the country's infrastructure. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tear gasses, or lachrymator agents, are named for the lachrymal glands, which secrete tears. But tears are just one part of it. It was developed for WWI, but of course continues to be used today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2011 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina examines Fritz Haber's mixed legacy. The Nobel-Prize-winning Father of Chemical Warfare was responsible for fertilizers that fed billions, as well as poisonous gasses used during World War I. Tune in to learn more about Fritz's complicated life and work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss the complexities of Isabella Bird's story, as well as the similarities between the pneumonic plague in Wu Lien-Teh's story and what we're living through in 2020. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Wu Lien-Teh was a doctor who’s most well known for his public health work and the pneumonic plague epidemic in the early 20th century. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Bird is celebrated as a world traveler, though she didn’t really come into her own as a traveler until she was in her 40s. Her books about her journeys were wildly popular. There are also some pretty big questions about the persona she presented publicly. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The second episode in our revisit of the Irish Famine covers the mid-1800s, when the poorest people in Ireland ate almost nothing but potatoes, saving other crops for selling. So a blight, plus politics, led to tragedy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss the week's topics, including their own experiences with Central Park, and a segment of the summer edition of Unearthed! that Tracy cut. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This edition of Unearthed! covers episode updates, science and history discoveries, books and letters, and potpourri. And yes, there's (brief) talk about the Verona, Italy floor mosaics. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Seneca Village was a predominantly black community that built itself from the ground up. But its story is fragmented. Even though it existed at a time when it could have been fairly well-documented, there was a vested interest in erasing it. Holly's Research: “Seneca Village, New York City.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/seneca-village-new-york-city.htm Alexander, Leslie M. “African or American?” University of Illinois Press. 2008. Wall, Diana diZerega, et al. “Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City.” Historical Archaeology, vol. 42, no. 1, 2008, pp. 97–107. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25617485. “Discover Seneca Village: Selected Research Topics and Resources.” Central Park Conservancy. October 2019. https://d17wymyl890hh0.cloudfront.net/new_images/feature_facilities/SenecaVillage_SelectedResearchTopicsandResources_2020_v4.pdf?mtime=20200219091534 Capron, Maddie and Christina Zdanowicz. “A black community was displaced to build Central Park. Now a monument will honor them.” CNN Oct. 22, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/seneca-village-central-park-monument-trnd/index.html “The Sale of Manhattan.” The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands. Library of Congress and the National Library of the Netherlands. http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/awkbhtml/kb-1/kb-1-2-1.html The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Manhattan.” Encyclopædia Britannica. November 23, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/place/Manhattan-New-York-City Connoly, Colleen. “The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland.” Smithsonian. Oct. 5, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-native-new-yorkers-can-never-truly-reclaim-their-homeland-180970472/ Cleland, Charles and Bruce R. Greene. “Faith in Paper.” University of Michigan Press. 2011. Rosenzweig, Roy and Elizabeth Blackmar. “The Park and the People: A History of Central Park.” Cornell University Press. 1992. Blakinger, Keri. “A look at Seneca Village, the black town razed for Central Park.” New York Daily News. May 17, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160518101320/https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/seneca-village-black-town-razed-central-park-article-1.2639611 Martin, Douglas. “A Village Dies, A Park Is Born.” New York Times. Jan. 31, 1997. https://web.archive.org/web/20160320031313/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/31/arts/a-village-dies-a-park-is-born.html?pagewanted=all Arenson, Karen W. “A Technological Dig; Scientists Seek Signs of Central Park Past.” New York Times. July 27, 2000. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/27/nyregion/a-technological-dig-scientists-seek-signs-of-central-park-past.html Staples, Brent. “The Death of Black Utopia.” New York Times. Nov. 28, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/opinion/seneca-central-park-nyc.html Kang, Tricia. “160 Years of Central Park: A Brief History.” Central Park Conservancy. June 1, 2017. https://www.centralparknyc.org/blog/central-park-history Wall, Diane diZerega and Nan A. Rothschild. “The Seneca Village Archaeological Excavations, Summer 2011.” The African Diaspora Archaeology Network. September 2011 Newsletter. http://www.diaspora.illinois.edu/news0911/news0911-4.pdf Central Park Conservancy. “Discover Seneca Village: Selected Research Topics ad Resources.” October 2019. https://d17wymyl890hh0.cloudfront.net/new_images/feature_facilities/SenecaVillage_SelectedResearchTopicsandResources_2020_v4.pdf?mtime=20200219091534 Wall, Diane diZerega, et al. “SENECA VILLAGE, A FORGOTTEN COMMUNITY: REPORT ON THE 2011 EXCAVATIONS.” 2018. http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/arch_reports/1828.pdf Seneca Village Project. http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/index.html Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2013 two-parter. The history lesson kids often get on the Irish Famine could be summed up as "a blight destroyed the potato crops, and a lot of people starved or moved away." Most kids ask, "Why didn't they eat something else?" Good question. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about this week's two-parter on COINTELPRO, and how they both think about those initiatives. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In part two of this topic, the show looks at some of the specifics of the COINTELPROs that targeted black liberation organizations and the New Left, as well as how these programs were finally exposed to the public.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

FBI surveillance of people associated with the civil rights movement has come up on the show many times. Today, we’re going to talk about the history of the FBI, especially as it related to communism and “subversive threats,” and how that fed directly into COINTELPRO. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2017 episode covered the Scopes Trial, aka the Monkey Trial, that played out in Dayton, Tennessee in the summer of 1925. It all stemmed from a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy shares how she landed at the topic of Ignatius Sancho, and she and Holly discuss his writing style. Free Frank's unique story, and how it involves some contradictory situations, is also discussed. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Free Frank McWorter was the first black man in the U.S. to design a town and establish a multi-racial community. He did this despite having been born into slavery. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Ignatius Sancho was the first black Briton known to vote in a parliamentary election – that happened in 1774. He became something of a celebrity in 18th-century London. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode travels back to a 2018 episode. Perceptions and interpretations of Phillis Wheatley's life and work have shifted since the 18th century. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about the soothing nature of bonsai as well as the places in popular culture it pops up. They also unpack the complex nature of talking about Flexner's legacy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Flexner Report in the early 20th century is often credited with changing the medical field and shaping what medical education looks like today. But this document negatively impacted medicine in the black community.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Bonsai’s origins go all the way back to ancient China, long before Japan became infatuated with the art form. Over time, the western world also became fascinated with bonsai, though there has been plenty of cultural confusion about it along the way. This episode is sponsored by Mazda. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The second of our 2016 episodes on Robert Smalls. After his daring and impressive escape from slavery, Smalls was considered to be contraband, which was a term used for formerly enslaved people who joined the Union. But this was the beginning of an impressive career as a free man. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy share stories about touring, and the long period of time Tracy has been planning to work on the falsehood of Irish slavery. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This whole idea of Irish slaves distorts some things that really did happen. So today we’re going to talk about that history, and how it’s being twisted and misused today.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Since the podcast isn't going on tour this year due to the pandemic, we thought it would be fun to have an episode that's something we normally do as part of a live show -- listener questions. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2016 episode covers Robert Smalls, who was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839. He escaped from enslavement during the U.S. Civil War, in a particularly dramatic fashion. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about Tracy's chat with Dr. Rachel Lance, and the legacy of Thomas Dorsey. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For a long time, Dorsey lived a sort of double life creatively. When he combined the two forms of existing music he played, he created something new, and changed religious music forever.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy talks with biomedical engineer Dr. Rachel Lance about the cause of the H.L. Hunley disaster and the book that Dr. Lance wrote about the disaster and her research into the case. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2017 episode covers the story of the H.L. Hunley, which really begins with the Union blockade of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss the nuances of what becomes historically significant in our troubled times, and then the continued relevance of James Baldwin's work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

James Baldwin was a brilliant essayist, one of the chroniclers of the Civil Rights Movement, and a powerful voice against racism. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly chats with Sheffield Hale and Michael Rose of the Atlanta History Center about pandemic from the point of view of a living history institution, and also how the AHC, like many history centers, is documenting Covid-19. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2015 episode covers a black U.S. Army WWI unit that became one of the most decorated of the war. When these soldiers returned home, they were greeted as heroes, but were still targets of segregation, discrimination and oppression. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the unique identity of the Public Universal Friend, as well as whether Wat Tyler's story inspired modern storytellers. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

There were many transitional events between the the Black Death and the Renaissance; it wasn't a case of a one leading right to the other. One of those transition events was Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, also known as the Uprising of 1381 or the Great Rising. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Public Universal Friend described themself as a genderless spirit sent by God to inhabit the resurrected body of a woman named Jemima Wilkinson.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2018 episode connects to a lot of others in our archive. Ida B. Wells-Barnett fought against lynching for decades, at a time when it wasn't common at all for a woman, especially a woman of color, to become such a prominent journalist and a speaker. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about the evolution of Monterey's Cannery Row and the history behind the fictional podcast Tumanbay. Their discussion then turns to current events, the death of George Floyd and the protests around the nation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

First, a brief discussion of current events. Then, in a conversation recorded in mid-May, Holly speaks with the creator of the historical fiction podcast Tumanbay about the ways that researching the Mamluk culture shaped the show. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Monterey's Cannery Row is a busy center of tourism, but the area's history starts with indigenous people. Its association with fishing came from immigrant populations, and its reputation as a cannery exploded as that business was imploding. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2014 episode covers the 250,000 children in the U.S. taken to new families by train from 1854 and 1929, about. Except ... they weren't called "orphan trains" at the time, the children weren't all orphans, and "family" didn't always factor into it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about their experiences with home economics in school, and discuss theories about childcare as it relates to practice baby programs. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Practice babies were live human babies, cared for by college seniors who were temporarily living in home ec practice houses. The babies mostly came from orphanages or child welfare agencies, and were usually adopted after their time in the program. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For a time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had a whole bureau of home economics, which was run by and for women, and was a huge part of the response to crises like the Great Depression and World War II. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

