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 Sarah Dowdy and I'm to bling a chalklate boarding,
Speaker 1: and we've been talking about our favorite historical finds of eleven,
Speaker 1: all of the cool history related news stories that really
Speaker 1: caught our eye, and that also played into some of
Speaker 1: the themes that we've talked about a lot on the
Speaker 1: podcast this year. Yeah, we've been talking about things that
Speaker 1: we're actually unearthed as inver brought to the surface, and
Speaker 1: also things that just there were new findings about something
Speaker 1: that was discovered a while back, new discoveries made. And
Speaker 1: some of the themes we're going to hit on today
Speaker 1: include shipwrecks, which I know we talked about quite a
Speaker 1: bit this spring, art which we're kind of always throwing
Speaker 1: in the random art history episode, and uh, wine and
Speaker 1: beer too, which we did a two party this summer.
Speaker 1: It was a real it was a real summer kind
Speaker 1: of episode. It was on historical wine, historical beer, even
Speaker 1: some mead thrown in there. So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about news stories related to those things today and um,
Speaker 1: just let you know kind of that history keeps on
Speaker 1: chugging too. People keep on making discoveries, and the news
Speaker 1: really figures into our podcasts a lot more than some
Speaker 1: people might expect it does. And first off, we're going
Speaker 1: to start out with another great pirate story that I
Speaker 1: know people always love to hear more about, no matter
Speaker 1: how much you already know about it. And it's a
Speaker 1: follow up on an episode that we actually did a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Well, not me personally, some of
Speaker 1: my esteemed colleagues, black Beard and his flagship the Queen
Speaker 1: Anne's Revenge, which ran aground near Beaufort, North Carolina in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen. As you already know from the earlier podcast,
Speaker 1: because of course you've listened to it. The shipwreck itself
Speaker 1: is not a new find. We even had a listener
Speaker 1: who worked on conserving its artifacts right in But one
Speaker 1: of the coolest pieces of listener mail I think I've
Speaker 1: ever gotten it is But what is really big news
Speaker 1: for this year is that the North Carolina Department of
Speaker 1: Cultural Resources has come out and said that the ship
Speaker 1: that most folks thought was probably the Queen Anne's Revenge
Speaker 1: is definitely the Queen Anne's Revenge. So we'll give you
Speaker 1: a little bit of background on the ship. The reck
Speaker 1: site was found back in nineteen and it was under
Speaker 1: only twenty five ft of water in less than a
Speaker 1: mile and a half from Sure So it sounds like
Speaker 1: under those conditions it might be easy to excavate. That
Speaker 1: was not the case at all. Bad weather, a little visibility,
Speaker 1: difficult funding. All of these things have made excavating the
Speaker 1: site really slow going, and currently archaeologist since that is
Speaker 1: believed that they have found or cataloged about half of
Speaker 1: the site, which is enough to finally feel confident in
Speaker 1: labeling it Blackbeard's famous pirate ship, fortunately in time for
Speaker 1: a major exhibition of its artifacts. But why did they
Speaker 1: decide that they were confident calling it the queen ans
Speaker 1: Revenge after years of saying it's probably the queen ans Revenge. Well,
Speaker 1: there are a few reasons. First of all, its size,
Speaker 1: The Queen Anne's Revenge was a big ship, a former
Speaker 1: French labor called law Concord. Its approximate date was another thing.
Speaker 1: Archaeologists have found a bell on board labeled seventeen oh five.
Speaker 1: Another clue was its location. It's right where black beard
Speaker 1: ship should be, and there weren't other large ships known
Speaker 1: to have sunk in that area. But maybe most importantly
Speaker 1: is the weaponry that they found on board. This is
Speaker 1: a big one. There's an astonishing number of weapons aboard
Speaker 1: this wreck. And just this October, for instance, divers pulled
Speaker 1: out the thirteen cannon from the wreck. Of the other
Speaker 1: twelve cannons that they found so far four have been loaded,
Speaker 1: so like in the middle of a battle or something
Speaker 1: ready to go. But according to Wendy Welsh, who is
Speaker 1: the manager of the Queen Anne's Revenge Conservation Laboratory in Greenville,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, who spoke with the Smithsonians before the big
Speaker 1: announcement was made, she said, quote, We're not going to
Speaker 1: find anything that says Queen Anne's Revenge or black Beard
Speaker 1: was here. You have to use all these little clues.
