Fun facts, hidden histories, and one refrain: knowledge is power.
That Wasn't In My Textbook traces where familiar things came from, like the New Year's resolution, the Monday reset and the Hollywood cowboy, and often finds Black history left out of the usual telling. Many episodes open on a 'fun fact', pair research with slang, and end on the same line: knowledge is power.
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That Wasn't In My Textbook chases the history that classroom syllabi skipped, and tells it through slang, side comments and a steady supply of statistics. The episodes here follow two lines. Some trace ordinary rituals back to where they began. Others recover Black history that popular retellings pushed to the margins. The history of New Year's resolutions opens on a grim follow-through rate that gets graded, bluntly, as an F, then heads back about 4,000 years to the Babylonians. That episode leans on the word records: the Babylonians get the credit because their promises were written down, and the episode is sure other ancient civilizations and Indigenous groups were making the same kind of vows. A companion piece on the fresh start effect has Toya reading the Harvard studies so the listener does not have to, then walking through them one at a time, starting with Google searches for 'diet' that climb at the start of each week, month and year. The Black history thread runs through guest conversations and solo episodes alike. Historian Zaron Burnett, host of the Black Cowboys podcast, calls Bass Reeves one of the greatest lawmen in American history and traces the Lone Ranger back to his legend. That episode's cold open cites a scholarly estimate that one in four working cowboys of the westward-expansion era was Black, then notes that some historians think even that undercounts, since the figure came from an 1800s census taken during slavery. The surfing episode moves the story to Africa, where canoe surfers handled imports and exports for roughly five centuries. It also stops on a question the show keeps circling: why a practice only seems to enter history once a European writes it down. Tax law professor and author Dorothy A. Brown carries the thread into policy, in a conversation about how tax law and racism work together, a pairing the episode admits almost nobody thinks about, the interviewer included. The show treats its archive as something to reopen when the calendar calls for it. Rewind episodes bring earlier installments back on cue: the taxes conversation on April 15, the cowboys episode amid the buzz around Cowboy Carter. Closings point ahead to episodes on hookah, the Chinese New Year and the science of procrastination. The register is warm and unguarded. A rueful tax-day aside about a hard year slips in, as does the occasional mild curse. Many episodes lead with a 'fun fact', and every closing heard here lands on the same line: knowledge is power. For a first listen, the Black cowboys episode shows the guest-conversation format, and the fresh start effect episode shows how the solo episodes turn dense research into plain talk.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes history told loosely and conversationally, with statistics and slang side by side, and who wants the overlooked stories behind familiar things, from the cowboy to the New Year's resolution.
What sets it apart: It sets the origins of self-improvement rituals like resolutions and Monday resets beside corrective Black history, and keeps asking whose written records get to define a first. Rewind episodes pegged to moments such as tax day tie older material to the present.
That Wasn't In My Textbook is our bi-weekly podcast that helps us uncover the things we always wished we learned from that boring, bulky textbook. Tune in to the history class you never knew you ALWAYS wanted to take - because history is not only what happened in the past but also what's happening this very second.
Hollywood's cowboy and the fancy oyster both come with a history you weren't handed.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A tax-day rewind moves from filing anxiety into a sharper look at race, audits, and the tax data the government does not publish.
Taxes land here as a story about power, not just paperwork. That Wasn't In My Textbook revisits the hidden history of taxes with tax law professor and author Dorothy A.
Bass Reeves anchors a clear look at how Black western history became white legend.
The episode uses Cowboy Carter's attention to Black roots in country music and early cowboy history to reopen a western past Hollywood has often narrowed.
A brisk history of why Mondays, birthdays, and January can make an old goal feel newly possible.
This short solo episode gives the fresh start effect a tidy, brisk history, linking Monday goals, the new year, and the first of the month to research on why people recommit when a week begins.
A pointed history of Black cowboys and the heroes America chooses to remember.
The episode reframes the cowboy myth by turning attention toward the people Hollywood often pushed out of view. It opens with the estimate that one in four cowboys working in America during westward expansion were Black, with many others Mexican or part of Indigenous groups.
A grounded Black surfing history that follows waves back to work, survival, and knowledge often left out of textbooks.
Surfing is framed as Black history rooted in labor, movement, and practical knowledge, with the modern sport's $13 billion industry and 23 million surfers used as a doorway into a much older story.
A lively account of how Thomas Downing helped move oysters from scraps to status.
Oysters receive a crisp social history, moving from food associated with poverty to a sought-after delicacy through Thomas Downing, a Black man who opened a renowned oyster house in mid-19th-century New York City.
Fast chat, blunt laughs, real-life oversharing.
Real stories for bold, curious kids.
Land, collapse, and radical ecology.
Afro-Hebraic scripture with historical fire.
Childhood history, argued through evidence.
Sex work history with sharp community memory.
On April 15, That Wasn't In My Textbook rewinds Dorothy A.
Beyonce's Cowboy Carter sends this rewind back to a claim the episode makes early: scholars say one in four cowboys in the westward-expansion era were Black, and some historians think the number was even higher because enslavers hid people from 1800s censuses.
That Wasn't In My Textbook's "Rewind: History of the Fresh Start Effect: The Science Behind New Beginnings" centers on Toya's breakdown of why Monday, January 1, and the first of the month change goal-setting behavior.
That Wasn't In My Textbook uses its third-of-four summer-series slot to examine Black cowboys and cowgirls in American Western history, opening with the claim that scholars put one in four cowboys at Black and some historians think the share was higher.
That Wasn't In My Textbook's "Ridin' the Waves: The Hidden Black History of Surfing" opens with a $13 billion surfing industry, 23 million surfers worldwide, and Gary Cibadora's 43.1-mile wave in Panama on March 19, 2011.
Toya, host of That Wasn't In My Textbook, examines how Black workers and entrepreneurs shaped American oyster culture with culinary historian Zella Palmer.
Toya, host of That Wasn't In My Textbook, traces how Black Americans transformed July 4th from a holiday that excluded enslaved people into a celebration of freedom during Reconstruction from roughly 1863 to 1877.
Toya’s third podcast anniversary episode presents 10 facts about Juneteenth, including its federal-holiday designation on June 17, 2021, and General Granger’s June 19, 1865 announcement in Galveston, Texas.
Toya, host of That Wasn't In My Textbook, presents seven historical facts about Pride Month, including the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising and the first Pride march in New York City.
Toya’s episode of That Wasn’t In My Textbook traces dental adornment from Etruscan women in ancient Italy and Mayan jade work to modern removable grills.
This episode explores the hidden history of taxation, revealing how Black Americans are disproportionately audited by the IRS and impoverished by the tax system.
This episode explores the history of reality TV, starting with the first American reality series 'An American Family' in 1973.
This episode explores the origins and evolution of self-care as a popular concept, featuring an interview with a wellness expert.
This episode explores the history of tattoos, from ancient practices to modern culture, debunking myths and highlighting their significance.