A 2013 episode about Phineas Gage, who experienced a catastrophic brain injury and survived - though altered - for more than 11 years. Over time, he became one of the world's most famous case studies in how damage to the brain can affect behavior. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy ponder the psychology of a lifetime of deception, and discuss the complex nature of the Boers' position in their conflict with Great Britain. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After Duquesne made it to the U.S., he started a whole new life for himself, and worked for the rest of his life as a journalist, saboteur and spy. But eventually, all those lies caught up to him.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Duquesne changed his life story to suit his needs, worked under an estimated 40 aliases, and lived a life that directly involves a LOT of significant historical events. One of the things Duquesne excelled at was escaping custody.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Dipping back to a 2015 episode. Despite all the fun cartoons on the packaging featuring tiny humanoid sea creatures having wacky fun and wearing clothes, Sea Monkeys are just brine shrimp. But the story of Sea Monkeys and their inventor is actually pretty surprising -- and quite dark. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the charm of bees, and the strangely intriguing nature of Grover Cleveland's tumor surgery. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 1893, President Grover Cleveland noticed a rough spot on the roof of his mouth. This turned into a medical situation and led to a daring surgery that was kept secret from the public for decades.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Beekeeping as you might think of it today, with square hives and and a beekeeper in a white suit with a big veiled hat, is a relatively recent invention. But beekeeping has existed for thousands of years, basically all over the world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2016 episode covers John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which set out to create an armed revolution of emancipated slaves. Instead, it became a tipping point leading to the U.S. Civil War. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about Asoka and connections to pop culture, and the revelations of Catherine the Great's devotion to the arts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Catherine the Great is famous for many things. But one of her lesser-known areas of interest was opera. And she loved it as both audience and creator. She wrote a number of operas during her reign, many of which were comedic. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Aśoka ruled the Mauryan Empire on the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE. He was a real person – and is also a legendary figure within Buddhism.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2017 episode covered the beginnings of the Kentucky Derby. Since its inception, the Derby has become the nation's most famous and prestigious horse racing event. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about their relationships with emergency medicine and 9-1-1, as well as their appreciation for medical professionals. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this second part of our coverage of emergency care in the U.S., we’ll talk about an important white paper that was a turning point for emergency medicine, the advent of the 9-1-1 service, and the ambulance service that set the model for all others.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this first episode of a two-parter, we’ll be covering early emergency response services, a little bit of CPR history, and advent of the emergency care specialty for physicians.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Flashback to 2014! British Royal Navy lieutenant and artist Norman Wilkinson is usually credited with the idea of disruptive camouflage. But, another man, naturalist John Graham Kerr, claimed that he had the idea three years earlier. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The second 2013 episode in the story of the Haunted Mansion going from concept to fully-realized theme park attraction covers the reboot the team went through after the World's Fair and the loss of their leader. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This hist fave is from 2013. One of the most iconic Disney park attractions -- the Haunted Mansion -- had a development process that was anything but smooth. Budget and scheduling issues and creative differences dogged the project for almost two decades. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 2017 we talked about two children, green in color, who appeared in Suffolk, England in the 12th century,. The green children were written about in the 12th and 13th centuries as fact, but some people today classify as this tale as folklore. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2016 episode delves into Michelangelo's sculpture of Mary holding the deceased body of Christ. It's the most famous depiction of that moment in art, but that scene has been the focus of many works. And once, the famous version took a trip across the ocean. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We talked about Gorey in 2017. Based just on his art, you might imagine Edward Gorey as a dour Englishman, with the peak of his career sometime in the 1920s or '30s, whose childhood was marked with a series of tragic deaths. But Gorey was none of these things. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2018 episode is about Christine de Pizan who wrote verse, military manuals, and treatises on war, peace and the just governance of a nation. She was the official biographer of King Charles V of France and wrote the only popular piece in praise of Joan of Arc that was penned during her lifetime. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2018 episode tells Levi's story, which is historically interesting because it touches on a lot of important moments in U.S. history. His business was tied to the California Gold Rush, the U.S. Civil War and American clothing culture. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2017 episode covers the Australian Kellerman, who gets a lot of the credit for developing the women's one-piece bathing suit. But she was also a competitive swimmer, as well as a vaudeville and film star who designed her own mermaid costumes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This summer 2014 rerun features one ad company's wacky plan to actually dole out land deeds as part of a cereal promotion. How did they manage it? And was the land worth anything? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Another 2017 fave! In the late 18th century, Sarah Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler, also known as the Ladies of Llangollen, abandoned their life in the upper tiers of Irish society and made a home for themselves in Wales. And they became rather famous in the process. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss their favorite parts of this week's Unearthed! episodes, as well as the way that our current situation causes the unearthing of new information every day. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In part two of Unearthed! in spring 2020, we're talking about edibles and potables, shipwrecks, books and letters, and other cool stuff. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In today’s episode, we have some stuff that was reported during the last couple of weeks of 2019, which missed the cut for the year-end Unearthed! episodes. Also, episode updates, crime, animals and games.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2011 episode from previous hosts Deblina and Sarah covers the time when Mexico was ruled by a Habsburg prince: Ferdinand Maximilian. While Maximilian was unwelcome, he upheld liberal reforms and modernized the government. As his support dwindled, Mexico's rightful president worked to take back the country. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss Carlota of Mexico and how that topic was chosen, as well as the many connections between subjects of history. Then, talk turns to the ways that we still benefit from Larrey's work today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

While serving as a surgeon with Napoleon’s army in the 1790s, Larrey developed a system for getting wounded soldiers off the battlefield and into treatment. His dedication to providing care to anyone who needed it earned him the respect and admiration of France and its enemies. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Charlotte and her husband Maximillian became the rulers of Mexico through a plan concocted by France's Napoleon III. But the strain of conflict there, and French finances being withdrawn, caused the empress' mental health to decline. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2016 episode delves into how industries and governments had a really weird preoccupation with protecting people from margarine way before it was made with the hydrogenated oils that led to its unhealthy reputation in more recent years. There's even bootlegging involved. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about Annie Londonderry's cavalier relationship with the truth and the challenges of travel with the wrong clothes and bike. Then talk turns to a strange paper that Tracy read while researching rinderpest. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The declaration that rinderpest had been eradicated was less than 10 years, but rinderpest’s history goes back much farther than that. And the process of eradicating the disease really illustrates how it took a coordinated, international effort to do it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Annie Londonderry gained fame for being the first woman cyclist to circumnavigate the globe. Sort of. In the 1890s, she DID circle the globe, but there are a LOT of inconsistencies in the details of her story, including why she did it in the first place.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're jumping back just a couple of years to an episode on Ignaz Semmelweis made a connection between hand hygiene and the prevention of childbed fever in the 19th century. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about selecting subjects for the show while living in strange times, and venture into talk about Emily Dickinson. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Ida Lewis lived most of her life fairly isolated on a tiny island off the coast Rhode Island. But it was a life she deeply loved. In her words, “I could not be contented elsewhere.” Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss what it feels like, as people who study history, to live through an event that you know will be historically significant. To all of our listeners: Please stay safe, and thank you for being part of the SYMHC family. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2014 episode coverts he 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, which killed somewhere between 20 million and 50 million people. Nobody cured it, or really successfully treated it. A fifth of the people in the world got the flu during the pandemic. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss the advance casualness of recording entirely from home, as well as Max von Pettenkofer's psyche, and the fairly recent rise of the poison control hotline. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

How did the U.S. get to the point of having this one resource, specifically for poisoning, that’s so reliable and available that it gets printed on the labels of consumer products?  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Pettenkofer's ideas about how cholera spread weren’t exactly right, but they still had really beneficial impacts on the way we live. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this 2010 episode, previous hosts Sarah and Deblina trace the life of Tagore through his childhood to knighthood and beyond. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about aspects of Zanzibari culture that Holly had not considered prior to this week's episode, and Tracy's rewatch of "A League of Their Own." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In fall 2017, we talked about a strange cultural phenomenon. For a brief window from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, people in the United States were watching train wrecks for fun. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 2017 we covered the offbeat life of Marchesa Luisa Casati. While many have admired heiress Casati over the years for her life led entirely based on her aesthetics, she was also entirely self-serving. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 2015, we talked about Franz Liszt, who was a pianist, a composer and a conductor, and basically the first rock star who drove fans into fits of swooning and screaming. Some fans even stole the detritus of his life (unfinished coffee, broken piano strings) to carry with them. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The second part of this offbeat revisit! As the New York Sun's series of astonishing moon discoveries concluded, most people recognized that it was a hoax. But what made people buy into the tall tale in the first place? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This offbeat 2015 episode covers a series of 1835 news articles about some utterly mind-blowing discoveries made by Sir John Herschel about the lunar surface. The serial had everything: moon poppies, goat-like unicorns, lunar beavers and even bat people. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It's a 2019 show about urine! Spoiler alert: Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous by boiling pee. But he was trying to do something else: He thought the secret to the philosopher’s stone might be found in urine.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Back in 2014, we tackled SPAM's story. This famous Hormel Foods product was invented in the 1930s to make use of a surplus of shoulder meat from pigs. It played a huge role in WWII, and shaped the cuisines of many Pacific Island nations. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In October 2017, we talked about mysterious prints that looked like hoof marks appeared all over the English seaside county of Devon in February 1855. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We continue out offbeat 2015 story. Once the effort to import hippos to the U.S. got the backing of a politician, two men with intertwined histories, Frederick Russel Burnham and Fritz Duquesne, were brought on board to serve as experts and advocates. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

An offbeat episode from 2015: In 1910, the U.S. a meat shortage, and a water hyacinth overgrowth problem. The obvious solution to the dilemma: Import hippos from Africa. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was founded in 1943, and it went on for years after WWII. These women were athletes, some of whom thought they were starting on a career in professional baseball. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Zanzibar is a relatively tiny place, but its place in history is significant, largely because of its geographical position. Its value as a trading port led it, over time, to be the location of what’s often called the shortest war in history.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2011 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina covers an often-requested topic. Shakespeare is typically associated with cultural sophistication rather than violent bouts of near-anarchy. But this wasn't the case during the Astor Place Riot. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss diabetes, insulin, and the moral complexities that are often part of scientific research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Last time we talked about how diabetes has been described through history, including treatment before the development of insulin. Today, we’re telling the insulin part of the story, which was at times fraught and contentious.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

To lead into discussing the discovery of insulin, today we have a history of diabetes and its treatment in the centuries before insulin was developed, including the starvation diets that were used in the years just before the discovery.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2015 episode delves into how peanut butter got its name in the 18th century, but it's been around in some form for hundreds and hundreds of years. Its modern history features changes to the recipe and even a little litigation with the FDA. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss the ways in which the sexes were perceived during the time of Anna Morandi Manzolini and the aspects of Kemmler's story that made Holly very angry during research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After committing a brutal murder, William Kemmler was the first man to be put to death in the electric chair, at a time when a great deal of conflict and controversy swirled around the death penalty.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 18th-century Bologna, one of the most skilled and renowned anatomists and wax model makers was a woman named Anna Morandi Manzolini. Working first with her husband then on her own, Anna contributed to the medical and scientific fields immeasurably.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2013 episode about the Boston Massacre. That sounds like the slaughter of many innocents, but the reality is smaller and not nearly so one-sided. But there's a reason why we call it a massacre. And that reason is propaganda. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss the relationship between the Hemingway brothers and the challenges of claiming one's own island. Holly also shares her experiences spending an afternoon at the Atlanta History Center. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly was joined in the studio by historian Dr. Calinda Lee to talk about her work with the Atlanta History Center, and specifically the new exhibit "Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Leicester Hemingway's life was very much lived in the shadow of his brother. It isn’t until after Ernest Hemingway’s death that Leicester made his boldest moves in life.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2015 episode revisits an event that was half performance for the British troops, and half actual sham. It led to an attack on Dover by the Pennacook tribe in 1689. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy cover their experiences with croquet and historical stories that didn't fit into the episode, and then discuss the challenges in researching North America's indigenous nations histories when most narratives are written by white colonists. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

King Philip’s War was an armed conflict primarily between English colonists and Indigenous nations in what’s now New England, although there were some Indigenous peoples who were allied with the colonists.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Croquet's origins are murky, but because of its relative ease of play and low barrier of entry, it went through a surge in popularity almost as soon as it was documented. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2015 episode, where Holly chats with archaeologists Patricia Capone and Diana Loren about Harvard's Indian College, the school's importance to Colonial history and the ongoing archaeology of Harvard Yard. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly discuss the nuances of the Equal Rights Amendment's history, and the whaling industry that we discussed in the biography of Quaker Paul Cuffe. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Cuffe protested taxation, built wealth for himself in whaling, became a Quaker and used his fortune for the betterment of others. He was also an advocate creating a colony in Africa that people of African ancestry could immigrate to in search of a new life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The first version of the equal right amendment was first proposed almost 100 years ago. This amendment has been through cycles of support and opposition, but one thing that’s held true is that the loudest voices on both sides have been women. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2017 episode delves into the story of the Jamaican Maroons. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Jamaica's Maroon communities clashed with British colonial government. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk about George Sand's defiance against social convention, and the difficulty in discussing certain aspects of their most recent episode on activism. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We've talked about sit-ins on the show before. This time, we’re looking at other -ins – direct action demonstrations and similar protests that have some similarities to the sit-in movement.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

She was an incredibly famous writer of incredible output. Her behavior and personal style were almost as talked about as her novels, and these factors combined made her into a figure that was admired by many, despised by some, and completely fascinating. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Freedom Rides were happening at about the same time as the sit-in movement of the 1960s that we talked about this week – and involved some of the same people. Previous hosts Sarah and Deblina did two episodes on the Freedom Rides in the U.S. in September of 2011, and we’re playing them both together.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss one of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings that wasn't part of the episode on him. They also discuss Tracy's experience in school not including the Greensboro sit-ins, and how that Woolworth's has become a museum. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

