Stuff You Missed in History Class

The French word for “roller coaster” is “montagnes russes” or “Russian mountains.” Since the origin of roller coasters, inventors have been improving the early designs that came from Russia to create astonishing amusement park thrill rides.

Augustin Daly is often described as a foundational figure of the U.S. theater. He wrote, adapted, and produced dozens of plays in the 19th century, and he created a theater company that produced many stars of the New York stage.

The Brown Dog Affair was a series of demonstrations and riots surrounding a statue that had been erected in the Battersea area of London, commemorating dogs who had been killed due to vivisection.

In 1928 a young woman from North Carolina named Alma Petty Gatlin who went on trial for the murder of her father. A preacher Alma had confessed to informed authorities, setting off a sensational case that examined confessional privilege.

This 2016 episode discusses the Doolittle Raid, 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.

G.K. Chesterton was a prolific writer across many genres, including fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism, biography, social criticism, theology, and Christian apologetics. He was also a vocal critic of eugenics.

We’ve gotten requests to talk about the balloon bombs that Japan used to target North America during World War II. But these were not the only balloons in use during the war, or the first balloons used for military purposes.

Eliza Fenning who worked as a cook in a London household until she found herself in the middle of a poisoning accusation. Her controversial trial brought the bias of the 19th-century British criminal justice system into focus.

Ellen Swallow Richards was a big part of the establishment of home economics as a field. But well before that, she broke a lot of ground and was often way ahead of her time.

Old Rip was a reptile with quite a legend. Some people believed that he survived a 31-year entombment in a courthouse cornerstone, and he became celebrity, even gaining an audience with President Calvin Coolidge. But was it all a hoax?

As a child, Susie King Taylor forged passes so her grandmother could go places in Savanna she otherwise couldn’t. As an adult, she penned the only Civil War memoir known to have been written by a Black woman who was actively involved in the military.

Once the immediate threat of the Snow Riot was quelled, Beverly Snow had to figure out his next steps. Arthur Bowen, Reuben Crandall, and several rioters went to trial, with mixed results.

As arguments about the institution of slavery were beginning to boil over in the U.S. capital in 1835, a series of events played out that led to destructive violence. Part one covers the overlapping catalysts and the earliest parts of the riot.

This 2016 episode covers the aftermath of after a series of earthquakes on the eastern side of the Icelandic island of Heimaey in 1973. As the eruption developed over time, it became more dangerous, and a variety of measures were undertaken to stop the flow of lava.

Holly and Tracy talk about Tootsie Rolls used in the military, and Holly's German chocolate cake obsession. They also discuss their relationships with the book "The Velveteen Rabbit" and their childhood fears.

Scarlet fever is treatable with antibiotics, but in the middle of the 19th century, it was the leading cause of death in children in some parts of the world. Today, there are several ongoing mysteries about the disease.

Both of these eponymous foods feature chocolate, but they also both feature some issues with timelines and attribution that need to be unraveled.

This 2018 episode covers Constance Markievicz, who came from a wealthy Protestant family before making a somewhat surprising transition to become a leader in the Irish Nationalist movement.

Part two of Colette's story picks up during her marriage to Henri de Jouvenel through the end of her life. Despite her life's many scandals, by the time she died Colette was regarded as a national icon in France.

Love, passion, desire and pleasure are running themes in Colette's writing and her life. And that life was seen as really scandalous and even notorious, especially in her younger years.

Horace Fletcher is best known for starting a food fad in that came to be known as Fletcherism. This early 20th century fad involved, in part, chewing your food A LOT.

Humans have worked on ways to make garments water resistant almost since they started to wear them. But figuring out how to manufacture a raincoat using rubber was a big breakthrough that took centuries.

Part two of our Unearthed! wrap up of 2022 covers a potpourri of stuff that didn’t go together, books and letters, edibles and potables, and apparel, including more than one pair of blue jeans.

It's time to cover things and stories that were unearthed in the last quarter of 2022. Part one covers a whole bunch of updates, a whole bunch of shipwrecks, and a whole bunch of repatriations.

The Hume and Hovell Expedition of 1824 established some of the earliest knowledge that European colonists had about the interior of the Australian continent. It was also a journey filled with peril, frayed nerves, and bickering.

Kittie Knox was a cyclist during the bicycle boom of the late 19th century. She was biracial and became known not just for participating in a predominantly white sport, but also for the clothes she wore to do it.

In Pulitzer’s later years, he became embroiled in a heated legal battle with the U.S. government after his papers printed allegations that Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were connected to shady dealings regarding the Panama Canal.

Joseph Pulitzer is one of those pivotal figures in history, and his influence continues right on through today. Part one of this two-parter covers his early life, right up through his rivalry with William Randolph Hearst.

