Stuff You Missed in History Class

Tracy and Holly talk about their time visiting Chefchaouen during their Morocco trip. Holly shares her belief that secret societies don't work very well.
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The reality of the Bavarian Illuminati is much less dramatic than conspiracy theories would indicate. It wasn’t a mystical organization, but a protest organization formed by a rather conceited man who was frustrated with the Catholic church.
Research:
Britannica Editors. "illuminati". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/topic/illuminati-group-designation
Carlson, Michael. “Robert Anton Wilson [Obituary].” The Guardian. Jan. 17, 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/18/guardianobituaries.usa
“Two Letters from Adam Weishaupt, Founder of the Order of the Illuminati (1776).” German History Intersections. https://germanhistory-intersections.org/en/knowledge-and-education/ghis:document-190
“1776.” Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. https://www.lmu.de/en/about-lmu/lmu-at-a-glance/history/1776/
Goldenbaum, Annika. “250 Years of the Order of the Illuminati: New Research Puts Gotha in the Spotlight.” Centre for Transcultural Studies. Universitat Erfurt. https://www.uni-erfurt.de/en/forschungskolleg-transkulturelle-studien/ueber-uns/aktuelles/news/news-detail/250-years-of-the-order-of-the-illuminati-new-research-puts-gotha-in-the-spotlight
Greene, Jim, MFA. Discordianism. EBSCO. 2024. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/discordianism
Hernandez, Isabel. “Meet the Man Who Started the Illuminati.” National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/profile-adam-weishaupt-illuminati-secret-society
“To the Fathers Departing for Germany.” Georgetown University Library. https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/ignatius-letters/letter12
Galer, Sophia Smith. “The accidental invention of the Illuminati conspiracy.” BBC. July 11, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170809-the-accidental-invention-of-the-illuminati-conspiracy
Stauffer, Vernon. “New England and the Bavarian Illuminati.” Columbia University. New York, 1918. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/newenglandbavari00stauuoft
Taylor, Michael. “British Conservatism, the Illuminati, and the Conspiracy Theory of the French Revolution, 1797–1802.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 47, no. 3, 2014, pp. 293–312. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24690289
Miller, Shari Parsons. “Illuminati.” EBSCO. 2022. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/illuminati#bibliography
Robison, John. “Proofs of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Free masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.” Philadelphia : T. Dobson. 1798. https://archive.org/details/proofsofconspira00r/page/n9/mode/2up
Vickery, Matthew. “The Birthplace of the Illuminati.” BBC. Nov. 28, 2017. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20171127-the-birthplace-of-the-illuminati
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A lot of European accounts of Sayyida al-Hurra’s life characterize her as a pirate, but that really isn't accurate. She was a a leader of a city-state and a queen of a sultanate.
Research:
Ali, Adam. “The Pirate Queen of the Mediterranean: The Story of Al-Sayyida al-Hurra.” Medievalists.net. https://www.medievalists.net/2022/08/pirate-queen-mediterranean-al-sayyida-al-hurra/
Britannica Editors. "Barbarossa". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barbarossa. Accessed 29 July 2026.
El Haimeur, A. (2024). Sayyida Alhurra: A forgotten North African queen and war leader: A forgotten North African queen and war leader. Africana Annual, 1(1), 44-60. https://doi.org/10.17161/africana.v1i1.19207
Hellman, Rick. “Researcher reclaims 16th century Moroccan woman leader from obscurity.” University of Kansas. 4/17/2024. https://news.ku.edu/news/article/researcher-reclaims-16th-century-moroccan-woman-leader-from-obscurity
Lebbady, “Women in Northern Morocco: Between the Documentary and the Imaginary.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 32. 2012. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41850741
Mourtada-Sabbah, Nada and Adrian Gully. “'I Am, by God, Fit for High Positions': On the Political Role of Women in al-Andalus.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies , Nov., 2003, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Nov., 2003). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3593222
Rafferty, John P.. "From Pirate to Admiral: The Tale of Barbarossa". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Jun. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/story/from-pirate-to-admiral-the-tale-of-barbarossa. Accessed 29 July 2026.
Sparkes, Jason Idriss. “Sayyida al‑Hurra: An Early Modern Decolonial Muslim Exemplar.” Religions 16: 1362. 2025. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16111362
Verde, Tom. “Malika VI: Sayyida Al-Hurra.” AramcoWorld. 1/4/2017. https://www.aramcoworld.com/articles/2017/malika-vi-sayyida-al-hurra
Williams, Terry. “Pirate Profile: Sayyida al-Hurra.” Queen Anne’s Revenge Project. 5/25/2020. https://www.qaronline.org/blog/2020-05-25/pirate-profile-sayyida-al-hurra

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This 2021 episode covers Jethro Tull. Today, most people only know that as the name of a band, but Tull was an 18th-century gentleman farmer often credited with inventing the seed drill.
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Tracy talks about papers about history written by economists. Holy talks about linoleum having a bad reputation because of the designs of the 1970s and '80s.
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