David W. Collins recently sat down for a conversation with Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez to talk about their Oscar-nominated songwriting work on "Frozen II" and their shared love of music. That two-part special episode will start next week, so be sure to subscribe to The Soundtrack Show wherever you listen so you don't miss it! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On Feb. 1, 1960, four students sat down at a segregated lunch counter at the F.W. Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. It started with just four of them, but others joined, and sit-ins were taking place around the U.S. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Friedrich's painting career, most closely associated with the German romantic movement, continues to influence and inspire artists today. In his own time, his work was both lauded and controversial, and then fell out of favor for decades. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This is two 2010 classics from previous hosts Katie and Sarah, covering the relationship of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the abdication crisis that resulted, and their sympathies for the Nazi party. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In today's casual Friday chat, Tracy and Holly discuss the Elgin marbles and the complex issues that museums face regarding the repatriation of artifacts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's episode covers how the removal of Ancient Greek artifacts from Greece by Lord Elgin played out, how these sculptures became part of the collection of the British Museum, and why the controversy over all this has continued until today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Starting in 1801, the Seventh Earl of Elgin removed many classical Greek sculptures from Greece, particularly from the Parthenon and other monuments at the Acropolis in Athens. Pt. 1 covers the events leading up to the early removal efforts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’re revisiting a 2015 episode about the U.S. Ghost Army, a top-secret group assembled to create confusion and mislead Axis forces during WWII.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy discuss the great master gardener's work, delve into the moral implications of opulence, and weigh those against the value of the resulting art. They also discuss the nature of unconscious perception of others based on presentation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In part one, we talked about Le Nôtre's early years and his work at Vaux-le-Vicomte. Today, we'll pick up with his incredible achievements designing and executing the gardens of Versailles and his later life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Le Nôtre's work defined the French formal garden in the 17th century. Today in part one, we’re going to cover his life up to a project that was controversial not for Le Nôtre's part in it, but because of its implications for the property’s owner. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting our 2015 episode on Hokusai, who lived during a time when there was not a lot of contact between Japan and the West. But even so, he drew some influence form Western art, and Western art was greatly influenced by his own work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On today's casual Friday talk, Tracy and Holly talk about the surprising level of recognition Joan Curran got from male contemporaries, war debris, and the skeevier aspects of the "Tale of Genji." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Murasaki Shikibu, sometimes known in English as Lady Murasaki, lived during Japan’s Heian period. She was a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi, and is credited with writing the Japanese classic literature work, "Tale of Genji." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Curran was a Welsh scientist who developed a system of thwarting radar for the Allied forces in WWII. What we know of her work is entirely pieced together from accounts by her male colleagues, who, fortunately, recognized the importance of her contributions. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This classic from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina explores the controversial life of Caravaggio. He may not be as well-known as Leonardo da Vinci, but this amazing painter has been receiving more and more attention in recent times. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In discussing this week's episodes, Tracy explains how she tracks news stories on her Unearthed! Pinterest board, and she and Holly theorize about why some topics have a lot of interest clustered in any given year. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It’s part two of our year-end Unearthed! Today, we have some longtime listener favorites, including edibles and potables, Otzi, and exhumations. And some other stuff – beginning with several studies about what exactly caused the Neanderthals to die out. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It’s time for the end-of-the-year edition of Unearthed! Today we have episode updates, books and letters, shipwrecks, and animal finds, among a few other categories. Next time we’ll have the edibles and potables, clothing and accessories, and exhumations, among others. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Haile Selassie wasn't just the last emperor of Ethiopia -- he is also hailed as a messiah. In this classic episode from 2011, previous hosts Deblina and Sarah explore the astonishing life of Haile Selassie. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On this casual Friday chat, Tracy and Holly share their thoughts on the history of aspirin, as well as the amazing churches carved from stone in Ethiopia. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The complex at Lalibela was excavated from volcanic rock about 700 years ago, and has been in continuous use since then. It's connected to the overall history of Christianity in Ethiopia -- different from Christianity in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Just a little Christmas Eve cheer for our listeners as everyone keeps an eye out for Santa! It's our 2017 episode about how NORAD started tracking Santa. There’s some myth-busting here, and maybe the tiniest bit of bah-humbug. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

From its natural base substance, salicin, to the invention of its synthetic derivative form that we still use, the story of aspirin has its own controversy and conflict, including whether the proper chemist has been given credit for its invention. .  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2011 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina continues the bushranger discussion. After 1853, many bushrangers were native-born. Ben Hall seemed on track for a peaceful life until two wrongful arrests put him on different path. And then there's "Mad" Dan Morgan. who was known for meaningless murders, cruelty and violence. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It's easy to marvel at the work of scientists, both in terms of the scientific concepts themselves and in the ways scientists behave. Both of those things, as well as foreign language verb tense, feature in this casual discussion of this week's episodes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Helium and humankind's understanding of it sits at the earliest intersection of astronomy and chemistry. The story of its discovery also features two scientists who were working on similar ideas concurrently, with a surprising outcome. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

She was one of the greatest experimental physicists of her era, publishing influential papers before she was even out of graduate school. She made multiple major contributions to the field during her career, and became known as the Chinese Marie Curie. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

While Ned Kelly may be the most famous bushranger, he's certainly not the only one. Join previous hosts Deblina and Sarah as they explore the lives of early bush rangers in this 2011 classic. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly spend a few moments discussing the career of Alfred Wegener, and the needless tragedy of the events of the Italian Hall Disaster. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Italian Hall disaster happened during a strike in Michigan’s copper country, which lasted from the summer of 1913 to the early spring of 1914. On Christmas Eve, a tragic event played out that claimed the lives of dozens of people in Calumet, Michigan. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Alfred Wegener had a HUGE career outside of his ideas around what we now understand as plate tectonics, which had both detractors and supporters. He did important and respected work that touched on multiple disciplines. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 2011, previous hosts Sarah and Deblina talked about Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous bushranger. He became an outlaw in 1878, and his gang successfully conducted several raids. Now, many Australians think of him as a folk hero. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On today's casual chat, Tracy and Holly discuss their Texas tour, regional barbecue styles, and the holiday figures in the fourth installment of the Krampus and Friends Holiday Special. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Our holiday special is back! We're once again looking at holiday figures from around the world. Today, we’re going to have a mix of Scandinavian and Japanese traditions as we cover the nisse, the Yule Goat, and the Seven Lucky Gods. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In November, we toured Texas! So we selected the very apt topic of barbecue. Barbecue is deeply tied to language and history and culture, especially in the South – so this episode is about a lot more than meat. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina covers John Wilkes Booth's escape, his co-conspirators' attacks against other officials, and the strange connections between Booth and Lincoln. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It's Chutz-POW! week! Tracy and Holly discuss some of the details about Frieda Belinfante's life that didn't make it into Monday's episode, and talk about the importance of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh's comic book project at a time when there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors living to tell their stories. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're joined by three members of the team that works on the "Chutz-POW!" comic books series. Birdie Willis, Jackie Reese and Marcel Walker join Holly for discussions about Frieda Belinfante, using comics in education, and the future of this project. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Frieda Belinfante is inspiring as a musician, breaking gender barriers in becoming a conductor. She was also a member of the Dutch resistance, who risked her life again and again during WWII in defiance of the German occupation of the Netherlands. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2015 episode about Alice Roosevelt. The eldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt was a firebrand who never shied away from the public eye. She was nicknamed "the Second Washington Monument" because of her social power, which she parlayed into political influence. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tracy and Holly talk about the episodes that made up this week's two-parter on the Occupation of Alcatraz, including how they learned about Native American history in elementary school. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Occupation of Alcatraz started 50 years ago on November 20, 1969 and went on for a year and a half. Last time, we talked about context and the events that led up to the occupation. Today we'll cover how the occupation itself played out. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode gives context for the Occupation of Alcatraz, including a brief survey of U.S. government policy toward Native people from the colonial period through the 1950. It also covers some Alcatraz history and an earlier occupation in 1964. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy wanted to share a sample of the spinoff of Stuff You Missed in History Class: This Day in History Class. Every day, host Yves Jeffcoat brings listeners a small slice of history in a short-form episode. Today, we offer a sampling from Yves. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina covers Johann Dippel. Originally a theology student, Dippel began dabbling in chemistry, medicine and alchemy. Today he's remembered for creating a panacea that was used on a variety of ailments. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly and Tracy talk casually about the week's episodes, featuring the photography career of Frances Johnston and the devastation of San Francisco in 1906. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On the morning of April 18, 1906, an event that lasted less than a minute changed San Francisco forever. An earthquake and a series of fires devastated much of the city and had long-term ramifications.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Fannie Johnston is tied to SO MANY people and events that we have talked about on the show before. She’s like a history nexus point. And she was able to make a very nice living for herself as a photographer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2014 episode came up recently because of the event's inclusion on a television show. "Black Wall Street" was a nickname for Greenwood, a vibrant suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was destroyed in a race riot in 1921. And while Greenwood's destruction was definitely the product of racial tensions, the event was much more one-sided. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This is a new feature for the show! On these Friday minisodes, Tracy and Holly will talk in more candid terms about the week's episodes and their research. This first one covers Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins and Dr. Couney's Baby Sideshow. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Couney ran incubator sideshows, featuring premature babies. This is complicated -Couney was making money from these attractions, and his medical experience was questionable. But at the same time, premature babies weren’t getting a lot of care otherwise. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

England’s largest and deadliest set of witch trials were largely influenced by one man – Matthew Hopkins, who was known as the Witchfinder General, even though that doesn’t seem to have been an official title given to him in any sort of formal way. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Reaching back to a 2014 episode on Maria Tallchief, a Native American dancer who was the first grand ballerina of the United States. Through her partnership with famed choreographer George Balanchine, she helped shape ballet in America and served as an inspiration for artists from all backgrounds. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the 1860s, Mumler rose to fame as a photographer of spirits. Whether Mumler was earnest or was just fleecing people is a tricky question, in part because while evidence mounted against him, he always professed his innocence.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The story of Zona Heaster Shue's death and subsequent appearances to her mother as an apparition are often referred to as the only case in the U.S. when a ghost’s testimony convicted a murderer. But of course, there’s a lot more to the story.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2012 episode is from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. In the early 1760s, the so-called Cock Lane Ghost haunted a London home, communicating through knocks. The ghost accused her former partner of poisoning her. However, as more details emerged people wondered if the haunting was an act of earthly revenge. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Catacombs contain the bones of an estimated 6 to 7 million people. Their history is really two interconnected stories of mines and human remains, because in the 18th century, Paris was dealing with two huge problems simultaneously. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Murnau is most well known for directing the first vampire film, but the German-born creator went on to make a number of influential films before his early death. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2015 episode on a very fascinating corpse. Saponification is the process of turning to soap, and in certain conditions, cadavers do it. The Soap Lady is one of the most famous cases of an adipocere-covered corpse, but there are many like her. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Blue is the most popular color in many parts of the world, and it can seem like it's everywhere. . But many ancient languages didn’t have a word for blue, and some languages still don’t. This show was recorded live at a National Gallery of Art's NGA Nights event. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Baret was the first woman known to circumnavigate the globe. But her experience wasn’t just about the travel – she was working, and her work took her to places that were totally unexpected for someone of her gender and economic class in the 18th century.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It's an unsettling 2012 episode! In the winter of 1873, Alferd Packer led gold prospectors into the Rockies, but harsh conditions soon set them off course. Packer was the only survivor, and he looked oddly well-fed. He claimed he'd killed in self-defense. But was he guilty of murder? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this episode, we’ll go from the international agreement that prepared for a global airline industry up to the deregulation of U.S. commercial aviation in the late 1970s. And then we have a special guest -- John Hodgman came by the studio for a visit! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Since the possibility of air travel became a reality, many entrepreneurs were trying to figure out a way to make flight into a business. This first of two parts covers those early efforts, and the growth of the airline industry up to WWII. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2014 episode covers attacks on women and children of Gevaudan in the 1760s, which sparked a huge push to hunt and kill the mystery beast behind them. While efforts to track the animal struggled, France was gripped in terror. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Some of the Chicago White Sox players confessed to taking a bribe to lose the 1919 World Series on purpose, but they never admitted to actually underplaying. And the collective memory about this whole scandal is very different from how it all played out. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

As promised in July, we have some Unearthed this fall! We've got past episode updates,  cannonballs, things that are oldests and firsts, textiles, edibles and potables, and a little bit of creepy and eerie stuff at the end.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revising a 2014 episode today. In the late 1700s, medical colleges needed cadavers for educational dissection, but there were no legal means for obtaining them. This led to some unorthodox dealings in the acquiring of bodies, and brought New York to a fever pitch in 1788.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly sat down with Sarah Roberts, the Vice President of Goizueta Gardens and Living Collections at the Atlanta History Center, to talk about making history a living part of Atlanta's community culture. You can visit the Atlanta History Center's website here: https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Liston is most known for a tale about how multiple deaths resulted from one of his surgeries. But that means that his entire biography as a surgeon is dominated by the apocryphal events of one day. So today we’ll unpack his career and ethics. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's classic from 2014 features Hetty Green. She was the wealthiest woman in the U.S., skilled when it came to amassing a fortune. But her eccentric behavior and miserly ways led to bad press and a less-than-flaterring nickname.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

