Stuff You Missed in History Class

Sixteenth-century France had a serious case of werewolf panic. Did Garnier really transform into lupine form and attack and eat humans? Or were the gruesome deaths of several children merely the work of wild animals?

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People have fermented foods to make alcohol for much of human history. For this episode, when we refer to "moonshine," we're talking specifically about illegal liquor North America.

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Two troubling tales from the 1920s share the stage in this episode. First, newlyweds that vanished on what would have been a historic boating trip. Second, a family murdered by someone who may have been hiding in their house for weeks or months.

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To celebrate the Halloween season with a little Disney flair, Holly chatted with the author of "The Haunted Mansion: Imagineering a Disney Classic" about the beloved theme park attraction and balancing history and innovation.

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Hazzard had no medical training but called herself a doctor. Her patients often signed over all their money to her, gave her their jewelry, and made her their legal guardian, even as she starved them to death in a "sanitarium" in rural Washington.

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Christopher Lee wasn't just a film star - he was, by any account, an amazing man. He spoke multiple languages, was an incredible singer and had fantastic fencing skills. He also had ties to many important historical events and people.

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Part two of this discussion of redlining explores the language that assessors used when making color-coded maps of neighborhoods in segregated cities. These maps were used to determine whether mortgage lending in those neighborhoods was desirable.

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Redlining is a word used to describe a lot of different patterns of economic discrimination. But during the Great Depression, real estate-related discrimination included systemized grading of neighborhoods based on the races that lived there.

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Jason Merrill of Blackbird Finery joins Holly in the studio to talk about adopting the styles and accessories of yesteryear into modern wardrobes.

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Macario Garcia was a Mexican-born soldier who served in the U.S. military in WWII, earning a Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart. But after his homecoming as a hero, he was involved in an incident which launched a debate about racial discrimination.

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Author Rinker Buck's new book details the trip he and his brother Nick made along the Oregon Trail. Holly chatted with Buck about his journey, his writing and his love of history.

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Franz Liszt 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. Read the show notes here.

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These are six (more) subjects frequently requested by listeners, but that aren't really workable as stand-alone episodes for one reason or another. Featuring the Capuchin Catacombs, Sybil Ludington, Jeanne de Clisson, the Kentucky Meat Shower, Elizabeth Bathory, and a collection of research tips.

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In 1756, after a skirmish between the British East India Company and the nawab of Bengal, dozens of captives were put into a holding cell intended for only a few people overnight. Most of them didn't make it out alive.

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It's easy to think of globalization as a new invention, but it really has its roots in the 16th century. Museum of Fine Arts Boston curator Dennis Carr talks to us about Asian influences on art in the colonial Americas thanks to this global trade.

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In the early 20th century in Germany, Emmy Noether pursued a career in mathematics, 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.

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We love to talk about shipwrecks, but Violet Jessop was a shipwreck survivor -- several times over. She traveled the world aboard some of the most famous ocean liners of all time.

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In 1781, British forces shifted their efforts in the American Revolutionary War to the southern states. Major General Nathaniel Greene and his troops went up against Charles Cornwallis in a battle that was won on a technicality.

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When a French pastry chef complained to King Louis-Phillippe that his shop in Mexico was destroyed in a riot, it catalyzed a conflict between the two nations. But the military action of the Pastry War was really about a trade agreements and unpaid debts.

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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."

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As Carstair's speedboat racing career faltered, the heiress traveled the world and found other diversions, until she decided to purchase an island in the Bahamas. Then she turned Whale Cay into a kingdom of her own design.

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Marion Carstairs, who preferred the name Joe, was an early 20th-century heiress who bucked traditional gender roles and for a time, hid her wealth from even her closest friends. She also became a very successful speedboat racer.

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During the Cold War, the CIA and KGB were in a constant game of cat and mouse to steal each other's secrets. David E. Hoffman talks with us about the work of one incredibly important spy, who is the subject of his latest book.

