Stuff You Missed in History Class

John Graunt was a shopkeeper in 17th-century London who followed his own curiosity to a rather grand result. His work gave rise to the fields of demography and epidemiology.
Research:
Berke, Olaf, et al. “Celebration day: 400th birthday of John Graunt, citizen scientist of London.” Environmental Health Review. 63(3): 67-69. 2020. https://doi.org/10.5864/d2020-018
Britannica Editors. "John Graunt". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Apr. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Graunt
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Sir William Petty." Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Apr. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/money/William-Petty
Clark, Andrew. “Aubrey’s ‘Brief Lives.’” Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1898. https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/briefliveschiefl01aubruoft/briefliveschiefl01aubruoft.pdf
Connor, Henry. “John Graunt F.R.S. (1620-74): The founding father of human demography, epidemiology and vital statistics.” Journal of medical biography 32,1 (2024): 57-69. doi:10.1177/09677720221079826
Eschner, Kat. “People Have Been Using Big Data Since the 1600s.” Smithsonian. April 24, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-have-been-using-big-data-1600s-180962949/
Glass, D.V., et al. “John Graunt and His Natural and Political Observations [and Discussion].” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, Vol. 159, No. 974, A Discussion on Demography (Dec. 10, 1963), pp. 2-37 Published by: The Royal Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/90480
Graunt, John. “Natural and political observations mentioned in a following index, and made upon the Bills of mortality.” Oxford : Printed by William Hall, for John Martyn, and James Allestry, printers to the Royal Society MDCLXV [1665]. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2356017R
KARGON, ROBERT. “John Graunt, Francis Bacon, and the Royal Society: The Reception of Statistics.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 18, no. 4, 1963, pp. 337–48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24621352
Kelsey, Holly. “Sovereign and the Sick City in 1603.” Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Aug. 23, 2016. https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/sovereign-and-sick-city-1603/
Lewin, C. G. "Graunt, John (1620–1674), statistician." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. August 08, 2024. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-11306
Pepys, Samuel. “The Diary of Samuel Pepys.” GEORGE BELL & SONS. London. 1893. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4200/pg4200.txt
Smith, R.M. (2008). “Graunt, John (1620–1674).” The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_758-2

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2019 episode marked 100 years since a wave of racist violence in the U.S. that became known as Red Summer. In many ways, Red Summer was a response to (but NOT caused by) two earlier events: the Great Migration and the return of black soldiers who had fought in World War I.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy commiserate about sending greeting cards. Tracy talks about how she shifted away from an episode exclusively about Frances Thompson.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Memphis Massacre was a truly horrific wave of destruction and violence, including sexual violence, against the Black community of Memphis just a year after the end of the U.S. Civil War.
Research:
“Memphis Daily Appeal Interviews Frances Thompson (1876),” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed April 9, 2026, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/3717.
“The Outrage Mill.” The North Missouri Register. 9/14/1876.
“The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made during the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress, 1865-’66.” Washington: Government Printing Office. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/SERIALSET-01274_00_00-002-0101-0000/context
Blank, Christopher. “Do The Words 'Race Riot' Belong On A Historic Marker In Memphis?” Code Switch. NPR. 5/2/2016. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/05/02/476450908/in-memphis-a-divide-over-how-to-remember-a-massacre-150-years-later
Britannica Editors. "Memphis massacre of 1866". Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/event/Memphis-Race-Riot. Accessed 8 April 2026.
Carriere, Marius. “An Irresponsible Press: Memphis Newspapers and the 1866 Riot.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly , Spring 2001, Vol. 60, No. 1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42628498
Davis, Justin A. “How a disabled Black trans woman left her mark on 19th-century Memphis.” The Emancipator. 6/13/2024. https://theemancipator.org/2024/06/13/topics/histories/how-a-disabled-black-trans-woman-left-her-mark-on-19th-century-memphis/
Donald, Bernice Bouie. “When the Rule of Law Breaks Down: Implications of the 1866 Memphis Massacre for the Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Boston Law Review. Vol. 98. 2018.
Equal Justice Institute. “On this day - Apr 30, 1866: White Police and Mobs Terrorize and Kill Black Residents in Memphis.” https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/apr/30
Harper’s Weekly. “The Memphis Riots.” 5/26/1866.
