This 2014 episode covers the Treaty of Waitangi, a treaty between the British and the Maori that established New Zealand as a nation. The goal was to benefit both parties, but a hurried translation of the document led to some confusion.

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Deep in the American desert is a tiny, tiny, tiny nation: The Republic of Zaqistan. Guarded by robots, Zaqistan nonetheless welcomed new citizens for more than 15 years - until it fell into ruins. Now the eponymous founder wants to rebuild. Join hosts Ryan Murdock, Gabbie Watts and Zaron Burnett on a journey to uncharted territory … to the nation of Zaqistan…and the upside-down world of micronations. Along the way, they meet some crazy characters - the President of Molossia, the Sultan of Slowjamastan, the Princess of Sancrotosia to name a few. Follow Murdock as he risks life and limb in the name of nation-building, and find out the answer to the question: what exactly is a nation, anyway?

Listen here and subscribe to Escape From Zaqistan on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Holly notes the racist views of one of Charles Brown's biographers. Tracy and Holly also discuss presidential proclamations and the ways Thanksgiving has been framed as a feel-good story over the years.

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This episode covers President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision to move the date of Thanksgiving with the hope of helping businesses that were trying to recover from the Great Depression – and the controversy that caused.

Research:

• Associated Press. “’Omnipotence of Hitler.’” Decatur Daily Review. 8/17/1939.
• Associated Press. “Roosevelt to Move Thanksgiving; Retailers For It, Plymouth is Not.” New York Times. 8/15/1939. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/08/15/93946606.html
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, Proclamation 2373—Thanksgiving Day Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210189
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, Proclamation 2571—Thanksgiving Day Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210254
• Franklin D. Roosvelt Library and Museum. “The Year We Had Two Thanksgivings.” http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/thanksg.html
• George Washington’s Mount Vernon. “Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789.” https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-source-collections/primary-source-collections/article/thanksgiving-proclamation-of-1789
• Greninger, Edwin T. “Thanksgiving: An American Holiday.” Social Science , WINTER 1979, Vol. 54, No. 1 (WINTER 1979). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41886345
• History, Art and Archives: U.S. House of Representatives. “The Thanksgiving Holiday.” https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Thanksgiving-holiday/
• Isbell, Matthew. “’Franksgiving’ – The Period from 1939 through 1941 when Thanksgiving was Partisan.” MCIMaps. 11/22/2017. https://mcimaps.com/franksgiving-the-period-from-1939-through-1941-where-thanksgiving-was-a-partisan-issue/
• Kratz, Jessie. “Thanksgiving as a Federal Holiday.” U.S. National Archives. 11/20/2023. https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2023/11/20/thanksgiving-as-a-federal-holiday/ Notre Dame Magazine. “From the Archives: Franksgiving.” https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/from-the-archives-franksgiving/
• Pilgrim Hall Museum. “Continental Congress Proclamations 1778-1784.” https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Continental_Congress_Proclamations_1778_1784.pdf
• Pilgrim Hall Museum. “Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations.” https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Presidential_Thanksgiving_Proclamations_1789_1815.pdf.
• Public Opinion News Service. “Public Sees Thanksgiving Issue Through Party Glasses.” Gallup. 8/25/1939.
• “Protests Against Advance Date for Thanksgiving Day Pour In.” The Bulletin. 8/15/1939. https://www.newspapers.com/image/101168276/
• Shafer, Ronald G. “Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to goose the economy. Chaos ensued..” Washington Post. 11/24/2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/24/franskgiving-fdr-moved-thanksgiving/
• Soodalter, Ron. "'For all the great and various favors': George Washington happily obliged Congress' request for a national day of thanksgiving. Opponents worried it was an overreach of executive privilege." American History, vol. 49, no. 5, Dec. 2014, pp. 44+. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A383327692/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=64a53d59. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
• The Center for Legislative Archives. “Congress Establishes Thanksgiving.” https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving
• Thomas, Heather. “A Presidential History of Thanksgiving.” 11/24/2021. Library of Congress Blog. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2021/11/a-presidential-history-of-thanksgiving/
• Washington Papers. “Thanksgiving Proclamation.” https://washingtonpapers.org/documents/thanksgiving-proclamation/

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Charles Farrar Browne is often called the first standup comedian. He was, in the 1860s, wildly famous, but his early death, and the soaring career of one of his friends, have contributed to Browne fading from the spotlight in history.

Research:

• “Born 1834; Married 1835. Artemus Ward’s Alleged Widow Claims His Estate.” The Savannah Morning News. April 15, 1891. https://www.newspapers.com/image/852548808/?match=1&terms=artemus%20ward
• Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Artemus Ward". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Apr. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Artemus-Ward
• Dahl, Curtis. “Artemus Ward: Comic Panoramist.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4, 1959, pp. 476–85. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/362502
• Hingston, Edward P. “The Genial Showman, Reminiscences of the Life of Artemus Ward.” London: Chatto and Windus. 1881. https://archive.org/details/genialshowmanrem00hingiala/page/n5/mode/2up
• Hofferth, Micah. “Charles Farrar Browne, the Sometimes-racist Father of Standup Comedy.” Vulture. Feb. 28, 2012. https://www.vulture.com/2012/02/charles-farrar-browne-the-sometimes-racist-father-of-standup-comedy.html
• “Mark Twain on Artemus Ward.” The Albany Evening Journal. Nov. 29, 1871. https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/roughingit/lecture/awlectaj.html
• Reed, John Q. “Artemus Ward’s First Lecture.” American Literature, vol. 32, no. 3, 1960, pp. 317–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2922080
• Seitz, Don C. “Artemus Ward.” Harper & Brothers. 1919. Accessed online: https://archive.org/stream/artemuswardchar00seituoft/artemuswardchar00seituoft_djvu.txt
• “Ward, Artemus (1834-1867).” The Vault at Pfaff’s, Lehigh University. https://pfaffs.web.lehigh.edu/node/54123
• Ward, Artemus. “The Complete Works of Artemus Ward.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6946/6946-h/6946-h.htm#bio

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This 2017 episode covers Katharina von Bora, Marguerite d’Angoulême and Jeanne d’Albret, who all left their mark on the Reformation, but all in different ways.

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Holly talks about realizing how Hans Sloane’s early life likely normalized the idea of colonization for him, and also Museum Mike the cat. Tracy talks about the structure of Nate DiMeo's book as it compares to his podcast.

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Tracy talks with Nate DiMeo about podcasting, varying approaches to talking about history, and his new book, "The Memory Palace."

You can find the book "The Memory Palace" wherever books are sold; it's out on November 19. The podcast The Memory Palace is available at https://thememorypalace.us/

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