Stuff You Missed in History Class

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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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France’s mad king Charles VI reigned in the middle of the Hundred Years War between England and France. While his early reign hinted at greatness, things soon spiraled downward.

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We're revisiting a classic episode, about cheese! It's been around for more than 9,000 years. But how did humans learn to make it? And how did all the different types of cheese develop?

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Spurred by the same fears, prejudices and societal issues that were driving the progressive movement in general, the eugenics movement in the U.S. focused on identifying, sequestering and even sterilizing people who were deemed to be "unfit."

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The Sepoy Rebellion was the result of many, many influences and stressors on the cultures of India living under British rule. In Britain, it's called the Sepoy Mutiny or the Indian Mutiny, but in India, it’s called the First War of Independence.

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We're revisiting a classic episode, all about the Count of Saint Germain. His story features teleportation, alchemy and even rumors of immortality. Was he a spy? A concealed royal? A skilled con man? Or just a compulsive liar?

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Ibn Battuta's 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.

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Frederick Douglass was an orator, writer, statesman and social reformer. His early life shaped the truly remarkable advocate he became, and the two primary causes he campaigned for — the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage.

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We're revisiting a classic episode, all about Jane Austen. She was not a shy spinster who wrote some little books mostly to amuse her own family, and she wasn't a real-life Elizabeth Bennett. Her life was very different from any of her heroines.

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After her initial "smashings," Carry A. Nation became a full-time activist, traveling from town to town to destroy saloons and preach temperance. She turned her fame into a good income, and used much of that money to set up women’s shelters.

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Several events in Carry Nation's early life catalyzed her temperance activism. Her marriages and her faith were particularly important in shaping the woman she became.

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With a huge number of British Expeditionary Force troops stranded in one location, a massive evacuation operation was undertaken. While it was considered a success, the costs to the Allies were high.

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Retellings of the Dunkirk rescue often leave out how the Allied forces got into such a predicament, with a huge part of the British Expeditionary Force stranded. Today, we'll talk about the lead-up to WWII and its relentless progression into France.

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The NASA space program likely wouldn't be what it is today without the work Hugh Dryden did before NASA even existed, and his guidance in its early years. NASA's Chief Historian Bill Barry joins Holly for a talk about Dryden's impressive life.

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Despite growing up in a convent and coming very close to taking religious vows as a nun, Catalina de Erauso wound up living a life of danger and adventure. A lot of today's episode falls into the general category of "exploits."

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In the early 18th century, an engraver-turned-artist made his mark on the art world by producing satirical prints in series that commented on morality and society. And some of his work is used today as a teaching tool.

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It's time for another mid-year edition of Unearthed! The show covers new research and information about the Lions of Tsavo, human taxidermy, a photo of Harriet Tubman, and H.H. Holmes, among others. And of course, there's fresh Ötzi news!

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The Eastland disaster was one of the deadliest maritime disasters in American history. And in this particular case, safety regulations actually made things worse.

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Humans have painted roses, written about them, and assigned them 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.

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Animals and humans have been living together for centuries, but standardized veterinary care developed over a long period of time in many different places.

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In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio caught fire, not for the first time, but for the last time. This event is often credited with helping pass the Clean Water Act and inspire the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

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The extinction of one New Zealand bird species is often attributed to a single cat. While feline predation played a significant role in the end of the Stephens Island wren, the story is actually more complex.

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Most people know Wonder Woman as an embodiment of truth and justice, but don't know much about the comic's earlier years or its creator. Marston lived an unconventional life, and in many ways, Wonder Woman was an expression of that life.

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Riel was labeled both a traitor and a hero in his time. His work as a political leader for the Métis Nation in the Red River Rebellion led to the establishment of Manitoba. His involvement in the North-West Rebellion did not have a positive outcome.

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Australian Kellerman 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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As a naturalist illustrator, Maria Sibylla Merian helped dispel many entomological myths and improved the scientific study of insects and plants, and she did it beautifully.

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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.

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The Scopes Trial, aka the Monkey Trial, played out in Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of 1925. It all stemmed from a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution.

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Over the course of several days in 1934, Adolf Hitler, who was at the time the Nazi Party Leader and Reich Chancellor, directed an action which eliminated all of his political enemies and enabled him to declare himself Fuhrer.

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While he's known primarily as the astronomer who promoted the idea of a heliocentric solar system, Copernicus was also a master mathematician and a doctor. He worked for the church his entire life, and wrote a manuscript on devaluation of currency.

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This installment of our impossible episodes series features a set of stories that are all about front-line heroism. Most of them are listener requests.

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Cole was a lifelong prankster, but none of his stunts could compare with his scheme to gain access to the HMS Dreadnought by getting his friends -- including Virginia Woolf -- to pretend they were Abyssinian royalty.

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The MOVE organization is often labeled as a black liberation group or a black power group, but it’s more complex than that. After a protracted, contentious relationship with Philadelphia police, MOVE’s home was bombed in 1985.

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Although horse racing in general has been around much longer than the Kentucky Derby, including in the United States, the Derby itself has become the nation's most famous and prestigious horse racing event.

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Urbanization and mechanization, and all the downsides they brought with them, had continued in Great Britain in the years since the Luddite Rebellion. In response, a radical group plotted to assassinate the Prime Minister's entire cabinet.

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Abbott and Costello made it big in Hollywood during WWII, but the later part of their career together was beset by tragedy, money issues and personal problems that ultimately ended their partnership.

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The comedy team of Abbott and Costello created some of the most memorable sketches in history. Their perfectly balanced energy catapulted them from burlesque and vaudeville stages to radio, and eventually Hollywood.

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The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is one of the modern world's most infamous incidents of unethical medical research. The study's researchers told its participants that they were being treated for syphilis, but in reality, they weren't.

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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.

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One of the most diverse things about the U.S. is its food industry. Foodies obsessively seek out the “authentic” flavors of any given culture. But many of the foods brought to the U.S. via immigration were initially viewed with suspicion and disdain.

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There have been many moments in history when the world came perilously close to a full-scale nuclear war, due to false alarms or miscommunication. One such moment is the only known time that a head of state has activated their nuclear briefcase.

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