Stuff You Missed In History Class

The possible contenders for the title of inventor of spray paint were actually working across decades. And really, all those people contributed pieces of the story. Research: Abplanalp, R.H. “Valve mechanism for dispensing gases and liquids under pressure.” U.S. Patent Office. March 17, 1953. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e2/65/be/710e864cf870d8/US2631814.pdf “About Binks.” https://binks.com/about-us/ Andreassen, Dag. “The world's first spray can?” Teknismuseum. Nov. 6, 2024. https://www.tekniskmuseum.no/en/stories/spray-can “Atomizer.” Smithsonian National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_721925 Baisya, Pramila. “A Brief History of Spray Paint.” UP Magazine. https://upmag.com/a-brief-history-of-spray-paint/ Bancroft, Hubert Howe. “The book of the fair; an historical and descriptive presentation of the world's science, art, and industry, as viewed through the Columbian Exposition

This 2021 episode covers Eunice Newton Foote, who became the first person to make a connection between the Earth’s temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere in 1856.       See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy discusses the concept of race as it has and hasn't existed in European history. Both Tracy and Holly share their frustration and fury about the Buck v. Bell story. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Buck v. Bell is the 1927 SCOTUS decision that upheld the constitutionality of laws allowing involuntary sterilization of people deemed to be “unfit.” Most of these laws have been repealed, but Buck v. Bell has never been directly overturned. Research: "Buck v. Bell." Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, edited by Michael J. Tyrkus and Carol A. Schwartz, 4th ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2022, pp. 174-177. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX8276200650/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=84626437. Accessed 5 Aug. 2025. “BUCK v. BELL, Superintendent of State Colony Epileptics and Feeble Minded.” https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200 Brosnahan, Cori. “Finding Carrie Buck.” American Experience. 11/2/2018. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eugenics-finding-carrie-buck/ Circuit Court of Amherst County. "Judgment Against Carrie Buck (April 13, 1925)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 06 A

Estevanico was a translator and guide, and was probably the first person of any race from outside the Americas to enter what’s now Arizona and New Mexico – which happened in 1539. Research: Birzer, Dedra McDonald and J.M.H. Clark. “Esteban Dorantes.” Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade. Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation. https://enslaved.org/fullStory/16-23-92882/ Birzer, Dedra McDonald. "Esteban." Oxford African American Studies Center. May 31, 2013. Oxford University Press. Date of access 30 Jul. 2025, https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-34375 Chipman, Donald E. and Robert S. Wedd. “How Historical Myths Are Born...... And Why They Seldom Die.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly , January, 2013. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24388345 Clark, J.M.H. "Esteban the African ‘Estebanico’." Oxford African American Studies Center. May 31, 2017. Oxford University Press. Date of access 30 Jul. 2025, https://ox

This 2022 episode covers six highly ingenious and low-violence prison breaks from history. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy shares a funny confusion about Unitarians and the University of Utrecht she kept having during research. Holly talks about how often escape stories to claim the escaper was never heard from again, even if that's not true.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

William J. Sharkey was a pickpocket, a con man, a politician, and a murderer, though whether or not that murder was an accident became the question at the center of a case that gripped New York for months. And then, he vanished. Sort of. Research: “An Assassin’s Career.” New York Times. March 22, 1875. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1875/03/22/91671169.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 Asbury, Herbert. “The Escape of William J. Sharkey.” The New Yorker. Feb. 27, 1931. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1931/03/07/and the-escape-of-william-j-sharkey “Criminal’s Chances.” New-York Tribune. Nov. 20, 1873. https://www.newspapers.com/image/85393879/?match=1&terms=William%20J.%20Sharkey “The Death Penalty.” The New York Times. July 4, 1873. https://www.newspapers.com/image/20559978/?match=1&terms=William%20J.%20Sharkey The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Boss Tweed". Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 May. 2025, https://www.britann

Polymath Anna Maria van Schurman was a very well-educated woman in the 17th century, making her exceptional. She’s described as the most learned woman of her time, and she basically became a celebrity because of it. Research: Aldersey-Williams, Hugh. “’A Truer and Deeper Knowledge’: Anna Maria van Schurman’s The Learned Maid (1659).” Public Domain Review. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-learned-maid/ "Anna Maria van Schurman." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, vol. 31, Gale, 2011. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631009647/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=cdba4228. Accessed 21 July 2025. “Anna Maria van Schurman: an academic multitalent.” Utrecht University. https://www.uu.nl/en/background/anna-maria-van-schurman-an-academic-multitalent Clarke, Desmond M. “Anna Maria Van Schurman and Women’s Education.” Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger. No. 3. July-Septem

This 2019 episode covers Sappho, often described as the greatest female poet of ancient Greece. Her reputation as a poet has persisted for more than 2500 years, but the overwhelming majority of her work has not.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly talks about gaining compassion for Fitz Hugh Ludlow through reading his work. Tracy discusses her training in massage school. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

