Stuff You Missed in History Class

In late 1888, five women were brutally murdered in a slum neighborhood of London. The violent killer earned himself a nickname - Jack the Ripper. But everything you think you know murders and those murdered women is wrong.In a new 15-part series, historian Hallie Rubenhold tells you the real story of those victims and how they came to be in the path of a serial killer - completely overturning the Ripper story we've been told up until now. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Crowley was a truly prolific and deliberately transgressive occultist whose practices included sex and drug use, and he went on to influence modern Satanism, as well as some other new religious movements. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2016 episode tells the story of a small theater in Paris which was open from 1897 to 1962, and became famous for its grisly, terrifying plays. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy discuss the career of Tod Browning and how difficult it is to know the true nature of certain aspects of the filmmaker's life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tod Browning’s contributions to the horror film genre are massive. And the films that are most responsible for that reputation are covered in this episode, among other projects and the latter portion of Browning’s life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Browning’s story is both fascinating and difficult; he was a golden boy of Hollywood for a time, but also plagued with personal problems. He has a cult following today, and was legitimately groundbreaking, but he was also problematic. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2017 episode covers an early 18th century engraver-turned-artist who 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy discuss the Lincoln's relationship with the spiritual, and whether they can themselves juggle. Tracy shares a fun story of collectible genever bottles and there's discussion of favorite gin drinks. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like many spirits, gin was originally meant for medicinal or alchemical use. But eventually, people started combining juniper with alcohol to make a beverage rather than a medicine. And that's the just the start of gin's history, which gets rather dark at times. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colchester claimed to be psychic and probably did warn President Abraham Lincoln that he was going to be assassinated. He became an icon for Spiritualism in the U.S. in the 19th century, only to be rejected by that same movement. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2010 episode from past hosts Sarah and Deblina covers Arthur Conan Doyle's brilliant protagonist Sherlock Holmes, who became world-famous. But was Sherlock Holmes based on a real person? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy talk about the apples from the childhoods, fruit-based desserts, and a cocktail that Holly stumbled across while researching nachos. Grace Humiston's tricky name is mentioned, as well as the more frustrating aspects of her story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grace was an attorney and an investigator who did a lot of work to exonerate people who were wrongly convicted, expose corruption, and, in one particularly dramatic case, solve a murder that police had written off as the victim having run away. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lots of foods are named after people, but sometimes the stories of those names are hard to pin down. This episode looks at where Granny Smith apples, nachos, and the Cobb salads get their names. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2018 episode covers one of the United States' first successful Jewish American writers, moving in the New York literary scene of the late 1800s. She also wrote one of the most famous poems of all time, and even if you don't know her name, odds are you know at least some of that work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy talk about the aspects of the stethoscope story that didn't make it into the episode, including the classism related to cleanliness standards that often comes up in writeups about it. Tracy discusses the difficulty in getting a sense of Eunice Newton Foote's personality based on the available documentation of her life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1856, Foote became the first person to make a connection between the Earth’s temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere, though she’s rarely credited for it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the most basic tools of the medical profession is the stethoscope, but it’s a more recent invention than you might suspect. Its invention is credited to French doctor René Laënnec. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2017 episode covers Tudor's clever plan: In cold weather, he would harvest ice for cheap, and then sell it all around the world when it was hot. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy talk about the kitties in their lives and Mike's good fortune to have had his meals cooked for him. When they turn to smallpox, discussion covers the inevitable ways in which it informs thinking about the current pandemic. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Smallpox is a viral disease that has existed for millennia. But it’s now one of only two diseases that’s been eradicated through human activity, and a global plan was enacted to do it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From caterer cat to war cat to museum guard, these three cats have their own unique places in history. Rest assured, while all creatures pass on, none of the cats in this episode meet a bad end. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2018 episode covers the famed courtier, explorer, historian, Member of Parliament and soldier. He was part of England's defense against the Spanish armada, as well the Tudor conquest of Ireland, some of which was truly horrifying. According to some people, he is now a ghost. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy discuss Jo Nivison Hopper’s complex life story and how frustrating and angering it can be to research biographies like hers. They also talk about the availability of the Kerner Commission report to the public and the reiterative nature of the problems outlined in it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Half a century ago, a commission established by President Lyndon Johnson wrote a report that concluded that “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal.” The reported listed widespread social programs and reforms to counter the problem, and Johnson refused to accept it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jo Nivison was an established artist before she married Edward Hopper. But her art career quickly became secondary to Ed's, and their life together, which is often described as a great collaboration, was really far darker than that. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2014 episode covers events from 1921, when coal miners fed up with unfair labor practices and exploitation took up arms against their employers. The resulting conflict lasted five days and has been called the biggest armed uprising on U.S. soil since the Civil War. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy shares a story of hunting for a Berthe Morisot exhibit and her favorite painting by the artist. She and Holly also talk about scheduling guests and the legendary John Lewis. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly is joined by photographer Andrew Feiler, author of “A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America.” Andrew shares stories of capturing these schools, photographing John Lewis, and the legacy of the Rosenwald schools. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Morisot primarily worked in oils, watercolors and pastels, and her favorite subjects were the other women in her life, often captured very tenderly in private, domestic moments. Her life is entwined with the Manets, and she was right at the heart of the Impressionist movement. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2019 episode covers a man who's story is tied to SO MANY other notable historic things, including a lot of business with Sir Walter Raleigh. He's really not a household name like many of his contemporaries, even though he was neck-and-neck with them in terms of discoveries. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy discuss the many different professional titles that many people in history have and how tricky it can be to select the proper one to use. They then discuss trying to discern when they have enough cultural competence to cover certain topics, particularly when there's a lot of complex context involved. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Starting in 1755, the French-speaking Acadians were expelled from what’s now the Maritime provinces of Canada and northern Maine, with many of them eventually winding up in Louisiana. But there's much more nuance to the story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Torricelli was born in the middle of a heady few decades when the lives and work of people like Galileo and Johannes Kepler were changing humankind’s understanding of the world and the heavens. Sometimes he gets lost in the mix, but he made his own significant contributions to science and mathematics. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in 2017 with the "Great American Eclipse" everywhere in the news, we walked through some of the famous eclipses in history, all while wearing proper eye shielding. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy and Holly discuss the surprising lack of biographical writing about Annie Jump Cannon. In contrast, they cover how much effort has been made to uncover and write about the real story of Mildred Fish-Harnack Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mildred Fish-Harnack was a woman from Wisconsin who found herself at the center of a resistance group in Germany working to undermine the Nazis. But her secrecy in this work enabled both Germany and the Soviet Union to twist her story into propaganda. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Annie Jump Cannon has been described as doing for stars what Carl Linnaeus did for organisms. She compiled a massive star catalogue, and became known both as the most famous woman astronomer of her lifetime, and as the “census-taker of the sky.” Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2018 episode covers Leeuwenhoek, who wasn't REALLY a scientist -- he had no formal training. But he made dozens of scientific discoveries. He's credited with discovering microscopic life in a variety of forms, using lenses he ground himself. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy and Holly discuss how much Tracy loves working on the Unearthed! shows, and how they both feel about library fines. They also talk about the Egyptian mummy parade, and misreads of what a historical curse jar was. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The second part of the July 2021 Unearthed! installment includes exhumations, repatriations, some mysteries that have been solved, and a potpourri of other stuff. There's also another listener mail on the unearthed theme. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In part one of the 2021 July edition of unearthed things, there are updates to previous episodes, along with books and letters, edibles and potables, and art. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2011 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina covers the U.S. in the late 1800s, when no one really monitored food additives. After Congress refused to regulate food safety, Harvey Wiley had groups of healthy men ingest poisons for six months. Tune in to learn how these "Poison Squads" shed new light on Wiley's cause. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy and Holly talk about family and experiential history with headaches, and the persistent problems in what people do and don't know about them. They then cover their swill-milk episode, and how utterly vile the whole thing is. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1850s, much of the milk supply in New York was anything but appetizing and wholesome – it was often deadly. But efforts to address the problem were blocked by corrupt officials. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Migraine is one of the three most prevalent conditions in the world along with anemia and hearing loss. But in spite of that prevalence, migraine is widely misunderstood, really at every level. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2017 episode covers one of the first Americans to achieve fame as a Shakespearean actor, and the first black man to do so, becoming a famous figure on the Victorian stage. But Aldridge has largely been excluded from biographies of Shakespearean actors. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's divisive figures week! Holly and Tracy discuss the difficulty in sorting out the reality of Lorenz's work, because of the polarized view of him within the medical community. Then talk turns to Hugo Gernsback, and the ongoing divide over him. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ray Bradbury said Hugo “made us fall in love with the future.” But he’s also been berated as a hack whose proclamations about what does and does not qualify as science fiction have been problematic and limiting from the start. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lorenz is credited with developing treatments that addressed pediatric orthopedic problems. During his lifetime, he was both celebrated and protested within the medical community. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.