Stuff You Missed in History Class

The first electrocardiograph was invented in 1895. That device looked a lot different from today’s machines, and there are some other contenders for the title of “first.”

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2025

This 2020 episode covers one of the transitional events between the Black Death and the Renaissance. Wat Tyler’s Rebellion was also known as the Uprising of 1381 or the Great Rising.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 14 June 2025

Holly and Tracy talk about Tracy growing up in a mostly Protestant community with little exposure to Catholicism. They also talk about the Gorsuch family's ties to John Wilkes Booth. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 13 June 2025

The Christiana Incident offers a snapshot of the U.S. when the country was sorting into states where slavery was upheld and states that had abolished it, and what racist tension looked like at border states in the mid-1850s.

Transcribed - Published: 11 June 2025

Pope Leo XIII sought to find a way forward for the Catholic church at a time when the world was rapidly changing and the church was often at odds with those changes.

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2025

This 2022 episode covers Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. supreme court decision that overturned laws banning contraception – at least, for married couples. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 7 June 2025

Tracy talks about her experiences with the Blue Ridge Parkway growing up, including her mixed feelings about it. Holly talks about the theft of the Mona Lisa.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 6 June 2025

The Blue Ridge Parkway is the longest roadway in the U.S. that was planned as a single unit. Its origin is connected to government efforts to provide relief from the Great Depression, and conservation of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Transcribed - Published: 4 June 2025

Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park is a scenic road tied to the “See America First” movement of the early 20th century. The acquisition of land for the project was difficult, and displaced many families from their homes.

Transcribed - Published: 2 June 2025

This 2016 continuation of our coverage of the Palmer Raids covers a series of raids on perceived threats to national security by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Thousands of people were rounded up, many without cause or warrant, and kept in horrifying conditions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 31 May 2025

Tracy outlines all the way RFK Jr.'s claims regarding disease history make no sense. Holly talks about the section of her career that was spent working in a university library.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 30 May 2025

The Library of Congress has a lot of responsibilities. It’s massive in both physical scale and in scale of services. So how did it start, and how did it evolve to be the largest library in the world?

Transcribed - Published: 28 May 2025

Rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and Crohn’s disease are autoimmune diseases that share a lot of commonalities. This episode covers when and how they were first recognized and described.  Research: Aceves-Avila, Francisco Javier et al. “The Antiquity of Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Reappraisal.” The Journal of Rheumatology 2001; 28:4. Arnaud, Laurent et al. “The History of Lupus Throughout the Ages.” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Volume 87, Issue 6, December 2022. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190962220307726 Barber, Megan R W et al. “Global epidemiology of systemic lupus erythematosus.” Nature reviews. Rheumatology vol. 17,9 (2021): 515-532. doi:10.1038/s41584-021-00668-1 Bornstein, Joseph E. and Randolph M. Steinhagen. “History of Crohn’s Disease.” From Crohn’s Disease: Basic Principles. Springer. 2015. Crohn & Colitis Foundation. “IBD before the Foundation.” https://www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org/about/our-beginning Entezami, Pouya et al. “Historical perspective on the etiology of rheumatoid arthritis.” Hand clinics vol. 27,1 (2011): 1-10. doi:10.1016/j.hcl.2010.09. Geller, Stephen A. and Fernando P F de Camposc. “Crohn disease.” Autopsy Case Rep [Internet]. 2015; 5(2):5-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.4322/acr.2015.001 Hyndman, I.J. (2017), Rheumatoid arthritis: past, present and future approaches to treating the disease. Int J Rheum Dis, 20: 417-419. https://doi.org/10.1111/1756-185X.12823 Kirsner, J B. “Historical origins of current IBD concepts.” World journal of gastroenterology vol. 7,2 (2001): 175-84. doi:10.3748/wjg.v7.i2.175 Laberge, Monique, and Philip E. Koth. "Rheumatoid Arthritis." The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, edited by Jacqueline L. Longe, 6th ed., vol. 7, Gale, 2020, pp. 4474-4480. Gale In Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7986601640/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=8b8ee977. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025. Laurent Arnaud - I6 The history of lupus throughout the ages: Lupus Science & Medicine 2020;7:. https://doi.org/10.1136/lupus-2020-eurolupus.6 org. “The History of Lupus.” https://www.lupus.org/resources/the-history-of-lupus Mandal, Dr. Ananya. “Rheumatoid Arthritis History.” News Medical. 7/7/2023. https://www.news-medical.net/health/Rheumatoid-Arthritis-History.aspx Medical News Today. “The History of Rheumatoid Arthritis.” 5/2/2023. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/rheumatoid-arthritis-history Michniacki, Thomas. “Crohn’s Disease: An Evolutionary History.” University of Michigan Library. 2006-05 http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/96969 Potter, Brian. “The History of the Disease Called Lupus.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences , JANUARY 1993, Vol. 48, No. 1 (JANUARY 1993). Via JSTOR. http://www.jstor.com/stable/24622869 Sathiavageesan, Subrahmanian, and Suganya Rathnam. “The LE Cell-A Forgotten Entity.” Indian journal of nephrology vol. 31,1 (2021): 71-72. doi:10.4103/ijn.IJN_249_19 Scofield, R Hal, and James Oates. “The place of William Osler in the description of systemic lupus erythematosus.” The American journal of the medical sciences vol. 338,5 (2009): 409-12. doi:10.1097/MAJ.0b013e3181acbd71 "Systemic Lupus Erythematosus." National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Pamphlets, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, 2001, p. 1. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A79512544/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=534bac78. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025. Thomas, Donald E. et al. “The first use of “lupus” as a disease.” Lupus. 2025, Vol. 34(1) 3–9. Tish Davidson, and Rebecca J. Frey. "Crohn's Disease." The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, edited by Jacqueline L. Longe, 6th ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2020, pp. 1423-1427. Gale In Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7986600509/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=2687d598. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025. Van Hootegem, Phillippe. “Is Crohn’s A Rightly Used Eponym?” J Crohns Colitis. 2020 Jul 9;14(6):867-871. doi: 10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjz183. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2025