She was the Spanish empire’s most widely published poet of her time, and her work has survived until today, but not her own thoughts about much of her life. Consequently, her life, and her very complex poetry, has been really subject to interpretation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Venetian portraitist Carriera achieved a surprising level of success in the male-dominated European art world of the early 1700s. Her work helped popularize pastels and her portraits were commissioned by Europe's most prominent figures.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2013 episode about John Harvey Kellogg. His last name is famous for breakfast cereal, but was a 19th-century doctor with some unique (and groundbreaking) beliefs about health and wellness.His Battle Creek Sanitarium was home to anything but treatment as usual.  The first episode of Modern Ruhles is now available. You can listen to it here.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

United Fruit Company was Guatemala’s largest employer and largest single landowner when the October Revolution took place. It also controlled the railroad, the port and the utilities. And it feared that the new government threatened its business interests. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The 1954 coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala was orchestrated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Part one will outline the various influences leading up to the coup, including the involvement of United Fruit Company.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's episode is a classic from November 2014. 1920, the S-5 left the Boston Navy Yard on its first mission, with a crew of 36 officers and enlisted men. While performing a crash dive as part of a performance evaluation, the crew found themselves on a sinking vessel. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Anaxagoras and his work in unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos crossed the boundaries between philosophy and astronomy.. And it was, in many ways WAY ahead of its time –  ahead enough that he was criminally charged for it.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This case fed an already growing anti-Catholic movement in England in the 1860s. Additionally, it played on the shock of women being incredibly cruel to one another – something that was even used by the plaintiff’s legal team when speaking to the jury. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2015 episode about an international jailbreak! In the 1860s, a crew from the United States mounted a mission to Western Australia to rescue imprisoned members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood who had been imprisoned by Great Britain. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Godey’s Lady’s Book was the most popular magazine in the U.S. in the middle of the 19th century. Although it’s most well-known for its hand-tinted fashion plates, its content included poetry, fiction, household tips, music, and etiquette. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the 1600s, John Wilkins was planning out what he thought it would take for humans to travel to the moon. Wilkins managed to ride out a rocky time in England’s historycomfortably, and was well known; he appears in the diaries of Samuel Pepys. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2014 episode. Dr. Blackwell had no interest in medicine as a child. But she paved the way for women who came after her and changed the face of medicine in the U.S. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Benjamin Lay was a Quaker and a radical abolitionist who lived in the period between when the Religious Society of Friends began and when it started formally banning slave ownership among its members. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

There are multiple contenders when it comes to the question of who invented the traffic light. This episode looks at a few of the moments in traffic light history that got us to where we are today, as well as what made them a necessity in the first place.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we reach back to our 2015 episode on Diogenes of Sinope, the father of the Cynicism school of philosophy. He was also an incredibly eccentric figure who spoke out against pretense, and he used humor to convey his ideals Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’re finishing out our two-parter on thalidomide. This episode covers the response, including criminal trials, changes to drug laws, and debates about the legality of abortion, and how this has continued to evolve for thalidomide survivors until today.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Thalidomide has been described as the biggest man made medical disaster of all time. This first part covers what thalidomide is, the animal testing that lead its manufacturer to market it as safe, and its release into the market. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today revisits a 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. After a childhood spent roaming Europe, Freya Stark began saving money to take Arabic lessons. Once fluent, she traveled into areas few outsiders had ever been, documenting her travels in best-selling books.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Peterloo Massacre took place during a peaceful protest for parliamentary reform in Manchester, England. And there was a lot feeding into why people in Britain, and specifically in the region around Manchester, thought that reform was needed. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

When Robert Owen founded his utopian community, he wanted to have the best minds he could find running the educational system. He recruited William Maclure, who in turn brought many great minds with him. Their boat was nicknamed the Boatload of Knowledge. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a fun 2014 episode. In the mid-20th century, one ad company had a wacky plan to actually dole out land deeds as part of a cereal promotion. How did they manage it? And was the land worth anything? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We did a live show for the Indiana Historical Society about the town of New Harmony, Indiana in the window from 1815-1827. In that period, two different communal societies occupied the town, one right after the other. But one was far more successful. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Part two of this year's Unearthed! in July features some longtime listener favorites like edibles, potables and of course shipwrecks.    Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2013 episode. In the 1840s, Boston's West Roxbury suburb -- which was completely rural at the time -- was home to an experiment in transcendentalist utopian living: the Brook Farm community. The idea was to create an environment of balance and equality. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It's time for the July edition of Unearthed! And this one is in two parts! Today, we have updates and connections to previous episodes. Then some things about Neanderthals and early humans, and the unearthed books, letters and works of art.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Harriot's story is tied to SO MANY other notable historic things, including a lot of business with Sir Walter Raleigh. He’s really not a household name like many of his contemporaries, even though he was neck-and-neck with them in terms of discoveries.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2015 episode about French royalty. Much like many of the other mad royals that have been discussed on the podcast through the years, Charles IX of France was prone to fits of rage so intense that people at court feared for their lives. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This was the worst stateside disaster in the United States during World War II. Apart from being a horrific tragedy, the disaster itself and its aftermath were threaded through with racism and injustice.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Despite ascending to power in a court filled with intrigue, juggling relations with Britain and France, and both likely having mental health conditions, the reign of Ferdinand VI of Spain and his wife Barbara was surprisingly stable. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit an episode from 2017 about Ibn Battuta, whose 14th-century travels were extensive. He was away from home for roughly 24 years and during that time traveled through virtually every Muslim nation and territory, becoming the traveler of the age. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Military history rarely focuses on the women who lived through conflict and worked on recovery efforts. This episode covers women who assisted troops, buried the dead, nursed the wounded, and managed to survive the fighting in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Thomas Cook and his son John Mason Cook were pioneers of the idea of a travel agency to manage tourist holidays. But Thomas Cook was initially motivated by his support of the temperance movement and his deeply held religious beliefs.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2015 episode covers an event in 1944, when one of the most disastrous fires in U.S. history broke out during a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performance. Dozens of lives were lost and hundreds of people were injured as the largest big top in the country was consumed by flames. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

One of our biggest sources of information on Punt comes from Hatshepsut, who sent a huge expedition there in the 15th century B.C.E. The expedition to Punt is also an important and illustrative part of Hatshepsut’s reign. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the 1920s and 1930s, Sylvia was famous for shaping up starlets, cementing the idea that Hollywood’s beauties were aspirational figures for the average woman. Many of Sylvia's ideas about fitness were totally sensible, but she could also be quite harsh   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode reached back to 2015 for some LGBTQ history. In 1966, a restaurant in San Francisco's Tenderloin district was the site of a violent incident in LGBT history. After the riot, a grassroots effort grew to improve relationships between police and Tenderloin's transgender community. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Laurencin is a difficult painter to study. In addition to her work not quite falling in line with the artists who were her contemporaries, her personal papers are difficult to access, are censored, and have strict limitations put on their use.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The 1919 strike is the largest in Canada’s history, and shut Winnipeg down. While the strike started out as a simple labor dispute, there were many factors involved in how it played out, and a conspiracy theory that it was a communist uprising. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a fun episode from 2015. There was a time when Popsicle and Good Humor couldn't stop suing one another about frozen treats on sticks. Many legal battles were fought over milk fat, the shapes of the desserts and the definition of the word "sherbet." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After being forcibly admitted to a mental hospital by her husband, Elizabeth Packard began advocating for herself as well as the improvement of treatment in such facilities. After her release, she lobbied for reform to the asylum system. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Elizabeth Packard’s marriage started out well, but soon, her questioning nature exploration of new ideas about religion led her husband to decide she was mentally ill. He had her forcibly committed to the Illinois State Asylum and Hospital for the Insane. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're traveling back to 2011 for this one! Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sisi, is often considered the public's "favorite" member of the Habsburgs. She only reluctantly carried out her duties, but her murder created an outcry across Europe -- and the story doesn't end there.v Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The P.S. General Slocum burned in the East River in New York on June 15, 1904. It had been chartered for a group outing that suddenly became a deadly maritime disaster. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Humans have recognized thyroid disease for thousands of years. But in the 1930s. Saul Hertz had an insight after hearing a physicist's lecture that changed the treatment of hyperthyroidism forever.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this 2010 episode, previous hosts Katie and Sarah look at Ludwig II of Bavaria. From his opulent, solitary dinners to the amazing Neuschwanstein Castle, it's no surprise that King Ludwig II was known as an eccentric. In fact, people thought he was mad. But why? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Making basic pastes or doughs and frying them has been part of human civilization for centuries. From this, the doughnut eventually evolved, and also caused a number of heated debates along the way.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the summer of 1919, a wave of racist violence played out in the U.S. In many ways, the violence of Red Summer was a response to (but NOT caused by) two earlier events: the Great Migration and the return of black soldiers who had fought in World War I. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2011 episode of the podcast. Lakshmi Bai was born into wealthy family in 1830, but she was far from the typical aristocrat. In this episode, Deblina and Sarah recount the life and work of Lakshmi Bai, from her youth to her instrumental role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’re coming up on the 350th anniversary of Pepys’ last diary entry, written May 31, 1669, so it seemed like a good time to take a closer look not just at the diary, but also at who Pepys was beyond his famous chronicle of life in 17th-century London. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For two weeks in 1919, the city of Limerick went on a labor strike. During that time, the strike committee managed the workings of the city, including food supplies, and it even began printing its own currency.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today, we're revisiting an episode from 2015! People feel very strongly about time capsules, even though the contents are often a little underwhelming. What actually qualifies as a time capsule, and what are some of the most notable ones? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

When Arthur was selected as the Republican party’s vice presidential nominee in 1880, questions arose about whether he had been born in the United States and consequently whether he was eligible to be vice president at all.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 1882 and 1883, decades before women had the right to vote, Julia Sand wrote a series of letters to President Chester A. Arthur that may have influenced his presidency.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting a 2010 episode from previous hosts Katie and Sarah. Born in 1838, Lili'uokalani became the queen of Hawaii in 1891. Unfortunately, she was destined to be Hawaii's last monarch. Listen in and learn how Hawaii became a state in this podcast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Julian was a medieval mystic who wrote down her visions, which she called showings. In this episode,  we talk about her life in context of mysticism and how it fit into the context of Christianity in medieval Europe. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

