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July 31, 2026 15 mins

Tracy shares the topics she considered for the recording in the Bahamas but decided against. Holly talks about her admiration for Thomas Huxley.

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. We are back from our trip
to Baha mar Yes in Nasau. Yes, as we discussed,

(00:24):
I had been looking for a topic that was somehow
thematically or geographically related to where we were wound up
with the Flying Gang. The other thing I really thought
about doing, and I don't think I said this in
the actual episode for the week, it was the raid
on Nasau in seventeen seventy six during the Revolutionary War.

(00:47):
Long story short, the Americans needed gunpowder. There was gunpowder
in Nasau. The end, they took some boats and raided
NASA and got the gunpowder and left. And that it
was the first amphibious landing for the US Marines, which
sounds really notable until you think about the fact that

(01:08):
the US Marines was a brand new entity at that point. Yeah.
I mean it is still notable and cool, but sure
different Marines than we think of today. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it it was such a straightforward thing that I
did not think it was going to wind up feeling
as fun and interesting as pirates were going to be

(01:30):
and then I also was a little tired of the
Revolutionary War, having done multiple Revolutionary War episodes. Yeah, in
the weeks leading up to taking this trip, in a
weird coincidence, as we were preparing for this trip and
I was preparing the episode, my friend Jim texted me

(01:50):
and said, Sassin's Creed Black Flag Recinct is out and
you should buy it. He had tried to convince me
to play the original game a while back because I
had never played it when it first came out, and
I was trying to play it on Steam and I
had a stealth mission that I could not successfully complete.
I kept getting caught and I bounced off of it

(02:11):
really early in the gameplay, and so I bought it
and started playing it after this whole episode was written,
but like the weekend before we got on a plane
to fly to NASA, and I was like, Wow, Okay, yeah,
this game is all of the stuff that I just
wrote about for the podcast, and also other pirates who

(02:35):
we have talked about on the show previously. So I've
been enjoying that game. I'm only laughing because I remember
you telling me while we were still at Bahamar about
Black Flag, and I was like the punk band, Like
my brain couldn't get anywhere else. I was just on
the struggle bus, like, yes, how are they related to that?

(02:57):
It's a different black Flag? How dare Yeah? I can
only handle one one thing having one name right right,
which is funny because so many things do have the
same name. It's true. Yeah, I'm like, what else do
I have to say about pirates this week? It's been

(03:19):
so long since we recorded the episode. We typically record
behind the scenes immediately after recording the episode, and for
reasons of time, that is not what we have done
this time. Yeah, and so a full week has passed
between recording the episode and doing the behind the scenes,
and so now I'm like, what what was I even

(03:40):
what a week ago? What did happen? What happened there?
I don't know if we had ever really talked about
how much piracy was interconnected with greater struggles between nations.
I mean, we've talked about a number of pirates on
the show before, and some of them that caused international incidents,

(04:02):
like Henry every when he decided that he was going
to attack a convoy that belonged to the Mughal Empire.
But It was really when working on this one that
I got a bigger sense of how much the rise
in piracy had to do with things that did not
actually have that much to do with the Caribbean and

(04:22):
were more about various European powers fighting with one another
and needing more sailors and having more privateers and then
cutting all those people loose for various reasons. And then
also the Jacobite movement and the Jacobite Rising. Yeah, I

(04:43):
read a couple of papers that were just that was
the whole topic, was looking at how many pirates were Jacobites,
and if not, like hardcore Jacobites, were at least nominally
open to the idea of replace the king with someone else,
and some of them more where Jacobites is a way

(05:04):
to express it a more anti current British monarchy attitude
more generally not so much wanting a different king, but
being opposed to the king overall. Yeah, I always go
back to that that I'm going back a little bit
to what you were talking about a moment ago, in
terms of the interconnectedness with politics of the idea that