Part one of this 2016 classic covers the social unrest in the U.S. after WWI. There was a fear that Communist revolutionaries would try to take over the country. Adding fuel to the fear were two bomb plots in 1919.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 24 May 2025

Holly shares her experience visiting the Meiji Jingu shrine. Tracy mentions that she never found out why the Triple Nickles used the spelling they did, and her use of the Wayback Machine for show research. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 23 May 2025

The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, also called the Triple Nickles, were the first Black paratroopers in the U.S. military, and their story is connected to the desegregation of the military after World War II.

Transcribed - Published: 21 May 2025

Emperor Meiji of Japan’s reign began in 1867, and it marks a time of significant change in the country’s history. After the emperor and his consort died in the early 20th century, the Meiji Jingu shrine was built to memorialize them.

Transcribed - Published: 19 May 2025

This 2020 episode covers the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was founded in 1943. Some of these women athletes believed they were starting on a career in professional baseball.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 17 May 2025

Tracy and Holly share tetanus shot stories and discuss getting boosters. They then discuss the egos of European explorers in Africa. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 16 May 2025

Sidi Mubarak Bombay was sort of a combined guide, translator and nurse, and often the supervisor of the African laborers on expeditions through eastern and equatorial Africa in the 19th century.

Transcribed - Published: 14 May 2025

Tetanus has probably been around for most of human history, or even longer. But it’s preventable today thanks to vaccines.

Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2025

This 2020 episode covers Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, an accomplished astronomer. She grew up in a society that didn’t really prioritize education for girls, and she was determined and creative about getting around that.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 10 May 2025

Holly talks about the dynamics of Altina Schinasi's family. Tracy shares a dispute over nursing uniform procedures on the Boston Floating Hospital that played out in a trade journal. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 9 May 2025

The Boston Floating Hospital was a children’s hospital that operated on a boat in Boston Harbor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Transcribed - Published: 7 May 2025

Altina Schinasi is known as the inventor of cat-eye glasses, but she was also an artist, a documentarian, and an activist. And she was very frank about her own faults and bad decisions.

Transcribed - Published: 5 May 2025

This 2019 episode covers Baron Franz Nopcsa, who lived an adventurous, scholarly life, funded entirely by his family money. He identified dinosaurs, inserted himself into Albanian politics, and wrote volumes and volumes of books and papers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 3 May 2025

Holly waxes rhapsodic about fruit. Tracy talks about planning an episode about William Henry Dorsey but then finding she needed to include his father.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2025

Thomas J. Dorsey liberated himself from enslavement and became one of the most sought-after caterers in Philadelphia. His son William Henry Dorsey was born a free Black man before the Civil War, and became an artist, collector and scrapbooker.