Speaker 1: Although I do like the idea of finding some sort
Speaker 1: of black Beard was here. It was filled with a
Speaker 1: z or something exactly. But when the announcement came out,
Speaker 1: Claire Obell, who is the public relations coordinator for the
Speaker 1: North Carolina Maritime Museum, really still echoed that sentiment of
Speaker 1: Wendy Well. She was quoted in National Geographic News saying
Speaker 1: there was not one moment there was a collection of
Speaker 1: moments in a deduction based on the evidence. So they've
Speaker 1: been compiling all this stuff for years and years after
Speaker 1: repeated dives in lots of study, and finally felt competent
Speaker 1: to say, yes, this is black Beard ship. It took
Speaker 1: a long time to analyze that evidence though, after the
Speaker 1: dives to pull out artifacts. Corroded items like cannons require
Speaker 1: about five years in a chemical bath to gradually remove
Speaker 1: their thick marine life crust, which seems like a really
Speaker 1: long way for me. You just want to figure out
Speaker 1: what it is. And apparently if you just chip away
Speaker 1: at it or something, you if it's something like a cannon,
Speaker 1: maybe it won't break. But if it is maybe glass underneath,
Speaker 1: you chip away at that marine life crust and you
Speaker 1: break the glass underneath and you don't have anything anymore.
Speaker 1: So you have to just gradually eat away at it.
Speaker 1: And apparently some of these items too, are so thickly
Speaker 1: covered in this crust you'd have no idea what they
Speaker 1: are underneath until you until you get down to it.
Speaker 1: There's one other cool find though, from the now official
Speaker 1: Queen Anne Revenge wreck, and that is some insight into
Speaker 1: terroristic pirate tactics and this stuff really kind of shocked me.
Speaker 1: So while trying to recover a three thousand pound anchor
Speaker 1: from the ship, archaeologists from North Carolina's Department of Cultural
Speaker 1: Resources found these three metallic clusters in a small area
Speaker 1: of the seabed that surrounded the wreck. And the clusters
Speaker 1: contained residue like nails and glass and lead shot and
Speaker 1: they're believed to have been fired contained in canvas bags
Speaker 1: out of cannon, so they would just spray everywhere, kind
Speaker 1: of like a street sweeper pirate. Addition, and according to
Speaker 1: Discovery News, the expedition's leader, Mark Wild Ramsing, who's the
Speaker 1: deputy State Archaeologists, said quote, as with all pirates, Blackbeard
Speaker 1: did not want to sink merchant ships, but to scare
Speaker 1: them into giving up shooting bolts and scrap lead, iron,
Speaker 1: and glass would have been very effective. Indeed, so our
Speaker 1: next find is a little bit on the lighter side,
Speaker 1: the more artistic side. The roof Ignat caves in the
Speaker 1: Dordogna region of France have long been known as a
Speaker 1: prime site for cave art. As in modern art, there
Speaker 1: are different ancient art styles and mediums. One type is
Speaker 1: called finger flutings and it's done by running the fingers
Speaker 1: over soft clay, so the roof and nac caves are
Speaker 1: filled with thirteen thousand year old finger flutings. Some are
Speaker 1: just pretty swirls and lines, and others look like recognizable
Speaker 1: shapes huts for instance. But the big news in cave
Speaker 1: art in Tleven is that many of the roofing nat
Speaker 1: cave systems finger flutings were made by kids. So back
Speaker 1: in two thousand six, Walden University researcher Leslie van Gelder
Speaker 1: and her late husband Kevin Sharp, came up with this
Speaker 1: technique to measure the finger flutings and determine the age
Speaker 1: and the sex of the artists who made them. And
Speaker 1: age determination doesn't really work for adults because the measurement
Speaker 1: is based on hand size, specifically the width of the pointer,
Speaker 1: middle and ring fingers, and of course that can vary
Speaker 1: a lot between adults who are all the same age potentially,
Speaker 1: but for kids it's a lot more standard. I guess
Speaker 1: kids have more similarly shaped hands, and flutings under thirty
Speaker 1: four millimeters are believed to have been made by children
Speaker 1: under the age of seven, and they can even break