(05:27):
you know, growing up as you learn about pirates, that
stuff tends to be very stripped out, But when you
actually start studying it and you realize, like the whole
concept of like the Golden Age of piracy really is
one of those instances where, you know, huge institutions set

(05:48):
up a system and then abandon that system and then
criminalize it. Yeah, and it's just like, I guess we're
just setting the tone for the next two hundred years. Yeah,
you're a civilian and we want you to attack ships,
but not those ones, only these other ones. Oh, when

(06:08):
we don't want to be involved in this sticky business anymore,
we're done. So right, you're on you own. Yeah. It
really struck me as we were going through this one.
Just maam, same thing, different century. Yeah. Yeah, man, we
know we have set things up where you are going

(06:30):
to depend financially on a system that involves us paying
you to do this behavior, which is the only behavior
you have ever learned because that's been your trade. But
now we're done, that trade is over. I guess you've
got to figure out another way to get money. And
it's like they don't. There really weren't a lot of
options at that point, so right anyway, anyway, piracy, yeah, piracy,

(07:02):
do you want to talk about Thomas Huxley let's do
talk about Thomas Huxley. Thomas Huxley is like a balm
to my soul. He's the antidote to Charles Goodyear. Yeah,
who I found infuriating Thomas Huxley. I love you, man.
We all need a Thomas Huxley as a friend. I
love the fact that Darwin was like, I know my

(07:23):
ideas are controversial, I don't want to fight about it,
and Huxley's like, oh, I'll fight about it. I will. Yes,
let's do this. I will. I will any takers, I will.
I'm ready to defend your ideas, and he did so
so eloquently. We talked in the episode about you know,
what a great writer he was, but he is also,
you know, incredibly well spoken. His turn of phrase is

(07:44):
so charming and elegant, even as verbose, as like the
standard writing of the day was. I feel like his
just really sings compared to a lot of other writers.
I love it. I have imagined and dreamt of that
Wilberforce debate. Oh yeah, ever since. I just loved the

(08:06):
idea of him just smacking somebody down and being like,
that's fine. Yeah, I would rather be related to an
ape that be somebody like you. Yeah, it's such a
good burn. Oh what a good burn. I feel like
if Thomas Huxley were alive today, he might be King
of Jubilee. You know that he'll just debate anybody. Yeah, yeah,

(08:29):
I just love him. I also love you know. We
set up the episode this way that he made this
big blunder, and this is what led me to And
I was looking for marine biology things because I didn't
want to do anything super like related to the I
just wasn't in the mood for stuff related to like
the political history of the area or whatever. And I

(08:50):
ended up in a marine biology thing that wasn't super
duper about, you know, being in the Caribbean. But I
really like that he made this big stupid mistake and
was totally confident enough to go, Wow, that was a
big stupid mistake. Yes, sorry, I'm going to rectify this
at every opportunity, Like anytime I find a pocket of

(09:12):
someone who doesn't know that I have retracted this and
it's a big stupid mistake, I'm going to let them
know and I'm going to inform them of what the
reality was. I love everything about that because it shows
incredible strength of character. Right, everybody is embarrassed by making
mistakes in public. And that was a big one because
it really shifted, Like you know, it was at a

(09:33):
time when everyone was so excited about the concepts of
like we have gotten to this place scientifically where we
can figure out the origins of life, of not just
humankind but all life. And how you know, for him
to think he had it and then be like whoops,
without being sheepish about it, but right explaining like here

(09:56):
is how I came to this incorrect conclusion. I just
love it. I love it. Yeah, yeah, I wanted Thomas
Huxley in my corner all day, every day. What a dream,
the delight of a human I had another thing, and
now I forget it. I'm still back on just imagining
Wilberforce blushing and getting really curious and running out. I

(10:18):
do love that they named that room where the debate
happened after Huxley a just like the burn never stops,
it just keeps going. I do really also love we
didn't talk about it a whole lot, but of course,
obviously like the idea that this was a person who
was all of these noble and you know, strength of

(10:39):
character type things. We have been discussing that. On top
of all of that, he was like, you know what,
everybody has the right to an education, everybody, And I'm
going to do whatever I can with my power, with
my platform to reach down and help people up the ladder.
Because he you know, he came from not a wealthy family.