Transcribed - Published: 30 April 2025

This installment of eponymous food stories is entirely about fruits. We’ve got a berry, a pome, and a citrus, all with varying degrees of documentation.

Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2025

This 2019 episode covers Hatshepsut, who sent a huge expedition to Punt in the 15th century B.C.E. The expedition to Punt is also an important and illustrative part of Hatshepsut’s reign.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 26 April 2025

Holly shares a theory on why Wanda Gág didn’t drink. There is also discussion of Gág’s medical issues and how they were handled by doctors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2025

After struggling to raise her siblings and start an art career, Wanda Gág’s life changed almost instantly with the publication of her first children’s book. Part two of her story looks at how her books sustained her financially so she could also make the art she wanted.

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2025

As an artist and writer Wanda Gág is well known for her children’s books. But this first of two parts about her life covers her own unusual childhood, which went from quirky fun to intense hardship when her father died.

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

This 2022 episode covers Theda Bara, often referenced as the first sex symbol. Photos of her are synonymous with the word vamp, and 100 years later, still have a certain mysterious appeal. But what was she really like?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 19 April 2025

Tracy talks about how current events are causing disruptions in work on the podcast. She also discusses the way headlines often misrepresent alleged discoveries.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 18 April 2025

Part two of the spring 2025 installment of Unearthed! features the potpourri category, plus drones/radar/lidar, books and letters, animals, edibles and potables, shipwrecks, swords (sort of) and cats.

Transcribed - Published: 16 April 2025

The first part of our springtime edition of Unearthed! for 2025 features so many updates! There are also finds related to Egypt and artwork.

Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2025

This 2016 episode covers George Wallace, one of the most prominent voices against the Civil Rights Movement and its objectives. He spent multiple campaigns for both governor and president on an explicitly pro-segregation platform.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 12 April 2025

Tracy shares how she went from concern that there wouldn't be enough research material for an episode to developing this week's topic into two. Both Tracy and Holly discuss their family connections to the war. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 11 April 2025

Vandalism at draft board offices as U.S. involvement in Vietnam was escalating was deeply divisive. Opponents of the war were stereotyped as dirty hippies and sanctimonious white college kids, but the anti-Vietnam-war movement in the U.S. was really broad.

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2025

The draft board raids were part of an antiwar movement, largely grounded in Catholic religious convictions, that spanned almost four years. Part one covers the basic context of the Vietnam War and why the U.S. was involved in the first place, and the earliest raids on draft boards.

Transcribed - Published: 7 April 2025

This 2017 episode covers Lucille Ball, the grande dame of American comedy. The famed star worked in modeling, radio and film, but she really made her mark in television, and her work set the standard for the TV sitcom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2025

Tracy and Holly talk about Dorothy Arzner's reluctance to talk about her past projects. Holly questions some of the statistics about strawberry consumption. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 4 April 2025

The story of how strawberries went from small forage item to one of the world’s most popular fruits – though they're technically not a true fruit – involves lots of crossbreeding experimentation, as you might expect, but also a bit of spy craft.

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 2025

Dorothy Arzner wasn’t the first female film director in the U.S., but she was really the only one working in the studio system during most of the period that’s known as the Hollywood Golden Age. Her short career was still incredibly prolific.

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2025

This 2017 episode covers the early days of Hollywood, and its reputation for debauchery. When a high-profile director was murdered, it added to that image, and revealed that Taylor, like so many in Hollywood, had lots of secrets.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 29 March 2025

Tracy talks about the difficulty of finding English-language writing about another strike she'd like to cover. Holly talks about why Kurt Vonnegut appeals so deeply to teenagers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 28 March 2025

Holly is joined by guest host Bryan Young for a live show at Indiana Comic Con, focused on the life and work of the author Kurt Vonnegut, known for his dark humor and dystopian visions of the future.

Transcribed - Published: 26 March 2025

The 1946 Oakland General Strike was part of a massive wave of strikes that took place in the U.S. in 1945 and 1946. Over two days in Oakland, California, and the surrounding area, thousands of strikers shut the city down.

Transcribed - Published: 24 March 2025

This late 2021 episode covers a strike in Flint, Michigan, which was at the heart of auto manufacturing for General Motors in 1936. And while the strike was largely centered around Flint, it also involved workers at GM factories all over the U.S.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 22 March 2025