This second part of the story of Irving Berlin’s life picks up after WWI, and covers his family life, his rise to fame, and the controversies that were part of his career.

The immeasurably famous Irving Berlin seems like the perfect example of a U.S. immigrant success story. But reality is complicated and imperfect, and so was Berlin’s music-filled life.

This 2012 episode from prior hosts covers King Wenceslas. He's known from a Christmas carol, but was a 10th-century Bohemian prince, known for his kindness to children and promotion of Christianity. But he was murdered at only 22.

This eponymous foods episode only has two foods in it – and they couldn’t be more different! One is a flaming dessert, and one is a meat patty.

The new year approaches. But what if you had to learn a completely new calendar for the coming year? For about a dozen years starting in the late 19th century, France abandoned the Gregorian calendar for an entirely different one.

Tracy and Holly talk about the artwork of Zinaida Serebriakova and the personal style of Ella Williams. They then discuss the ruthless business practices of John Jacob Astor and his son William.

John Jacob Astor came to the U.S. from Germany not long after the colonies gained their independence as a nation. He made his first fortune in the fur trade, and then diversified his income and built a legendary fortune.

Today’s six impossible episode subjects are all by listener request! Topics include the Iron Mountain baby, Leslie’s Retreat, Lady Hao, Ella Williams, and more. And these are examples of how short tales can sometimes have intense details.

Louis Wain’s cat-centric art was extremely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and some of his later work became an inspiration for the psychedelic movement of the 1960s.

The development of a systematic approach to food safety didn’t happen until the 20th century. And its tied directly to NASA trying to make sure astronauts didn’t get food poisoning in space.

Thirty years after D.H. Lawrence died, his book "Lady Chatterley's Lover," which had been banned for decades in many countries, was central to a trial in Great Britain over whether the novel was obscenity or whether it had literary merit.

Dr. Charles Drew was once described as “one of the most constructively active figures in the medical profession.” His work as a key figure in the development of blood banking continues to impact lives today, long after his tragic death.

After the 1844 Paris expo, Robert-Houdin turned his efforts to creating his own stage show. He created automata tricks that still delight today, and quickly became a very famous magician.

Robert-Houdin was the magician that Houdini named himself after, his story is hard to pin down, because even his own memoir is written to be entertaining, not accurate. Part one covers his early life, marriages, and beginnings in magic.

The tragedy at Boston’s Cocoanut Grove in 1942 is still the deadliest nightclub fire in history. The cause of the fire is still unknown; in its wake, advancements were made in fire safety and medical treatments for burn victims.

Hortense and Marie Mancini tried to make a place for themselves in 17th-century Europe, defying all kinds of conventions along the way. Their lives were full of adventure and daring, but they were also both stuck in abusive marriages.

Emily Pauline Johnson, also known as Tekahionwake, made a career writing poetry and prose and performing it onstage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

The second part of our autumn list of things that were unearthed in the recent past includes potpourri, repatriations, shipwrecks, medical finds, Viking items, and books and letters.

Fall is here and so is the latest two-part edition of Unearthed! Part one includes updates, oldest things, books and letters, and a late entry into our Halloween stuff.

On June 13, 1901, Ada Maria Redpath, and her son Jocelyn Clifford were found shot to death in their home. What exactly happened between the two of them is something we will likely never understand.

In addition to being the focus of corporate machinations, the Ouija board has also been invoked in many legal cases and has been featured in pop culture throughout the 20th century. But how does it work, psychologically speaking?

The rise of the Ouija board in North America involves corporate intrigue, family betrayal, a lot of litigation, and very little spiritualism. Today’s episode covers how “talking boards” went from divination tool to big business.

This 2014 episode covers the 1930 vanishing of Joseph Force Crater. His missing person cases has fueled decades of speculation about what exactly happened to the New York State Supreme Court justice.

The movie "Till" tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley and her son Emmett. Actor Jalyn Hall and director Chinonye Chukwu talked with the podcast about the research and planning that went into bringing this important historical event to life.

Rose Mackenberg spent decades working to uncover fraud taking place in the name of Spiritualism, first working for Houdini, and then on her own. In her work, she said she received messages from 1,000 dead husbands that never existed.

In 1639, doctor Edward May published a 40-page text about a serpent he found in the heart of a 21-year-old man during a post-mortem examination. We don’t know exactly what it was, but there are plenty of theories.

Helen Duncan is sometimes described as Scotland’s last witch, or the last person imprisoned for witchcraft in Britain, or the last person to be tried under the UK’s 1735 Witchcraft Act. None of those are quite accurate.

Johann George Schrepfer’s life story is clouded by his embellished and falsified tales of his necromancy and spiritualism. And both his followers and detractors also gave biased and incorrect accounts of their interactions with him.