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In 1918, a U.S. Navy collier vanished without a trace after leaving Barbados. The ultimate fate of the Cyclops remains a mystery almost 100 years later, but there are certainly plenty of theories about what happened.

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The kingdom of Dahomey may have had the world's first full-time, all-female combat fighting force. How did these women rise to become some of history's fiercest warriors, and what happened to them?

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Like other artifacts that defy deciphering, this clay disk, found on Crete in the early 1900s, has puzzled researchers and stirred up controversy for decades. Is it a religious incantation, a calendar, a spell? Or is it all a pictogram hoax?

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In the mid-1800s, Mary Ann Cotton is believed to have poisoned as many as 21 people with arsenic, many of them her own children. She left a trail of bodies behind her everywhere she went, but it was her cavalier remarks that finally drew suspicion.

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Calamity Jane is one of those historical figures whose reputation has in many ways eclipsed the real story. But she was, without a doubt, a unique character who in many ways lived outside the social norms of her time.

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The Royal Palaces of Abomey are a series of earthen palaces in what is now Benin. The complex is culturally and historically important to West Africa, but the source of much of the wealth that built those palaces was the Atlantic slave trade. Read the show notes here.

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Diogenes of Sinope was 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. Read the show notes here.

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In 1888, Cecil Rhodes and John Smith Moffat duped the king of the Ndebele people into a treaty which led to the expansion of British territory in Africa. From then until the late 1900s, Rhodesia was governed by a white minority. Read the show notes here.

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Peanut butter got its name in the 18th century, but it's been around in some form for hundreds and hundreds of years. The more modern history of the spread features changes to the recipe and even a little litigation with the FDA.

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In the 19th and 20th centuries, 150,000 child migrants were sent from Britain to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Rhodesia. Many of these children ended up in far worse conditions than they left behind. Read the show notes here.

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Dr. Virginia Apgar 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.

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The deceptively simple harmonica has roots as far back as ancient China, though it really came into its own in Europe in the 1800s.

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In 1851, Olive Oatman's family was attacked while traveling near the Gila River in Arizona. Olive was taken by her attackers, and lived for five years with Native Americans before being ransomed by the U.S. government.

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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.

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In the 1920s, the Society for Human Rights was founded in Chicago with the intent to decriminalize homosexuality. The society's founder was inspired by Germany's homosexual emancipation movement.

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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 commnity.

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Hokusai lived during a time when there wasn't a lot of contact between Japan and the West. But even so, he drew influence form Western art, and Western art was greatly influenced by his own work.

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Tracy and Holly talk with fellow podcaster Nate DiMeo of The Memory Palace about his research and writing process. You'll also get to listen to two of Nate's episodes along the way! Read the show notes here.

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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.

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Once the effort to import hippos to the U.S. got the backing of a politician, two men with wild and intertwined histories, Frederick Russel Burnham and Fritz Duquesne, were brought on board to serve as experts and advocates. Read the show notes here.

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In 1910, the U.S. had a meat shortage and a water hyacinth overgrowth problem. The obvious solution to the double dilemma: Import hippos from Africa.

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Dr. Elizabeth P. Archibald of Ask the Past has delved deep into old manuscripts to find pertinent and impertinent advice from the past. In this interview, she discusses the history of how-tos and her new book.

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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? Read the show notes here, including a correction about some State House confusion.

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Once Manning became a professional dancer and choreographer, his work took him all over the world. After WWII derailed his swing dancing, he had a hard time returning to a world where musical tastes had changed. Read the show notes here.

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Frankie Manning grew up loving dance, learning and practicing in ballrooms and private parties in New York. His innovations in creating new moves for the Lindy hop led him from dancing as a hobby to a career as a performer.

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David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, talks about his research and discoveries about the Wright brothers, their extreme determination, their family, and the many, many people who played parts in their great success as innovators. Read the show notes here.

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Until the 1830s, the dominant industry on St. Kitts was sugar, and the majority of the people living there were enslaved Africans who kept that industry going. When the act that was supposed to free them fell short of doing so, the slaves rebelled.

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