Stuff You Missed in History Class

United Fruit Company was Guatemala’s largest employer and largest single landowner when the October Revolution took place. It also controlled the railroad, the port and the utilities. And it feared that the new government threatened its business interests.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 1954 coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala was orchestrated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Part one will outline the various influences leading up to the coup, including the involvement of United Fruit Company. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's episode is a classic from November 2014. 1920, the S-5 left the Boston Navy Yard on its first mission, with a crew of 36 officers and enlisted men. While performing a crash dive as part of a performance evaluation, the crew found themselves on a sinking vessel.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anaxagoras and his work in unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos crossed the boundaries between philosophy and astronomy.. And it was, in many ways WAY ahead of its time –  ahead enough that he was criminally charged for it. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This case fed an already growing anti-Catholic movement in England in the 1860s. Additionally, it played on the shock of women being incredibly cruel to one another – something that was even used by the plaintiff’s legal team when speaking to the jury.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we revisit a 2015 episode about an international jailbreak! In the 1860s, a crew from the United States mounted a mission to Western Australia to rescue imprisoned members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood who had been imprisoned by Great Britain.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Godey’s Lady’s Book was the most popular magazine in the U.S. in the middle of the 19th century. Although it’s most well-known for its hand-tinted fashion plates, its content included poetry, fiction, household tips, music, and etiquette.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1600s, John Wilkins was planning out what he thought it would take for humans to travel to the moon. Wilkins managed to ride out a rocky time in England’s historycomfortably, and was well known; he appears in the diaries of Samuel Pepys.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we revisit a 2014 episode. Dr. Blackwell had no interest in medicine as a child. But she paved the way for women who came after her and changed the face of medicine in the U.S.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Benjamin Lay was a Quaker and a radical abolitionist who lived in the period between when the Religious Society of Friends began and when it started formally banning slave ownership among its members.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.