Johnson, Charles F. and T.W. Gilbreth. “The Freedmen’s Bureau Report on the Memphis Race Riots of 1866.” 5/22/1866. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-freedmens-bureau-report-on-the-memphis-race-riots-of-1866/
Kimberley, Lewis. “’If you kill him, you have got to kill me first’: examining individual and collective loyalties during the Memphis Massacre (1866).” American Nineteenth Century History. Vol. 25, 2024. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14664658.2024.2316465
O’Donovan, Susan and Beverly Bond. “ ‘A History They Can Use’: The Memphis Massacre and Reconstruction’s Public History Terrain.” The Journal of the Civil War Era. 8/15/2016. https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2016/08/history-can-use-memphis-massacre-reconstructions-public-history-terrain/
Stryker, Susan. “To Appear As We Please.” Aperture, Winter 2017, No. 229, Future Gender. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44898154
Walker, Barrington. “'This is the White Man's Day': The Irish, White Racial Identity, and the 1866 Memphis Riots.” Left History. Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997. https://doi.org/10.25071/1913-9632.5336
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Humans have been exchanging tokens of friendship since before recorded history. From calling cards to Valentines to Christmas cards, the modern greeting card industry evolved.
Research:
“America’s First Christmas Card.” Albany Institute of History and Art. https://www.albanyinstitute.org/online-exhibition/50-objects/section/america-s-first-christmas-card
Britannica Editors. "scarab". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Apr. 2014, https://www.britannica.com/topic/scarab
Britannica Editors. "greeting card". Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Mar. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/greeting-card
Brown, Ellen F. “Christmas, Inc.: A Brief History of the Holiday Card.” JSTOR Daily. Dec. 20, 2015. https://daily.jstor.org/history-christmas-card-holiday-card/
Chase, Ernest Dudley. “The Romance of Greeting Cards.” Rust Craft. Cambridge, MA. 1956.
“Dali at Hallmark.” Hallmark Art Collection. https://www.hallmarkartcollection.com/creatively-thinking/stories/dali-at-hallmark/
“Esther Howland 1847.” Mount Holyoke. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/directory/alum/esther-howland
Evans, Elaine Altman. “The Sacred Scarab, Occasional Paper.” McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. University of Tennessee. January 1, 1996. https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/1996/01/01/sacred-scarab/
Greeting Card Association. “The History of Greeting Cards.” https://www.greetingcard.org/history/
Hanc, John. “The History of the Christmas Card.” Smithsonian. Dec. 9, 2015. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-christmas-card-180957487/
Henry, William E. “Art and Cultural Symbolism: A Psychological Study of Greeting Cards.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 6, no. 1, 1947, pp. 36–44. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/426176
Kavanagh, Marybeth. “Louis Prang, Father of the American Christmas Card.” The New York Historical. Dec. 19, 2012. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/prang
Koon, Wee Kek. “How ancient Chinese new year cards went from elites’ greetings to bribery instruments.” South China Morning Post. Jan. 31, 2026. https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/chinese-culture/article/3341675/how-ancient-chinese-new-year-cards-went-elites-greetings-bribery-instruments?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article
Korolkov, Maxim. “‘Greeting Tablets’ in Early China: Some Traits of the Communicative Etiquette of Officialdom in Light of Newly Excavated Inscriptions.” T’oung Pao, vol. 98, no. 4/5, 2012, pp. 295–348. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41725988
Lee, Ruth Webb. “A History of Valentines.” 1984.
Newberry, Percy E. “Scarabs: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian Seals and Signet Rings.” London. Archibald Constable and Co. Ltd. 1908. https://dn790001.ca.archive.org/0/items/scarabsintroduc00newbuoft/scarabsintroduc00newbuoft.pdf
Purcell, Denise. “Authentic Messaging and Independent Makers Drive Greeting Cards' Next-Gen Relevance.” U.S. Chamber of Commerce. https://www.uschamber.com/co/good-company/launch-pad/greeting-card-next-gen-relevance#:~:text=The%20category%20is%20massive:%20According,card%20market%20at%20$7%20billion.
Grafton, Samuel. “Holly Leaf and Copper Plate.” The North American Review, vol. 226, no. 6, 1928, pp. 660–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25110633
Shoichet, Catherine E. “This ‘visionary’ woman changed the way many Americans celebrate Valentine’s Day.” CNN. Feb. 14, 2024. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/13/style/esther-howland-valentines-card-history-cec
Schmidt, Leigh Eric. “The Commercialization of the Calendar: American Holidays and the Culture of Consumption, 1870-1930.” The Journal of American History, vol. 78, no. 3, 1991, pp. 887–916. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2078795
Stupperich, Andy. “Art Education: Louis Prang's Christmas Card Competitions.” The Henry Ford Museum. January 29, 2026. https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/articles/art-education-louis-prang%27s-christmas-card-competitions
Terrell, Ellen. “Esther Howland and the Business of Love.” Library of Congress. March 23, 2016. https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2016/03/esther-howland-and-the-business-of-love/
“World's first printed Valentine's Card.” A History of the World. BBC. 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/L1NM_6mWRymAMKXcRDlXJA
Wright, Helena E. “A winning design: Prang’s Christmas card contests of the 1880s.” National Museum of American History. December 23, 2019. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/winning-design-prangs-christmas-card-contests-1880s
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.