History and Boba

For this episode we’re going to a wedding that takes place in the small village of Ribnovo, Bulgaria. It’s a wedding tradition that has survived for over a thousand years, and it’s one of a kind.

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Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPiIZd3OQCo

https://jetsettimes.com/countries/bulgaria/sofia/how-bulgarian-muslims-preserved-the-pomak-wedding-ritual-of-bridal-face-paint/

Can you imagine a time in America before people were able to dial 9-1-1 for medical help? Well, there was a time like that, and it was more recent than you think. Let’s take a trip to Pittsburg during 1968 and allow me to tell you the history of a group that shaped America’s pre-medical care, Freedom House Ambulance Service.

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Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvNfxg6HOe0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House_Ambulance_Service

https://teamrubiconusa.org/news-and-stories/freedom-house-ambulance-service-a-legacy-of-life-saving-care/

https://healthforce.ucsf.edu/news/americas-first-paramedics-were-black-their-achievement

A language created for women by women. Have you ever heard of it? Today, we’re going to China to learn about a written language called Nüshu.

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Source:

https://www.europeanguanxi.com/post/n%C3%BCshu-the-women-only-language-that-recorded-a-hidden-perspective-of-history

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200930-nshu-chinas-secret-female-only-language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t89hQdF2YI

Food. We eat it every day. And over the years, it has become quite convenient to acquire. We get in the car and go to the grocery store. Or we might eat out so we don’t have to worry about dishes. But there’s always that lingering question with every purchase that we make. What’s really in our food? Well, this is the question that people have had for hundreds of years. And the answer can sometimes be worse than you think.

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Source:

https://www.clarkemuseum.org/arsenic-and-old-lace-a-victorian-cookbook.html#:~:text=Some%20adulterants%20commonly%20used%20in,garments%20it%20is%20called%20bonin...

Valentines Day means flowers, chocolate, poems, and letters. There are people that have extremely public lives, and yet, we know very little about them. But for some people, it’s the words they left behind meant for the person they loved the most, that reveals the depth of their soul. For this episode, I’ll be reading love poems and letters from composers, lovers, and writers that chose to write their souls on a piece a paper.

Have you ever seen someone fly on a trapeze? How about someone dancing on two pieces of fabric called silks? Aerialists live on stages all over the world performing on hoops, fabrics, nets, and things you probably don’t even have names for. But, did you ever wonder how aerial arts started? Well, today we’re going to find out.

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Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3uXVuXk8s4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-hxJf1hbm8&t=69s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bsJbHasFSo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbcwQcooNTQ

https://en.wikiped...

For this episode, we’ll be going to China during the Tang dynasty. This dynasty produced some of the most powerful and memorable women in Chinese history. But we’re going to focus on one. The princess that betrayed the emperor because of love, political power, and a wrong that had to be paid for in blood. This is the story of Princess Gaoyang.

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Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Gaoyang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bianji

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Yi%27ai

https://en.zhihu.com/answer/5285472120

https://historyguild.org/the-ta...

So many jobs require licenses or certificates. We walk into people's offices and don’t think twice when we see them framed and hanging on their walls. Well, what if I told you that there was a time when licenses were issued for prostitution. Today, we’re taking a glimpse in the world of sex workers in 1800s America.

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Sources:

https://www.history.com/articles/civil-war-prostitution-nashville

https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/1800-1809#:~:text=Building%2Dtrades%20wages%20%2D%201800%20through,authority%20for%20each%20pay%20increase.

https://petapixel.com/2025/07/11/fascinating-photos-reveal-the-hidden-world-of-brothels-in-the-wild-west/

https://skagwayinn.com/history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H

Tulsa, Oklahoma. You may not know it, but this place was once called Black Wall Street. It was a thriving black community full of hard-working women and men that were seeking out their own version of the American dream. That is at least, until the state of Oklahoma decided to burn it to the ground.

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Sources:

https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/detail/jim-crow-laws.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jim_Crow_law_examples_by_state

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/24/us/tulsa-race-massacre.html

https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/gant-reuben/

https...

Did you ever wonder how people became famous before the internet? Well, in some cases, it all started with a picture. Someone would walk into a shop for a photo and then suddenly, that person’s face is on a cartes-de-visite being distributed to the world. In modern times, they would be the Instagram models that you follow. Apparently, beauty has always been a career path, even without social media.

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Sources:

https://vocal.media/history/camille-monfort

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/100-years-of-fashion-photography#:~:text=In%201911%2C%20at%20the%20height,serious%20fashion%20photographs%20ever%20made%22.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ameri...

In California through the 1850s to the early 1900s, Native Americans suffered countless injustices. They faced laws designed to destroy their foundation as a community and laws that even permitted them to be executed on sight. For this episode, I’ll talk about the last surviving member of the Yahi tribe. Anthropologist gave him the name Ishi.

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Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2bpBAXvJew

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_genocide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEmqOCta3NU&t=6s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/ya

Look up, what do you see? Well, in 1880 if you lived in cities like New York, all you might be able to see are telephone poles with more powerlines attached to them than you can count. Join me this week as I talk about a time before powerlines were forced to go underground.

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Sources:

Medium/The Racist History of Telephone Poles By Caira Wynn Blackwell

Published July 16th 2019

https://medium.com/@cwb307/the-racist-history-of-telephone-poles-8cd859b99d65

Business and Economic History

The Telephone on Main Street: Utility Regulation in the United States and Canada before 1900 b...

Tarot cards. Maybe you find them fascinating, maybe you’ve never given them much thought. Well, have you ever considered their history? Where they came from and how they managed to spread throughout so many regions of the world. In this episode, we’re diving into the history that created the tarot cards of today.

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Sources:

Distillations Magazine

https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/disorderly-persons/#:~:text=IN%201530%20HENRY%20VIII%20ISSUED,work%20in%20a%20legitimate%20occupation.

The Book of Tarot: A Spiritual Key to Understanding the Cards by Sahar Huneidi-Palmer

As Rome is conquering land left and right, she gathers her army and claims a victory against the Roman empire that the world has never forgotten. Allow me to present to you, Queen Amanirenas from the African Kingdom of Kush.

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Sources:

https://blackpast.org/global-african-history/kandake-amanirenas-10-bc/

https://www.history.com/articles/nubian-queen-amanirenas-roman-army

If I told you that there was a time in the US when people mailed their children, would you believe me? Welcome to a strange part of American history.

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Sources:

Newspaper clippings of events

https://blog.newspapers.com/special-delivery-children-sent-via-parcel-post/#:~:text=Postal%20officials%20across%20the%20country,search%20Newspapers.com%E2%84%A2%20today!

A Brief History of Children Sent Through the Mail/By Danny Lewis published June 14th, 2016

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-children-sent-through-mail-180959372/

When People Used the Postal Service to ‘Mail’ Their Children/By Becky Little published June 13th, 2018

https://www.history.com/articles/mai

Greeting and disclaimer episode