When Godzilla first hit the big screen, there was no intention that it would launch a film franchise that would run for decades. Director Ishiro Honda intended to make a film warning of the dangers of nuclear testing and man's relationship with nature.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're traveling back to 2010 to revisit this one from the archive! Born shortly after the appearance of Halley's comet over Hawai'i in 1758, Kamehameha was hailed as the king who would unite the Hawai'ian islands. But how did he turn this prophecy into reality, and what happened to him in the end?  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly was lucky enough to chat with historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers, author of “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South,” which pieces together details that add new understanding of slavery in the U.S. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Dr. Alice Hamilton was a trailblazer in science and medicine, and dedicated her life to improving the workplace standards for laborers in an effort to reduce illnesses that came from working with toxic chemicals. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're going back to a 2016 episode today. In early modern London, there was a tradition of sorts where apprentices would amass on holidays and physically destroy brothels. One of the largest such riot took place during Easter week in 1668, and it was a complicated event. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On May Day in 1517 a riot was carried out by apprentices, journeymen and other workers. While this was an uprising of laborers, this incident, called the Evil May-day or Ill May-day, was also rooted in immigration and xenophobia in Tudor London. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Spoiler alert: Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous by boiling pee. And phosphorous is the first element whose discoverer we can name. But he was really trying to do something else: He thought the secret to the philosopher’s stone might be found in urine.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode from Sarah and Deblina from 2011. Many think of alchemy as a fool's pursuit, but alchemy has a rich history closely tied to medicine and metallurgy. Additionally, techniques developed by alchemists strongly influenced chemistry. So why don't we call chemistry alchemy? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly had the privilege of sitting down with Stephanie Stebich, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, for a chat in the museum. The discussion covers the building's history, one of the new exhibits there, and one of Stephanie's favorite items in the Smithsonian's collection.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Fair was a contemporary of Levi Strauss, living and working in San Francisco around the same time as the denim magnate, but though Fair often appears on lists of the richest men in U.S. history, he doesn’t have the same name recognition. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode from 2011 featuring previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. Born in 1527 to a Welsh family, John Dee grew to become one of Queen Elizabeth's most memorable advisors. Join Sarah and Deblina as they delve into the life and times of this scholar, statesman and sorcerer. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Last time, we talked about the many reasons Virginia colonists were frustrated by the 1670s, including the price of tobacco, taxation, and disparities between the richest colonists and everyone else. But another issue actually sparked the rebellion.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For a long time Bacon’s Rebellion was primarily interpreted as a precursor to the Revolutionary War, with patriotic colonists rising up against the tyranny of the British colonial government. But there are a lot more moving parts than that. This first part sets the scene and establishes the context of the rebellion.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're reaching back to 2011 for an episode from Sarah and Deblina about a woman scientist. The men who are usually credited with discerning DNA's structure won the Nobel Prize in 1962, but they used Rosalind Franklin's research. In 1952, she captured the best DNA image available at the time, and the Nobel winners used it without her knowledge. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Holly recently got to visit the set of LAIKA's new film "Missing Link," and the production team there agreed to be part of an episode about the history of stop-motion animation. This made for a supersized episode with a regular discussion of the topic, plus interviews with four members of the LAIKA team.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Nopcsa lived an adventurous, scholarly life, funded entirely by his family money. He identified dinosaurs, inserted himself into Albanian politics, and wrote volumes and volumes of books and papers. But his life was not entirely charmed.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're traveling back to a episode from 2014 about the Battle of Hastings, which is often boiled it down to a sentence: The Normans invaded Britain in 1066, and their victory ended the Anglo-Saxon phase of English history. But of course, that brief description really doesn't do the event justice. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The, founder of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America had an early life that’s somewhat surprising. But she was deeply interested in helping other from an early age, and when she learned about the scouting movement, she dedicated her life to it.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Our April Fool’s Day story is the tale of an elaborate hoax. It starts with the Scythians and how their artifacts became highly prized in 19th century Europe, and ends with an artist who came into fame as a result of his part in a forgery.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting the 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina on Laura Bridgman, the first deafblind person to be educated -- a feat accomplished by Samuel Gridley Howe in the 1830s. People from around the world came to see her, including Charles Dickens, who wrote about her in his "American Travels." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Had his life had taken a different course, he may have become as widely known as Albert Einstein. In the 1930s, Majorana contributed to the field of quantum mechanics in ways that fundamentally shaped the field. And then he vanished. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was part of the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. The 6888th was the only battalion of black women from the U.S. to serve in Europe during World War II. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2015 episode about Emmy Noether pursued a career in mathematics in the early 20th century in Germany, despite many obstacles in her path. She became one of the most respected members of her field, and developed mathematical theory that's still important today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Comedian Fanny Brice's personal life was often a mess even though her onstage personas were all about laughter. Even as her beloved, Nick Arnstein, was in deep legal trouble, she supported him, started a family, and kept her career going.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Fanny made a space for herself on stage as a comedian because she felt she could never be pretty enough to be an actress. And her personal life was a complete roller coaster. But she remains the original funny girl, making awkward her brand from the time she was a teenager. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2014 episode about Caroline Herschel, who managed to break the barrier of women in scientific fields far earlier than you might suspect, in part because of her association with her brother, and in equal measure due to her steadfast dedication to her work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Sappho is described as the greatest female poet of ancient Greece. Or, the greatest Greek lyric poet, period. Her reputation as one of the world’s finest poets has persisted for more than 2500 years, but the overwhelming majority of her work has not. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Dr. Raphael Lemkin is often described as the person who coined the term “genocide.” And he did do that – but was also the driving force behind the existence of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. Evliya Çelebi grew up in 17th century Istanbul as the "boon companion" of Sultan Murad IV. In his 20s, Evliya had a prophetic dream and spent decades traveling. During his travels he wrote the Seyahatname, one of history's important travel narratives. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Ships were of course carrying cargo for centuries before the idea of carrying passengers in any sort of vacation sense existed. But once the Black Ball line decided to prioritize passenger comfort, the development of the cruise industry began.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Most of what we know about Olga comes from the Russian Primary Chronicle, also known as the Chronicle of Nestor or the Tale of Bygone Years. Some elements of the story may borrow more from legend than from history – it involves an elaborate, gruesome, very thorough revenge … and then a religious conversion.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2015 episode about Katie Sandwina, who wowed crowds from an early age, first as a wrestling act and then exclusively as professional strongwoman. During a time when women's suffrage was a hot button issue, she cultivated an image of a perfectly feminine powerhouse. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Alexandre Dumas wrote such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, and both those books’ sequels, eight Marie Antoinette romances, and a BUNCH of other novels and plays. And essays. And travel books. And memoirs. And a dictionary of cuisine. Hundreds and hundreds of works.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

General Dumas sounds like a character out of one of his son’s books. Because he pretty much was. His life is a series of dramatic and daring adventures, including an impressive rise up through the ranks of the French military. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's classic is a double feature! First, Katie and Sarah's look at Dr. John Snow's famous "ghost map" in 2009, and then the related work of nurse Mary Seacole in an episode from 2010. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After the discovery of hormones in the early 20th century, new methods of pregnancy testing were developed. Some of these involved animal use, but how did the rabbit test work, and when did it get replaced? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The story of vodka is one that’s closely tied to cultural identity for several countries, but where did it originate, and how did it evolve over time? We’ll talk a bit about how vodka is made, where it came from, and how it’s expanded to a global market. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode from 2014, where we discuss the legendary wardrobe of Marie-Antoinette. Where did all those glorious clothes come from? In large part, they were the work of Rose Bertin, a milliner who found herself the stylist to the queen.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Paul Julius Reuter had a knack for filling in the gaps in communication systems, and make a lot of money doing so. And eventually, he managed to to turn Reuters - which he had named himself after - into the largest international news service in the world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Jackson is most well known as the first black woman to become an engineer at NASA. But she also worked to clear the way for other underrepresented people at NASA, in particular black women. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're looking back at an episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. She's one of Britain's best-loved queens, but Victoria's parentage made her an unlikely heir. When she became queen at 18, she rebelled from her upbringing. But an early marriage to her cousin Albert changed the way she lived and ruled. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The second part of our look at Gustave Eiffel's life picks up just after he closed down all business interests in South America, and leads into some of his most famous work, including the Statue of Liberty and the Parisian tower that bears his name.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Gustave Eiffel’s expertise in iron work was sought for projects throughout Europe and South America, and he worked on one of the most iconic structures in the U.S. His career is mostly an impressive series of successes, save one colossal scandal. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode revisits a 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. A 1792 law prevented African Americans from taking up arms in the Civil War. As attitudes against blacks serving changed, black regiments were formed. But prejudices remained until the heroism of black soldiers won the attention of the nation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Perdicaris kidnapping happened in Morocco in the early 20th century, but impacted American history significantly. It has been fictionalized in writing and film, but it is plenty dramatic all on its own.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode was inspired by the TV series "Outlander." The Regulator War, aka the War of the Regulation, aka the Regulator Movement, was a North Carolina event which arose in response to unfair taxes, poor representation and corruption. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2013 episode delves into a maritime history mystery. The Flannan Islands have been rumored for centuries to be haunted or have some supernatural darkness. In 1900, three men vanished from the lighthouse on Eilean Mor, leaving behind an unfinished meal and a mystery that's never been conclusively solved. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Sushruta’s Compendium is one of the foundational texts of Ayurveda, India’s traditional system of medicine. He’s also known as the father of plastic surgery, and was writing about medicine and surgery at least 200 years before Hippocrates. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Not only was Teresa Carreño the most famous pianist of her day, she is considered to be Venezuela’s first international super star. And her personal life was just as compelling as her public persona.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2015 episode is all about pianist, composer and conductor Franz Liszt. He was basically the first rock star who drove fans into fits of swooning and screaming. Some fans even stole the detritus of his life (unfinished coffee, broken piano strings) to carry with them.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Last time, we talked about Sojourner Truth's enslavement and how a religious vision after she was free led her to moving to New York City. Today, we’re picking up with another vision, which marked a huge shift in how she lived her life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Sojourner Truth was an abolitionist and women’s rights activist in the 19th century. But because a speech most famously associated with Truth is a version rewritten by someone else, she’s commonly imagined as a different person from who she actually was. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revising a 2013 episode about the Suquamish chief who is best remembered for a speech he gave upon discovering that Governor Stevens wanted land to build a railroad. However, the speech's origins are nebulous (and in some quotations completely fabricated). Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the first part of this two-parter, we covered ballet’s origins and early evolution. We left off with the founding of the Academie Royale de Musique, and the ways Jean-Baptiste Lully worked to ensure that his academy had as much prestige as possible.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For a long time, there was no formalized dance in western culture. Eventually, court performers in Europe were asked to also teach their audiences how to dance, blending the worlds of performance and social dancing, and creating a new art form. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In this classic 2010 episode of the Medici super series, Katie and Sarah follow up on the further adventures of Catherine de'Medici. Listen in and learn how the St. Bartholomew Day's massacre contributed to Catherine's notorious reputation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Wrapping up coverage of things found, discovered and dug up in 2018, this second in our two-part Unearthed! episode includes a little potpourri, edibles and potables, shipwrecks, exhumations and repatriations.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

It's time for Unearthed 2018, where we talk about the historical things discovered or dug up in the past year. Part one includes a bunch of research into human migration patterns, mummies, mass graves, and human sacrifices, among other things.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting a 2010 episode from Katie and Sarah about Catherine de' Medici, who remains the most famous female member of the Medici clan. Orphaned at a young age, Catherine survived struggles with childhood illness and eventually became the queen consort of France.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’re taking a look at Francisco Franco and the Spanish Civil War. We've talked about Spain’s parliament voting to exhume the remains of dictator Francisco Franco and relocate them to a state-funded mausoleum, and we’re giving that entire situation more context. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're taking a look at three creative works that have become staples of the Christmas season. All three of them have played a huge part in how people observe and celebrate Christmas in parts of the world, and they all have milestone birthdays this year. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode revisits the story of Charles Dickens on tour, featuring previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. Dickens is best known for chronicling life in London, but he also wrote about the United States - and not in a flattering light. When touring the U.S. and Canada with his wife, Dickens found many American customs repugnant.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Bolden is often referred to as the first jazz performer, and his playing is legendary. But his life story, cluttered by lack of documentation and misinformation, played out tragically after his ascension to the apex of the New Orleans music scene.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Mary Stuart is one of history’s most memorable figures, with myriad compelling chapters in her life. The Babington Plot was a convoluted bit of intrigue that she’s tied to, and it ultimately led to her execution. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit an episode from 2009 in preparation for a new episode coming this week about the Babington Plot. Although they were cousins, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart had little in the way of familial affection. Previous hosts Katie and Sarah take a closer look at the infamous rivalry between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Museum Hack writer Hayley Milliman joins Holly to talk about the company's irreverent approach to getting people excited about history, and discusses the new book "Museum Hack's Guide To History's Fiercest Females." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Several times over the past few years, we’ve done an episode on something from U.S. history, and afterward we’ve gotten notes from listeners about the same thing happening in Canada – although this episode starts with one that’s the reverse.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode from 2014: the Filles du Roi, or King's Daughters. While the building of a population in a new colony seems like a tricky endeavor, France's King Louis XIV launched a scheme to do just that by shipping eligible ladies to New France in the 1600s. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Nell Donnelly Reed built a successful business starting before women even had the right to vote in the U.S. Her story combines fashion, education, workers’ health and safety, kidnapping, and marital scandal. She is, like any historical figure, complicated.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Straw Hat Riot of 1922 is a strange piece of history, and it all centered around the boater hat. How did how the boater become so important to men’s fashion in the early 20th century? And how did that lead to a very bizarre conflict in the 1920s? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting the life of Phylo T. Farnsworth, often called the "Father of Television." His initial idea for electronic television came to him as a teen. He's also become something of an icon representing the little guy -- he battled big business in in a patent suit. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Any chefs in our listening audience undoubtedly know about Auguste Escoffier, but people who haven’t studied cuisine may not realize that this one man revolutionized food preparation and restaurant dining in ways that are still part of almost any meal you may be served today.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

San Francisco’s cable cars are the last working system of their kind. The reason they haven’t been completely replaced by more modern modes of transportation is largely the advocacy of a woman named Friedel Klussmann. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode from 2014 about makeup, which has a rich and lengthy history that spans the globe and crosses cultures. From 10,000 B.C.E. to the 20th century, people have been using cosmetics to enhance their looks -- sometimes with unintended side effects. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

