Barely Historical

Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, the day Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that enslaved people there were free more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

In this episode of Barely Historical, we explore the history of Juneteenth, why freedom was delayed in Texas, how General Order No. 3 finally reached a quarter million enslaved people, and why Juneteenth became one of the most important dates in American history.

We discuss the myths surrounding Juneteenth, the reality of delayed enforcement, the search for separated families after emancipation, the origins of Juneteenth celebrations, Emancipation Park, and the people who carried this holiday forward for generations, including Felix Haywood, Jack Yates, Al Edwards, Lula Briggs Galloway, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Opal Lee.

This is a heavier episode than our usual fare, and we want to acknowledge that this is not our story. We are two white women doing our best to learn, listen, and share what we learned with care and respect. We hope we did this history justice. If we inspire you to learn more, please do. The voices, books, historians, and communities who have preserved this history deserve to be your next stop.

Recommended Reading & Resources

📚 On Juneteenth — Annette Gordon-Reed

📚 How the Word Is Passed — Clint Smith

📚 Help Me to Find My People — Heather Andrea Williams

📚 Juneteenth: A Children's Story — Opal Lee

🏛 National Museum of African American History and Culture

🏛 Emancipation Park Conservancy

Follow Barely Historical

Hosts: JoLynne & Amanda

Produced by Barely Historical

Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/BarelyHistorical⁠⁠⁠

Contact: ⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠

Tagline: Let’s ruin the past.

Hot take to start the show: every man who has ever lost his entire mind over a woman has blamed her for it. Two thousand years ago that energy started a civil war, ended with Julius Caesar getting stabbed 23 times on the Senate floor, and somehow left us remembering the smartest woman in the Mediterranean for her eyeliner and a snake.

This week Amanda and JoLynne take on Cleopatra VII, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, fluent in nine languages, queen at 18, mother to Caesar's only biological son, and the most successfully slandered woman in human history. Spoiler: according to the actual ancient source, she wasn't even that hot. She just out-talked every Roman in the room and they could not handle it.

In this episode:

• Fact or Follicle, a beauty quiz where we figure out which ancient Egyptian skincare routines were real and which Amanda made up in the shower (pubic wigs glued on with tree resin: tragically real)
• The Ptolemaic family tree, which is technically just a circle
• How a 21-year-old got herself smuggled into Julius Caesar's bedroom rolled up in a rug, which is either the most badass entrance in history or the most theater kid behavior of all time
• Red Flag or Roman Emperor, the dating game where Caligula keeps showing up
• Mark Antony, the original man who moved too fast, abandoned his Roman wife, and started minting coins with his side piece on them
• Octavian, a sickly little accountant who invented the political smear campaign and somehow still has us repeating his lies in 2026
• Why the snake story is biologically insane and what probably actually killed her (girl had a poison garden energy)
• A real ancient cocktail called The Cleopatra, which involved dissolving a pearl in vinegar to flex on a man at dinner

Also covered: lice horror stories, why Korean skincare is superior, Brendan Fraser appreciation, and the eternal question of whether sleeping in socks is a war crime.

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and Patreon at @BarelyHistorical for bonus episodes and our worst takes. Share this one with the guy who calls his situationship his queen, the friend doing a six-month Cleopatra skincare routine with nothing to show for it, and anyone currently losing it over a man who is, objectively, mid.

Let's ruin the past.

This week, we’re diving into the chaotic world of the De Clare sisters, one of medieval England’s most powerful families. What starts as inheritance drama quickly turns into royal favoritism, political manipulation, tangled family trees, suspiciously close relationships, and enough rumors to make an entire kingdom uncomfortable.

We talk about King Edward II, Hugh Despenser, Piers Gaveston, medieval marriage politics, power struggles, inheritance battles, and why keeping land and influence inside the same elite circles created absolute chaos. Along the way, we also discuss bizarre medieval behavior, weird historical jobs, and why history’s family trees sometimes look more like family wreaths.

If you like messy royals, medieval history, scandal, dark humor, and uncomfortable historical rumors, this episode is for you.

Credits

Hosts: JoLynne & Amanda

Produced by Barely Historical

Contact: [email protected]

Let’s ruin the past.

Patreon Bonus Episode.

The year is 1978, and apparently the hottest relationship trend is mutual destruction.

JoLynne and Amanda ruin history with the chaotic, toxic, and wildly overrated romance of SID VICIOUS and NANCY SPUNGEN. From the rise of punk in a collapsing England to the disaster that was the Sex Pistols’ U.S. tour, we follow two people who should have absolutely never been left unsupervised together.

In this episode, we get into punk culture in 1970s England, why SID became famous despite barely being able to play bass, and how NANCY went from suburban Philadelphia to the center of the CBGB scene in New York. We talk heroin, hotel fights, bad decisions, worse men, and the murder at the Chelsea Hotel that turned their mess into legend.

