Stuff You Missed in History Class

Ballooning became a huge fad starting in the late 18th century, and there was a surprising amount of rioting associated with it. Fervor, excitement, and intoxication in some instances, meant that balloon events were prone to get out of control.

Research:

• Bond, Elizabeth Andrews. “Popular Science and Public Participation.” From The Writing Public: Participatory Knowledge Production in Enlightenment and Revolutionary...

Marjorie Merriweather Post is most often mentioned today as the person who built Mar-a-Lago. But she was a unique figure as a woman who helmed a huge corporation when she was still in her 20s in the early 20th century.

Research:

• Britannica Editors. "C.W. Post". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Oct. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/C-W-Post
• “C.W. Post a Suicide in California Home.” New York Times. May 10, ...

Mary Golda Ross was the first Indigenous woman in the U.S. known to have become an engineer. Her impact on the field of aerospace engineering is hard to quantify, because much of her work is still classified.

Research:

• Agnew, Brad. “Cherokee engineer a space exploration pioneer.” Tahlequah Daily Press. 3/27/2016. https://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/news/golda-ross-left-teaching-to-support-war-effort/article_c500cbc...

Before Clarence Birdseye, frozen food was perceived as being low-quality and kind of gross. But after spending time in extremely cold climates, Birdseye figured out that speed freezing was the key to retaining freshness.

Research:

• “$1,900,000 Fraud Attempt Alleged in Insurance Deal.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. May 2, 1917. https://www.newspapers.com/image/138253870/?match=1&terms=%22Clarence%20Birdseye%22
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The Great Fear was a panic during the French Revolution that spread through rural areas. It all started with a conspiracy theory.

Research:

• Davies, Alun. “The Origins of the French Peasant Revolution of 1789.” History, 1964, Vol. 49, No. 165 (1964). https://www.jstor.org/stable/24404527
• Elster, Jon. “The Two Great Fears of 1789.” Prepared for the Conference on “Emotions and Civil War”, Coll&...

In late 1803, accounts of ghost sightings began to circulate in Hammersmith, England. This led to a tragic event, and a legal case that revealed some limitations in existing English law. 

Research:

• “The case of the murdered ghost.” BBC News. January 3, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/3364467.stm
• “Fears of a Ghost and the Fatal Catastrophe.” The Morning Chronicle. Jan 5, 1804...

Today’s topic is an abandoned mansion, but it was once a gorgeous and luxurious home designed for a prominent citizen of northern Italy. It’s often described as haunted and as having a dark history, but there are some interesting contradictions regarding that story.

Research:

• “Caravan Journal, the rediscovered manuscript. The Orient through the eyes of a forgotten Milanese patriot: Felice De Vecchi.” Ar...

We've had a lot of listener requests related to ghost towns, so this Halloween season, we've got six places in the U.S. that could be labeled as such. But not not all are empty today.

Research:

• Knutson, Julie. “The End of Centralia’s Abandoned, Colorful, Anarchic ‘Graffiti Highway.’” Atlas Obscura. 9/14/2020. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/centralia-graffiti-highway-buried
• California State ...

This episode features several ghosts all associated with one place. And that place is a specific building with its own interesting history – the Theater Royal Drury Lane of London.

Research:

• Appleton, William Worthen. “Charles macklin: An Actor’s Life.” Cambridge, Harvard University Press. 1960. https://archive.org/details/charlesmacklinac00appl/page/n11/mode/2up
• Benjamin, Victor D. “The histo...