Stuff You Missed in History Class

Cyrano de Bergerac is often called a man of letters, a philosopher, a soldier, a duelist, a playwright and many more things. But what he [Read more]

When European naturalists saw a platypus for the first time, they found it so bizarre that they thought it was fake, and then argued about [Read more]

This 2016 episode covers the Piltdown Man, which is one of the world’s most infamous instances of scientific fraud. It derailed the study of evolution [Read more]

Holly and Tracy discuss Daguerre’s life, and veer off into VR, and the nature of Daguerre’s monetization of photography. Then they talk about the famously [Read more]

Cornelius is famous for having taken what’s often called the world’s first selfie – and he’s noted for how handsome he looks in it. But [Read more]

Daguerre comes up almost any time we mention photography, but we’ve never covered his life story. Well before he figured out how to capture images [Read more]

This 2018 episode takes a look at three creative works that have become staples of the Christmas season. All three of them have played a [Read more]

Tracy and Holly discuss Tracy being frightened by Ichabod Crane’s fate in the Disney Sleepy Hollow cartoon as a kid, and the letters between Dickens [Read more]

You may recognize the name as that of a band, but Jethro Tull was an 18th-century gentleman farmer often credited with inventing the seed drill. [Read more]

Washington Irving may come to mind more in connection with Halloween, but his writing had a significant influence on the way Christmas is celebrated in [Read more]