16th-century Swiss physician Paracelsus was frustrated with established medical practice and academia and he was sometimes on the lam because of his beliefs. He wrote at length about the idea that items in the natural world carried “signatures” in their appearance that could tell you visually how they could be used medicinally. Research: Bennett, B.C. Doctrine of Signatures: An explanation of medicinal plant discovery or Dissemination of knowledge?. Econ Bot 61, 246–255 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1663/0013-0001(2007)61[246:DOSAEO]2.0.CO;2 Dafni, Amots, and E. Lev. “The Doctrine of Signatures in Present-Day Israel.” Economic Botany, vol. 56, no. 4, 2002, pp. 328–34. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4256605 “The Doctrine Of Signatures.” The British Medical Journal, vol. 1, no. 627, 1873, pp. 19–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25233757 “The Doctrine of Signatures.” John Moore Museum. May 11, 2021. https://ww

Fitz Hugh Ludlow’s fame as a writer was directly tied to his drug use initially. In his final years, his advocacy for treatment of the illness of addiction was really ahead of its time. Research: “Beyond the Hasheesh Eater: Fitz Hugh Ludlow, A Nineteenth Century Writer and Adventurer.” Schaffer Library. Union College. https://exhibits.schafferlibrarycollections.org/s/beyond-the-hasheesh-eater-fitz-hugh-ludlow-a-nineteenth-century-writer-and-adventurer/page/welcome Bredeson, Robert C. “Landscape Description in Nineteenth-Century American Travel Literature.” American Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 1, 1968, pp. 86–94. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2710992 Day, Horace B. “The Opium Habit.” 1868. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7293/pg7293-images.html “Death of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, the Hasheesh Eater.” The Buffalo Daily Repiblic. Oct. 7, 1870. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1140456339/?match=1&terms=Fitz%20Hugh%20Ludlow &ldqu

This 2020 episode covers James Baldwin, who was a brilliant essayist, one of the chroniclers of the Civil Rights Movement, and a powerful voice against racism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly talks about an opera based on the life of Eadweard Muybridge. Tracy and Holly talk about how they learned about periods as kids.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beatrice Kenner’s inventions were focused largely on making life easier and less annoying for herself and the people around her, including period products. Mildred Smith’s invention was about family, and it grew from her disability after she developed multiple sclerosis. Research: “Deaths.” Evening Star. 11/27/1956. https://www.newspapers.com/image/869672410/ “Mildred E. Smith.” Obituary. Washington Post. 8/19/1993. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1993/08/19/n-hugh-mcdiarmid-dies-at-86/beab0fdf-9aec-4ac1-bd0a-cfcef223f1fa/ Byram, W.F. and R.P. Phronebarger. “Current Supply System for Electric Railways.” U.S. Patent 1,134,871. 4/6/1915. Coren, Ashleigh, et al. “The Many Inventions of Beatrice Kenner.” Side Door. Smithsonian Institution. 4/6/2022. https://www.si.edu/sidedoor/many-inventions-beatrice-kenner Davidson, S.N. “Pants Presser.” U.S. Patent 1,088,329. Hambrick, Arlene. “Biographies of Black Female Scientists and

The invention Eadweard Muybridge is known for is his zoopraxiscope, an early movie technology. But he also innovated in photography, had some other inventions, and was the defendant in a murder trial. Research: Ball, Edward. “The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures.” Doubleday. 2013. Cohen, Paula Marantz. “Flickering Like Photography.” Times Literary Supplement. https://www.the-tls.com/lives/biography/scoundrel-harry-larkyns-pitiless-killing-photographer-eadweard-muybridge-rebecca-gowers-review “A Fast Trotter Caught by a Skillful Artist on the Fly.” The Lamar Republican. May 29, 1873. https://www.newspapers.com/image/666936878/?match=1&terms=occident%20Muybridge%20 “Madness and Murder.” Whidbey Island Center for the Arts. https://www.wicaonline.org/blog/2020/2/2/1rmzzg46joal5ajvy4tesnui7v314p “A Startling Tragedy.” Los Angeles Herald. October 22, 1874. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH18741022.2.15&am

This 2019 episode covers Mary Winston Jackson, best known as the first black woman to become an engineer at NASA. But she also worked to clear the way for other underrepresented people at NASA.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy talks about current events and how they relate to the show and education. She and Holly also talk about the people who work in national parks and historical sites. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This edition of Unearthed! continues, this time covering the mixed items we call potpourri, shipwrecks, edibles and potables, books and letters, and exhumations.  Research: Agencia Brasil. “Cave Paintings Discovered in Rio de Janiero Park.” 4/13/2025. https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/educacao/noticia/2025-04/cave-paintings-discovered-rio-de-janeiro-park Anderson, R. L., Salvemini, F., Avdeev, M., & Luzin, V. (2025). An African Art Re-Discovered: New Revelations on Sword Manufacture in Dahomey. Heritage, 8(2), 62. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8020062 Archaeology Magazine. “5,000-year-old Bread Buried in Bronze Age House.” 6/4/2025. https://archaeology.org/news/2025/06/04/5000-year-old-bread-buried-in-bronze-age-house/ Archaeology Magazine. “Fried Thrush Was a Popular Street Food.” 6/6/2025. https://archaeology.org/news/2025/06/06/fried-thrush-was-a-popular-roman-street-food/ Arnold, Paul. “Dentist may have solved 500-year-old mystery in da Vinci's iconi