Zenobia and the Roman Empire

This 2016 episode delves into how industries and governments had a really weird preoccupation with protecting people from margarine way before it was made with the hydrogenated oils that led to its un...

11 Apr 202037min

Holly and Tracy talk about Annie Londonderry's cavalier relationship with the truth and the challenges of travel with the wrong clothes and bike. Then talk turns to a strange paper that Tracy read whi...

10 Apr 202012min

The declaration that rinderpest had been eradicated was less than 10 years, but rinderpest’s history goes back much farther than that. And the process of eradicating the disease really illustrates how...

8 Apr 202035min

Annie Londonderry gained fame for being the first woman cyclist to circumnavigate the globe. Sort of. In the 1890s, she DID circle the globe, but there are a LOT of inconsistencies in the details of h...

6 Apr 202037min

We're jumping back just a couple of years to an episode on Ignaz Semmelweis made a connection between hand hygiene and the prevention of childbed fever in the 19th century. Learn more about your ad-c...

4 Apr 202032min

Holly and Tracy talk about selecting subjects for the show while living in strange times, and venture into talk about Emily Dickinson. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastne...

3 Apr 202011min

Ida Lewis lived most of her life fairly isolated on a tiny island off the coast Rhode Island. But it was a life she deeply loved. In her words, “I could not be contented elsewhere.” Learn more about ...

1 Apr 202038min

Tracy and Holly discuss what it feels like, as people who study history, to live through an event that you know will be historically significant. To all of our listeners: Please stay safe, and thank y...

30 Mar 202038min