Footnoting History is a bi-weekly podcast series dedicated to overlooked, popularly unknown, and exciting stories plucked from the footnotes of history. For further reading suggestions, information about our hosts, our complete episode archive, and more visit us at FootnotingHistory.com!
Episodes
Saturday May 25, 2013
Saturday May 25, 2013
(Lucy) Reactions to medieval lepers were often extreme. Medieval romance-writers depict them as not only disease-ridden but filthy, and morally suspect to boot. Saints, on the other hand, ran around kissing them. More ordinary people just asked lepers to pray for them. Why? And if you lived in thirteenth-century Chartres, why shouldn't you eat dinner with the leper next door?
Friday May 17, 2013
Friday May 17, 2013
(Lesley) As an imposing fortress, Alcatraz island isolated inmates and imprisoned the most dangerous criminals like mob boss Al Capone. Yet after its closure in 1963, Alcatraz became the scene of occupying Freedom as Native Americans tried to take back land under a treaty with the US. How did an uninhabitable rock become the gateway to a bastion of freedom for American Indians?
Saturday May 11, 2013
Saturday May 11, 2013
(Nathan) In the 1630s, the tiny-but-wealthy Netherlands were gripped by a frenzy of public trading in tulip bulbs. At the height of the craze, a single bulb could sell for a small fortune. What caused this "tulip mania" and how did it all come to a crashing halt?
Saturday May 04, 2013
Saturday May 04, 2013
(Nathan and Christine) Picking up where they left off at the end of Part I, Nathan and Christine tackle actors' rights and changing fashions while wondering if anyone truly understood the Republican Calendar. Join them as they conclude the countdown of their top ten favorite stories and idiosyncrasies of the French Revolution.