Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Wilson and I'm Holly Fry, and we're going
Speaker 1: to do something a little different today. This early in
Speaker 1: the New Year podcast episode, we get a lot of
Speaker 1: listener mail. We discussed this. We try really hard to
Speaker 1: answer at all, and we mostly fail most of it.
Speaker 1: I fall into that trap where I'm like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to answer this when I have ten minutes to really
Speaker 1: think about an answer and not just dash something off
Speaker 1: when I don't have time to check my facts or
Speaker 1: like really think through a good response, and then a
Speaker 1: farting more emails come in ten minutes. Never happened. So
Speaker 1: I really don't mean to slate anybody. Yeah. We get
Speaker 1: a lot of emails that are on sort of the
Speaker 1: same theme. We get ones that are like, have you
Speaker 1: ever thought about doing an episode on such and stuff?
Speaker 1: And that answer a lot of times is either yes
Speaker 1: or no, like it's not actually a satisfying answer. We
Speaker 1: have thought about it, yeah, or We get a lot
Speaker 1: of can you do an episode on? Or will you
Speaker 1: do an episode on? And that answer is pretty much
Speaker 1: always maybe, unless unless we happen to be actually in
Speaker 1: the process of researching that right now. Uh. That answers
Speaker 1: pretty much always maybe, But there are some other ones
Speaker 1: that we really get the same question over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, and some of them are things that
Speaker 1: people are specifically asking us to talk about. So today
Speaker 1: we have a selection of these frequently asked questions that
Speaker 1: we get from our listeners, UH, and we're just going
Speaker 1: to answer all of them so that we can point
Speaker 1: people to this podcast in the future when we continue
Speaker 1: to get these same questions. How does that sound, Hollie,
Speaker 1: That sounds delightful to me. I could probably be more
Speaker 1: fulfilling to the people that we never answer. I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope UM, and I will because a lot of
Speaker 1: these are questions that I have answered, Like I've sent
Speaker 1: basically the same email a whole lot of times, and
Speaker 1: and so I can tell it's one that there's some
Speaker 1: legitimate interest in. UM. This first one, this particular email
Speaker 1: is from Heather, but it is a question that we
Speaker 1: get a whole whole lot of times. And she starts
Speaker 1: off by suggesting several different episode topics, and the last
Speaker 1: thing she says is, lastly, I'm wondering if you would
Speaker 1: ever consider recording a podcast about your podcast, specifically, how
Speaker 1: you do the research for your stories? Are there certain
Speaker 1: websites that you can recommend to those of us who
Speaker 1: want to do research on our own, What type of
Speaker 1: libraries do you use, how do you get started, how
Speaker 1: long does the research take for any given podcast, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, how do you fact check yourself? I think
Speaker 1: I'm not the only listener that would be interested to
Speaker 1: hear about what you do behind the scenes. That last
Speaker 1: part is definitely true. We get so many emails asking
Speaker 1: is how we prep and do our research? Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think we start with figuring out what to talk about,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that is a laborious task. It really is sometimes.
Speaker 1: I mean the bottom line is that, uh, we have
Speaker 1: long lists, both of us. We have one big list,
Speaker 1: and then we each have our own individual lists. I think,
Speaker 1: uh um, and I survey mind and I try to
Speaker 1: find a thing that is going to pop out and
Speaker 1: just grabs me that week. And it just because something
Speaker 1: doesn't grab me one week doesn't mean it won't be
Speaker 1: next week. But in any given week, Yeah, I really
Speaker 1: got to be pretty interested because you're gonna be spending
Speaker 1: a lot of time with the topic well, and usually
Speaker 1: when I write something on the list, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: about it, and then when I actually have the chance
Speaker 1: to la, when you go back, you may not have
Speaker 1: the same fire. He isn't striking me quite as much anymore.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I also do to kind
Speaker 1: of narrow it down, and sometimes that the opposite happens,
Speaker 1: is to look at what we've talked about recently and
Speaker 1: try to think of something that's different from that, so
Speaker 1: that we're not covering the same subjects over and over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do the same so that it's not all Victorian
Speaker 1: underwear every week, as much as that would be awesome,
Speaker 1: be a very natural day to day thing for me.
Speaker 1: But well, and sometimes we do have little patterns where
Speaker 1: one thing will lead us to another thing will lead
Speaker 1: us to another thing. Like the recent episode that we
Speaker 1: had about the Hessians kind of led me into something
Speaker 1: that we're recording in this session today about the Battle
Speaker 1: of Hastings because I just discovered that I enjoyed talking
Speaker 1: about the battle and I want to talk about another one.
Speaker 1: So we do have little patterns that emerge, But trying
Speaker 1: to find something that we haven't just talked about is
Speaker 1: another part of it. Once I have a subject, it's
Speaker 1: time for Google. Yes, And I think you and I
Speaker 1: do a pretty similar thing here where we do a
Speaker 1: quick Google search initially, right, and for me, I'd kind
Speaker 1: of end up writing out usually in pen and paper.
Speaker 1: It's not even a type thing, like a quick four
Speaker 1: to six point I don't even want to call it
Speaker 1: an outline because that makes it sound way more structured
Speaker 1: than it is. But like kind of the the points
Speaker 1: that I feel like have to be hit in that story,
Speaker 1: and then that guides the rest of the research. That's
Speaker 1: I don't do that, maybe I should because what happens
Speaker 1: to me is I sort of google and Google is
Speaker 1: kind of a gut check for me of is there
Speaker 1: enough information about this person out in the world, Because
Speaker 1: sometimes it's clear as as I Google that there's a
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page and nothing else, uh, and that that's probably
Speaker 1: not gonna work. So if if Google makes it clear
Speaker 1: that yes, I'll be able to find information, then it's
Speaker 1: time for Google scholar. Uh. The University of Georgia system
Speaker 1: has a database of stuff that you can get to
Speaker 1: with your library card if you're a Georgia resident. UM.
Speaker 1: I use that to look at a lot of academic papers.
Speaker 1: I sometimes will get books, depending on if there are
Speaker 1: books that are in print and in our budget. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am. One good thing about the fact that we
Speaker 1: do a lot of history is that often places, uh
Speaker 1: like Amazon or Barnes and Noble will have e books
Speaker 1: that are free because they're basically either public domain or
Speaker 1: they're just elderly enough that they're really not. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: those all get delivered right to my phone and I
Speaker 1: can be reading them on the train commuting. I get
Speaker 1: archive dot org, your project getting burger, things like that. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: sometimes it really depends. Sometimes we're able to get something
Speaker 1: from inter library loan. I know I did that with
Speaker 1: the Hessians because you could only find one really good
Speaker 1: book that you wanted. Yeah, it was way too in
Speaker 1: Georgia had it. Yeah, there's pretty much one copy of
Speaker 1: the book and all of Metro Atlanta that they sent
Speaker 1: to me. So I spend a lot of reading and
Speaker 1: rereading and synthesizing stuff into notes. Sometimes at this point
Speaker 1: it goes completely off the rails and I realized I've
Speaker 1: made a terrible mistake and I have to start over.
Speaker 1: We have both been in that vote. Yes, sometimes I
Speaker 1: am in that vote multiple times in one week. I
Speaker 1: don't end that. I don't either. I don't want it
Speaker 1: to happen ever, but it'll be like I'll get to
Speaker 1: a point and I'll just realize, like this, there's no
Speaker 1: story here, Like it's just kind of you know, it's
Speaker 1: facts and figures, which can be great, but if that's
Speaker 1: all you have and there's no more meat to it,
Speaker 1: it's not really very engaging. And if it's not engaging
Speaker 1: to me in the research phase, there's no way it's
Speaker 1: going to be engaging as a discussion. Yeah, after the
Speaker 1: Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones and everyone was
Speaker 1: asking us to talk about the massacre at Glenco and
Speaker 1: the uh, what was the other one? The Black Dinner,
Speaker 1: I think was what the other event was. People were
Speaker 1: talking asking me to talk about that. So many people
Speaker 1: were talking about it that I thought, I don't really
Speaker 1: have anything new to add to everyone is talking about
Speaker 1: right now, And I thought about doing an episode that
Speaker 1: was on the history of hospitality, which sounded really cool
Speaker 1: to me because when you have so many um cultures
Speaker 1: that are are based on really extreme climate or being
Speaker 1: kind of a migratory culture, the idea of hospitality tends
Speaker 1: to be really entrenched in the culture and really important.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'll do the history of hospitality.
Speaker 1: That will be awesome. And within an hour I had
Speaker 1: there was a whole Like I had this giant stack
Speaker 1: of papers, and it became immediately clear to me that
Speaker 1: that was not gonna work. I had to pick something else. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes it does become start over territory. Yeah, sometimes you
Speaker 1: end up on this raft of tons of general information
Speaker 1: and there's there's no clear path to make an actual
Speaker 1: thing out of it. Right, That was the problem with that.
Speaker 1: It was never going to be soup. It's just gonna
Speaker 1: be some water and one bully on cube and like
Speaker 1: a sad carrot. That's exactly what it was. Once I
Speaker 1: have all that stuff, I start taking notes and working
Speaker 1: the notes into the story, and reading and rereading the
Speaker 1: synthesized copy of notes to to try to get it
Speaker 1: into something that's going to be cohesive and have a
Speaker 1: beginning in the middle of an end, and all of
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Making sure I got my facts right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do a thing that drives uh, my husband. I
Speaker 1: keep people anyone with a lick of sense crazy, Which
Speaker 1: is it for all of my online resource, like I
Speaker 1: get all of my resources open at the same time.
Speaker 1: Me too, And like if I have books, I will
Speaker 1: have books laid out at the same time. I may
Speaker 1: have a thing pulled up on my phone at the
Speaker 1: same time. I will have literally thirty tabs open in
Speaker 1: a browser, and then I try to incorporate I'll review
Speaker 1: it because usually have read it all before, and then
Speaker 1: I'll review it, and as I feel like I'm done
Speaker 1: with this item, I will close it. And so I
Speaker 1: can kind of get a constant visual of where I'm
Speaker 1: at in terms of my progress on prepping by how
Speaker 1: many how many big messy sources are still open versus
Speaker 1: how much I whittled down. Yeah, I we get a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about whether we use like ever note
Speaker 1: or something to keep up with our research, and I
Speaker 1: do not. I don't either. I started at how stuff
Speaker 1: works in two thousand and five, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the tools that exist today weren't either weren't there yet
Speaker 1: or weren't quite ready for prime time yet, and so
Speaker 1: I just developed the system of bookmarking things and opening
Speaker 1: all my bookmarks in tabs, which is still what I do,
Speaker 1: even though there are much more sophisticated research tools. Now
Speaker 1: that works for me and not as what I do.
Speaker 1: Once I have this thing, the last thing that I
Speaker 1: do is the pronunciation check. Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: time spent on pronunciation checking, which I think there are
Speaker 1: are naysayers who think that we do not ever do
Speaker 1: we do. We're not always good at it, and then
Speaker 1: it comes back out of our mouths. We do check it,
Speaker 1: we yes. I remember with the Stay Shanna Go in episode,
Speaker 1: I was watching Japanese language things with subtitle to make
Speaker 1: sure that I got the words correctly, and then I
Speaker 1: sent every proper name and the entire thing to the
Speaker 1: boyfriend who speaks Japanese and has lived in Japan and
Speaker 1: and and like synthesized all of the andy into a
Speaker 1: comprehensive and I think we only really messed up one
Speaker 1: word in that one, which made me happy that with
Speaker 1: all of that Japanese we only made one complete mess up. Um.
Speaker 1: I also do it's almost uh fact check e gut checks,
Speaker 1: laugh dress rehearsal where I will data dump kind of
Speaker 1: the story on either of my husband or a close friend,
Speaker 1: and the questions that they bring up are ones where
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I need to do more. That is, yes,
Speaker 1: I do that sometimes to you and bless the humans
Speaker 1: that have to put up with me doing that. And
Speaker 1: sometimes even after we're done with the podcast, I want
Speaker 1: to keep talking about it, and they get those two.
Speaker 1: So all the people close to me in my life,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I've told you there was an incident
Speaker 1: at Dragon Conrad dream about Clyde Tomba during a panel
Speaker 1: and woke up quick, nothing to do with what was
Speaker 1: going on, and then I really wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's okay. The very last thing that I do sometimes,
Speaker 1: as I'm seriously sitting here at the microphone, is figuring
Speaker 1: out what listener mail I'm going to read and and
Speaker 1: what article on how staff works are gonna talk about.
Speaker 1: That's the thing number last. Yep, that's basically the process
Speaker 1: for me as well. That end point we recorded on
Speaker 1: microphones are wonderful producer Nol who's very tolerant and sweet. Yes,
Speaker 1: our previous podcast, which is called pop Stuff, we pretty
Speaker 1: much came in and sat down and recorded it in
Speaker 1: one take. That is not how this podcast works at all. No,
Speaker 1: there's it's too easy to flow up um fact or
Speaker 1: a year or somebody's name, and you don't want that.
Speaker 1: For as much as we do it, it would be
Speaker 1: really long and boring for people to listen to us
Speaker 1: go whoops and have to fix it again. There's lots
Speaker 1: of fixing. So yes, that is the question of how
Speaker 1: we make our podcast. Thank you everyone who has asked that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did not think it would be enough to make
Speaker 1: an entire episode about it, which, looking now how long
Speaker 1: we've talked about it, is totally true. I think you
Speaker 1: have one I do. This is a sample, but we
Speaker 1: get many on this particular subject. So anytime we're talking
Speaker 1: about something that is more than two thousand years old.
Speaker 1: From our listener Richard, and he says, dear friends, I
Speaker 1: was so enjoying the podcast on ice cream until at
Speaker 1: seven minutes and two seconds one of you referred to
Speaker 1: a date at C and I wanted to gag. I'm
Speaker 1: glad I wasn't eating ice cream me too, because that
Speaker 1: would be unpleasant, both the ice cream and for Richard.
Speaker 1: Real historians don't use these made up designations. B C
Speaker 1: and A D or universally understood and do the job
Speaker 1: quite nicely. Thank you. B C E and C E
Speaker 1: are just obskaters that serve no valuable purpose. Uh. I
Speaker 1: love the podcast, but would love it a lot more
Speaker 1: if you'd stick to more authentic designators of your reference.
Speaker 1: Using accurate terms to avoid using offensive and formerly common
Speaker 1: ones is great and to be encouraged, for example, Asian
Speaker 1: African American marriage equality, etcetera. But political correctness for the
Speaker 1: sake of political correctness is so last decade. Let's get
Speaker 1: with it. Thank you for listening to me. And this
Speaker 1: one's a real pet peeve of mine. We get this
Speaker 1: one a lot, we do. We're not the only ones
Speaker 1: to do that. No, So that's actually a standard that
Speaker 1: we moved to on how stuff works as a website
Speaker 1: after many years of following the Associated Press style standard
Speaker 1: of using BC and a D when talking about dates. So,
Speaker 1: if you're unfamiliar with all these what all these things
Speaker 1: stand for? Bc BC stands for before Christ. A D
Speaker 1: stands for Anno domini, which means the year of our Lord.
Speaker 1: And you will also hear people say after death, which
Speaker 1: is not what it means, but that's kind of their
Speaker 1: um shorthand version of it. Yes, that's also why when
Speaker 1: you look at dates, it's the the a D part
Speaker 1: is supposed to come before the date, because it's like
Speaker 1: the year of our Lord, not the year of our Lord.
Speaker 1: So H B, C E, and and c E stand
Speaker 1: for before the Common Era and Common Era, and there
Speaker 1: sometimes people will say that C stands for various other things,
Speaker 1: but the general UH accepted notation is that it's before
Speaker 1: the Common Era and Common Era. And the whole idea
Speaker 1: is to be more inclusive of non Christian people. When
Speaker 1: we were using BC and A d is a web
Speaker 1: a website standard, we did periodically get very kind and
Speaker 1: gracious emails from people who would sort of remind us
Speaker 1: that our visitors to the website are many, many of
Speaker 1: them not from the United States, from other nations where
Speaker 1: the predominant religion is not Christianity. I know that most
Speaker 1: still the majority of people in the United States identify
Speaker 1: with Christianity as in some form as their religion, but
Speaker 1: that is really not a case in the whole world.
Speaker 1: So we made this decision thoughtfully after some pretty extensive
Speaker 1: consideration UH, in order to be more inclusive and to
Speaker 1: recognize the fact that our audience is a global audience
Speaker 1: and not just an American audience. UM so beast. The
Speaker 1: number one UM thing. Number two is that usually when
Speaker 1: we get these emails, the flavor of the question, UH
Speaker 1: seems to assume that that B C, E, and C
Speaker 1: are like a brand new thing that we just thought
Speaker 1: of within the last couple of years to try to
Speaker 1: be politically correct, which's not the case at all. That
Speaker 1: isn't really not the case at all, um, get ready,
Speaker 1: because they're shockingly elderly. Well, just at the more in
Speaker 1: the more recent time, when I was in college, most
Speaker 1: of my history and humanities and literature textbooks used B, C,
Speaker 1: E and ceotation and that at this point was at
Speaker 1: least fifteen years ago that I was reading them, which
Speaker 1: meant that they were pub lished and and edited and
Speaker 1: things like that prior to that. Um. But really, the
Speaker 1: idea of common era goes all the way back to
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, and it was widely used in Jewish
Speaker 1: scholarship by the eighteenth century. And then B C has
Speaker 1: existed since at least eighteen eighty one, so this is
Speaker 1: a much older notation then people give it credit for. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other thing that we're giving people credit for is
Speaker 1: the ability to figure things out from context. UM. I
Speaker 1: pretty much trust listeners to be able to figure things
Speaker 1: out from context and and to not need to define
Speaker 1: every single thing that we talk about. So, while I
Speaker 1: get that it might throw somebody for a loop the
Speaker 1: first time they hear somebody use BC and CE instead
Speaker 1: of BC and a D, I pretty much stressed that
Speaker 1: people can figure out what that means, and if they
Speaker 1: are still confused, can go, well, look, get up. But
Speaker 1: now we have the definition right here, ind of for
Speaker 1: anyone who would like to have it. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things I get, like everybody's got
Speaker 1: a peeve. I have tons of them, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, that's my peeve to live with them.
Speaker 1: And it's it's definitely a decision that we made to
Speaker 1: be more inclusive of everyone, not to exclude Christians, which
Speaker 1: seems to be sometimes sometimes. No, it's definitely an attempt
Speaker 1: to be more broad in who we are speaking to
Speaker 1: you rather than more narrow. So, hey, Tracy, yes, Before
Speaker 1: we get to the next one, which is incidentally also
Speaker 1: kind of a criticism, Uh doon to dake a moment
Speaker 1: talk about our sponsor. Let's do now we will move
Speaker 1: on to you. Another somewhat critical question that we get
Speaker 1: pretty often. This is from Donna, who says are you guys.
Speaker 1: Even looking at the iTunes feedback for the History podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to say, but the current one's voices are
Speaker 1: very tough to take. I've always loved the History Podcast
Speaker 1: up until they started this year, but I just can't
Speaker 1: handle their voices. Please put some nice voices back on.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'd I really hard not to look at
Speaker 1: our iTunes reviews. Yeah I don't. I mean, there's there's
Speaker 1: only so much it will accomplish other than making either
Speaker 1: of us feel self conscious or creddy. Yeah, um, that's
Speaker 1: what you got. I sometimes check in on our iTunes
Speaker 1: reviews to see if the like if the tide of
Speaker 1: iTunes has turned uh and and the answer at this
Speaker 1: point is like it has shifted a tiny bit for
Speaker 1: when we came up on the podcast, but just a
Speaker 1: tiny bit. If according to our iTunes reviews, like this
Speaker 1: podcast is circling the drain with listeners leaving in droves
Speaker 1: because you and I have terrible voices, and that is
Speaker 1: not the case by any other metric that we have.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to discount people that don't care
Speaker 1: for me. That's fine, You're totally entitled to not like me.
Speaker 1: They're certainly people, um, celebrities and radio personalities and just
Speaker 1: people that I'm not wild about. Everybody's got that, but
Speaker 1: I don't. That seemed to be playing out in terms
Speaker 1: of like our download numbers or so. We had a
Speaker 1: record breaking month in October for the entire podcast, which
Speaker 1: was just a hooray thanks to our listeners. Uh. The
Speaker 1: one of the things that comes up pretty often is
Speaker 1: they don't have voices for radio. And I think the
Speaker 1: people who say that aren't listening to the same radio
Speaker 1: that I'm listening to, because I hear all kinds of
Speaker 1: voices on the radio and all kinds of voices in podcasts,
Speaker 1: because they're real humans. It's not people that have been
Speaker 1: like my golden life is to be a DJ or
Speaker 1: to be a talk radio host. We're here because we're
Speaker 1: into history, and that's pretty much you know the jam. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always take comfort in uh an interview I heard
Speaker 1: with Ira Glass once or he talks about how often
Speaker 1: he gets people that talk about how horrible his voice
Speaker 1: is and they cannot bear to live into his various
Speaker 1: foibles and his you know, throat catching in his arms
Speaker 1: and right. But I just kept going, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: adore I Red Glass Glass definitely has a very distinctive voice,
Speaker 1: as does Sarah Vowl. Oh. I I mean to me,
Speaker 1: she's always going to be violent incredible. But even though
Speaker 1: I have seen her speak about Lincoln and other historical things,
Speaker 1: in my head, it's always highlight incredible. Yes. So for
Speaker 1: people who wonder, yes, we occasionally look at our IT
Speaker 1: teams reviews, do not be concerned. We are not losing
Speaker 1: listeners in droves in spite of what you may be there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I worry sometimes that there's always
Speaker 1: this ongoing thing of like where people went and did
Speaker 1: people still think that we fired Sarah and or Doablina
Speaker 1: and took over, which couldn't be further for the truth.
Speaker 1: We both love them. Let's just dispel this right now.
Speaker 1: Zero people have ever been fired from stuff you missed
Speaker 1: in history class. Yeah, It's always been a case of people,
Speaker 1: you know, moving on in their careers wanting to take
Speaker 1: on new challenges. Uh. Some people have taken new challenges
Speaker 1: at How Stuff Works or Discovery, and some people have
Speaker 1: taken on new roles at other companies, and pretty much
Speaker 1: I've supported every one of those decisions. Yeah, and we're
Speaker 1: still all pal. I was texting it to Blinan last
Speaker 1: night about horrible television that we both love. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I I don't. I'm saddened when people think it's somehow
Speaker 1: it cover up and we're sneaky, and I think bad
Speaker 1: has happened to those girls. They're good and I still
Speaker 1: love them both. Yeah. Well, and everyone from before Katie also,
Speaker 1: and uh and Candice also and Jane also. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people from before my time after work. We've had this
Speaker 1: podcast for a really long time, and consequently, as happens
Speaker 1: in jobs, sometimes people go to work somewhere else. Uh.
Speaker 1: This last one that I have is actually something that's
Speaker 1: really near to my heart. And that's why I keep
Speaker 1: typing out the same long, long answer every time someone
Speaker 1: asks me. Uh. And so this is from Kelsey. Kelsey says, hello, ladies.
Speaker 1: I adore your podcast. I've been listening since they were
Speaker 1: five minutes long, which is back in the Josh and
Speaker 1: Kansas the way early. Um. Anyway, I'm reading a book
Speaker 1: in my college English class, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax.
Speaker 1: I'm only halfway through and can see ten different podcast
Speaker 1: subjects that I think you all would enjoy. Henrietta Lax
Speaker 1: is responsible for the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and
Speaker 1: so much more that I mentioned. She was a poor
Speaker 1: black woman who died in ninety one. This woman better
Speaker 1: known as HeLa, and her cells stolen by John Hopkins
Speaker 1: Hospital when she went in for cervical cancer. Her cells
Speaker 1: are still alive, but Henrietta remains unknown and her family
Speaker 1: didn't know about the cells until recently. People made million
Speaker 1: millions on her cells and her family can't even afford
Speaker 1: health insurance. The immortal life of Henrietta Lax as race relations,
Speaker 1: power and privileged struggles and so much more. I hope
Speaker 1: you guys can do a podcast on her. Kelsey Henrietta
Speaker 1: Lacks is probably the most requested podcast subject, followed closely
Speaker 1: by the Quints, followed closely by the Deon Quints. And
Speaker 1: these two stories have something really important in common, which
Speaker 1: is that they are all people who their their story
Speaker 1: and their place in history involves having their privacy fundamentally
Speaker 1: violated by people who are in a position of power.
Speaker 1: Right so, Henrietta Lacks her privacy was fundamentally violated when
Speaker 1: her cells were removed from her body without her knowledge
Speaker 1: or consent and then used to make lots of money. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: the Dion Quints were removed from their parents. These are
Speaker 1: a set of quintuplets who were born sometime in the past.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the exact year, but they were removed
Speaker 1: from their parents and basically brought up in this sort
Speaker 1: of laboratory situation as almost test subjects. Um. Fundamentally, their
Speaker 1: privacy was invaded by before they could have even had
Speaker 1: a consciousness or not. They could not they were uh.
Speaker 1: And so in the case of Henrietta Lack, she has
Speaker 1: kin who are still alive. In the case of the
Speaker 1: Dion Quintucklets, there are at the last time I looked
Speaker 1: two of them still living. I am not disparaging any
Speaker 1: work anyone else has done on any of these people,
Speaker 1: and even of the other angles on the story that
Speaker 1: UM with Henriette Lacks, that people have housed at house
Speaker 1: to works have done. Like we have an article on
Speaker 1: HeLa cells, we have other podcasts that have been on
Speaker 1: HeLa cells. For the purpose of this podcast, though, I
Speaker 1: am much more inclined to allow Henriette Lacks to have
Speaker 1: her privacy in her death, especially since there are so
Speaker 1: many other readily available materials usually accessible for her That's
Speaker 1: kind of my thing, is that we've reached a point
Speaker 1: where what more are we going to add to the discussion? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there isn't really anything that doesn't already exist. And
Speaker 1: both of these stories have been publicized a great deal, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly because the book came out about Henrietta Lacks. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and her life story is is pretty much out there,
Speaker 1: it really and the book is a global best seller
Speaker 1: that's been translated into like a double digit numbers of languages.
Speaker 1: It's not like a secret book nobody knows about. It's
Speaker 1: definitely super dip there. And one of the reasons we
Speaker 1: get so many requests because so many people are reading it,
Speaker 1: which is great, And any episode that we would do
Speaker 1: would essentially be rehashing right that story and and that's
Speaker 1: really not what I want to do in in that
Speaker 1: kind of a circumstance. I think if you were interested
Speaker 1: in the life of Henrietta Lacks, you can get that
Speaker 1: book from the library or you can buy in a store.
Speaker 1: There's also an audio book version of it. There is
Speaker 1: a movie deal in the works that Oprah win Oprah
Speaker 1: Winfrey is involved in, so that wouldn't naturally have access
Speaker 1: to a lot more than we could really do. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for something that's more podcast like,
Speaker 1: there is an episode of All Things Considered from NPR
Speaker 1: that you can listen to you on the web for free.
Speaker 1: So there's lots and lots out there on Henriettle Axe
Speaker 1: and for a number of not something that is not
Speaker 1: discussed and needs to be unearthed and examined. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the any examination we would be doing is actually
Speaker 1: a retelling of an examination that someone else has already done.
Speaker 1: And I would much rather let that person's work, which
Speaker 1: is Rebecca Salute um, stand on its own. Uh. And
Speaker 1: with the quints, it's kind of the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: They've been covered in books, certainly, on television, certainly on
Speaker 1: in various periodicals and other publications. We're not going to
Speaker 1: add a lot to that that isn't pretty readily available
Speaker 1: to most people. It's not like we're going to magically
Speaker 1: find some pattern recognition that exposes some element of the
Speaker 1: story that no one else has thought of before. It's
Speaker 1: all been covered pretty thoroughly. I keep agreeing with you.
Speaker 1: I often just agree with you, so hooray for that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we sometimes when I write that letter back
Speaker 1: to people they are kind of angry and say, well,
Speaker 1: but her, her family wants her story to be down
Speaker 1: and I am I am okay with that, And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to speak for a family. I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to speak for us, and uh and and what
Speaker 1: we I wanted to be able to put into the
Speaker 1: podcast versus what already stands pretty well on tome, which
Speaker 1: to me that work really does. So since we're doing
Speaker 1: this all about listener mail, yeah, we're not going to
Speaker 1: read listener mail. Yeah, we don't have a separate listener
Speaker 1: mail at the end of this episode. But if you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us about any of these
Speaker 1: questions or anything else, you can. We're at History Podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash History class Stuff, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: missed in History. Our tumbler is missed in History dot
Speaker 1: tumbler dot com, and we are on Interest. If you
Speaker 1: wouldn't to learn more about Henrietta Lacks, who I know
Speaker 1: many many many of you do. We have an article
Speaker 1: on the website, which is one of the many things
Speaker 1: that I do feel pretty comfortable about. And if it
Speaker 1: were a science podcast that we were on we might
Speaker 1: do that, and that is the HeLa cells that came
Speaker 1: about as a result of her medical treatment. You can
Speaker 1: come to the website. You can search Heila h E.
Speaker 1: L A cells and you will find how HeLa Sales Work,
Speaker 1: which is an article about the cells that came from
Speaker 1: Henrietta Lacks. You can do all that in a whole
Speaker 1: lot more at our website, which is how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other
Speaker 1: topics because it how stuff works dot Com.