Stuff You Missed in History Class

This 2020 episode covers Paul Cuffe, who protested taxation, built wealth for himself in whaling, became a Quaker and used his fortune for the betterment of others. He also advocated creating a colony in Africa for of African ancestry to immigrate to.

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Tracy talks about the events that happened in the gap between writing the latest Unearthed episode and recording it. Holly shares thoughts about art heists.

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This 2015 episode covers the lack of access to public education for children with disabilities in the U.S. until 1975.

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Tracy discusses film ratings and the bias behind them. Talk then turns to clothing in the afterlife.

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This 2021 episode covers Andrew Crosse, who observed a strange thing happening on an electrified rock in his lab in the early 1800s, and was catapulted into the public spotlight.

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Holly and Tracy talk about the pros and cons of self-help writing and whether Ben Franklin would like bullet journaling. They then talk about a past trip they took to Walt Disney World. 

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This 2019 episode covers Paul Julius Reuter, who had a knack for filling in the gaps in communication systems, and making a lot of money doing so.

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Holly talks about the ways Joseph Medill could be both problematic and surprising. Tracy shares her additional thoughts on the book about caroling she used during research that wasn't always about caroling.

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This 2018 episode covers the sinking of the SS Princess Sophia, a massive tragedy for both Canada and the United States. But it was also really overshadowed by the end of World War I and the flu pandemic. 

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Tracy shares her experiences watching the show "Molly of Denali." The discussion then turns to glacier surge. 

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This 2021 episode covers Washington Irving, who is often associated with Halloween. But his writing had a significant influence on the way Christmas is celebrated in the U.S.

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Tracy wonders whether Jack the turkey went to the bathroom in the White House. Holly talks about how much she dislikes people arguing over food preferences. 

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This 2021 episode covers how The Nutcracker is a Russian adaptation of a German story that wasn’t really a Christmas staple in its home country.

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Tracy shares how her Charles Sumner research yielded a three-part episode. Holly mentions that while there's not a lot of scholarly work about Cassius Coolidge's life, he is featured in a lot of newspaper mentions from his time. 

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This 2020 episode covers the Public Universal Friend, who described themself as a genderless spirit sent by God to inhabit the resurrected body of a woman named Jemima Wilkinson. 

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Tracy and Holly talk about their recent podcast trip to Morocco with listeners, arranged by Defined Destinations.

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This 2019 episode covers Thomas Cook, a pioneer of the idea of a travel agency to manage tourist holidays. But Cook was initially motivated by his support of the temperance movement and his deeply held religious beliefs. 

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Tracy and Holly talk about the proclivity for destruction that was part of the balloon craze. They also discuss cat trees and how hard it is to find one that's cute. 

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This 2018 episode covers the period in the late 1820s when north Georgia became the site of a gold rush that predated the California gold rush by two decades. It's also tied to some of the darkest parts of U.S. history regarding the treatment of Native Americans.  

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Tracy shares the surprising benefit of not having access to a lot of specifics regarding the work of Mary Golda Ross. Holly talks about Marjorie Merriwether Post being a serial monogamist.

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This 2019 episode covers Alexandre Dumas, who wrote hundreds and hundreds of works, including “The Three Musketeers,” “The Count of Monte Cristo,”  and even a dictionary of cuisine.

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Tracy discusses the challenge of parsing all the nuance of the French Revolution. Holly talks about how little Clarence Birdseye shared of his interior thoughts.

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This 2019 episode is about general Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, who sounds like a character out of one of his son’s books. His life was a series of dramatic and daring adventures, including his rise up through the ranks of the French military.

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Holly talks about the unsubstantiated stories associated with the Villa de Vecchi in northern Italy. Tracy talks about getting angry about a passage she read in Wednesday's show. 

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This 2021 episode covers Aleister Crowley, a truly prolific and deliberately transgressive occultist whose practices included sex and drug use. He influenced modern Satanism, as well as other new religious movements.

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Holly and Tracy talk about ghost experiences in their lives. Tracy thanks all the listeners who suggested ghost towns for this week's episode.

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This 2020 episode covers three of the many supernatural canines and hellhounds in our collective storytelling. Two are similar and from England, and one is a fun figure from southern Louisiana.

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Holly asks follow-up questions about a paper Tracy mentioned in the episodes this week. Tracy talks about the use of the Nintendo 3DS as a Louvre guide. 

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Paul Robeson’s stances on political and civil rights issues and his communist affiliations catalyzed protests that were fueled with an undercurrent of racism and antisemitism.

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Holly discusses the complicated nature of the Loudun possessions. Tracy talks about the ways that entertainment media can cause fear.

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This 2016 episode covers a haunting story from the early 1800s. Many narratives have blossomed from the Bell Witch story, but when you really try to look at the facts, they're few and far between.

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Tracy shares a story about getting poor directions from GPS. Holly talks about her theory regarding William Outlaw's confession, and both hosts discuss the spiders in their yards.

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This 2014 episode covers the collision of the S.S. Arctic with another ship in a fog in 1854. The resulting panic led to the deaths of most of the passengers.

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Holly talks about the many survivor accounts of the Medusa shipwreck, which were questioned regarding bias and intent. There's also a follow-up on what happened to Géricault's son.

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This 2013 episode covers the years after the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War when the oyster supply became so scarce that people turned to oyster piracy.

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Holly shares a story about Augustin Fresnel's early career. Tracy discusses an article criticizing the Smithsonian and points out its incorrect contents.

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This 2020 episode talks about how Pettenkofer's ideas about cholera's spread weren’t exactly right, but they still had really beneficial impacts on the way we live.

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Tracy talks about her background writing copy for sanitation and cleaning products. She and Holly also discuss how the implementation of the Wells' recommendations could have prevented a lot of illness.

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This 2021 episode covers John Dalton, famous for his work in atomic theory. But he wrote one of the first thorough descriptions of what he called “anomalous vision” – he realized he wasn’t perceiving color the same way as other people. 

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Holly talks about nebulous passages in the writing of Jane Croly and her brother. Tracy and Holly talk about watching TV as children. 

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This 2022 episode discusses how modern rabies prophylaxis is almost 100% effective at preventing human death from the bite of a rabid animal. How did people come to understand rabies, and then develop a vaccination for it?

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Holly talks about the arguments she found online about whether graffiti is art. Tracy talks about how the Dickin Medal impacted veterinary medicine. 

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This 2021 episode covers Eunice Newton Foote, who became the first person to make a connection between the Earth’s temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere in 1856. 

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Tracy discusses the concept of race as it has and hasn't existed in European history. Both Tracy and Holly share their frustration and fury about the Buck v. Bell story. 

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This 2022 episode covers six highly ingenious and low-violence prison breaks from history. 

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Tracy shares a funny confusion about Unitarians and the University of Utrecht she kept having during research. Holly talks about how often escape stories to claim the escaper was never heard from again, even if that's not true.

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This 2019 episode covers Sappho, often described as the greatest female poet of ancient Greece. Her reputation as a poet has persisted for more than 2500 years, but the overwhelming majority of her work has not.

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Holly talks about gaining compassion for Fitz Hugh Ludlow through reading his work. Tracy discusses her training in massage school. 

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Fitz Hugh Ludlow’s fame as a writer was directly tied to his drug use initially. In his final years, his advocacy for treatment of the illness of addiction was really ahead of its time.

Research:

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This 2020 episode covers James Baldwin, who was a brilliant essayist, one of the chroniclers of the Civil Rights Movement, and a powerful voice against racism.

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Holly talks about an opera based on the life of Eadweard Muybridge. Tracy and Holly talk about how they learned about periods as kids.

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