Stuff You Missed in History Class

The Easter Rising is considered to be one of the most pivotal events in modern Irish history, and it was a precursor to a number of other events that have happened since then, both within and outside of Ireland.

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Pizza-like foods go way, way back in history, long before we associated the delicious dish with Italy. How did pizza's pedigree develop, and how did it get to its second home in the U.S.?

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After his parents' home burned down under mysterious circumstances, Oliver Haugh was put on trial for murder. Haugh did little to help his own case, and hoped to be found insane so he could serve a shorter time in an asylum.

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In his early career Dr. Haugh claimed to be working on the next step in human evolution. But he was really a man enslaved by his addiction to cocaine and morphine.

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By the early 18th century, it was not uncommon for people in Martha's Vineyard to be deaf from birth. This had a profound effect on the culture of Martha's Vineyard - and one that went on to influence Deaf culture in the United States as a whole.

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Dr. Kali Nicole Gross joins Tracy to discuss a murder that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1887. The details of the investigation and trial offer insight into the culture of the the post-Reconstruction era, particularly in regards to race.

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Zheng He led expeditionary voyages from China in the 15th century. While there are many tall tales about his accomplishments, his actual life was pretty spectacular without them.

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The Tupac Amaru rebellion was a conflict between Spain and its colonies in South America which took place from 1780 to 1783.

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The duties of the women of the WASP evolved over time, and some of them were quite dangerous. And once the program ended, there were -- and still are -- controversies over whether the women involved should be recognized as military veterans.

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The Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII was formed to see if women could fly military aircraft, and potentially free up male noncombat pilots to serve in the U.S. armed forces. Our expert guest reveals that there's so much more to the story, though.

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Because of its functionality in providing needed clothing for humans, knitting 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.

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The beginning of Denmark's monarchy more than a thousand years ago is linked to two large rune stones at Jelling. Is it possible that the stones were part of an effort on Harald Blåtand's part to revise the history of his parents, Gorm and Thyre?

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Eureka Springs, Arkansas is home to a beautiful Victorian hotel with a long and winding history. A colorful part of that history involves a man who claimed that doctors couldn't be trusted, and that he had the cure for cancer.

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Hildegard was 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.

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When Hansen's disease was introduced to Hawaii, businessmen, especially from the U.S., were having an increasing influence on the Hawaiian government. That influence directly affected how Hawaii handled the disease.

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Language is alive. It shifts and changes; pronunciations and spellings morph throughout time. English is no exception.

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After the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, the punishment that Japanese forces doled out in China for their part in helping the U.S. was brutal and devastating. From terror occupations to biological warfare, many of China's towns were systematically destroyed.

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It's now a childhood classic, but the modern Crayola crayon has roots in the same company where carbon black was made for car tires at the turn of the 20th century. But people were creating art with colored implements before Binney and Smith made theirs.

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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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Robert Smalls 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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The Doolittle Raid was an attack on Japan launched by the U.S. in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. But the leader of the mission was a legend long before his daring efforts in WWII.

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While Michelangelo's sculpture of Mary holding the deceased body of Christ is the most famous depiction of that moment in art, that scene has been the focus of many works. And once, the famous version took a trip across the ocean.

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On May 30, 1948, a flood destroyed Vanport, Oregon. What really makes the story more than a historical footnote is how it tied in to the racial makeup of both Portland and Oregon at the time.

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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.

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Queen Victoria reigned for more than six decades, but her early years as ruler were peppered with a number of disastrous missteps. By participating in a horrible rumor campaign about her mother's lady-in-waiting, she ended up damaging her own reputation.

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The Honey War wasn't really about honey. It was a dispute over state lines. There are some bee trees in the mix, as well as some truly sub-par surveying work. It's a story full of silliness, pride and bureaucracy.

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One of the worst mining tragedies in history, the explosion that sent fire through the Courrières mine tunnels claimed more than a thousand lives. It also created awareness of dangerous issues in mines that hadn't received much focus up to that point.

