Stuff You Missed in History Class
Episodes
Henry Hudson, Part 1
01 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Henry Hudson's voyages have all the makings of a juicy story: maritime exploration, horrible treatment of indigenous peoples, treacherous waters, trea...
The Sinking of the S-5
26 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
1920, the S-5 left the Boston Navy Yard on its first mission, with a crew of 36 officers and enlisted men. While performing a crash dive as part of a ...
The Verreaux Brothers
24 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jules Verreaux and his two brothers collected an impressive array of flora and fauna specimens from around the world for placement with museums and co...
The Vanishing of Sister Aimee
19 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Aimee Semple McPherson was an extraordinary figure in the early 20th-century religious landscape. As an evangelist, she rose to incredible popularity ...
Poverty Point
17 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Poverty Point is a collection of earthwork mounds and ridges situated next to Bayou Maçon in Louisiana. It has features that make it unique among Nat...
The House of Worth and the Birth of Haute Couture
12 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Before Charles Worth, the idea of ready made clothes for purchase didn't really exist. Neither did the idea of a design house that showed seasonal col...
The Expulsion of the Jews From Spain
10 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue ... and Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile expelled the Jewish population from Spain. ...
Walter Reed
05 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Reed did truly groundbreaking work into the causes and prevention of yellow fever, building on a foundation of other doctors and researchers. His work...
Maria Tallchief
03 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
This Native American dancer was the first grand ballerina of the United States. Through her partnership with famed choreographer George Balanchine, sh...
The History of Halloween Candy
29 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Candy and Halloween go hand-in-hand, but when did candy become the standard for trick-or-treating, and who invented the holiday's most famous sweet tr...
Villisca Ax Murders
27 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1912, a small Iowa town was the scene of a chilling and brutal crime. Eight people were murdered in their beds by an assailant who has never been i...
Beast of Gevaudan
22 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Attacks on women and children of Gevaudan in the 1760s sparked a huge effort to hunt and kill the mystery beast behind them. While efforts to track th...
Christina of Sweden
20 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Christina was a smart, learned woman, but not a particularly good ruler. Her entire life was marked by being kind of a contradictory, restless charact...
Bela Lugosi, Part 2
15 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
While his name instantly conjures an image of the dashing, sophisticated vampire that helped spark an entire horror film genre, Lugosi really lost mor...
Bela Lugosi, Part 1
13 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
While he's mostly associated with the role of Dracula, Bela Lugosi's early life was significantly affected by WWI, the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Em...
Sylvia Rivera
08 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Transgender activist Sylvia Rivera is often compared to Rosa Parks. She became famous, in part, for participating in the Stonewall riots, and she spen...
The Dyatlov Pass Incident
06 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1959, nine students ventured into the Ural mountains for a ski hiking trip, and never returned. While much speculation has swirled for more than ha...
Ethan Allen, Part 2
01 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Allen's later years were marred by some unwise political alliances he made in his effort to gain independence for Vermont. After his political work co...
Ethan Allen, Part 1
29 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Ethan Allen was a huge personality, a founder of Vermont, and an important figure in the Revolutionary War. His story also includes some fascinating s...
A Culinary History of Spam
24 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
This famous Hormel Foods product was invented in the 1930s to make use of a surplus of shoulder meat from pigs. Not only was it an instant hit in the ...
The Lady Juliana
22 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Great Britain didn't only send criminals to Australia as punishment; they also wanted to colonize the continent. But to do that, they had to send wome...
China's Cultural Revolution: Rewriting a Nation
17 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1969, the tone and direction of the Cultural Revolution shifted dramatically. For the next seven years, until Mao Zedong's death, he tried to remak...
China's Cultural Revolution: Red Guard and Purges
15 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Mao's plan to once again put China on the path to modernization was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The first phase was a very aggressive, ...
Fritz Zwicky, The Father of Dark Matter
10 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Fritz Zwicky is often described as a genius, but also as a caustic figure. His insights into astrophysics are downright baffling, but his prickly inte...
The Great Famine
08 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the Great Leap Forward, issues with supply and demand, variables of weather and labor and a series of poor decisions resulted in a deva...