Spoiler: this was not a love story. It was codependency with better eyeliner.

In this episode

• How punk exploded out of economic collapse and pure spite

• Why SID VICIOUS was more image than musician

• NANCY SPUNGEN’s complicated life before New York

• The Sex Pistols’ absolute trainwreck of a U.S. tour

• Room 100 at the Chelsea Hotel and the murder that followed

• Why history keeps trying to make terrible men romantic

Credits

Hosts: JoLynne & Amanda

Produced by Barely Historical

Contact: [email protected]

Let’s ruin the past.

What were Gilded Age mansions really hiding?

In this episode of Barely Historical, we dive into the outrageous world of America’s most extravagant homes—built during the late 1800s by names like the Vanderbilts, Astors, and Morgans. These weren’t just houses… they were statements. Massive, detailed, and honestly a little unhinged.

But once you get past the marble staircases, gold leaf everything, and “casual” ballrooms… the story shifts.

Because behind the luxury was something else entirely.

We break down:

• What the Gilded Age actually was (and why it still feels relevant today)
• How these mansions were built with zero modern machinery
• The insane level of craftsmanship that still doesn’t make sense
• The hidden systems and labor that kept these homes running
• Real scandals, including a public murder tied to this world
• And why so many of these mansions didn’t survive

Plus:

• A chaotic game of “Gilded Building or Bullshit”
• Smash or Pass: Billionaire Edition
• Real Gilded Age headlines
• And quick facts that will make you question everything about wealth, then and now

This episode starts as architecture… and ends somewhere much deeper.

If you love:
history, dark humor, weird facts, rich people doing too much, and stories that feel a little too familiar…

you’re in the right place.

Welcome to Barely Historical—the podcast where we take the past, look a little closer, and realize it’s never as simple as it appears.

Follow us for more history that makes you stare at the ceiling afterward.

Follow us: @barelyhistoricalpodcast on Instagram and TikTok

Email: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠

Hosted by Amanda and JoLynne~60 minutes | Explicit | Released 04/23/2026

Let's ruin The Guilded Age

The year is 1919. Boston is minding its business when a 50-foot tank full of molasses says, “absolutely not.”

JoLynne and Amanda ruin history with a literal syrup tsunami, corporate negligence, and the moment breakfast turned into a crime scene. This is the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, and yes… it is exactly as insane as it sounds.

In this episode, we cover a 30–40 foot wave of molasses moving at 35 mph, the engineering strategy of “paint it brown and pray,” a man who literally rafted through molasses on his bed (we respect it), why this somehow gets worse the more you think about it, and the world’s worst legal defense: “the anarchists did it.”

Chapters

00:00 Cold open

02:30 Intro Game: Would You Rather – Sticky Situations

07:45 Paint It Brown and Pray

15:30 How Do You Die

22:00 Cracker Barrel Crime Scene

28:00 Wrap

Games we played (because we’re professionals)

Would You Rather: Sticky Situations — slow, warm, pancake death vs. fast, cold, salty death. Choose wisely.

How Do You Die — are you nosy, petty, or protecting your laundry? Either way… the molasses is coming.

The takeaway: sometimes history is kings and wars. Sometimes it’s a giant tank of breakfast exploding because no one wanted to spend money on safety. And somehow it’s both hilarious and horrifying.

Follow us wherever you ruin history.

Every spring, humans suddenly feel the urge to reset their lives. We clean our houses, change our routines, and convince ourselves we’re becoming better people overnight. But this isn’t random. It’s ancient.

In this episode of Barely Historical, we dive into the real history behind Ostara, Easter, and spring traditions. From pagan fertility rituals and seasonal survival instincts to eggs, rabbits, and church rebranding, we unpack how modern spring celebrations came to be.

We break down the origins of Easter symbols, the mystery of the goddess Ostara, and why cultures across history all celebrated the return of light in surprisingly similar ways. Along the way, we question everything, side-eye tradition, and admit that most of human history is just people coping.

If you’ve ever wondered why spring feels like a fresh start or why we’re all suddenly cleaning our kitchens and buying pastel decor, this episode explains it.

Imagine being so good at math that the federal government trusts you to calculate whether astronauts survive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Orbital mechanics. Launch windows. Trajectory equations. Reentry angles.

The kind of math where one wrong decimal can kill someone.

Now imagine being trusted with that level of responsibility while still being told you cannot use the same bathroom as your coworkers.

That was the reality for Katherine Johnson, one of the most important mathematicians behind the American space program.

In this episode of Barely Historical, Amanda and JoLynne dive into the story of the woman whose calculations helped send astronauts into orbit while she navigated segregation, sexism, and Cold War politics inside NASA.

Born in 1918 in segregated West Virginia, Katherine Johnson showed extraordinary mathematical talent early in life. She enrolled in college at 15 and graduated at 18 with degrees in mathematics and French.

But despite her brilliance, the career options available to a Black woman with a math degree in the 1930s were extremely limited. For years she worked as a teacher, even though she had the kind of mind that could calculate orbital trajectories.

That changed in 1953 when she was hired by NACA, the government agency that would later become NASA.

There, she joined a group of women mathematicians known as human computers.

These women performed the complex calculations engineers needed for aerodynamics, flight testing, and eventually space travel using pencils, slide rules, and a terrifying level of competence.

But the workplace was segregated.

Black women mathematicians worked in a separate building called West Area Computing. They used different bathrooms, ate at separate cafeteria tables, and were rarely invited into engineering meetings about the work they were actually doing.

Still, Katherine Johnson’s math was impossible to ignore.

She began attending engineering briefings anyway. She corrected calculations. She asked questions others could not answer.

Eventually she became the first woman in her division credited as co author on a research report.

Then came one of the most famous moments in space history.

In 1962 astronaut John Glenn was preparing to orbit Earth aboard Friendship 7. NASA had started relying on electronic IBM computers to calculate flight trajectories, but the technology was still new.

Before launch Glenn made a request.

“Get the girl to check the numbers.”

He meant Katherine Johnson.

If she said the numbers were correct, he would fly.

She checked them by hand.

They were right.

Glenn orbited the Earth, the United States scored a major Cold War victory, and Katherine Johnson quietly went back to work.

Over the next 33 years she contributed to the Mercury missions, Apollo trajectory calculations, and early space shuttle planning.

While the country argued about segregation and who belonged in the room, she was calculating who would survive reentry.

In this episode Amanda and JoLynne also talk about the segregated West Area Computing Unit at Langley Research Center, the women NASA called computers, and why Katherine Johnson forced her way into engineering meetings.

There is also a game of NASA Slang or I Made It Up featuring terms like Go Fever, Max Q, Scrub, and Abort Mode.

Follow Barely Historical wherever you listen to podcasts.

Visit barelyhistorical.com for episodes, updates, and everything related to the show.

Join the Patreon for bonus episodes and the darker version of the podcast at patreon.com/barelyhistorical.

Leaving a review helps the algorithm and our fragile little egos.

Share this episode with your friend who says they are just not a math person, the coworker who explains things you already calculated, or your uncle who thinks discrimination ended sometime around 1970.

Or just send it to the smartest woman you know.

Because chances are she has been carrying the room longer than anyone noticed.

This Valentine’s Day, Barely Historical is skipping the roses and going straight to the gunfire.

In this episode, Jo and Amanda dive into one of the most infamous crimes in American history: the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, when Chicago’s Prohibition-era gang wars turned a holiday into a headline soaked in blood.

While the rest of the world was exchanging chocolates, Al Capone’s criminal empire and the North Side Gang led by Bugs Moran were exchanging bullets inside a garage on North Clark Street. Fake police uniforms, Tommy guns, a near-miss target, and a dog who absolutely did not consent to being part of mob history… it’s got everything.

We break down the chaos of 1920s Chicago organized crime, the brutal execution that shocked the nation, and the forensic science breakthrough that still couldn’t bring the case to court. Because nothing says romance like an unsolved massacre with holiday branding.

If you’re here for dark history, terrible men, worst decisions, and Prohibition-era violence that feels way too theatrical, you’re in the right place.

Plus: a game of Mobster or Mildly Unwell, raccoon bootlegging headlines, and the Barely Historical guarantee that this is not a cozy Valentine’s episode.

Follow us for more history that makes you stare at the ceiling afterward.

Follow us: @barelyhistoricalpodcast on Instagram and TikTokEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠

Hosted by Amanda and JoLynne~60 minutes | Explicit | Released 02/11/2026

Let's ruin Valentine's Day!

Welcome to the full unhinged version of Mother’s Little Helpers, where mid-century America dressed women in pastels and then medicated them into silence.

JoLynne and Amanda ruin the real history behind the “little yellow pills” of the 1950s and 60s.
Valium. Librium. Milltown.
Doctors prescribing tranquilizers like they were mints.
Dear Abby giving advice that aged like milk.
Don Draper level dissociation happening in every cul-de-sac in America.

We talk about the rise of Mother’s Little Helper culture, the women trapped in it, the medical gaslighting that kept it going, and the feminist explosion that blew the dollhouse doors off.
This is women’s history with teeth.
Dark. Funny. Messy.
Exactly why you are here.

In this full episode, we dive into:
• the pills that built mid-century calm
• the housewives who were anything but calm
• the doctors who needed therapy more than their patients
• Anne Landers and Dear Abby writing trauma like recipes
• the mothers, the myths, and the meltdown
• the ghost of the perfect homemaker that still haunts today

If you’ve ever wondered why the 1950s looked adorable but felt like a psychological horror film, this is your comfort episode.
Bring your anxiety snacks.
Take your vitamins.
Maybe hide your Don Draper crush.