Stuff You Missed In History Class

How did the U.S. get to the point of having this one resource, specifically for poisoning, that’s so reliable and available that it gets printed on the labels of consumer products?  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pettenkofer's ideas about how cholera spread weren’t exactly right, but they still had really beneficial impacts on the way we live. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this 2010 episode, previous hosts Sarah and Deblina trace the life of Tagore through his childhood to knighthood and beyond. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy talk about aspects of Zanzibari culture that Holly had not considered prior to this week's episode, and Tracy's rewatch of "A League of Their Own." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In fall 2017, we talked about a strange cultural phenomenon. For a brief window from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, people in the United States were watching train wrecks for fun. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2017 we covered the offbeat life of Marchesa Luisa Casati. While many have admired heiress Casati over the years for her life led entirely based on her aesthetics, she was also entirely self-serving. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2015, we talked about Franz Liszt, who was a pianist, a composer and a conductor, and basically the first rock star who drove fans into fits of swooning and screaming. Some fans even stole the detritus of his life (unfinished coffee, broken piano strings) to carry with them. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The second part of this offbeat revisit! As the New York Sun's series of astonishing moon discoveries concluded, most people recognized that it was a hoax. But what made people buy into the tall tale in the first place? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This offbeat 2015 episode covers a series of 1835 news articles about some utterly mind-blowing discoveries made by Sir John Herschel about the lunar surface. The serial had everything: moon poppies, goat-like unicorns, lunar beavers and even bat people. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a 2019 show about urine! Spoiler alert: Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous by boiling pee. But he was trying to do something else: He thought the secret to the philosopher’s stone might be found in urine.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in 2014, we tackled SPAM's story. This famous Hormel Foods product was invented in the 1930s to make use of a surplus of shoulder meat from pigs. It played a huge role in WWII, and shaped the cuisines of many Pacific Island nations. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In October 2017, we talked about mysterious prints that looked like hoof marks appeared all over the English seaside county of Devon in February 1855. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We continue out offbeat 2015 story. Once the effort to import hippos to the U.S. got the backing of a politician, two men with intertwined histories, Frederick Russel Burnham and Fritz Duquesne, were brought on board to serve as experts and advocates. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An offbeat episode from 2015: In 1910, the U.S. a meat shortage, and a water hyacinth overgrowth problem. The obvious solution to the dilemma: Import hippos from Africa. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was founded in 1943, and it went on for years after WWII. These women were athletes, some of whom thought they were starting on a career in professional baseball. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Zanzibar is a relatively tiny place, but its place in history is significant, largely because of its geographical position. Its value as a trading port led it, over time, to be the location of what’s often called the shortest war in history.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2011 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina covers an often-requested topic. Shakespeare is typically associated with cultural sophistication rather than violent bouts of near-anarchy. But this wasn't the case during the Astor Place Riot. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy and Holly discuss diabetes, insulin, and the moral complexities that are often part of scientific research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last time we talked about how diabetes has been described through history, including treatment before the development of insulin. Today, we’re telling the insulin part of the story, which was at times fraught and contentious.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To lead into discussing the discovery of insulin, today we have a history of diabetes and its treatment in the centuries before insulin was developed, including the starvation diets that were used in the years just before the discovery.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.