American Masters: Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive
Discover the real story of the notorious author, starring Denis O’Hare as Edgar Allan Poe. This documentary explores the misrepresentations of Poe and reveals how he tapped into what it…
99% Invisible: 100 Objects #1: The Century Safe
In 1876, Americans filled an iron safe with objects meant to tell their story — to be opened a century later. Roman Mars and historian Jill Lepore trace its long…
Allusionist 227. Draculae part 1: Enter the Castle
In this first instalment of a short series about three versions of Dracula, we familiarise ourselves with the plots of Dracula published by Bram Stoker in 1897; the Icelandic version…
Lumière, Le Cinéma!
In one of those wonderful coincidences of history, “lumière,” the French word for “light,” was also the surname of brothers Auguste and Louis, whose brilliant invention, the cinematograph, helped to…
Someone Lived Here: Sarah Orne Jewett house in South Berwick, ME
The home, this town, and it’s residents were the inspiration for many of Sarah Orne Jewett’s novels and short stories. Her writing is often described as regionalism, but behind her…
HistoryExtra podcast: How to pull off a Georgian dinner party
A dinner party in a beautifully decorated Georgian dining room might sound sophisticated, even romantic – but planning such events was not for the faint-hearted. Amy Boyington advises Lauren Good…
Inside the house of a lilac inventor
In this episode of Someone Lived Here, Kendra brings you to the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland, Washington. The home was built by Hulda’s family, The Thiel’s in 1889.…
Masterpiece Theatre: The American
Modine is Christopher Newman, a rich American tycoon who has taken a break from America's Gilded Age. He soon finds that his multiple fortunes in soaps, land and railroads count…
Making 200-Year-Old Mayonnaise – How has it changed?
Mayonnaise (or magnonnaise, as Carême calls it in this recipe from 1828), didn’t really become popular until the early 19th century. First popular in France, by the 1850s, cookbooks in…
The Grasshoppers Are Coming!
by Alicia. She was reading a book about Laura Ingalls Wilder, and one chapter was all about this horrendous grasshopper invasion from the 1800s! It shocked AJ so much, and…