The S.S. Sultana

Holly talks about how impossible it is to build a spite house now, thanks to municipal building codes. She also shares some uncertain stories of the childhood of Robert Morris. See omnystudio.com/lis...

28 Feb 202522min

Robert Morris is one of the lesser-mentioned founding fathers of the U.S. When he is mentioned, he is called the financier of the Revolutionary War. But his story is more complicated than that. Resear...

26 Feb 202537min

A spite house is a structure that is built by one party to irritate another, or to cause some sort of difficulty or even damage. And there have been a lot of them built over the years, though there ar...

24 Feb 202535min

This 2020 episode covers direct action demonstrations and protests that have some similarities to the sit-in movement. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

22 Feb 202548min

Holly talks about her gardening efforts and an amusing machine reading error. Tracy talks about her expectations of researching the epizootic of 1872, and My Little Pony toys turning 40. See omnystudi...

21 Feb 202526min

The epizootic of 1872 was a massive outbreak of a flulike illness primarily among horses in North America, Central America, and some islands in the Caribbean. Research: "WHEN A FLU REINED IN NEW YORK...

19 Feb 202538min

The practice of growing plants in water rather than soil isn't new, though early examples are difficult to substantiate. In the 1930s, hydroponic plant culture made headlines, but the field also had c...

17 Feb 202541min

This 2021 episode covers William Montague Cobb, who was the first Black person in the U.S. to earn a PhD in physical anthropology. He was also an activist and an anatomy professor at Howard University...

15 Feb 202536min