Stuff You Missed in History Class

Available Episodes

5 of 2561

SYMHC Classics: Chesapeake Bay Oyster Wars
This 2013 episode covers the years after the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War when the oyster supply became so scarce that people turned to oyster piracy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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25:03
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25:03
Behind the Scenes Minis: Math and Falsehoods
Holly shares a story about Augustin Fresnel's early career. Tracy discusses an article criticizing the Smithsonian and points out its incorrect contents.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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26:48
Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton
Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton is known as one of the earliest Mexican-American authors published in English, and her life story is tied closely to the Mexican-American war and the establishment of California as a state. Research: Amero, Richard W. “The Mexican-American War in Baja California.” The Journal of San Diego History. Winter 1984, Volume 30, Number 1. https://sandiegohistory.org/journal/1984/january/war/ Annenberg Learner. “Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton (c. 1832-1895).” https://www.learner.org/series/american-passages-a-literary-survey/masculine-heroes/maria-amparo-ruiz-de-burton-c-1832-1895/ Brink, Jean R. “María Amparo Ruiz de Burton.” EBSCO Knowledge Advantage. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/maria-amparo-ruiz-de-burton Contreras, Alicia . "María Amparo Ruiz de Burton". In Oxford Bibliographies in American Literature. 3 Sep. 2025. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0191.xml. Contreras, Alicia. "'I'll publish your cowardice all over California': Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's the squatter and the don in the age of Howells." American Literary Realism, vol. 49, no. 3, spring 2017, pp. 210+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A491311790/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=97ad48d9. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025. Crawford, Kathleen. “María Amparo Ruiz Burton.” The Journal of San Diego History. Summer 1984, Volume 30, Number 3. https://sandiegohistory.org/journal/1984/july/burton/ Diaz, Ella Maria. "Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives." Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, vol. 22, no. 2, June 2005, pp. 202+. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A141999447/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=1c4826f6. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025. Dietrich, Lucas. “A Sensational Job: Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, J.B. Lippincott Co., and Commission Printing.” Bibliographical Society of America. Via YouTube. 4/19/2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb6sfXdUyR8 Hedrick, Joan D. "Who Would Have Thought It?" The Women's Review of Books, vol. 13, no. 7, Apr. 1996, p. 6. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A19140252/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=c31ab587. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025. Meylor, Megan. “California Nerves.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, FALL 2020, Vol. 62, No. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27117136 Quarstein, John V. “Worden and the Californios.” U.S. Naval Institute. October 2023. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2023/october/worden-and-californios Raab, Josef. “The Imagined Inter-American Community of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton.” Amerikastudien / American Studies, 2008, Vol. 53, No. 1. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41158358 Sánchez, Rosaura and Beatriz Pita, editors. “Conflicts of Interest: The Letters of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton.” Arte Publico Press. University of Houston. 2001. Spitzzeri, Paul R. “Article Ten of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848.” Homestead Museum Blog. 5/31/2019. https://homesteadmuseum.blog/2019/05/31/article-ten-of-the-treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo-1848/ “María Amparo Ruiz, a woman of that century.” Issue 30. 3/8/2017. https://tendenciaelartedeviajar.com/en/2017/03/history/maria-amparo-ruiz-a-woman-of-that-century/ University of Texas Press. “María Amparo Ruiz de Burton and the Conquered Californios: An Interview With Meagan Meylor.” 11/15/2021. https://utpress.utexas.edu/blog/2021/11/15/maria-amparo-ruiz-de-burton-and-the-conquered-californios-an-interview-with-meagan-meylor/ Women & The American Story. “Life Story: María Ruiz de Burton (1832–1895).” The New York Historical Society. https://wams.nyhistory.org/industry-and-empire/expansion-and-empire/maria-ruiz-de-burton/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Augustin Jean Fresnel
Augustin Fresnel didn’t live a long life, but he contributed significantly to the understanding of light and to the safety of coastlines. Neither of those had anything to do with his career. Research: Anderson, F.L. “Huygens' Principle geometric derivation and elimination of the wake and backward wave.” Sci Rep11, 20257 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99049-7 Aglialoro, Todd. “Jansenism.” Catholic.com. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/jansenism Garcia-Atutxa, Igor, et al. “The epistemological impact of Augustin-Jean Fresnel and his wave theory of light in the 19th century.” History of Science and Technology. Vol. 14, No. 1. 2024. https://www.hst-journal.com/index.php/hst/article/view/616 Clingan, Ian C.. "lighthouse". Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 Jan. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/technology/lighthouse Crew, Henry. “The wave theory of light; memoirs of Huygens, Young and Fresnel.” New York. Cincinnati American Book Company. 1900. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/wavetheoryofligh00crewrich/page/n3/mode/2up Davidson, Michael W. “Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827).” Molecular Expressions. Florida State University. https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/fresnel.html The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Augustin-Jean Fresnel". Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Jul. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustin-Jean-Fresnel The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "François Arago". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Feb. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francois-Arago “The Genius of Augustin-Jean Fresnel and his Lens.” Ponce Lighthouse & Museum. July 19, 2023. https://www.ponceinlet.org/the-genius-of-augustin-jean-fresnel-and-his-lens/ Herivel, John. "Christiaan Huygens". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Jul. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christiaan-Huygens. “July 1816: Fresnel’s Evidence for the Wave Theory of Light.” Advancing Physics. American Physical Society. https://www.aps.org/archives/publications/apsnews/201607/physicshistory.cfm Linden, Teri Clark. “A Short Bright Flash: Augustin Fresnel and the Birth of the Modern Lighthouse.” W.W. Norton. 2013. “May 1801: Thomas Young and the Nature of Light.” Advancing Physics. American Physical Society. https://www.aps.org/archives/publications/apsnews/200805/physicshistory.cfm “Napoleon’s Russian campaign: From the Niemen to Moscow.” Napoleon Foundation. https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/timelines/napoleons-russian-campaign-from-the-niemen-to-moscow/ Rehman, Ayaz Ur, and Muhammad Sabieh Anwar. “Light Is a Transverse Wave.” LUMS Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering. August 21, 2018. https://physlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LightTransverse-v2.pdf Silliman, Robert H. “Fresnel and the Emergence of Physics as a Discipline.” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences , 1974, Vol. 4 (1974), pp. 137- University of California Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27757329.pdf Tag, Thomas. “Lens Use Prior to Fresnel.” United States Lighthouse Society. https://uslhs.org/node/1481 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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SYMHC Classics: Max von Pettenkofer
This 2020 episode talks about how Pettenkofer's ideas about cholera's spread weren’t exactly right, but they still had really beneficial impacts on the way we live.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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31:40
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31:40