Cyrano de Bergerac is often called a man of letters, a philosopher, a soldier, a duelist, a playwright and many more things. But what he may have been best at was self-invention. His real story is blurry to begin with, and he contributed to that blur, but it’s been even more obscured obscured over the centuries by the fictionalized versions of his life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When European naturalists saw a platypus for the first time, they found it so bizarre that they thought it was fake, and then argued about how to classify it for almost a century. This happened in tandem with similar discussions about another Australian animal – the echidna, or spiny anteater – and discussions of scientific taxonomy in general.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2016 episode covers the Piltdown Man, which is one of the world's most infamous instances of scientific fraud. It derailed the study of evolution for decades. How exactly did scientists in 1912 fall so completely for a hoax? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly and Tracy discuss Daguerre's life, and veer off into VR, and the nature of Daguerre's monetization of photography. Then they talk about the famously handsome Cornelius and the importance of photography to our modern world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cornelius is famous for having taken what’s often called the world’s first selfie - and he's noted for how handsome he looks in it. But he was smart and inventive in a variety of ways, and he innovated in lighting fixtures the same way he did with photography. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daguerre comes up almost any time we mention photography, but we’ve never covered his life story. Well before he figured out how to capture images through a camera obscura, he was an artist and innovator in entertainment. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This 2018 episode takes a look at three creative works that have become staples of the Christmas season. All three of them have played a huge part in how people observe and celebrate Christmas in parts of the world, and they all had milestone birthdays that year. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tracy and Holly discuss Tracy being frightened by Ichabod Crane's fate in the Disney Sleepy Hollow cartoon as a kid, and the letters between Dickens and Irving. They then discuss the trickiness of researching a historical topic that has the same name as a band. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may recognize the name as that of a band, but Jethro Tull was an 18th-century gentleman farmer often credited with inventing the seed drill. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Washington Irving may come to mind more in connection with Halloween, but his writing had a significant influence on the way Christmas is celebrated in the U.S. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.