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iHeartPodcasts

Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.

Stuff You Missed in History Class

This 2021 episode covers smallpox, a viral disease that has existed for millennia. But it’s now one of only two diseases that’s been eradicated through human activity, and a global plan was enacted to do it.
 
 

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SYMHC Classics: Eradication of Smallpox

Holly talks about the lack information about Pinel’s family, and how much she’d like to see Oscar Wilde use social media. Tracy discusses the way the Cooley episode narrowed down the scope of her originally planned topic.

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Behind the Scenes Minis: Progressive Medicine

William B. Coley started using a bacterial infection to treat cancers in the late 19th century, one of the earliest uses of immunotherapy.
 
Research:
 
 • Ahuja, Sana and Sufian Zaheer. “The evolution of cancer immunotherapy: a comprehensive review of its history and current perspectives.” Korean Journal of Clinical Oncology 2024; 20(2): 51-73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14216/kjco.24009
 • Atkins, Douglas. “Helen Coley Nauts: Advocate for Immunotherapy.” National Library of Medicine. 4/19/2016. https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2016/04/19/helen-coley-nauts-advocate-for-immunotherapy/
 • Cancer Research Institute. “The History of Cancer Immunotherapy.”
 • Coley, William B. “Therapeutic Value of the Mixed Toxins of the Streptococcus of Erysipelas and Bacillus Prodigiosus in the Treatment of Inoperable Malignant Tumors. With a Report of 160 Cases.” American Journal of the Medical Sciences. September 1896.
 • College of Physicians of Philadelphia. “Cancer Vaccines and Immunotherapy.” History of Vaccines. https://historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/future-immunization/cancer-vaccines-and-immunotherapy/
 • Colley, William B. “The Treatment of Inoperable Sarcoma by Bacterial Toxins (the Mixed Toxins of the Streptococcus erysipelas and the Bacillus prodigiosus).” Reprinted from the “ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine,” November, 1909. London. John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, LTD. 1909. https://archive.org/details/b22425949/mode/1up
 • Decker WK, da Silva RF, Sanabria MH, Angelo LS, Guimarães F, Burt BM, Kheradmand F and Paust S (2017) Cancer Immunotherapy: Historical Perspective of a Clinical Revolution and Emerging Preclinical Animal Models. Front. Immunol. 8:829. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.00829
 • Devaraja, K. et al. “Coley’s Toxin to First Approved Therapeutic Vaccine—A Brief Historical Account in the Progression of Immunobiology-Based Cancer Treatment.” Biomedicines 2024, 12, 2746. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines12122746
 • Dobosz, Paula and Tomasz Dzieciatkowski.” The Intriguing History of Cancer Immunotherapy. Frontiers in Immunology. 12/17/2019. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.02965
 • Hall, Stephen S. “A Commotion in the Blood: Life, Death, and the Immune System.” Henry Holt and Company. Excerpted at New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hall-commotion.html 
 • Harutyunyan, Mariam. “How William Coley Became The Father of Cancer Immunotherapy.” OncoDaily Magazine. 7/31/2026. https://oncodaily.com/magazine/william-coley-549446
 • Hiroaki Ikeda, Cancer immunotherapy in progress—an overview of the past 130 years, International Immunology, Volume 37, Issue 5, May 2025, Pages 253–260, https://doi.org/10.1093/intimm/dxaf002
 • Journal of the American Medical Association. “Erysipelas Toxins in the Treatment of Malignant Tumors.” 10/27/1894.
 • Journal of the American Medical Association. “The Failure of the Erysipelas Toxins.” Vol 23 Iss 24. 12/15/1894.
 • Kokolus, Katie. “The History of Immunotherapy: Toxins, Targets & T Cells.” LabRoots. 10/18/2021. https://www.labroots.com/trending/cancer/21449/history-immunotherapy-toxins-targets-cells?srsltid=AfmBOooP1eoVP2LbWKR5m-HLu1PSBFhOyPH1jSJWWcxvyK6EA4-hBu47
 • Levine, David B. “The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled: William Bradley Coley, third Surgeon-in-Chief 1925-1933.” HSS journal : the musculoskeletal journal of Hospital for Special Surgery vol. 4,1 (2008): 1-9. doi:10.1007/s11420-007-9063-2
 • McCarthy, Edward F. “The Toxins of William B. Coley and the Treatment of Bone and Soft-tissue Sarcomas.” The Iowa Orthopaedic Journal. Vol. 26.
 • Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “MSK Immunotherapy — Timeline of Progress.” https://www.mskcc.org/timeline/immunotherapy-msk
 • National Library of Medicine. “Harnessing the Power of You: The History of Immunotherapy.” https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/the-history-of-immunotherapy/index.html
 • Nauts, Helen Coley. “Coley’s Toxins – The First Century.” Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients. June 2004.
 • Nawrat, Allie. “Charting the history of immunotherapy, cancer treatment’s fourth pillar.” Pharmaceutical Technology. 7/28/2020. https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/features/charting-the-history-of-immunotherapy-cancer-treatments-fourth-pillar/?cf-view&cf-closed
 • Oiseth SJ, Aziz MS. “Cancer immunotherapy: a brief review of the history, possibilities, and challenges ahead.” J Cancer Metastasis Treat. 2017;3:250-61. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2017.41
 • Tontonoz, Matthew. “What Ever Happened to Coley’s Toxins?.” Cancer Research Institute. 4/2/2015. https://www.cancerresearch.org/blog/what-ever-happened-to-coleys-toxins
 