Dazzle Camouflage
03 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
British Royal Navy lieutenant and artist Norman Wilkinson is usually credited with the idea of disruptive camouflage. But, another man, naturalist Joh...
The Great Leap Forward
01 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-20th century, Chairman Mao Zedong launched an ambitious plan to revolutionize Chinese agriculture and industry, build up the economy and tu...
Hetty Green, the Witch of Wall Street
27 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
She was the wealthiest woman in the U.S., skilled when it came to amassing a fortune. But her eccentric behavior and miserly ways led to bad press and...
The Heathen School
25 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut was founded with the plan that it would draw young men from world cultures, educate them, convert ...
Andrews' Raid, or: The Great Locomotive Chase Pt. 2
20 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
As the second part of the story picks up, James Andrews and 22 men have commandeered a northbound train in Big Shanty, Georgia. Its conductor, William...
Andrews' Raid, or: The Great Locomotive Chase Pt. 1
18 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Great Locomotive Chase was a very daring - but very failed - plot to commandeer a train and destroy a crucial stretch of railroad during the Civil...
The Discovery of Longitude
13 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
People knew how to find their north-south position even before we had the idea of "latitude." But once people lost sight of land, they didn't have rel...
The La Scala Opera House
11 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Teatro alla Scala is one of the most renowned opera houses in the world, and is Italy's crown jewel of the arts. Even if you have only a passing k...
Victor Lustig: Con Man Extraordinaire
06 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
He's most famous for selling an iconic structure he didn't own, but Robert Miller, known better by his alias Count Victor Lustig, led a life of specta...
A Brief History of Colors
04 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Pigments and dyes have come from all manner of animals, vegetables and minerals. From ochre to cochineal red to the rarest of purples, color has been ...
The Klondike Big Inch Land Promotion
30 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-20th century, one ad company had a wacky plan to actually dole out land deeds as part of a cereal promotion. How did they manage it? And wa...
The Tulsa Race Riot and Black Wall Street
28 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
"Black Wall Street" was a nickname for Greenwood, a vibrant suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was destroyed in a race riot in 1921. And while Greenwood...
Battle of Blair Mountain
23 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1921, coal miners fed up with unfair labor practices and exploitation took up arms against their employers. The resulting conflict lasted five days...
Les Filles du Roi
21 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
While the building of a population in a new colony seems like a tricky endeavor, France's King Louis XIV launched a scheme to do just that by shipping...
The Doctors' Riot of 1788
16 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1700s, medical colleges needed cadavers for educational dissection, but there were no legal means for obtaining them. This led to some uno...
Cosmetics From Ancient Egypt to the Modern World
14 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Makeup has a rich and lengthy history that spans the globe and crosses cultures. From 10,000 B.C.E. to the 20th century, people have been using cosmet...
The Battle of Mons and the Angels That Followed
09 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Battle of Mons was one of the earliest battles of World War I. In the months after the battle, stories spread that a supernatural presence had cov...
Suleiman the Magnificent and the Siege of Vienna
07 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Ottoman Empire's Suleiman the Magnificent was a head of state, a poet, a reformer of the military and a goldsmith. His reign had a significant imp...
The Great London Smog
02 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
London is no stranger to smog, which is why when the Great London Smog descended in December of 1952, nobody quite realized anything unusual was going...
Caroline Herschel: Astronomy's Cinderella
30 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Herschel managed to break the barrier of women in scientific fields far earlier than you might suspect, in part because of her association with her br...
The Yaa Asantewaa War of Independence
25 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Asante-British war of 1900 capped about 100 years of war between Great Britain and the Asante Empire, which occupied part of what is now Ghana. L...
Battle of Poitiers
23 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
On Sept. 19, 1356, one of the decisive battles of the Hundred Years War took place in France. It was the first major battle after almost a decade of r...
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Part 2
18 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and was one of the Guggenheim Foundation's judges for its poetry fell...
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Part 1
16 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Known as Vincent to family and friends, Edna St. Vincent Millay grew up poor, caring for the household and her sisters while her mother worked. From a...
The S.S. Sultana
11 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Because the Sultana sank the day after John Wilkes Booth was captured and killed for the murder of Abraham Lincoln, it didn't make headline news. But ...
