Stuff You Missed in History Class

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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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Tracy and Holly talk about Tracy's chat with Dr. Rachel Lance, and the legacy of Thomas Dorsey.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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James Baldwin was a brilliant essayist, one of the chroniclers of the Civil Rights Movement, and a powerful voice against racism.

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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.

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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.

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Tracy and Holly talk about the unique identity of the Public Universal Friend, as well as whether Wat Tyler's story inspired modern storytellers.

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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.

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The Public Universal Friend described themself as a genderless spirit sent by God to inhabit the resurrected body of a woman named Jemima Wilkinson. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Tracy and Holly talk about their experiences with home economics in school, and discuss theories about childcare as it relates to practice baby programs.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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Tracy and Holly talk about the charm of bees, and the strangely intriguing nature of Grover Cleveland's tumor surgery.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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Tracy and Holly talk about Asoka and connections to pop culture, and the revelations of Catherine the Great's devotion to the arts.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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Holly and Tracy talk about their relationships with emergency medicine and 9-1-1, as well as their appreciation for medical professionals.

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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