Stuff You Missed in History Class

The second part of 2013's historical finds includes items unearthed by animals, amateurs and ultra-modern science. Lead coffins, rare torpedoes and mass graves are featured. And of course, there's discussion of everyone's favorite topic: exhumations. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What historical revelations revealed themselves in 2013? So many, we need two episodes to cover them all. From Viking jewelry to lost Doctor Who episodes and -- of course -- bodies in car parks, history showed up in some surprising places this year. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During the terrible winter of 1880 and 1881, which was immortalized in Laura Ingalls Wilder's "The Long Winter." Laura, both real and fictional, was going on fourteen. And the winter she wrote about was a real event. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For many people, Laura Ingalls Wilder is the primary source of information of what life was like for white people on the American frontier. But she had a whole life as a novelist beyond the youth that unfolded in the books. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why did lions in the Tsavo region start to attack humans in the first place? Modern behavioral and scientific research has given us some surprising insights into the causes of the 1898 attacks as well as modern lion attacks in the same area. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1898, two male lions killed and ate dozens of people in Tsavo and shut down construction of the Uganda Railroad. Lt. Col. John H. Patterson, a civil engineer working on the project, made it his personal mission to stop the feline scourge. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The second half of the Axman story involves his famous letter to the New Orleans Times-Picayune warning that he would descend on the city, but would spare anyone with a live jazz band playing in their house. But had the Axman been murdering before 1918? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1918 and 1919, a rash of attacks had all of New Orleans on edge. While the Axman has turned up in modern storytelling, no fiction could top the real story of late-night break-ins and assaults by a mystery assailant who was never caught. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks to the pillow book of lady-in-waiting Sei Shonagon, we have a first-person account of court life in Heian Japan. It's part diary, part commonplace book, part essay collection, and thoroughly fascinating. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The name "Boston Massacre" sounds as though it was the slaughter of a bunch of innocents in colonial Boston. The reality is much smaller - and not nearly so one-sided. But there's a reason why we call it a massacre. And that reason is propaganda. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.