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Coley's Toxins and the Origins of Immunotherapy

Pinel’s work is considered the precursor to psychiatry. In the late 18th century, he overhauled the asylum system of Paris with his groundbreaking ideas about mental health.
 
Research:
 
 • Bicêtre Hospital. https://hopital-bicetre.aphp.fr/lhopital 
 • Boullerne, A.I., et al. “The origins and early history of neurochemistry and its societies.” Journal of Neurochemistry. 152: 8-28. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnc.14839 
 • Chambers, William. “Chambers' Edinburgh journal.” Vol. 11-132. 1849. London. William Orr. https://archive.org/details/chambersedinburg1112cham/page/n179/mode/2up 
 • Charland, Louis C. 2018. “Lost in Myth, Lost in Translation: Philippe Pinel’s 1809 Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation.” International Journal of Mental Health 47 (3): 245–49. doi:10.1080/00207411.2018.1483053. 
 • Gallaher, John G. and Paul Stewart. “Fall of Robespierre.” EBSCO. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/fall-robespierre 
 • Hewitt, Jessie. “Gender and the Founding ‘Fathers’ of French Psychiatry.” Institutionalizing Gender: Madness, the Family, and Psychiatric Power in Nineteenth-Century France, Cornell University Press, 2020, pp. 19–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv136c5pw.5 
 • Huneman, Philippe. “Writing the Case—Pinel as Psychiatrist.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 3, no. 2 ( January 15, 2014): http://arcade.stanford.edu/rofl/writing-case -pinel-psychiatrist. 
 • KAVKA, JEROME. “PINEL’S CONCEPTION OF THE PSYCHOPATHIC STATE: An Historical Critique.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 23, no. 5, 1949, pp. 461–68. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44442272 
 • Kendler, Kenneth S. “Philippe Pinel and the foundations of modern psychiatric nosology.” Psychological medicine vol. 50,16 (2020): 
2667-2672 • . doi:10.1017/S0033291720004183 
 • Lakritz, Kenneth, MD. “Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.” Psychiatric Times. Vol. 26, no. 6. June 4, 2009. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/michel-foucaults-madness-and-civilization-history-insanity-age-reason 
 • Paradowski, Robert J., PhD. “Philippe Pinel.” EBSCO. 2024. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/health-and-medicine/philippe-pinel 
 • Pearce, J.M.S. “The beginnings of humane psychiatry: Pinel and the Tukes.” Hektoen International. June 4, 2020. https://hekint.org/2020/06/04/the-beginnings-of-humane-psychiatry-pinel-and-the-tukes/ 
 • Pinel, Philippe. Tr. by Gordon Hickish, David Healy, Louis C. Charland. “MEDICO-PHILOSOPHICAL TREATISE ON MENTAL ALIENATION.” Wiley-Blackwell. 2008. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/9780470712238.fmatter 
 • Pinel, Philippe. “A Treatise on Insanity … “ Sheffield. W. Todd. 1806. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_4snWNO1lETAC/page/n7/mode/2up 
 • Pinel, Philippe. “A Treatise on Insanity.” New York : Published under the auspices of the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine by Hafner Pub. Co. 1962. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/treatiseoninsani0000pine/page/n1/mode/2up 
 • Weiner, D B. “Philippe Pinel's "Memoir on Madness" of December 11, 1794: a fundamental text of modern psychiatry.” The American journal of psychiatry. vol. 149,6 (1992): 725-32. doi:10.1176/ajp.149.6.725 
 • Weissmann, Gerald. “Citizen Pinel and the Madman at Bellevue.” The FASEB Journal. May 1, 2008. https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1096/fj.08-0501ufm 
 • WILLIAMS, ELIZABETH A. “Stomach and Psyche: Eating, Digestion, and Mental Illness in the Medicine of Philippe Pinel.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 84, no. 3, 2010, pp. 358–86. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44448968 
 • WOODS, EVELYN A., and ERIC T. CARLSON. “THE PSYCHIATRY OF PHILIPPE PINEL.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 35, no. 1, 1961, pp. 14–25. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44446761
 
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Philippe Pinel

This 2020 episode covers the Flexner Report, which is often credited with changing the medical field and shaping what medical education looks like today. But this document negatively impacted medicine in the Black community. 

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SYMHC Classics: Flexner Report

Tracy and Holly talk about corporal punishment in schools and student loans. Tracy relays her experience at the British Museum.

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Behind the Scenes Minis: Paddles and The British Museum

Ashurbanipal was the ruler of the Assyrian empire in the 7th century BCE. His 38-year reign was marked by both scholarship and a terrifying brutality.
 
Research:
 
 • "Babylon." Britannica Library, Encyclopædia Britannica, 18 Mar. 2025. libraries.state.ma.us/login?eburl=https%3A%2F%2Flibrary.eb.com&ebtarget=%2Flevels%2Freferencecenter%2Farticle%2FBabylon%2F11618&ebboatid=9265928. Accessed 19 Aug. 2026.
 • Ashurbanipal Library Project. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/index.html
 • " Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631000306/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=f497ef8d. Accessed 14 Aug. 2026.
 • Bonatz, Dominik. “Ashurbanipal's Headhunt: An Anthropological Perspective.” Iraq , 2004, Vol. 66, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One (2004). https://www.jstor.org/stable/4200564
 • “Ashurbanipal.” https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/ashurbanipal
 • Fincke, Jeanette C. “The British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project.” Iraq , 2004, Vol. 66, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One (2004). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4200559
 • Hughes, Tristan. “Ashurbanipal: The Last Great King of Assyria.” The Ancients podcast. 8/20/2025. https://shows.acast.com/the-ancients/episodes/ashurbanipal-the-last-great-king-of-assyria
 • Osborne, James. “He tried to conquer knowledge itself – instead this ancient Mesopotamian king resorted to rule with terror.” History Extra. 8/14/2025. https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/he-tried-to-conquer-knowledge-itself/
 • Taylor, Jonathan. 'About the project', Ashurbanipal Library Project, The Ashurbanipal Library Project, Department of the Middle East, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG, 2022 http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/Abouttheproject/
 • The British Museum. “Who was Ashurbanipal?” https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/who-was-ashurbanipal
 • Urbanus, Jason. “Royal Bibliophile.” Archaeology. Jul/Aug2024, Vol. 77 Issue 4, p40-41.
 • Wilkes, Jonny. “Ashurbanipal 'the Great', the Lion of Assyria.” History Extra. https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/who-was-ashurbanipal-lion-assyria-facts/
 • Wiseman, Donald John. "Ashurbanipal". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ashurbanipal. Accessed 17 August 2026
 • Wisnom, Selena. “The Library of Ashurbanipal.” History Today. 4/4/2025. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/library-ashurbanipal
 
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Ashurbanipal

This episode takes a quick look at six U.S. Supreme Court cases that all have to do with the rights of children in public primary and secondary schools.
 
 • Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/374/203
 • Bowman, Kristine. “West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943).” Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/west-virginia-state-board-of-education-v-barnette/
 • Cornell Law School. “Engel v. Vitale (1962).) https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/engel_v._vitale_(1962)
 • Dynia, Philip A. “Rights of Students.” Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. 8/11/2023, updated 5/27/2026. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/rights-of-students/
 • Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/421/
 • Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/484/260/
 • Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/430/651/
 • Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/430/651/
 • National Education Association. “Corporal Punishment in Schools Still Legal in Many States.” https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/corporal-punishment-schools-still-legal-many-states
 • Oyez. “West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.” https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/319us624
 • Pfeffer, Leo. “THE NEW YORK REGENTS’ PRAYER CASE (ENGEL V. VITALE).” Journal of Church and State, vol. 4, no. 2, 1962, pp. 150–58. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org.proxy.bostonathenaeum.org/stable/23913195. Accessed 13 Aug. 2026.
 • Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/393/503/
 • West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/319/624/#tab-opinion-1937809
 • Zinn Education Project. “June 14, 1943: Supreme Court Finds Compulsory Flag Salutes Unconstitutional.” https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/compulsory-flag-salutes-unconstitutional/
 
 

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Six Impossible Episodes: Back-to-Court

This 2021 episode covers Olympe de Gouges, known primarily for her 1791 pamphlet “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen.” But her writing and political activity went far beyond that one pamphlet.

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SYMHC Classics: Olympe de Gouges

Holly shares additional details of Percy Fawcett's life, including theories about his interest in spiritualism leading him to some odd conclusions.

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Behind the Scenes Minis: Percy Theories

This 2020 episode covers the sphere of plutonium-gallium alloy that the U.S. made for use in an atomic bomb during World War II known as the Demon Core was It was the source of two fatal criticality accidents. 

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SYMHC Classics: Demon Core

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