Julio Tello, Peru’s Archaeological Trail Blazer

Canning dramatically changed how people around the world have dealt with food. Early canning efforts were kind of stabs in the dark, though – we hadn’t figured out the microbiology component yet. Lea...

19 Aug 202037min

In 1818, something about the rings of Saturn - we don't know what, exactly - led John Cleves Symmes to conclude that the Earth was hollow. And he spent the rest of his life promoting this strange idea...

17 Aug 202040min

This 2013 episode covers Johann Beringer, the University of Wurzburg's chair of natural history and chief physician to the prince bishop in 1725. He was also unpopular, and some of his colleagues soug...

15 Aug 202020min

Tracy and Holly talk about the use and misuse of tear gas, and then a theory that links L. Frank Baum's work "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" to Coxey's Army. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://...

14 Aug 202010min

Jacob Sechler Coxey led the first protest march on Washington, D.C. in the 1890s, with a plan to create jobs for the nation's unemployed population with projects that would build the country's infrast...

12 Aug 202035min

Tear gasses, or lachrymator agents, are named for the lachrymal glands, which secrete tears. But tears are just one part of it. It was developed for WWI, but of course continues to be used today. Lea...

10 Aug 202045min

This 2011 episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina examines Fritz Haber's mixed legacy. The Nobel-Prize-winning Father of Chemical Warfare was responsible for fertilizers that fed billions, as we...

8 Aug 202022min

Holly and Tracy discuss the complexities of Isabella Bird's story, as well as the similarities between the pneumonic plague in Wu Lien-Teh's story and what we're living through in 2020. Learn more ab...

7 Aug 202013min