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Coming Home from War in Ancient Greece

2/8/2025

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The Iliad and The Odyssey dramatize not only war, but how challenging it can be to return from war, and how war separates those who fight from their families and communities — even when there aren’t angry gods involved. Figuring out the history behind these beloved poems has a long and complicated history of its own. Scholars have used archaeology to find cities and palaces made famous by Homer. And historians debate the cultural meanings of war and trauma in cultures far removed from our own. The Return (2024) engages with many of these debates as it portrays Odysseus and Penelope’s familiar human story.

Host: Lucy

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Medieval Midwives Beyond Myths

8/3/2024

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Illuminated manuscript image of a woman who has just given birth with midwives tending to the baby

Who were medieval midwives and what did they do? As imagined in novels and films, the medical expertise of such women might be secret, mystical, persecuted, or some combination of all three. In the archives, traces of their activities can be tantalizingly hard to find. This podcast looks not only at the history of midwives in medieval Europe, but at the history of how scholars have tried to recover and reconstruct that history.

Host: Lucy

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Tadeusz Kościuszko, Part II: Life and Legend

3/9/2024

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Portrait of Tadeusz reclining on a seat in front of a window with his hand to his head

How much is it impossible to know about an icon? This episode investigates Tadeusz Kościuszko’s place in historical memory. From the early 19th century onwards, myths coalesced around him and his role in the Polish struggle for independence. Paradoxically, his contemporary fame can make it harder for historians to find facts. As a disabled war veteran who fought for racial and religious equality, moreover, Kościuszko is a figure more complex than the heroic narratives that have often formed around him.

Host: Lucy

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Tadeusz Kościuszko, Part I: International Icon, Revolutionary Hero

2/24/2024

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Portrait of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a white man with dark hair and serious expression, who wears a black jacket, red waistcoat, and white cravat and points to the top left

Tadeusz Kościuszko was a leader in the Age of Revolutions, lending strategic expertise to the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and trying on no fewer than three occasions to secure lasting independence for his native Poland. He also managed to personally offend Napoleon. This podcast gets into lost love, international politics, peasants with pitchforks, the anti-slavery movement, and why Kościuszko crossed the Atlantic so many times.

Host: Lucy

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The Kościuszko Squadron: Liberty and Modernity in the Aftermath of WWI

11/11/2023

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World Wat I poster featuring a plane in action

What ties together a Revolutionary War hero, a Hollywood film director, and twentieth-century Poland’s quest for political independence? The Kościuszko Squadron (7. Eskadra Lotnicza) was an international flying squad, whose airmen included former prisoners of war, idealistic Americans, and international adventurers. The Polish-Soviet War is a conflict that, having taken place in the shadow of the First World War, is largely overlooked in the US today. But at the time, the conflict and the Kościuszko Squadron, named after Tadeusz Kościuszko, generated international enthusiasm and publications from Polish-American presses. This podcast explores this flamboyant, neglected history.

Host: Lucy

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History for Halloween X

10/28/2023

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Drawing of a stage production where a ghostly image is made by shadows on a screen

It's hard to believe but here we are celebrating a decade of creepy stories from history for our favorite scary holiday!

Hosts: Christine, Kristin, Lucy

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True Crime on Stage in Shakespeare's England

8/5/2023

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The Witch of Edmonton play cover advertisement

In the often-chaotic society of sixteenth-century England, many people enthusiastically consumed true crime narratives in songs, news, and theater plays. Then as now, true crime narratives often centered on community crime-solving as a way of dealing with sensational and upsetting violence. Whether in the form of domestic tragedies or elaborate revenge dramas, true crime played to packed houses in the theaters of Elizabethan London. Amid religious and political upheaval, the popularity of true crime attested not just to evolving habits of media consumption, but also to powerful desires for communal order and mutual responsibility. In this episode, Lucy and guest host Dr. Rachel Clark examine true love, strong hate, and swift revenge – and why audiences tend to love a good murder.

Hosts: Lucy and Rachel

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Marlene Dietrich’s Scandalous Trousers

5/20/2023

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Black and white photograph of Dietrich wearing a white suit and beret and holding a cigarette

Defying Nazis and gender norms, Marlene Dietrich was far more than an Oscar-nominated actress… though she was that too. From Weimar Berlin’s cabaret scene to golden-age Hollywood and beyond, Dietrich carved a distinctive path for herself, and crafted an iconic star image. While that star image relied in large part on a cloud of golden hair and long, elegant legs, Dietrich was also often gender-non-conforming, on and off the stage and screen. This podcast episode looks at her international, multilingual, and intermittently scandalous life and career.

Host: Lucy

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Footnoting History's Favorite Historical Footnotes

2/11/2023

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Artist's rendition of Clio the Muse of History as a woman with wavy brown hair in a toga, holding an open scroll. There are two dark banners, one at the top left corner with a pair of green stars around the number 10 and on the bottom right corner with the letters FH on it

It's our birthday! Footnoting History first launched in February of 2013. To celebrate turning ten, all of our current hosts (yes, all!) picked out their favorite historical footnotes to share. This episode contains anecdotes from a variety of centuries covering things like music, fruit, medieval royalty, and presidential inaugurations. We hope you'll enjoy them as much as we do.

Hosts: Christine, Kristin, Josh, Lucy, Samantha

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Rebecca Gratz: Philanthropist, Educator… Romantic Heroine?