There were four Mirabal sisters -- Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa, and Dede. The sisters are national heroes in the Dominican Republic, but they weren’t very well-known elsewhere until 20 or so years ago when they became the subject of the historical novel “In the Time of the Butterflies” by Julia Alvarez. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This show, performed live at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, covers a brief overview of USO history, and then delves into Bob Hope's involvement with the organization, which started in the early 1940s and continued for 50 years.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit our 2013 episode on Stede Bonnet, who left his family in 1717 and became a pirate. Despite having no seafaring experience, Bonnet's brief career as a pirate was eventful, including a stint aboard Blackbeard's ship and raids along the Atlantic coast of North America. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first Native American woman to earn a medical degree. She lived at a time when a lot of change was happening in the United States as a whole, and among Native Americans and the Omaha tribe she was part of specifically.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

If you don’t know Dwight Frye by name, you’ve probably seen one or two of his performances. He was one of the lesser-known horror actors that helped make the genre Universal’s great success of the 1930s, but he also had a successful Broadway career.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting one of our scariest episodes of all time, from 2013. From 1916 to about 1927, a strange epidemic spread around the world. It caused unusual symptoms, from drastic behavior changes to a deep, prolonged sleep that could last for months. Between 20 and 40 percent of people who caught the disease died. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Kristallnacht was a massive act of antisemitic violence that was named for the shards of glass left littering the streets in more than a thousand cities and towns in the German Reich. NOTE: This episode is not appropriate for young children. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

From her college years, Chisolm was politically active. Her drive and desire to make positive change led her to many political firsts, including being the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're traveling back to a 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina about catastrophic storms, which are almost historical characters in their own right, leaving indelible marks on the places they affect. Here, we cover five of history's most destructive storms, including the Tri-state Tornado of 1925 and the Great Hurricane of 1780. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For the west coast tour, Holly and Tracy talked about the fear of being buried, which reached a fever pitch in Europe and the U.S. from the 18th to the early 20th century. That fear led to some very interesting inventions as humans tried to ensure they wouldn't end up interred before their time.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

These are two entities with a number of similarities: They’re both women, often described as crones or hags, and there’s no clear origin point for either of them. But they’re very different as well. They come from different parts of the world. One has a scientific explanation; the other has a fantastical and colorful story that persists and has spread far beyond her origins.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This 2011 episode from Sarah and Deblina features the Fox family, which began hearing strange noises in 1848, and sisters Maggie and Kate started communicating with spirits. They built a career as mediums, and today they're credited with launching the modern spiritualist movement. But was it all a hoax? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Among other things, Sir Walter Raleigh was a courtier, an explorer, a historian, a Member of Parliament and a soldier. He was part of England’s defense against the Spanish armada, as well the Tudor conquest of Ireland, some of which was truly horrifying. According to some people, he is now a ghost.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After TV producer David Levy adapted the cartoons of Charles Addams into "The Addams Family," Charlie's life changed in a number of ways. As Addams aged, he sort of settled down, but as with everything, he did so in his own unique way.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2010 Halloween episode from Sarah and Katie. Today, Franz Mesmer is hailed as the father of hypnosis. His original pursuit was called mesmerism, but what exactly was it? How did it (supposedly) work? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Charles Addams was a compelling figure. He visited cemeteries for fun, he raced cars, he collected crossbows. But Addams surprised a lot of people in not being a an elusive proto-goth. He was a dapper, sociable, irreverent delight. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The sinking of the SS Princess Sophia was a massive tragedy for both Canada and the United States. But it was also really overshadowed by the end of World War I and the flu pandemic, so it’s been nicknamed the unknown Titanic of the West Coast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit an episode from 2014. Before Charles Worth, the idea of ready made clothes for purchase didn't really exist. Neither did the idea of a design house that showed seasonal collections. This one man's vision invented the fashion industry as we know it today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This uninhabited Italian island that has come to be called all manner of scary things, including, “plague island,” “island of ghosts,” and “the Venetian island of no return,” among others. What's the real story on Poveglia? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Violet Paget, more often known by her pen name Vernon Lee, was a historian and an art and literary critic, and she wrote on myriad subjects including music, travel, aesthetics, psychology and economics. And she was well known for her ghost stories. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a 2013 tale of a witch trial. Decades before the Salem trials, an East Hampton woman was tried for witchcraft. Before Lion Gardiner's daughter died, she accused Goody Garlick of bewitching her.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’re coming up on the centennial of the act of heroism that earned Alvin York the Medal of Honor. His name is known thanks to the 1941 film “Sergeant York,” but it takes a lot of liberties, and omits what he believed was his greatest accomplishment.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Her story is often told in a sort of sloppy shorthand: She went to Los Angeles to become an actress, failed, and then became desperate. But that isn’t a really accurate picture of Peg Entwistle at all.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting an episodefrom Sarah and Deblina about Mary Anning. She started hunting for fossils in Lyme Regis in the early 1800s. Around 1811, she uncovered the complete skeleton of an ichthyosaurus. She made several significant contributions to paleontology, so why didn't she always get credit for her work? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In part two of this interview, Mindy busts some myths about women and their work in the Walt Disney Studio, and shares some stories of how new techniques were developed by color animators. The topic also turns to the  1941 labor strike at the Walt Disney Studios that forever changed the company.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Mindy Johnson has spent years tracking down the stories of the women who shaped Walt Disney's life, and the success of the Walt Disney Studios. She contextualizes the lives and contributions of these women in the larger historical picture.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit a Sarah and Deblina episode from 2011. In 1872, the Equal Rights Party nominated Victoria Woodhull for president, but her radical views and an personal scandal caused her to lose many supporters. In this episode, Sarah and Deblina recount the life of the first woman to run for U.S. president. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Magnus Hirschfeld was a groundbreaking researcher into gender and sexuality in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work was dedicated to scientific study with the hope of dispelling stigma around homosexuality.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we've got our live show from our recent East Coast tour, all about Anne Royall. She was a travel writer and a muckraking journalist way before Theodore Roosevelt coined that term, at a time when there were very few women doing either of those jobs.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit an episode from prior hosts Sarah and Deblina. Between in 1917, hundreds of women got jobs applying radium-treated paint to various products. Many experienced severe health problems. Five former workers decided to sue the U.S. Radium corporation, and faced a campaign of misinformation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

As Anne matured and her marriage fell apart, she continued to travel between the Arabian desert and England, always working to improve her horse breeding program. Eventually, she and Wilfrid separated, and her final years were devoted entirely to her horses.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Anne was the daughter of Ada Lovelace (and the granddaughter of Lord Byron). While she was born into England’s aristocracy in the 19th century, her work breeding horses is what gives her life historical significance.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's episode revisits preacher John Humphrey Noyes founding the Oneida community in 1848. In this episode, Deblina and Sarah recount the rise and fall of the Oneida community -- including its focus on shared labor, gender equality and free love. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Christine de Pizan is often described as a late-Medieval writer. But just “writer” does not really sum up everything she did. She wrote  verse, military manuals, and treatises on war, peace and the just governance of a nation. She was the official biographer of King Charles V of France and wrote the only popular piece in praise of Joan of Arc that was penned during her lifetime.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're delighted to have Anne Byrn back on the show to talk about her latest book, "American Cookie." Anne shares her vast knowledge of historical baking and how it fits into the cultural history of the U.S. in the form of small, portable treats.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting part two of the Great Moon Hoax! As the New York Sun's series of astonishing moon discoveries concluded, most people recognized that it was a hoax. But what made people buy into the tall tale in the first place? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

From hand fans to today’s high-end air conditioning technology, people have always found ways to deal with heat and humidity. And as mechanical cooling became more ubiquitous, some of the cultural practices for keeping cool were made obsolete.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the late 1820s, north Georgia became the site of the first gold rush in the United States, predating the more famous California gold rush by two decades. It's also tied to some of the darkest parts of U.S. history regarding the treatment of Native Americans.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a silly two-parter from 2015. In August 1835, the New York Sun ran a series about some utterly mind-blowing discoveries made by Sir John Herschel about the lunar surface. The serial had everything: moon poppies, goat-like unicorns, lunar beavers and even bat people. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Two cities, both named Nogales, were established, one on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border, after the Gadsden Purchase but before Arizona’s statehood. In the summer of 1918, ongoing tension led to a battle at the border between the two. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Mary Robinette Kowal’s work has inspired several episodes of the podcast. She has just written a pair of books that are called the Lady Astronaut duology, and Tracy got the chance to speak with Mary about her work and its historical settings.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today revisits an episode from Sarah and Deblina about Bessie Coleman, who dreamed of becoming a pilot. Because she was a black woman, no American flight schools would admit her. Despite the obstacles, Bessie managed to become the first African-American woman in the world to earn a pilot's license. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This is the studio version of our live show from this years Seneca Falls Convention Days at Women's Rights National Historical Park. Lucretia Mott was small of stature, but made a huge impact as an abolition and women's rights activist, guided by her deeply held Quaker beliefs.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The word “riot” here is really a misnomer. This conflict wasn’t so much about property damage as it was about attacking people. It also wasn’t really about the zoot suits – although they had come to symbolize A LOT in Los Angeles when this happened.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's classic revisits an episode from Sarah and Deblina. Hedy Lamarr was an extraordinarily beautiful film star, but she wasn't just another pretty face. In this podcast, Sarah and Deblina recount Hedy's biography and her little-known career as an inventor. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Levi’s story is historically interesting because it touches on a lot of important moments in U.S. history. His business was tied to the California Gold Rush, the U.S. Civil War and American clothing culture. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’re coming up on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Amiens, near the end of World War I. Amiens was the start of what came to be known as the 100 Days Offensive, which was the Allies’ final push to win the war.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's episode revisits a Sarah and Deblina episode about historical hoaxes. For example, a N.Y. cigar maker once commissioned a gypsum skeleton to pass off as a 10-foot-tall petrified man called the Cardiff Giant. Join Deblina and Sarah as they explore the Cardiff Giant, Clever Hans, the Cottingley Fairies, Mary Toft's bunny births and David Wyrick and the the Newark Holy Stones. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

John Quincy Adams probably comes to mind as the son of second U.S. President John Adams, and the 6th president of the U.S. But he and his wife, Louisa Catharine Johnson Adams worked in the realm of international diplomacy for years before his presidency. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Continuing the 2018 mid-year edition of unearthed goodies, this episode will cover shipwrecks, exhumations, repatriations, and edibles and potables.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's show revisits a 2012 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. On May 31, 1889, the South Fork dam gave way, sending 20 million tons of water rushing toward Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The water swept up everything in its path, and it only took about 10 minutes to wash away Johnstown. But was nature solely to blame? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The July edition of Unearthed! is a two-parter this year. We’re breaking with tradition and starting with a few things that happened at the very end of 2017 but missed the cutoff for our 2017 episodes. We’ve also got some finds that institutions unearthed in their own collections, along with books and letters, beads, and some other things.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Jason is back to talk about his follow-up to his book "Rejected Princesses." This one is called "Tough Mothers" and it's all about feisty, smart and surprising nurturers. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The second installment of this Sarah and Deblina classic two-parter follows Gertrude Bell on her adventures after World War I begins. The British army asked her to help them retain their influence in the Middle East. But how did she get from there to helping found modern Iraq?  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

