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America’s oldest bowling ball, found in the backlot of a colonial house in Boston, and what it reveals about the Puritans’ futile struggles against vice — drunkenness, fornication, gambling, and even witchcraft.
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Things You Don’t Know
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How did Tisquantum (popularly known as Squanto) already know how to speak English before the Pilgrims had even arrived?
Ever heard that Florida has no history? Dr. Sam wants you to know how incorrect that common perception actually is…
How did so much of the Epic of Gilgamesh remain hidden and forgotten – but preserved – for over 2,000 years until being rediscovered in modern times?
What did Netflix’s movie “The Dig” miss about the most dramatic part of the whole Sutton Hoo discovery?
What does the English Civil War of the 1640s tell us about the American Civil War, and about the present?
How is the growing field of genetics being used to both tear down and reinforce the myth of ‘Race’ today?
Who were the Freemasons of the 1700s? How did they grow from a local Scottish fraternity to a global network?
How can one mid-sized U.S. city – Tulsa, Oklahoma – serve as a microcosm of so much of the triumphalism and tragedy of American history?
Why can no one agree on what “capitalism” actually is? And why does a lack of clear definition call into question so many other myths of the modern world?
How – and why – did universities begin in the Middle Ages, long before the scientific revolution and the “Enlightenment”?
How did mountains on the Moon help bring about an end to the Earth-centric view of the universe?
Why is the dramatic 2019 fire at Paris’ Notre Dame actually a common occurrence for cathedrals around Europe?
Why were churches in southern Europe becoming more and more highly decorated and elaborately embellished in the 1500 and 1600’s, while at the same time churches in northern Europe were being stripped of almost all of their ornamentation?
How might a series of volcanic eruptions in the Americas have spurred the earliest Viking raids and the creation of the myth of Ragnarok in Scandinavia, halfway around the world?
What did followers of the ancient and secretive branch of Christianity, Gnosticism, actually believe?
How did changes in the climate in the 1600s lead people to think they were living in the Apocalypse? How did this help spur the creation of institutions and forces that still shape the world today?
Could all of British history have turned out differently if the winds on the English channel had shifted direction on just one day in 1066?