Stuff You Missed in History Class

Holly and Tracy talk about why Holly loved studying Wilfrid Voynich, when scurvy became a jokey disease, and the need for a good multivitamin and getting a little sunshine.

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Scurvy is a deficiency in vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, and its story goes way back in history – all the way to our evolutionary ancestors living more than 60 million years ago. 

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We’ve talked about the Voynich manuscript many times over the years, but the man for whom the manuscript is named has his own fascinating story.

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This 2017 episode revisits roses, which humans have painted, written about, and assigned symbolic meaning for centuries. But this much-beloved flower predates mankind, and it's a little difficult to track our early relationship with cultivating it.

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On today's episode, Tracy and Holly discuss their levels of familiarity with O. Henry and have a food digression. Talk then turns to how Rudolph became so popular so quickly, and how far reaching the Rudolph story is in culture.

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Most of us grew up with the story of the sweet little reindeer that was picked on by his peers, and becomes the hero who saves Christmas. But Rudolph is unique in that he became part of Christmas tradition almost the moment he was introduced in 1939.

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O. Henry’s writing is taught in many schools because of his stories like “Gift of the Magi,” but it’s rarely mentioned that during his life, he fled to Honduras to avoid prosecution for embezzlement. 

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This classic is from 2014. In 1826, liquor was forbidden at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Cadets smuggled alcohol into the barracks anyway, and a defiant Christmas party turned into a riot when two officers attempted to break up the festivities.

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Tracy and Holly discuss the difficulty people may have with Civil War history and how surprisingly exciting Constitutional scholarship can be.

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Holly is joined by Kerry Sautner, Chief Learning Officer of the National Constitution Center, to discuss the museum's mission, unlikely career paths to history, and how talking about the Constitution brings people together.

You can visit the National Constitution Center at: https://constitutioncenter.org/

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