When Dred Scott v. Sandford was decided in 1857, the court decision ruled that enslaved Africans and their descendants weren’t and could never be citizens of the United States, whether they were free or not. But before that, Scott and his family had been free by a jury in 1850. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Dred Scott v. Sandford is one of the most notorious Supreme Court cases of all time. It wasn’t just about Dred Scott. It was also about his wife Harriet and their daughters Eliza and Lizzy. This episode covers Dred and Harriet, how they met, and what their lives were like before petitioning for their freedom in 1846. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This classic revisits an episode from Sarah and Deblina, talking about Gertrude Bell, the first woman to graduate with a First in Modern History from Oxford. Instead of marrying young, she went to Persia. Inspired, she traveled across the Middle East on numerous exploratory treks. But would it last in a time of war? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Libertalia, which, in truth, may be completely fictional, is called a pirate settlement, though the man who spearheaded it claimed he wasn't actually a pirate. And it was set up as a sort of utopia, where men governed themselves, and every man was equal. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Annie Edson Taylor was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Taylor’s whole barrel trip was part of a much bigger story of daredevils at this natural wonder, which is tied to its industrialization and commercialization. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode from 2011 featuring previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. To recruit troops for the U.S. Civil War, the Federal Congress passed the Union Conscription Act in 1863, which drafted able-bodied men between the ages of 20 and 45. Needless to say, this didn't go over well in New York.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Emma Lazarus became one of the United States’ first successful Jewish American writers, moving in the New York literary scene of the late 1800s. She also wrote one of the most famous poems of ALL TIME, and even if you don’t know her name, odds are you know at least some of that work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Orchids date back millions of years. But in the 1800s, the plants became a status symbol and the cornerstone of a high-dollar industry. Collecting the plants involved adventure and excitement -- and a high death rate.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode revisits the life of Dr. Virginia Apgar, who broke new ground in the fields of obstetrics and anesthesiology in the middle of the 20th century. When babies are born today, one of the tools doctors use to measure whether they're thriving on their own is the Apgar score. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We’re coming up on the 100th anniversary of one of the worst train wrecks in United States history. More than 100 people died. And even though it’s usually noted as the worst train wreck in American history, it was kind of a run-of-the-mill accident for the time.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today’s topic is a person who is sometimes called a 19th-century Rosa Parks. When Elizabeth boarded a horse-drawn streetcar in Manhattan in 1854, a chain of events began which became an important moment in the civil rights of New York's black citizens.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's episode revisits a Sarah and Deblina episode that revisits a tale of incredible wealth. When emperor Mansa Musa went on a pilgramage from Timbuktu to Mecca, he gave away so much gold that he crashed the gold market in Cairo. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

All six of today’s topics are mass evacuations of children and youth because of a war or other unrest, and include Kindertransport, Operation Pedro Pan, and Operation Babylift.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On June 30, 1908 at approximately 7:15am, the sky over Siberia lit up with what was described by witnesses as a massive fireball, or the sky engulfed in fire. For the last century, scientists have been trying to figure out exactly what happened.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This is a revisit of a Sarah and Deblina episode on Alan Turing, who conceived of computers decades before anyone was building one. He also acted as a top-secret code breaker during World War II. Despite his accomplishments, he was prosecuted as a homosexual by the British government. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Hurricane San Ciriaco struck Puerto Rico at a precarious point in its history. The United States had just taken possession of the island, and the 40 or so years leading up to the Spanish-American War had also been particularly tumultuous.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Eltinge was one of the highest-paid and most famous actors of the early 20th century, and acted alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino. What made him famous was his skill at female impersonation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're traveling back to a 2013 episode about Margery Kempe. Born in the 1300s, Margery had 14 children with her husband before dedicating her life to God. In her 40s, she began a vision-inspired pilgrimage to visit holy sites, and these travels became the basis for her spiritual autobiography.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Carmen Miranda is one of those historical figures who remains hugely iconic – we STILL see her image, or some derivative of it, on a regular basis. She was luminous on camera and an excellent singer, with a personality much larger than her small stature. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Ida B. Wells-Barnett connects to a lot of episodes in our archive. She fought against lynching for decades, at a time when it wasn’t common at all for a woman, especially a woman of color, to become such a prominent journalist and a speaker. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a yummy topic from 2013! There is actually some disagreement about the actual origin point of ice cream, but almost everyone agrees it's delicious. The real origin story is a culmination of many cultures and ingredients coming together to fill the need for a frosty treat. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Even as his career in comics was at its zenith, Winsor McCay continued to explore other business ventures for his art. He added vaudeville performances to his busy schedule, and then became an animation pioneer.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

McCay is credited as a pioneer in early animation. But before he made drawings come to life, he worked as a billboard artist, an artist-journalist, and then a comics creator for newspapers.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we revisit an episode on the technology of yesteryear. Long before Czech playwright Karel Capek coined the term "robot" in his 1920 play "R.U.R.," mechanized creations - automata - were being created without electronics or computers. Many were simple, but they paved the way for the robots of today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

James Whale created iconic films in the early half of the 20th century. He's one of the main reasons that Universal Pictures became synonymous with the horror genre. But his interests as a creator were far wider than creating gothic spook stories. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

“Defenestrate” just means “to throw out of a window.” And apart from sounding like the punch line to a joke about Daleks … there has been a surprising amount of defenestration in Czech history. And almost all of it has been connected religious wars. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting another episode from Sarah and Deblina., in which they talk about how the Brontë sisters quickly rose from obscurity to notoriety after their three novels were published under the Bell pseudonym.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the 1890s, Frank Lenz started a bicycle tour around the world. He never finished, and his ultimate fate remains uncertain, though there are pretty solid clues indicating how he met his end.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team were segregated units for soldiers of Japanese descent that were created during WWII. The story of these units is closely intertwined with the Military Intelligence Service as well.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This classic revisits the Brontë sisters. They're considered some of the best writers of the 19th century but their past may surprise you. Join Sarah and Deblina as they discuss the sisters' childhood tragedies, unconventional educations and their imaginary worlds. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Every carried out what’s been described as the most profitable and brutal pirate raid in history. It became a massive international incident, and Britain tried to repair its relationship with the Mughal Empire through a highly publicized series of trials. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Lotte was interested in silhouettes and paper cutting from the time she was a child. And she developed that interest into animation, and created the first feature-length animated film in the 1920s. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's episode revisits the story of Jimmy Winkfield, who won the Kentucky Derby twice. When this podcast was published originally, he was the last African-American jockey to win the race. Winkfield moved abroad in 1904 to continue his career, but it wasn't until 2005 that Congress honored his work.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The 1917 Bisbee Deportation has elements of a labor strike, a wartime hysteria, a vigilante mob, and a mass propaganda effort, all rolled into one. It took place in Bisbee, Arizona, southeast of Tucson and close to the U.S. border with Mexico. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Mohenjo Daro is in the Indus river valley in present-day southern Pakistan. This ancient city has a unique identity in that we don’t know a lot about the people who lived there; most of the ideas of the cultural identity come from analysis of its ruins. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Ambrose Bierce was a soldier, a journalist, an editor, a satirist and a philosopher. He was a complicated man with an unwavering moral code and a life of experiences both fantastic and horrific, which informed his writing.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Scott eventually managed to break into NASCAR racing, becoming the first black driver to do so. His career was a constant struggle, as he paid his own way and often had to be his own pit crew while competing against sponsored drivers.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Wendell Scott was a black driver from the early days of NASCAR. After driving a taxi, working as a mechanic, and hauling moonshine, he started racing in the Dixie Circuit and other non-NASCAR races in Virginia. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

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Today, there is an entire industry around celebrity chefs. But the first celebrity chef in the western world's history was born in late 18th-century France. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The city of Ephesus fell under many different rulers throughout its history, as wars and shifting politics changed Asia Minor. For centuries, it endured, became a successful trade port, and was home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today, we're going back to  an episode about kitties in history! The human culture shift to an agricultural lifestyle started the domestication of animals. Cats naturally moved in to help with rodents.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Elbridge Gerry signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. Gerrymandering is the drawing of political districts to give a particular party or group an advantage or disadvantage, and it's named after him. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Brown was born into slavery and escaped in an astonishing way. His story of gaining his freedom was so sensational that he basically spent the rest of his life making a living talking about it in one form or another. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting an episode from Sarah and Katie. Born in 1864, Nellie Bly wasn't your average journalist. She feigned insanity to gain entry into a mental institution. Join Sarah and Katie as they take a closer look at the life of Nellie Bly, America's original stunt journalist. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Battle of Cajamarca, also known as the Massacre of Cajamarca, ultimately led to the end of the Inka Empire. But it might have gone much differently had the Inka not just been through a massive epidemic and a civil war.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Great Britain's relationship with tea is part of its cultural identity. But before the mid-1800s, China was the only source of tea, which was a problem in the eyes of the East India Company.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting a talk with fashion historian April Calahan about the surprising ways that women of France protested German occupation during WWII. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Highland Clearances were a long, complicated, messy series of evictions in the Highlands and western Islands of Scotland, when tenant farmers were forced from their homes to make way for sheep pastures. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Carnegie was a child of poverty who became one of the richest men on Earth. But his life, while largely charmed, had a massive scar of bad judgment on it. He also decided that the most important thing he could do with his money was to give it away. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's show returns to Marian Anderson. An acclaimed contralto, Marian Anderson was barred from singing in Constitution Hall because of her race. The concert she sang at the Lincoln Memorial instead influenced a young Martin Luther King Jr. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Ignaz Semmelweis made a connection between hand hygiene and the prevention of childbed fever in the 19th century. He wasn’t taken seriously then, but today he’s known as everything from the father of infection control to the conqueror of childbed fever. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Born Constance Georgine Gore-Booth to a wealthy Protestant family, Constance Markievicz made a somewhat surprising transition to become a leader in the Irish Nationalist movement. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's show revisits one of the most pivotal events in modern Irish history. It was a precursor to a number of other events that have happened since then, both within and outside of Ireland. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Cassie Chadwick (born Elizabeth Bigley) committed fraud at a level that would be almost impossible to pull off in today’s world of instant communication. Her biggest con was convincing banks that she was the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Leeuwenhoek wasn’t REALLY a scientist -- he had no formal training. But he made dozens of scientific discoveries. He’s credited with discovering microscopic life in a variety of forms, using lenses he ground himself. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This classic revisits the Luddite uprising -- protests in northern England, in which workers smashed machines in mills and factories. This wasn't the first organized violence against mechanization, but Luddites became iconic machine-breakers. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Vasari was an artist and architect in 16th-century Italy. But what really made him famous was his writing. He penned biographies of famous artists, but he wasn't exactly exacting about the details. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Perceptions and interpretations of Phillis Wheatley's life and work have shifted since the 18th century. This episode examines Wheatley's published writing while enslaved, and how her place in the world of black literature rose, fell, and rose again. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting the story of a a mysterious beast that trampled a woman in Arizona in 1883. First described as a demon, the creature turned out to be a camel. But what was it doing in the American Southwest in the first place? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The show's 1000th episode continues the story of Sadako Sasaki, who died of A-bomb sickness after the bombing of Hiroshima. This second part of her story focuses on the peace movement that grew out of her life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

At the end of World War II, the United States used atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A young girl named Sadako Sasaki eventually developed A-bomb disease as a result of her exposure, and the origami crane became a symbol of her story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting an episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. The Lone Ranger has traditionally been portrayed by white actors, but many believe this character is based on a former slave named Bass Reeves. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

On February 21, 1918, the last known Carolina parakeet died at the Cincinnati Zoo. We examine the stories of this endling and two others to see how abundant species can quickly become extinct. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The story of the Menehune is one that's been handed down through oral history for generations. But can the roots of this mythological group of people be traced to real-world events? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode revisits the Villisca murders. In 1912, a small Iowa town was the scene of a chilling and brutal crime. Eight people were murdered in their beds by an assailant who has never been identified. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Gertrude Stein is an icon in the world of modernist literature. Alice B. Toklas is often described as her partner and assistant, but she was also published writer, and “assistant” really doesn't cover how important she was to Stein’s life and work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The battle over Prohibition is often framed as a battle of the sexes, with women serving as the “moral” voice of sobriety. But a woman named Pauline Sabin is often credited as being one of the major activists behind Prohibition’s repeal. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode revisits the story of poet, philosopher and theologian Abelard, and his student Heloise. This is a tragic love story, complete with lovers forced apart, a secret marriage, a castration and repeated exhumations. Happy Valentine's Day! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Memphis sanitation workers stayed off the job starting January 12, 1968 in a strike that lasted for nine weeks. This was the strike that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assassinated on April 4 of that year. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This is often held up as one of history’s great love stories – Plutarch wrote that Pericles kissed Aspasia every single day. And that’s very sweet and romantic, but their high-profile relationship was central to a key period in Greek history. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's classics revisits an episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina about James Armistead. He was a slave in Virginia, but got his master's approval to enlist when the Revolutionary War came. Armistead worked as a spy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Mary-Russel Ferrell Colton was a painter, author and educator. But she's most famous for co-founding of the Museum of Northern Arizona and related programs and projects intended to preserve and continue the art traditions of the Colorado Plateau. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

