History Has Lots of Great Ideas About What To Do During a Quarantine

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Quarantines are nothing new: they've been used since at least the Bronze Age to prevent the spread of leprosy. In this episode (rebroadcasted from a Facebook Livestream), we'll look at the various ways that humans rode out the plague and other disease.

Some panicked, like the Flagellators during the Black Death. But others took advantage of the time and bunkered down with friends, taking long walks, enjoying delicious meals, and each telling stories (like in the Italian Renaissance work "The Decameron"). Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV retreated to his rural estates and went on long hunting trips when the bubonic plague struck Istanbul. Shakespeare took the opportunity to write poetry, and Isaac Newton invented physics.

Hopefully this will give us plenty of ideas of what to do as we ride out COVID-19.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	History is in just a bunch of names and dates and facts.
0:15.6	It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explained how and why
0:19.4	we got here.
0:21.0	Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,
0:26.1	and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.
0:29.9	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
0:39.9	Thank you very much for joining me.
0:41.7	This is a live episode of History Unplugged.
0:45.2	And the reason I did this episode live is because I wanted to respond to world events
0:49.0	going on.
0:50.3	This episode is going now on March 20, 2020, and we are in the throes of the coronavirus.
0:57.7	And there are a lot of different people who are currently under quarantine.
1:01.0	Italy has been under quarantine for a few weeks now.
1:04.6	California just yesterday announced that they would be imposing one and cities are talking
1:08.5	about it, such as New York.
1:10.5	And even for people who aren't under mandatory quarantine, maybe your workplace is having
1:14.8	you work from home.
1:16.1	So other than going to the grocery store or the gas station, the rest of your time is under
1:20.3	quarantine.
1:21.2	When I heard about this in the news, it made me think about times in history where others
1:26.8	had gone under quarantine.
1:29.1	And I thought that there could be something to learn from their experiences, both positive
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Unplugged, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Unplugged and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.