Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary.

Row, row, row your boat, often up the stream.

He wrote down a story that offers them glory, because life is but a dream.

D-N

Let's talk about Alice in Wonderland.

The first, let's drop her into history.

In 1862, in the United States, the Civil War was one year in, and three more bloody years were to go.

It was the year of the Battle of Antietam and the Battle of New Orleans.

A New York to San Francisco telegraph link was formed.

Queen Victoria was on the throne in England, and one year into her morning of Prince Albert.

Great Britain and France recognized the independence of Zanzibar.

Edith Wharton, Ida Bell, Wells Barnett were both born.

And on July 4th, 1862, a 30-year-old Charles Dodgson, a friend and three young sisters, took a rowing expedition, and the life of Alice in Wonderland began.

Hello, welcome to the show.

Once a season, we take some time from our historical women to talk about a fictitious character.

This is that episode.

Today, we are going to talk about Alice in Wonderland, the heroine of two books written 150 years ago.

If you can pull it that, I don't know.

These books have proven so popular that since their first printing in 1865, they have never gone out of print.

That is amazing.

Alice has inspired so many adaptations. There's parodies, there's fanfic, artifacts, design, fashion, music, ballet, art, opera.

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