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In 1888, a blizzard so sudden and severe hit the American Midwest and claimed the lives of hundreds, some of whom died just outside the safety of shelter. Weather prediction of the fast-moving storm simply didn't reach people in time to prepare them.

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The second part of our episode on the Australian diva focuses on her career in the early 1900s, her charity work and her belief that singers had to work -- and work hard -- to be constantly perfecting their technique.

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Born Helen Porter Mitchell in Melbourne, Australia in 1861, Nellie Melba would rise to fame as a singer. Her life was everything you'd expect from a diva: foods named for her, command performances and a scandalous royal affair.

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April has two books out about fashion history, one featuring historical fashion plates, and another on the pochoir technique used to create fashion illustrations in the early 20th century.

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More of the 2015 news items of historical significance! The second part of this topic includes firearms, letters, blackboards, sculpture and of course, mass graves and exhumations.

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As has become an annual tradition on the show, we're capping off 2015/starting 2016 with a roundup of things that have been unearthed, either figuratively or literally, over the year. Read the show notes here.

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Resistance to excise taxes levied against U.S. whiskey distilleries in the 1790s led to violence and rebellion. Tensions finally came to a head on Christmas day in 1794. Read the show notes here.

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In addition to the characters we talked about on our last episode, there are even more colorful holiday traditions that may be a bit surprising to people who didn't grow up with them. That includes the ogress of Iceland and the Catalan pooping log. Read the show notes here.

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Krampus has become really popular in recent years, but there are many holiday characters from various cultures around the world that all have fascinating histories. For example, Italy's La Befana and the Netherlands version of St. Nick, Sinterklaas. Read the show notes here.

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The Sodder family's West Virginia home caught fire on Christmas Eve, 1945. Five of the children were never seen again, though their bodies weren't recovered from the rubble.

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We often get episode requests, but because there are so many episodes in the back catalog, some of the most common requests have already been covered. So in today's podcast we're going to hit the highlights on the episodes people ask for again and again.

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Katharine McCormick made her mark in two different areas: She was a big part of the movement for women's suffrage in the U.S. And, she was a huge - and for a while, almost entirely forgotten - part of the development of oral contraceptives.

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met in London in 1840 and bonded instantly over a shared anger at injustices against women. Their friendship led to the creation the Women's Rights Convention in 1848, and the signing of a pivotal document.

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Humans have always longed to explore underwater, but the need to breathe air has been an obstacle. From as far back as the 4th century B.C.E., clever inventors have been designing technology to give us face time with the creatures of the sea.

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One of the most infamous aspects of World War I was its long, brutal stalemate along the enormous system of trenches known as the Western Front. The powers involved all expected the war to be over quickly, but it reached an impasse almost immediately.

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Sophia Duleep Singh's education was focused on turning her into a proper lady, in line with her status as a princess. But she also became deeply involved in the Women's Social and Political Union, a radical arm of the women's suffrage movement in Britain.

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A princess of the Sikh empire, Sophia Duleep Singh grew up in Great Britain, and was Queen Victoria's god daughter. But her childhood was not exactly a charmed one, and her family, caught between two worlds, experienced great upheaval and tragedy.

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In 1791, a confederation of Native American tribes destroyed about half of the American army. The catalyst for that conflict was a lengthy period in which unfair treaties, biased against native peoples, were all too common.

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In 1932, a speakeasy owner and several friends planned to commit a murder to cash in fraudulent insurance policies. But carrying out their plot was much more difficult than they anticipated.

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Part two of our live show is the Q&A portion of the evening. Our audience asked such amazing and insightful questions that it resulted in some great discussion about assassinations.

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In October, we went to New York Super Week for our first live show! Joining us was author Bryan Young, who wrote a book about presidential assassinations (and attempts) ... for children. It's just as delightful as you think it is.

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You may know the apple/gravity story, but Isaac Newton's life was so much more than that. Not only did he contribute huge concepts to physics, mathematics and astronomy, he also busted counterfeiters.

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In WWI, a black U.S. Army unit 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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