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

coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary.

A commemorative plaque in her hometown reads, called the Moses of her people during the

Civil War, with rare courage she led over 300 from slavery to freedom and rendered invaluable

service as a nurse in spy.

That's what it reads, but how much of it is accurate.

Let's talk about Harriet Tubman.

But first let's drop her into history.

In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United

States.

California applied for statehood and the first wave of gold prospectors rushed in.

It was a big year for patents on things we know, the safety pin, the envelope making machine,

the breech loading cannon, the modern gas mask, and there was one device that was never manufactured.

It lifted boats over in-water obstructions, but it did make Abraham Lincoln the only

U.S. president to ever hold a patent.

The Austrian army conducted the world's first air strike when they used pilotless balloons

to drop bombs on the short-lived Republic of Venice.

Anne Bronte, Dolly Madison, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Chopin, and the 11th president

of the United States, James Poe all died.

But Emma Lazarus was born and in 1849 a slave named Harriet Tubman yearned to breathe

free and made her first trip on the Underground Railroad.

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