History Tea Time

I binged all of your YouTube videos, and I’m glad that you’re revisiting videos and uploading them. However, I had hoped that you would correct something you said in your “a history of childbirth” video when uploading this: Maternity corsets were not for hiding pregnancies. Sure, some may have done that, but (like tightlacing) that’s not what the general population did. These maternity corsets were, just like any other corset, for support. It even could have been harmful to not wear a corset during pregnancy, because if you wear a corset on a daily basis from a relatively young age, the muscles in your chest and back get weaker. Thus they wouldn’t been able to support a big bay belly. Also these maternity corsets were laced on the sides to accommodate for the constant growth of the belly. Apart from that, I really love your podcast and think it is very well researched and very entertaining. Love from Germany

I’ve been reading a lot about the Sultanate of women and Hürrem in particular, so was interested to listen to the episodes on this. But a lot of assumptions or rumors were presented as fact, from concubines former names to Ibrahim Pasha supposedly being married to the Sultan’s sister. Names were mispronounced (it’s Cihangir, not Cihangish) and some family relations were mixed up (Osman was Ahmed’s son, not his half brother’s). Otherwise entertaining, but if historians are unsure then it shouldn’t be presented as fact.