Speaker 1: it down further than that, so these are made by
Speaker 1: two or three year olds stuff like that, and gender
Speaker 1: can be determined by the fingertip shape. And most of
Speaker 1: these just look like lines, but if you google a
Speaker 1: picture of them or something, you'll see there are clear
Speaker 1: end points where the fingertips are are visible. This year,
Speaker 1: Van Gelder and the University of Cambridge archaeologist Jessica Cooney
Speaker 1: measured many of the case flutings and determined according to
Speaker 1: history dot com, but kids worked in almost every chamber
Speaker 1: in the complex, even those quite far from the system's
Speaker 1: entering about like a forty five minute walk through a cave,
Speaker 1: so pretty deep in there, and the most prolific artist
Speaker 1: was likely a five year old girl. One room had
Speaker 1: so much child made finger painting it was described as
Speaker 1: a quote playpen. But the cutest thing about this discovery,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is that many of the flutings were
Speaker 1: well over the heads of small children. You know, they
Speaker 1: were on the roof of the cave, if you could
Speaker 1: put it that way, which of course suggests that adults
Speaker 1: lifted the kids to help them do their art, and
Speaker 1: obviously took a more forgiving stance on drawing on the
Speaker 1: walls thirteen thousand years ago than they than they might today,
Speaker 1: we have another interesting art history find for you. Though.
Speaker 1: While children in France were finger fluting with their adult
Speaker 1: care givers, an ice age hunter in what is today
Speaker 1: Florida was carving animal pictures into bone. In two thousand
Speaker 1: six or two thousand seven, a fossil hunter named James
Speaker 1: Kennedy picked up a find on Vera Beach. He didn't
Speaker 1: think much of it and word it under his sink
Speaker 1: until two thousand nine, when he finally cleaned it off
Speaker 1: and found an etching of a mammoth. So now, in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, the carving has been authenticated, reported as
Speaker 1: real in thirteen thousand to twenty thousand years old in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Archaeological Science. Not that everyone was easily
Speaker 1: convinced about that, though, no, not at all. According to
Speaker 1: National Geographic News, the study leader, Barbara Party of the
Speaker 1: University of Florida, started researching on the assumption that the
Speaker 1: thing was fake, but tests and analyzes eventually convinced her
Speaker 1: that it was real, and she even showed a little
Speaker 1: hesitation even after the paper and everything. She said, quote,
Speaker 1: you always have some lingering doubt since there's no way
Speaker 1: to get an actual date on the bone or the
Speaker 1: actual in sizing. The only way we're going to really,
Speaker 1: really really prove it's authentic is to do some excavations
Speaker 1: and see if perhaps there are additional specimens. But barring
Speaker 1: further investigations, how did research your is come to the
Speaker 1: conclusion that the finding was not a fraud? Because we
Speaker 1: have talked about historical hope this year too, and it
Speaker 1: did um I could easily understand how somebody would think
Speaker 1: this would be right fraud. Well, first of all, they
Speaker 1: authenticated the bone. It belonged to a mammoth, masted on
Speaker 1: or a giant sloth, all of which were extinct in
Speaker 1: Florida by the end of the last ice Age, so
Speaker 1: that was one thing. They also determined that the etching
Speaker 1: had aged at the same rate as the rest of
Speaker 1: the bone, so it wasn't like it was just scratched
Speaker 1: out with a metal. We found an old bone and
Speaker 1: then and then rub some dirt in it or something
Speaker 1: to make it lookal. The study was done with optical
Speaker 1: and electron microscope, so they're pretty convinced of at least
Speaker 1: those two things, and they might really go do some
Speaker 1: more excavations of the beach to see what else is
Speaker 1: in this area. We have one more art history ancient
Speaker 1: art history entry for you on this list, and we
Speaker 1: have to consider that modern art is really pretty relative.
Speaker 1: I know there's capital modern art, but um, in a
Speaker 1: broader sense, it's very relative because compared to this find,
Speaker 1: the finger flutings or the carvings of thirteen thousand years
Speaker 1: ago would really be pretty recent stuff. This fall, a
Speaker 1: study was published in the journal Science, detailing the fines
Speaker 1: of study leader Christopher Henschelwood, an archaeologist at the University
Speaker 1: of Bergen in Norway and the University of the woodwaters
Speaker 1: Rand in South Africa. He and his team found ancient
Speaker 1: paint residue and one hundred thousand year old abalone shells
Speaker 1: from Blombous Cave near Still Bay, South Africa. The still
Speaker 1: bright red pigment contained ochre charcoal, crushed seal bones, court
Speaker 1: site chips, and some kind of liquid. The Arts Studio
Speaker 1: label came from other items that were found along with
Speaker 1: the paint, though grindstones, hammerstones of fire pit, and animal
Speaker 1: bones that would have been used as a means to
Speaker 1: transfer the paint, which I was imagining with kind of
Speaker 1: like a paint knife. Yeah, maybe something like that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have our oldest known arts studio here. But one
Speaker 1: cool side note on this. It's not just a sign
Speaker 1: of serious interest in art one hundred thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: but it's also it also shows an early understanding of chemistry.
Speaker 1: So according to Henschelwood and National Geographic News, he said quote,
Speaker 1: they seem to know that sealbone is really rich in
Speaker 1: oil and fat, which is a critical component in making
Speaker 1: a paint like substance. They also need to add charcoal
Speaker 1: to the mixture to bind and stabilize it, and a
Speaker 1: little bit of fluid which could have been water or
Speaker 1: seawater or urine. So there you go, um, a possible
Speaker 1: twist to this ancient art studio. I still think that's um.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool though, especially that the pigment is still bright.
Speaker 1: That was something that stood out to me. You think
Speaker 1: of even paintings from the Renaissance, they get their sort
Speaker 1: of faded look sometime where we were talking about Van
Speaker 1: Gogh recently, and some of his bright, bright colors have
Speaker 1: gone off because he strapped them a little bit with
Speaker 1: other components that haven't aged as well. But apparently this
Speaker 1: mixture is a surefire way if you want your your
Speaker 1: art to remain as vibrant as ever, it does make
Speaker 1: you interested in the chemistry at it. Next that we're
Speaker 1: going to move on to a very different kind of concoction.
Speaker 1: In January, in the Journal of Archaeological Science, an international
Speaker 1: research team including Armenian, Us and Irish archaeologists announced that
Speaker 1: they discovered the world's oldest winery in an Armenian cave.
Speaker 1: Up until then, the oldest known winery was in Israel
Speaker 1: and dated back to sixteen fifty b C. And this
Speaker 1: new discovery took place on the same site as one
Speaker 1: of last year's unearthed the unearthed in twenty ten entries
Speaker 1: and that was the world's oldest shoe, which I think
Speaker 1: was I don't know. I'll speak for myself. I think
Speaker 1: it might have been my favorite. Well had the world's
Speaker 1: best quote, but went along with the one about the
Speaker 1: woman being so excited to find a shoe and how
Speaker 1: that had been a goal her whole live dream. If
Speaker 1: you haven't heard that episode, go back at us and
Speaker 1: into it because it's funny. So there must be something
Speaker 1: about that spot. But wine production artifacts found here include
Speaker 1: simple Want a simple wine press, fermentation vats with residue
Speaker 1: storage jars, remnants of grape vines and seeds, and a
Speaker 1: small cup that might have been used to sample the wine.
Speaker 1: And researchers used radio carbon analysis to date all this
Speaker 1: stuff back to about BC and four thousand BC, so
Speaker 1: about six thousand years ago. Still, the researchers say that
Speaker 1: the press and a wide, shallow vat resemble foot stomping
Speaker 1: equipment used for wine making and the Caucuses and the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean as recently as the nineteenth century. So it's again
Speaker 1: technology paint. We're talking about things that really last ohile.
Speaker 1: But we also and we talked about this sum in
Speaker 1: our Historical Wine and Spirits episode, we have to wonder
Speaker 1: what was this early wine like like, what would it
Speaker 1: have tasted like? And analysis of the residue, and of
Speaker 1: course the remnants that were found lying around indicate that
Speaker 1: grapes were used to make the wine rather than pomegranates
Speaker 1: or some other kind of fruit. Gregory Rishian, who is
Speaker 1: the co director of the excavation and the assistant director
Speaker 1: of the University of California, Los Angeles Cotson Institute of Archaeology,
Speaker 1: told CNN that the wine that was being made there
Speaker 1: would be similar to a modern, unfiltered red wine and
Speaker 1: probably tasted something like a merlot, so not too bad.
Speaker 1: We don't know too much about the people who were
Speaker 1: making this wine, but they may have been predecessors to
Speaker 1: the current access people in early Transcaucasian group. We do
Speaker 1: know that they weren't drinking just for the sake of drinking, though,
Speaker 1: they weren't just drinking to get drunk or something. Since
Speaker 1: the cave winery was found near a cemetery site, researchers
Speaker 1: think that it was actually used for ceremonial purposes, probably
Speaker 1: playing apart in funerals. And Dr Patrick McGovern who we
Speaker 1: mentioned quite a bit in our earlier episodes. He's a
Speaker 1: senior search scientists at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. He
Speaker 1: told CNN that the find is quote an important link
Speaker 1: in the development of wine culture throughout the region, and
Speaker 1: Arisian wants to try to reconstruct the entire press, the
Speaker 1: entire process, to see what the wine would have really
Speaker 1: tasted like and what people would have gone through in
Speaker 1: making it. So, you know, this year we talked about
Speaker 1: dog fish heads, recreations of these ancient beers, ancient mead,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Maybe maybe in another year we'll
Speaker 1: be talking about recreation of ancient wine yes a similar
Speaker 1: find along these lines. In June, archaeologists revealed that they
Speaker 1: had found evidence in France's Provence region of the country's
Speaker 1: oldest known brewing operation, which is probably also one of
Speaker 1: the oldest in all of Europe. The brewing operation is
Speaker 1: essentially a home brewery from the Iron Age, which was
Speaker 1: about two thousand, five hundred years ago, and that was
Speaker 1: discovered by archaeologist Laurent Boubet from France's National Center for
Speaker 1: Scientific Research and to his colleagues. The researchers got their
Speaker 1: findings by analyzing three different sediment samples from the site
Speaker 1: of a fifth century b c. House in southeastern France
Speaker 1: that had been excavated in the nineteen nineties. They took
Speaker 1: these samples from the floor near the hearth of the house,
Speaker 1: a ceramic vessel, and a pit near some other containers
Speaker 1: that were there, and all of the samples contained carbonized
Speaker 1: barley that somebody had sprouted on purpose. And they were
Speaker 1: able to tell that because the barley seemed like it
Speaker 1: had been sorted really well. There were no weed seeds
Speaker 1: that were present, and it didn't seem to the researchers
Speaker 1: like the present where the sprouting was accidental. They don't
Speaker 1: know what the spear tasted like, but they think that
Speaker 1: the brewing process wasn't all that different from modern home brewing.
Speaker 1: They probably soaked to the grain, spread it out in
Speaker 1: a flat area like the floor, dried it in the oven,
Speaker 1: ground it, and then put it in containers for fermentation
Speaker 1: and storage. Researchers are still trying to determine how this
Speaker 1: fits into a life in Iron Age Europe. Wine was
Speaker 1: already popular there at the time, but people of Celtic
Speaker 1: heritage had settled in this region of France during this
Speaker 1: time and they liked beer, so it's possible that they
Speaker 1: could have traded amongst themselves. Makes sense. I actually just
Speaker 1: started reading a book about the history of food, and
Speaker 1: this story especially was really interesting to me because it
Speaker 1: talks about how people might have figured out the fermentation
Speaker 1: process or the distillation process later things like that, even
Speaker 1: how people might have figured out that you can boil
Speaker 1: your food stuff like that. It's it's cool to consider
Speaker 1: how we got to where we are today. Well, I
Speaker 1: think talking about food and beer and wine is a
Speaker 1: great way to kind of finish off this year end
Speaker 1: episode that we're doing here. Don't you do. It's kind
Speaker 1: of cheers to two thousand eleven and all the discoveries
Speaker 1: that were made, and looking forward to much more in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve to kind of spur us along in
Speaker 1: our own research. And with that, we're going to move
Speaker 1: on to another mega edition of Listener Mail and share
Speaker 1: a bunch of bunch more emails, letters and postcards and
Speaker 1: things related to episodes that we've done recently. We want
Speaker 1: to start off with kind of an example of when
Speaker 1: we do a podcast on recent history, it's nice because
Speaker 1: people have experienced it or been a part of it,
Speaker 1: and they write in to tell us about that, and
Speaker 1: we really appreciate it. And so I have one here
Speaker 1: to share with you regarding our polio episode, and it's
Speaker 1: from Rick and Arizona, and he says, your recent podcast
Speaker 1: on polio and the development of the polio vaccine as
Speaker 1: a subject I know well. I was part of the
Speaker 1: test group for the Salk vaccine. I was in the
Speaker 1: second grade at the time. We were called the Polio Pioneers.
Speaker 1: At the time, I had a little understanding of the
Speaker 1: severity of the problem, but I can recall pictures of
Speaker 1: hospital wards lined with iron lungs. Seeing that people were
Speaker 1: in them was frightening to a child. The initial vaccine
Speaker 1: was a series of seven shots over a period of time.
Speaker 1: Like most children, I hated needles and the idea of
Speaker 1: getting seven shots didn't set very well with any of us.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I was lucky I received the vaccine, not
Speaker 1: the placebo. Some of my friends had to go back
Speaker 1: for the real thing when the test was concluded so
Speaker 1: that they would be properly immunized. Today, we're very lucky
Speaker 1: the ravages of that horrible disease are behind us. And
Speaker 1: we did hear from quite a few people who had
Speaker 1: family members or they remembered as kids the polios are
Speaker 1: going on. It was one that brought out a lot
Speaker 1: of personal recollections for sure. Yeah, So thanks Rick, and
Speaker 1: thanks everyone who shared those stories with us. We also
Speaker 1: hear from quite a few listeners who used the podcast
Speaker 1: for educational purposes, and one of our proudest moments i'd
Speaker 1: say this year was you guys voted for us for
Speaker 1: the Podcast Awards in the Education category, So we thought
Speaker 1: it would be fitting to share a few of those um.
Speaker 1: One is Froom Jenna. She wrote us to say that
Speaker 1: she had decided to go back and get her doctorate
Speaker 1: in American history after you're listening to a bunch of
Speaker 1: podcasts about American history and deciding she wanted to pursue
Speaker 1: it in a format a little longer than you know,
Speaker 1: the twenty minute Jim exercise or car ride or whatever.
Speaker 1: So cuds to you, Jenna, that's pretty awesome. We have
Speaker 1: a similar one from Kimberly and Arkansas. And she talks
Speaker 1: about how she used to use the podcast in her
Speaker 1: English classroom and that kind of helped them When she
Speaker 1: was a Quizble sponsor. She said, I even encouraged my
Speaker 1: team to listen to the various stuff podcasts in preparation.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you were part of the reason we won first
Speaker 1: place in our district. Then she goes on to say,
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class reawoke a passion for
Speaker 1: history I had let go when I decided to focus
Speaker 1: on teaching English. Thanks to you, I tested. I decided
Speaker 1: to test into History certification. I listened to your podcast
Speaker 1: as part of my study regimen for the practice exam
Speaker 1: the exam teachers must take to prove they are qualified
Speaker 1: to teach a subject. Although I can't give you, guys,
Speaker 1: all the credit. There were more than a couple of
Speaker 1: questions I recognized from previous podcasts, and only from previous podcasts.
Speaker 1: So so she's now pursuing a master's in American History?
Speaker 1: All right? Where to go? So we also hear from
Speaker 1: some folks who are still in school, not just about
Speaker 1: to go out and get their advanced degrees. One example
Speaker 1: of this is listener Michaela, who is from southern New
Speaker 1: Hampshire and she's a freshman in high school. And she
Speaker 1: wrote in to say, many of my friends made fun
Speaker 1: of me for listening to the podcast, but I never
Speaker 1: thought too much of it and um. She went on
Speaker 1: to say that it helped a little bit with one
Speaker 1: of her English classes, and she wrote, I wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you for helping me use my resources to create
Speaker 1: a wonderful piece of writing and showing my friends that
Speaker 1: my favorite podcast can really help in other classes besides history.
Speaker 1: So yeah, show your friends, Michaela. Podcasts are are cool.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people are inspired to start their own podcasts. We
Speaker 1: have a note here from Marie and she says, back
Speaker 1: in January, after several long drives, I had heard the
Speaker 1: idea of more art history topics coming up and This
Speaker 1: got my brain turning. As a photography student at Utah
Speaker 1: Valley University, my love of history has bled into a
Speaker 1: love of art history. I got to thinking, why couldn't
Speaker 1: we have an art history podcast on campus. Our podcast
Speaker 1: Arts and Facts officially launched this month and we're finally
Speaker 1: on iTunes you. We're looking forward to getting more people
Speaker 1: interested in topics of art and I have stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in history class to think so. And I think
Speaker 1: the listeners who have started their own podcast as one
Speaker 1: of my favorite genres of listener mail. We do hear
Speaker 1: from teachers sometimes who get their whole class making podcasts
Speaker 1: as a project or an alternative to a research paper,
Speaker 1: and I think that's so cool. And we've even been
Speaker 1: like enough to hear some of the podcast that kids
Speaker 1: have have recorded. Very cool. But I wanted to read
Speaker 1: one more education related email. This one is from Jason,
Speaker 1: and he says that my wife and I are homeschooling parents,
Speaker 1: so we are always looking for resources to make our
Speaker 1: seven and eleven year old daughters education fun and interesting.
Speaker 1: We search for and download episodes that are relevant to
Speaker 1: what they're studying at the time and just play them
Speaker 1: while the kids are in the car or sitting at
Speaker 1: the table drawing or coloring. Some of their favorite episodes
Speaker 1: are the top historical pets naturally, I mean she doesn't
Speaker 1: like that one, and anything about princesses so well, I
Speaker 1: agree with both of those. The pet one of my
Speaker 1: favorite topics to cover. So yeah, education emails are just
Speaker 1: so neat together. They make I don't know, they make
Speaker 1: me feel good when I when I read them, for sure.
Speaker 1: So we also get postcards from people all over the world,
Speaker 1: which we love. You guys sometimes see them. They end
Speaker 1: up on Facebook. We put them up there so you
Speaker 1: do a little collage of postcards every now and again.
Speaker 1: But we get so many more even than just those,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to share one with you from Shannon
Speaker 1: and she is writing from Germany, the birthplace of the
Speaker 1: Brothers Grim. She says, I have recently moved to Germany
Speaker 1: and love listening to the podcast when I take the
Speaker 1: train to explore. One of my favorite podcasts was on
Speaker 1: the Brothers Grim and it inspired me to go on
Speaker 1: their trail even today. Some of the forests and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I can't totally read her handwriting all here, but
Speaker 1: I think she says something to the effective they're still
Speaker 1: dark and deep, and it's easy to see why the
Speaker 1: original versions of the fairy tales were not sweet bedtime stories.
Speaker 1: But she did include for us a little treat. She
Speaker 1: gave us each a little frog prince figurine from what So.
Speaker 1: She said she wanted to give us something from one
Speaker 1: of the nicer tails, So thank you very much, Shannon.
Speaker 1: We're enjoying those. It's an adorable addition to Sarah's little
Speaker 1: king slash prince collection she has. I have a lion
Speaker 1: that I think we just got as some sort of
Speaker 1: discovery gift. I don't know, maybe like a new website
Speaker 1: came out. And then of course the Beaver King. The
Speaker 1: Beaver King one of the better known um bow teas
Speaker 1: from listening Meals this year. But before we sign off,
Speaker 1: we want to leave you with a few more of
Speaker 1: these listen While segments that we've started doing recently, and um,
Speaker 1: I think you guys have had a lot of fun
Speaker 1: writing in and telling us what kinds of cool things
Speaker 1: you do while you're listening to the podcast. One is
Speaker 1: from Jenny and she writes, I am the operator of
Speaker 1: a very small ferry that crosses the william At River
Speaker 1: south of Salem, Oregon. Since I get fewer than fifty
Speaker 1: cars a day this time of year, and it's only
Speaker 1: a three minute trip across the river, I've got plenty
Speaker 1: of time to listen to old episodes of stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in history class. So that's what she's doing while
Speaker 1: she's listening to us. We've got another one from listener
Speaker 1: Joey and Lafayette, Louisiana, and he listens while he makes
Speaker 1: his own Cajun sausages down there in Cajun Country. We
Speaker 1: have another one from listener Jimmy, who lives in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: New York, and he's an artist, and he says he
Speaker 1: listens to our podcast for hours on end. In his studio,
Speaker 1: he makes quilts with images of space on them. And
Speaker 1: his note here that I love is space Nerds love
Speaker 1: history to exclamation point true. We also received an email
Speaker 1: from a listener in Ovlin, Norway. His name is spelled
Speaker 1: k j E t I L, and he wrote to
Speaker 1: say that he listens to episodes while he's working on
Speaker 1: building a theater in Oslo. And he said, inspired by
Speaker 1: listening to history podcasts all day, I made everyone who
Speaker 1: had been involved in creating the theater sign their names
Speaker 1: underneath the stage floor for people to find when they
Speaker 1: change the floor many years from now. A little time
Speaker 1: so cool. We have another one here from Anne and Sacramento,
Speaker 1: and she says, during naptime, I listened to as many
Speaker 1: podcasts as I can before the kids wake up. Your
Speaker 1: podcast is a welcome break from kids voices during the day.
Speaker 1: I thought that one was funny. We also heard from
Speaker 1: some Facebook commenters Twitter followers. It's a really Both are
Speaker 1: really good mediums for people to share these listen wild topics.
Speaker 1: We heard from Facebook commentator Megan who listens while she
Speaker 1: grooms horses and works on flower beds. The folks at
Speaker 1: Bang Bang Pie and Coffee listen while they bake pies,
Speaker 1: of course, of course, and another Facebook commentator, Alice, listens
Speaker 1: while she does taxidermy. She actually explained taxidermy a little
Speaker 1: bit to us since we have talked about it in
Speaker 1: a few episodes. Our understanding of it was somewhat flawed,
Speaker 1: so now we know you guys could maybe find that
Speaker 1: conversation if you're interested. Um. We also heard from Bart
Speaker 1: who listens while pruning and pollinating petunias for branch research.
Speaker 1: This reminded me of a book I read when I
Speaker 1: was a kid called Frankenstein Plants Petunias, I think, um,
Speaker 1: and we heard from another interesting art related one. Yep.
Speaker 1: Heather listens while she works on her Chandler and Price
Speaker 1: antique letter press. And we have a few letter press listeners,
Speaker 1: but our last one to include today. Kathleen from New
Speaker 1: Jersey listens well, volunteering at her local animal shelter. But
Speaker 1: she has a funny comment to share. She says, it's
Speaker 1: quite a contrast thinking about Empress CC and her cult
Speaker 1: of beauty while scooping cat boot. I guess that's our
Speaker 1: our thought to leave you on for eleven. Um, have
Speaker 1: a great new year and we will be back in
Speaker 1: with more history. Yeah, and keep sending us emails and notes.
Speaker 1: It's so easy. You can write us at history podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or you can look
Speaker 1: us up on Facebook and leave a comment, or you
Speaker 1: can look us up on Twitter at myston History. And
Speaker 1: as always, you can find a lot of articles on
Speaker 1: our home page at www dot how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works. iPhone up has a right download it
Speaker 1: today on iTunes, m