Footnoting History

This episode explores the phenomenon of spirit photography in the 19th century, focusing on William Mumler's famous photograph of Abraham Lincoln's ghost.

Footnoting History's Jessica, an archaeologist and historian new to the team, uses Nevis to connect Alexander Hamilton, Horatio Nelson, sugar wealth, and the slave trade.

This episode explores the life of Tsianina, a Native American artist and educator, focusing on her career as a singer and advocate, and how her legacy is often reduced to the title of 'princess'.

This episode explores the role of Seaman, a Newfoundland retriever, in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the broader context of the Corps of Discovery.

This episode challenges the traditional narrative of the American Revolution's first shots, arguing they occurred months before Lexington and Concord, and explores the role of General Thomas Gage and the Coercive Acts.

This episode explores the Cairo Genizah, a storeroom of discarded manuscripts in the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and explains its significance as a medieval time capsule for historians.

Footnoting History host Kristen presents the life of James Hemings, an enslaved man born in 1765 who was owned by Thomas Jefferson and trained in French cuisine in Paris under restaurateur Monsieur Combeau and in the household of the Prince de Condé between 1784 and 1789.

Elizabeth Blackwell entered a field that many people in 1847 said a woman could not enter, and the episode follows how she forced that question into public view.

Footnoting History's 12th annual Halloween episode presents three historical stories narrated by different hosts: Christine tells the 1878 Daily Interocean account of Michael O'Donnell, who accidentally shot and killed an unnamed 15-year-old girl in his Irish garden on Halloween night as she tried to steal a cabbage for a folk marriage-divination ritual.

Host Kristen of Footnoting History covers the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials, England's largest witchcraft panic, centered on nine-year-old Janet Devise, whose testimony helped convict her own mother, Elizabeth Devise, and other family members.

Christine revisits the story of Simon de Montfort, the 13th-century rebel earl, with updated scholarship and a focus on his legacy.

This episode of Footnoting History explores the lives and astronomical contributions of siblings William and Caroline Herschel.

Kristen introduces a medieval English peasant's journey to hell and back, discussing the source material and its significance.

This episode of Footnoting History recounts the tragic 1884 voyage of the yacht Mignonette, where shipwrecked crew members resorted to cannibalism, leading to a landmark criminal trial and influencing pop culture.