At a time when many women sought husbands to ensure financial stability, Anne Lister was looking for a wife. She was also writing thousands of pages of diaries, including sections written in code about her relationships. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're visiting an episode from past hosts Katie and Sarah. When the philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg sought mechanical explanations for nature, he found himself struggling with his faith as he searched for evidence of the human soul. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the 8th century, a document was written that had a lasting impact on the course of medieval Europe. The Donation of Constantine granted a large amount of Roman Empire land and power to Pope Sylvester I and his successors. It was a fake. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Griswold is most commonly known as Edgar Allan Poe's rival, and for creating negative characterizations of Poe that have endured more than a century. But his life story beyond his connections to Poe is worthy of examination on its own. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today’s classic podcast comes to us from previous hosts Katie and Sarah. Coming up on January 22, 2018 is the 230th birthday of George Gordon, Lord Byron. Who was this poet, and why is he associated with so many historical figures? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 1898, a mob of armed white men enacted a violent plan against Wilmington, North Carolina’s black community. It was the only known successful coup d’état in U.S. history; the white mob overthrew the duly elected government of Wilmington. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Resistance to post-Civil War reconstruction efforts, hotly contested elections, political corruption, and open racism all led to a climate of unrest and white supremacist violence in late 19th-century Wilmington, North Carolina. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This classic episode revisits the Phoenicians, great ship-builders, sailors and textile experts. But they're most known for developing the alphabet that many modern alphabets are descended from. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tuberculosis is often thought of as a disease of the past, but it remains a problem in many parts of the world. Microbiologist and author Kathryn Lougheed joins Holly for a discussion of TB’s long history and the need to address it in the modern age. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We have talked before on the show about pioneers who advanced the medical field specifically as it relates to infants, and today’s subject is definitely another to add to that list. But, there are some problematic elements to her story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting the life of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, who was a chemist, biologist, geologist, physiologist, and economist. But at the end of the day, he's most often referred to as the father of modern chemistry. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In part two of our annual recap, we walk through what's been literally and figuratively unearthed in 2017, including things institutions found in their own collections, exhumations, repatriations, and edibles and potables. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In our annual recap, we walk through what's been literally and figuratively unearthed in 2017, including anticlimactic headlines, shipwrecks, medical finds, and a collection we've nicknamed "We told you so." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's classic episode revisits Sophie Blanchard, a timid girl who grew into a trailblazer, and became famous in the early 1800s as the first woman to become a career balloonist. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today, the U.S.S. Indianapolis is most known for its crew’s horrifying wait for rescue after being torpedoed following a secret mission at the end of World War II. But the ship’s history goes back much farther than that. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The story that circulates about how NORAD started tracking Santa is pretty heart-warming, but doesn’t completely hold up. So there’s some myth-busting here, and maybe the tiniest bit of bah-humbug. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For Christmas, we're revisiting an episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. During the first Christmas of World War I, British and German soldiers laid down their weapons and celebrated the holiday together. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The exploits of the Special Operations Executive are the stuff of legend. This episode continues to look at a few of the group's missions, and what became of the SOE after WWII. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After the Germans invaded France in 1940, an idea sprouted in the highest levels of Great Britain's leadership. From that idea, the Special Operations Executive was born. And in many ways, it changed the way wars were fought forever. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

A revisit to an episode on fairly recent history: In 1988, the appointment of a hearing president at Gallaudet University sparked a protest that changed the course of both the school and deaf culture in America. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tasty treats associated with winter holidays - candy canes, wassail and gingerbread - have some slightly hazy origins, because the evidence of their histories was eaten. What do we actually know about these foods and their place in the holiday menu? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode features three unique women, all of whom are notable in their own way. The two things they have in common: They each have a surprising aspect to their stories, and they each have the name Belle. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode about settlers bringing animals and plants to Australia, including rabbits. The rabbit population exploded, and rabbit-controlling fences were started by the 1880s. Work on the State Barrier Fence began in 1901, and it's still maintained today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This small island off the west coast of Ireland recently became a film star, but Skellig Michael has a rich history all its own. An ancient monastery, lighthouses and the island's status as a bird sanctuary all make up its story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This installation of Six Impossible Episodes is a bit of a hodge podge, with several oft-requested topics. Included are Olive Yang, the Silent Parade of 1917, Glencoe Massacre, Marion Downs, Lena Himmelstein and the Great Windham Frog Fight of 1754. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today, we're revisiting an episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. The Halifax Explosion was one of history's worst man-made, non-nuclear explosions. The disaster killed about 2,000 people, and part of the city was completely leveled. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Despite the huge impact the Lumières made with their multi-function motion picture camera, they didn't stay in the movie business. Louis went back to photography, and Auguste took a very different path. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Lumières are often associated with early film technology, but that wasn't the only area where they innovated. This first of two parts covers their early life, and how they went from a successful photography business into building a film camera. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today we're revisiting a bit of Japanese history. Thanks to the pillow book of lady-in-waiting Sei Shonagon, we have a first-person account of court life in Heian Japan. It's a diary and essay collection that's thoroughly fascinating. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 1966, a mining disaster in Aberfan, Wales, killed 144 people. It was a completely preventable tragedy, but none of the victims were in the mine itself, and 116 of them were children. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Great Britain’s efforts to control southern Africa eventually led to war with the Zulu Kingdom. A brutal series of engagements claimed the lives of many British and Zulu soldiers, but Britain’s portrayal of events minimized poor leadership decisions. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting a classic episode, all about early strides in treating smallpox, which has been around longer than recorded history. Edward Jenner made great strides in eradicating it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In 1904, the Fort Shaw Indian School women’s basketball team spent four months at the St. Louis World’s Fair. The team performed mandolin recitals, literary recitations, demonstrations of gymnastics and calisthenics, and became World Champions. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The Fort Shaw Indian School was part of a boarding school system designed to make Native American students conform to white culture. In a surprising twist, it also boasted a champion women’s basketball team. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today's show revisits the story of a Chicago heiress who helped develop forensic investigation standards still in use today. Her most notable contribution to the field came in the form of tiny homicide dioramas. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In November 1917, guards at the Occoquan Workhouse assaulted and terrorized 33 women from the National Woman’s Party. They were serving sentences for charges like “obstructing sidewalk traffic” after peacefully protesting in front of the White House. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Even in its youth, Hollywood's rapidly growing film industry had a reputation for debauchery. When a high-profile director was murdered, it added to that image, and revealed that Taylor, like so many in Hollywood, had lots of secrets. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This week, we're revisiting an episode from previous hosts! During World War II, the Nazi party did not tolerate dissent, but some Germans did attempt to resist Hitler's government including the White Rose, a secret resistance group. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Katharina von Bora, Marguerite d’Angoulême and Jeanne d’Albret all left their mark on the Reformation, but all in different ways. Each of them has a unique part in the battle over religious affiliation in 16th-century Europe. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Carl Tanzler loved a woman, and his love for her continued long after her death. But whether she loved him back is a matter of dispute. Just the same, he removed her from her tomb so she could 'live' with him. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Today, in honor of Halloween weekend, we're revisiting an episode about vampirism. Starting in the late 1700s and, small rural communities in New England were sometimes stricken with a panicked fear that the dead were feeding off the living. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Based just on his art, you might imagine Edward Gorey as a dour Englishman, with the peak of his career sometime in the 1920s or '30s, whose childhood was marked with a series of tragic deaths. But Gorey was none of these things. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

After a traumatic event, strange things began happening around Esther Cox. In the 1870s, Amherst, Nova Scotia was abuzz with theories as to whether the phenomena were the work of a poltergeist, strange electrical charges, or a hoax. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting an episode from previous hosts! After Aaron Burr slew Alexander Hamilton in the duel of 1804, his legislative career was over. In March of 1805, Burr left the political sphere and moved west, but his story doesn't end there. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Aaron Burr's daughter was incredibly smart and very well educated. She also vanished without a trace as an adult, and her ultimate fate is still a matter of debate. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Before there were superheroes, a Swiss teacher drew entertaining doodles for friends. As he developed his sketches into stories told with multiple captioned images, he inadvertently invented the first sequential art comics in the Western world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting the second installment in the story of the Haunted Mansion. This one goes from concept to fully-realized theme park attraction and covers the reboot the team went through after the World's Fair and the loss of their leader. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the 12th century, two children, green in color, appeared in Suffolk, England. The green children were written about in the 12th and 13th centuries as fact, but some people today classify as this tale as folklore. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Not only was he a star as an actor, he was famed for his use of makeup. He was passionate about completely transforming himself for each role, and was determined to keep his life off screen as private as possible. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This classic episode dives into one of the most iconic Disney park attractions -- the Haunted Mansion. Its development process that was anything but smooth. Budget and scheduling issues and creative differences dogged the project for two decades. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The loss of the U.S.S. Akron was the biggest single tragedy in aviation history at the time that it happened. But unless you’re an aviation or U.S. Navy history buff, you may not know much about this airborne aircraft carrier. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In February 1855, mysterious prints that looked like hoof marks appeared all over the English seaside county of Devon. But figuring out who or what made those prints is a puzzle that continues to befuddle people. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The image of Johnny Appleseed walking around in rags, barefooted with a bindle, planting apple trees and moving on is actually pretty accurate. Join Holly and Tracy to learn how John Chapman struck out for the frontier and became an American legend. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Hernandez v. Texas addressed civil rights for Mexican Americans, was the first case to be argued before the Supreme Court by Mexican American attorneys, and set a new precedent in how the 14th Amendment was interpreted in terms of race and ethnicity. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

For a brief window from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, people in the United States were watching train wrecks for fun. These staged spectacles would draw thousands and thousands of paying onlookers, but why exactly were they so popular? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting the story of Dr. Livingstone as told by previous hosts! In this episode, Deblina and Sarah recount the adventures of Livingstone and Henry Stanley, the journalist who found Livingstone in Africa. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

When we left off in part one, Emin Pasha had become governor of Equatoria in what's now South Sudan. But things took a dramatic turn in the 1880s, leading to Henry Morton Stanley mounting a relief expedition to go get him. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Emin Pasha's story connects to so many other historical things, particularly in the context of both the Ottoman Empire and African history. First, we'll talk about his time in Albania and how he made his way to Africa and took a new name. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

New theories have emerged that make it the right time to once again go back to an old favorite, the Voynich Manuscript. Since our Voynich Manuscript episode first published, the inscrutable book has been in the news a lot. What are the latest theories? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

While many have admired heiress Casati over the years for her life led entirely based on her aesthetics, when you examine her biography, you find a woman who was incredibly selfish and was even described by close friends as megalomaniacal. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

When people say the Wright Brothers were first to fly, they're talking about a very particular set of circumstances. There are other contenders to the title of "first in flight," and each has their own compelling story and list of achievements. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting the murder of Mary Ann Bickford on Oct. 27, 1845. Her paramour Albert J. Tirrell was eventually charged with murder. Tirrell hired Rufus Choate to defend him, and Choate claimed his client had episodes of somnambulism. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

As Louis XVI's time as king was less and less stable in the face of the French Revolution, Léonard stepped away from the royal family and into his own business ventures. But his loyalty to the crown would forever tie his fate to that of the nobility. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Marie Antoinette's hairdresser set the styles of France during King Louis XVI's reign. But when he first arrived in Paris, he had almost nothing. Just how did he manage such a meteoric rise? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting the story of large numbers of emus making their way through Australia, severely damaging wheat farms. The military tried to help, but may have just made things worse. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The story of the H.L. Hunley really begins with the Union blockade of the Confederacy during the Civil War, which was ordered less than a week after the fall of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The reason Emmett Till's murder played such a consequential role in the Civil Rights movement is because of choices of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. For more than 45 years after his murder, she continually worked to make sure he did not die in vain. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This episode revisits the biggest shipping disaster in Cayman Islands history, in which 10 ships went down together one night in 1794. Why would so many ships be traveling so closely to one another, and how did they all end up in peril? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

One man and his incredible intellect affected so many different disciplines. From game theory to computers to the Manhattan Project, von Neumann and his remarkable abilities helped shape the 20th century. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Humans have been recording instances of solar eclipses for thousands of years. Today, we're walking through some of the famous eclipses in history, all while wearing proper eye shielding. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

We're revisiting our 2013 episode on the invention of the sewing machine and the epic patent battle associated with it. The mechanization of stitching happened by way of a series of inventions, several of which finally came together. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Tudor hatched a clever plan: In cold weather, he would harvest ice for cheap, and then sell it all around the world when it was hot, singlehandedly turning ice into a commodity and becoming vastly wealthy in the process. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers