181. Katherine Johnson - NASA's Human Computer
Who Did What Now
Katie Charlwood
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
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Summary
Katherine Johnson was a woman whose calculations at NASA helped launch men into space (and bring them home again) shattering barriers for women and Black scientists. She was a mathematician, a human computer and an American hero. She's got the medals to prove it!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, delicious friends and welcome to Who Did What Now, the History Podcast that is |
| 0:25.7 | not your history class, with me your host, Katie Charlwood, History Harlet and Reader of Books. |
| 0:33.0 | So here's the thing. Complaints on my videos aren't new. Like they happen all the time, whether you've |
| 0:40.1 | got 10 followers or 100,000 followers or whatever, right? And I get complaints and people have |
| 0:46.6 | issues all the time. And some of them, fair enough, others, a bit weird, right? And I've noticed the same issue crop up a couple of times, like, |
| 0:59.8 | over the last month specifically, which is weird. I don't know why so many people would have an |
| 1:05.5 | issue regarding black history during Black History Month. Now, apart from the fact that some people can't grasp that specific concept, |
| 1:14.8 | which I feel like, out of everything, is the easiest part out of this. |
| 1:20.4 | Now, what the issue seems to be quite a lot recently, |
| 1:23.7 | the complaints that people are making, is that in in my videos I'm talking about the past |
| 1:31.6 | events and people that have happened many years away from now like back the way right now |
| 1:41.7 | now I don't like to call people stupid, you know, because I think |
| 1:46.8 | it's a bit redundant. However, I do wonder, like, how smooth does your brain have to be |
| 1:54.9 | for you to be upset that a historian is talking about the past. Like, what part of a historian discussing history |
| 2:09.3 | like, does it make sense to you? Like, where, where does that compute? Like, I don't, I don't don't get it anyway anyway I thought I'd share |
| 2:21.5 | that with you but anyway that's not the point let's talk about someone amazing today listen |
| 2:29.1 | did you really think I was going to go through Black History Month without talking about |
| 2:33.3 | amazing women. |
| 2:34.6 | As if, okay. |
| 2:36.5 | And of course I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, Katie. |
| 2:40.0 | Quit your jibble-jabber. In fact me. |
| 2:42.3 | In fact, you I will. |
... |
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