131 episodes
Her Half of History Evergreen Podcasts
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- History
Why don't women's clothes have more pockets? Who are the female writers and artists my education forgot to include? How does a woman go about seizing control of her government? What was it like to be a female slave and how did the lucky ones escape? When did women get to put their own name on their credit cards? Is the life of a female spy as glamorous as Hollywood has led me to believe?
In short, what were the women doing all that time? I explore these and other questions in this thematic approach to women's history.
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Marie Antoinette, the Unfortunate Queen
This is the 2nd of 3 episodes on Marie Antoinette. She is now queen, but it's not as fabulous as it sounds because her marriage needs counseling and her household budget is out of control. Though she did spend a lot, she spent far less than she was blamed for, especially during the infamous necklace affair, in which some ingenious criminals pulled off a jewel heist, and somehow people thought it was all the queen's fault. France's finances were plummeting (not because of her), women marched on Versailles in protest, and the royal family emerged as prisoners.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee.
Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows.
Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History.
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Marie Antoinette, the Luckiest Princess
There is so much written about Marie Antoinette, much of it contradictory, that I just could not squeeze her story down into a single episode, not even with liberal use of the backspace button. So this is the first of three episodes on a woman who many hoped would be the last queen of France. In this episode:
she is born in Vienna, though we don't know much about her childhood
she wins (or loses) the dice roll the determines who marries who between Versailles and Vienna
a hasty education focuses more on her appearance than her knowledge
the court of Versailles is dominated by petty social interactions
and her husband, bless him, has problems of his own.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee.
Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows.
Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Zainatuddin Kamalat Syah, Last Queen of Aceh (Indonesia)
The sultanate of Aceh enjoyed no fewer than four reigning queens in a row. They defended their country against rampant expansion by the Dutch and then the English. The last queen, Zainatuddin Kamalat Syah, was eventually deposed in 1699, through a combination of religious and personal factors, ending 59 years of a highly unusual political experiment in which women were seen as not just acceptable rulers, but preferable to men.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee.
Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows.
Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Arwa al-Sulayhi, Last Queen of the Sulayhids (Yemen)
Yes! There have been Muslim queens who ruled their own countries! One of them was Arwa al-Sulayhi who ruled Yemen for 60 years in the 11th and 12th century. She outlasted her husband, her other husband, her son, and her other son, continuing to rule on her own authority through it all. Though the memory of her has faded, her mosque is still there, and so is her palace.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee.
Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows.
Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History.
Feature Image by Mufaddalqn, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Xiuhtlaltzin, Last Queen of the Toltec (Mexico)
The history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica is hard for historians because the best sources were all destroyed. Those that remain are of dubious historicity, but they do tell of the Queen Xiuhtlaltzin, who reigned somewhere in the 800s or 900s, shortly before the fall of the Toltec empire. Since the records are so sketchy, this episode is not exactly a biography, but it does cover:
what written records the people of Mesoamerica left
why the written records didn't survive (they got burned)
how the people reconstructed their oral histories in the 1600s
how those reconstructions tell a very little about Xiuhtlaltzin
what archaeology of Tollan/Tula can tell us
how Xiuhtlaltzin might have worshipped a frog goddess
how she might have cheered and/or played and/or sacrificed the losers of the famous Mesoamerican ball game
In the end, the jury's out on whether Xiuhtlaltzin even existed. Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments on the website or on social media.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/herhalfofh8).
Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows.
Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History.
Feature image by AlejandroLinaresGarcia - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24460525
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Jinseong, Last Queen of Silla (Korea)
The kingdom of Silla in ancient Korea had three queen regnants (a very good score, compared with most other countries of its time). Two reigned in Silla's golden age, but the last was Jinseong, who ruled at a time when decay had set in and the odds were not in her favor.
Visit the website (herhalfofhistory.com) for sources, transcripts, and pictures.
Support the show on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=83998235) for bonus episodes, polls, and a general feeling of self-satisfaction. Or make a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee.
Join Into History (intohistory.com/herhalfofhistory/) for a community of ad-free history podcasts plus bonus content.
Visit Evergreen Podcasts to listen to more great shows.
Follow me on Twitter (X) as @her_half. Or on Facebook or Instagram as Her Half of History.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices