Ferdinand and Barbara, Married Mad Royals

Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton is known as one of the earliest Mexican-American authors published in English, and her life story is tied closely to the Mexican-American war and the establishment of Calif...

17 Sep 202541min

Augustin Fresnel didn’t live a long life, but he contributed significantly to the understanding of light and to the safety of coastlines. Neither of those had anything to do with his career. Research:...

15 Sep 202536min

This 2020 episode talks about how Pettenkofer's ideas about cholera's spread weren’t exactly right, but they still had really beneficial impacts on the way we live.See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

13 Sep 202531min

Tracy talks about her background writing copy for sanitation and cleaning products. She and Holly also discuss how the implementation of the Wells' recommendations could have prevented a lot of illnes...

12 Sep 202529min

Husband-and-wife team William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells conducted research that had the potential to make a big difference in the safety of indoor air. But it didn’t really have a significan...

10 Sep 202546min

All over the world, for all of human history – and probably going back to our earliest hominid ancestors – people have found ways to try to keep themselves clean. But how did soap come about? Researc...

8 Sep 202539min

This 2021 episode covers John Dalton, famous for his work in atomic theory. But he wrote one of the first thorough descriptions of what he called “anomalous vision” – he realized he wasn’t perceiving ...

6 Sep 202534min

Holly talks about nebulous passages in the writing of Jane Croly and her brother. Tracy and Holly talk about watching TV as children. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

5 Sep 202530min