(11:01):
I just I love that about him. I love that
He's like, how can we do how can we demystify science?
How can we make science accessible for people who think
science is not for them, that it's for people in
academia and in you know, the hallowed halls of the
scientific world. How can we make them understand that science
is for them too, And how can we make women

(11:23):
have more opportunities and education. What a historical dreamboat. Thomas Huxley.
I love them. I love them so much. Uh yeah,
that's uh. It was very funny because I was talking
about him with my beloved, you know, and the way
that you just kind of dated, dump up whatever you're

(11:44):
working on in our research. And this was actually not
until today a week later in the car on the
way to the veterinarians just had a vet appointment, and
I was talking about him because he was like, oh,
I don't even know what you guys recorded last week.
And we were talking and I was telling him about
Thomas Huxley, and he goes, wait, Alvis Huxley, and I
was like, that is fact his grandson, and I was

(12:05):
just ready to go. I was excited. Yeah. When I
got your email with the outline in it, and I
didn't know what you had been working on, and it
just said Huxley, that was my first thought. Also interesting,
also interesting. You know, Brave New World cracked my brain
open in new ways when I read it. I think
I was sixteen when I read it. It was good stuff.
That's good stuff. What a legacy, what a familial legacy.

(12:28):
I was trying to remember what Thomas Huxley's grandson, Andrew,
had won the Nobel Prize for. As I was having
this chat with my husband while I was driving, and
then I came home and I reread what we had read,
which was a quote because I knew I couldn't parse
what that science was. And now I'm like, oh, I

(12:49):
don't know why I thought I would have remembered that, right, Great, yeah, great,
I'm off the hook. Yeah. Just a phenomenal dude, And
what a delight to get to talk about him in
our very unique recording space. Last week. That was a
wild one. It was super fun. But they're just as

(13:12):
a peak behind the curtain for our listeners. The studio
there is like windows on two of the four sides
and so, and it is in the middle of a
big resort, so there are people just strolling by and
sometimes peeking in, and which obviously I found kind of
charming and hilarious. There's a cafe back there, yeah, so

(13:33):
we would occasionally see somebody just walking by with their
ice cream. If there are glints for anyone watching on Netflix,
if there are glints of envy in our eyes at
various points, it is because I'm like, that looks delicious.
There were a couple of times where somebody would be
doing I don't know, just just goofing off in some

(13:54):
way through the window, and I would get kind of
distracted and be like, hey, hey, you need to pay
attention to you. You're working, You're on the clock, you're
at work right now. It's I mean, I get distracted
while I'm at work all time. It just happens. I
hope if this is your weekend coming up, I hope
you could escape somewhere beautiful and hang out and get

(14:15):
ice cream if that's your jam. If you don't like
ice cream or it doesn't agree with you, I hope
you find something else super delicious to eat. I hope
if you can't run away, that you at least get
some relaxation and do something super fun and restorative. Still
eat whatever the delicious thing is. If you can't, if
you have obligations, like maybe your schedule is such that

(14:36):
you actually work on the weekends, or you have a
family that has a lot of errands that need to
be run. Maybe you've got to take your kids to
soccer practice, maybe you've got to do any number of things.
I hope that even while you're doing all those things
or working your job, that you still find moments of
joy for yourself and perhaps even ways to make joy
for other people. That's very fulfilling. And I hope that

(14:58):
everybody is cool to each other because we all need it.
Right now. We will be right back here on Monday
with a brand new episode. We will also be right
back here tomorrow with a classic Stuff You miss in
History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

(15:20):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
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Holly Frey

Holly Frey

Tracy Wilson

Tracy Wilson

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