1/28/2023

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Rebecca Gratz helped to shape the vibrant cultural life of Philadelphia after the Revolutionary War. A second-generation immigrant, she supported artists and public institutions, and pioneered co-ed religious and cultural education for American Jewish children. She lived a remarkable life, and lived long enough to be photographed. She is also sometimes credited with being the real-life prototype for one of the nineteenth century’s most popular heroines, Sir Walter Scott’s Rebecca.

Host: Lucy

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History for Halloween IX

10/22/2022

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On Hallowe'en. Postcard from the 1910s, via NYPL

From haunted houses to hysterical historical happenings, our team is here again with snippets of creepy stories from the past to celebrate Halloween.

Hosts: Christine, Lucy, and Kristin

Further Reading

Jeffrey Hudson: England’s Forgotten Swashbuckler

7/30/2022

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Detail of the portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria and Sir Jeffrey, which hangs in the National Museum in Washington, D.C.

Dancer, court favorite, and popular celebrity in late 17th-century England, Jeffrey Hudson was distinguished not chiefly by his achievements, but by his size. Born with dwarfism, Hudson was known as “Lord Minimus.” His diminutive stature and social ableism meant that his court career was dependent in some ways on his novelty. A favorite of Queen Henrietta Maria, Jeffrey Hudson was painted by Van Dyck, and frequently figured in court entertainments. This podcast looks at his life, and what it can tell us about disability in early modern England.

Host: Lucy

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special edition: Listener Q & A

7/2/2022

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Illustration of a light bulb with a question mark in the center on a black background

You asked, we answered! Join Footnoting History's producers for our first-ever episode entirely dedicated to answering your questions about everything and anything related to history and our show.

Hosts: Christine and Kristin

Further Reading

Anna May Wong: International Star, Forgotten Icon

5/7/2022

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Ambitious, resilient, and internationally famous, Anna May Wong was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1930s. She had her first starring role in Hollywood before she was 20. She had also left Hollywood twice by the time she was 30, frustrated by the racism she faced as a Chinese-American woman. Throughout her career, she had to fight racism and censorship rules to get leading roles. But she also made international headlines for her performances on stage and screen. Though comparatively obscure today, Anna May Wong was a celebrity and style icon in a time when the options for women’s roles were being redefined in art and life.

Host: Lucy

Further Reading

Sarojini Naidu: Beyond the Golden Threshold

3/12/2022

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Frontispiece of Naidu's 1912 poetry collection, The Bird of Time.

Poet and activist, scholar and politician, Sarojini Naidu inhabited many roles. The daughter of privilege, she enjoyed an elite education... defied societal norms in marrying for love. Before women students could receive degrees, she studied at universities in both India and England, including at Girton College, Cambridge. A gifted poet, she was known as the "Nightingale of India," and wrote about topics including her own experience of chronic illness. She was involved in activism and politics, supporting women's suffrage in England, and working internationally for the cause of Indian independence from the 1920s onwards. This podcast examines both her extraordinary life and her distinctive literary voice.

Host: Lucy

Further Reading

History for Halloween VIII

10/30/2021

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Sketch of a man being scared by an apparition of a woman

Oh my gosh, we're back again! Our annual tradition continues as this year we bring you yet another round of creepy and fantastic history for the scariest holiday of the year.

Podcasters: Christine, Lucy, Kristin

Further Reading

Ivanhoe and the Modern Middle Ages

10/16/2021

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How did Ivanhoe become a wildly popular school text? And what happened to the interpretation of the text when it did? Across the Anglophone world, Scott’s medieval England became reified as a time and place of chivalric adventure, despite the novel’s often ironic tone and often pointed social criticisms. This episode examines how Sir Walter Scott’s imagined past became something very different as it was reinterpreted in popular culture, in sometimes sinister ways.

Podcaster: Lucy

Further Reading

Ivanhoe and the Invention of Merry England

10/2/2021

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There are some things that almost any Hollywood film set in the Middle Ages can count on. It will be set in England. There will be a lot of forests. The Norman nobility will oppress the Saxon peasantry. Other things are optional but frequent. There may be a tournament or a siege. There may be a reference to the Crusades. Robin Hood may turn up. There may be a trial for witchcraft. Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe contains all of these things, and since its publication in 1819, this runaway bestseller has helped to shape Anglophone ideas of the Middle Ages.

Podcaster: Lucy

Further Reading

Mohenjo Daro: Living City, Mound of the Dead

8/7/2021

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(c) Junhi Han/UNESCO

Mohenjo Daro was a vast metropolis, with elaborate urban infrastructure… and largely mysterious urban organization. It was a center of the Indus Valley civilization. Located in what is now Pakistan and northwestern India, the cities of this civilization covered territory roughly the size of western Europe. Because its language still hasn’t been deciphered by modern scholars, there’s still a lot we don’t know about it. But this hasn’t stopped modern scholars, writers, politicians, and artists from engaging with and fantasizing about it. This episode looks at what history can tell us about the art and culture — and water management — of this ancient civilization.

Podcaster: Lucy

Further Reading

Empress, Strategist… Saint? Irene of Byzantium

5/1/2021

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Plucked from obscurity to become the wife of an emperor, Irene of Athens went on to become regent and empress in her own right. A ruthless strategist, an international diplomat, and an intelligent politician, she was also an influential participant in Byzantium’s early medieval controversy over icons, which some saw as threatening imperial power. This episode explores her life, reign, and historical reputation.

Host: Lucy

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