Ruth Harkness and the First Panda in the U.S.
09 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1930s a New York socialite had a dream. She wanted to be the first person to capture a panda from Asia and return to the western world with it....
The Treaty of Waitangi
04 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
This document -- a treaty between the British the Maori -- established New Zealand as a nation. The spirit of the agreement was to see to the best int...
Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923
02 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sept. 1, 1923 changed Japan forever when a devastating earthquake obliterated Yokohama and much of Tokyo, killing more than 140,000. Learn more about...
Deaf President Now
28 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
This episode breaks our rule of thumb about covering fairly recent history. In 1988, the appointment of a hearing president at Gallaudet University sp...
The Red Ghost of Arizona and the U.S. Camel Corps
26 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1883, a mysterious beast was spotted in Arizona and trampled a woman. First described a a demon, the creature turned out to be a camel. But what wa...
Bets and Burlesque: Joseph Oller
21 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Oller was an entrepreneur with an incredible head for business. He revolutionized gambling practices as a young man, and also opened the most f...
Orphan Trains
19 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1854 and 1929, about 250,000 children in the U.S. were taken to new families by train. Except ... they weren't called "orphan trains" at the t...
Frances Glessner Lee and Tiny Forensics
14 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Many forensic investigation standards of today have roots in the work of a Chicago heiress who was more interested in crime scenes than high society. ...
The Flu Epidemic of 1918
12 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, which killed somewhere between 20 million and 50 million people, started just as World War I was winding down. Nobody c...
Voynich Manuscript Update
07 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Our ongoing update series covers a more recent topic: Even though our Voynich Manuscript episode was just a little more than a year ago, the inscrutab...
Blackbeard Update
05 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 2009 episode on Blackbeard, a lot of new information has come to light about the life of the infamous pirate. We'll catch you up on the late...
Gardner Museum Art Heist Update
30 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Just about a year ago, the FBI informed the press about new developments in the case of the massive art theft in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum t...
Algebra's Arabic Roots
28 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Algebra doesn't have one single origin point -- it developed over time and in multiple places, with many mathematicians contributing. One of those con...
The Mutiny and Massacre of the Batavia
23 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
While most of the survivors of the Batavia were scattered on a few tiny islands off the coast of Australia, a small group went all the way to Indonesi...
The Wreck of the Batavia
21 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the Batavia is a perfect storm of nautical carnage: There's a shipwreck, a mutiny and a massacre. This first of two parts deals with the ...
Wreck of the Ten Sail
16 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It was the biggest shipping disaster in Cayman Islands history -- 10 ships went down together one night in 1794. Why would so many ships be traveling ...
The Count of Saint-Germain
14 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Accounts of teleportation, alchemy and even immortality swirl around the legend of Count of Saint-Germain. Was he a spy? A concealed royal? A skilled ...
The Pig War
09 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1859, the United States and Great Britain nearly went to war over an issue that seems more likely to spark a feud between Hatfields and McCoys: An ...
King Eric XIV of Sweden
07 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
A handsome playboy who once courted Queen Elizabeth I, Eric started his time as king with focus and ambition. But his paranoia led him to alienate the...
Crucifixion in the Greco-Roman World
02 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
While the crucifixion of Jesus is the most most well-known instance of this type of execution, crucifixion was a practice that was both common and tab...
Rose Bertin: The First Fashion Designer
31 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The legendary wardrobe of Marie-Antoinette has been criticized, envied and discussed to no end. But where did all those glorious clothes come from? In...
Ambrose Bierce
26 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Ambrose Bierce was a soldier, a journalist, an editor, a satirist and a philosopher. He was a complicated man with an unwavering moral code and a life...
Elizabeth Blackwell, America's First Female M.D.
24 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It's not a story of a person with a childhood dream of pursuing a career that wasn't available to them. Dr. Blackwell had no interest in medicine as a...
China's Foot Binding Tradition
19 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Foot binding was practiced in China for more than 1,000 years -- far longer than can be attributed to a mere cultural or fashion fad. Why did such an ...
13 Reasons for the American Revolution
17 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
"No taxation without representation" is often thought of as the main beef that led to the American Revolution, but it was only one of many moving part...
Everest: Getting to the Top of the World, Pt. 2
12 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
After WWII ended, efforts were resumed to conquer Everest, but it took many, many teams and missions to reach the summit. Eventually, a bee keeper and...
Everest: Getting to the Top of the World, Pt. 1
10 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Once a British survey effort identified Peak XV of the Himalayan range as the highest point on Earth, a committee was formed with one goal: Get to the...
It's the Jane Austen Episode!
05 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
She was not a shy spinster who wrote some little books mostly to amuse her own family. She also was not a real-life Elizabeth Bennett. Jane Austen's l...
The Peralta Grant and the Baron of Arizona
03 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1880s, James Reavis launched one of the most ambitious fraud schemes of all time when he claimed a huge part of the Arizona Territory as his ow...
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
26 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first African-American labor union to be recognized by the American Federation of Labor. What start...
The Disappearance of Judge Joseph Force Crater
24 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The 1930 vanishing of Joseph Force Crater is considered one of the largest missing person cases in U.S. history, and has fueled decades of speculation...
Maurice Duplessis, 'Le Chef' of Quebec, Pt. 2
19 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
While Duplessis had ingratiated himself to voters as a man of the people, he was not exactly viewed as a saint. He's often described as a man who want...
Maurice Duplessis, 'Le Chef' of Quebec, Pt. 1
17 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Maurice Duplessis is described as everything from a lovable rogue to a political beast. He served as Premier of Quebec for longer than any other polit...
Abelard and Heloise
12 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Abelard was a poet, philosopher and theologian; Heloise was one of his students. This is a tragic love story, complete with lovers forced apart, a sec...
Giacomo Casanova
10 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Casanova led a life so full of sex and adventure that today we call any particularly charismatic and successful lover by his name. But he was also. sm...
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Pt. 2
05 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Rosa's arrest for breaking bus segregation laws catalyzed the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the keystones in the American Civil Rights Movement. It w...
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Pt. 1
03 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Anyone who has ever heard about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States is sure to know that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white ...
Crown Prince Sado of Korea
29 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Crown Prince Sado of Korea -- sometimes called Korea's "Coffin King" -- has been described as insane, depraved and sadistic, but when you examine his ...
Pueblo Revolt
27 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
History is written by the victors. But one big exception to that conventional wisdom is the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, in which Native Americans rose up a...
Avicenna
22 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
You may never have heard of him, but Avicenna was one of the first, and probably the most influential, Islamic philosopher-scientists. He's listed amo...
Embalming and Mummification Rituals of Ancient Egypt
20 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
So how did Ancient Egyptians actually embalm their dead? Thanks in large part to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, we have some great descriptions of wh...
The Sinking of the S.S. Arctic
15 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When the S.S. Arctic joined the Collins line fleet in the 1850s, it was by all accounts a glorious ship. But in 1854, the steamer collided with anothe...
The Battle of Hastings
13 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Battle of Hastings is often boiled it down to a sentence: The Normans invaded Britain in 1066, and their victory ended the Anglo-Saxon phase of En...
The Explosive Career of Antoine Lavoisier
08 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was a chemist, biologist, geologist, physiologist, and economist. But at the end of the day, he's most often referred to as ...
Listener Mail: FAQ Edition
06 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Time for something completely different! There are a few questions that we get asked over and over. Today, we answer four of the most-common queries p...
Unearthed in 2013, Part 2
01 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The second part of 2013's historical finds includes items unearthed by animals, amateurs and ultra-modern science. Lead coffins, rare torpedoes and ma...
Unearthed in 2013, Part 1
30 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What historical revelations revealed themselves in 2013? So many, we need two episodes to cover them all. From Viking jewelry to lost Doctor Who episo...
The Long Winter
25 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
During the terrible winter of 1880 and 1881, which was immortalized in Laura Ingalls Wilder's "The Long Winter." Laura, both real and fictional, was g...
Laura Ingalls Wilder
23 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
For many people, Laura Ingalls Wilder is the primary source of information of what life was like for white people on the American frontier. But she ha...
The Lions of Tsavo, Pt. 2
18 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Why did lions in the Tsavo region start to attack humans in the first place? Modern behavioral and scientific research has given us some surprising in...