Behind the Scenes Minis: Torricelli and Acadians

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry and I'm tracybe Wilson. So Tracy, we talked about Eventualista Torcha late this week. Can I tell you what one of the hardest things about talking about physics and math and science in this period of time is for me? Yeah? Tell me? Everyone is kind of uh has all of the titles. No one is just a scientist, is like astronomer, philosopher, mathematician. And I'm always like, which do I use if I'm trying to just write a simple sentence in it? Uh, it's frustrating. Just make everyone be Polly math right, But that doesn't ever seem quite right either. The hardest thing for me, having been the one researching the episode, was saying all the Italian names, because as I was confirming pronunciations on all of the names, which I hope I did adequately on, I found that every single one of them when I read it in my head from the paper, I either I either put in a consonant that I did not go there, or I took out a vowl that did go there, and zero of them did I have right in my head on the first drive. I think that's natural for a language that you don't speak. I have the same problem, you know. I always say that whenever there's a foreign language we encounter that is not French, I tend to say it with a French accent, which is just ridiculous, but there it is. That's what my brain goes the other language and it pulls that out. Um. I'm working on Italian. I'm not doing great. I did start a duo lingo of Italian back when we very first started talking about going to Italy, and then then the pandemic started and I did not have the brain capacity for it and also felt, um I it was like I felt like I was either jinxing the potential of going to Italy or or I'm not sure what. So I still have that whole course installed on my phone, but I have kept up with it. Yeah, I am similarly, I do that ding dong thing where I am just keep adding courses in due lingo and then it's like just too much to keep keep up. But I'm like, of course I'll also learn Hawaiian. Of course I will work on my French. Of course, throw some German in there. Dear me, what have I done? Like I can, I can't keep up with it, but I'm I continue to try, and ever I feel like every like six weeks to two months, I get like another surge room like yes, every day I will do two lessons in each language, and that lasts for a couple of weeks, and then I kind of fall apart, or I go on a trip, or I you know, something happens and then pack up is there, never to be replaced again. Um. I had not known very much about Torricelli before this one. No me neither. And it's it is interesting to think about how many developments and strides were being made in the maths and sciences in Italy at this time, all over the world, particularly in Europe, and particularly in Italy. So I can kind of see, especially because he did die young for from whatever mystery ailment, I can see where he does not get the same level of attention in historical discussions of this time. I am very fascinated by his desire to avoid controversy, like to me, that is um harmful. Um two we don't often really talk about. I mean, I kind of found myself a little embarrassed that even though we have studied a lot of these pieces of this puzzle before, I was like, gosh, it was really a hundred years after Copernicus that people were still being tried just for going like I think that guy was onto something. Um that to me is very interesting like that a hundred years later, it was still heretical to even consider that. You know, we uh, we as humans don't always welcome new ideas, and that's a really good example of it. It's been a theme on our show sometimes. Yeah, so that idea of like I don't want to fight you guys. I'm just saying I did this experiment and it kind of proved the thing wrong that we all thought was true. But I'm not publishing that. Like I kind of love whatever is going on in his head at that point of like I'm just writing to you, my friend. And then of course Richie told everybody and it all got out. But um, yeah, those are that that whole How you navigate that from a personal standpoint is fascinating to me. And we don't often talk about I hadn't at least talked about kind of the people of the day going. I would like to not get in this fight. Please. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I have this on a way less consequential level when like I have an unpopular opinion about a movie or something and I'm like, not gonna tweet that, well, right, but I mean I will say, yes, it's less consequential. But part of it to me is like in the case of something like a movie, unless it is really conveying like a dangerous message, it's somebody out there. It's their favorite thing and they love it and it's not holding us back like into terms of of a people from scientific breakthroughs or with ever. So for those I'm generally like, if I didn't like a book or movie, I usually just never talk about it. And I don't because I don't. I don't wanna, you know, bad mouth something somebody else loves, just like I don't love it when somebody goes in that movie you love, it sucks, like why get out of my face. I don't care what you think. Um, I don't want to be that person to somebody else. But if it were a case of like hey, y'all science, which we're seeing some of those you know, arguments going on, those are a little more important and worthwhile to have. Um, yeah, it's a I just did the experiment. I'm not getting involved the Toricelli method of managing your life and your strife. One of the things we talked about on this show this week was the Expulsion of the Acadians, something that's been on the to do list for so so, so very long and also one of the things that we keep getting requests for, Like we've continued to get regular requests for it through the whole time. Uh. It took a very long time to get to it, mostly because it is a very big topic. There's a lot of stuff involved, a lot of context involved. Uh. There are several other things that have been on this do list for a very long time that similarly are just really big topics that have a lot to get through, a lot of it also incredibly tragic. There are other removals that have been on the list for a really long time that similarly have just a ton of stuff to get through. Another thing is that before I start on an episode, a question that I ask myself a lot of the times, if it's especially if it's about something that did not happen in a place that I have lived, is do I have the cultural competence to talk about this, right, Sometimes that answer is no. And even though Canada is our neighbor to the north, it's not that far from where I live. It's a place that I've only been to one time. And Uh, when we have talked about Canadian history on the show, often I have discovered that I did not actually have the cultural competence to talk about that, even though it thought that I did so. Hopefully we did okay with this particular one, having piece together a lot of knowledge that I did not have before about the Akkadians and about the Megama, whose name I think we've probably said incorrectly in every other episode that we've uh that that they've come up uh, And as I understand it, there are multiple accepted pronunciations. Now. Getting through all of these conflicts and worse between it in France was tricky, and I still am afraid that like I've somehow missed an entire one in the right. This brought up a fun question for me. Okay, I will have to hunt down and may never find out. But um, it had not occurred to me. Even though I knew about the poem of Angeline, it had not occurred to me that might be where the character Ray Ray in The Princess and the Frogs girlfriend's name comes from. I don't know how well you remember that movie, not really, but um, Evangeline is essentially a star, but Ray Ray is convinced that it is the love of his life, another firefly that is just very far away. Um And so when I think about it in context of this story, I'm like, I bet that's what they're referencing. That seems like that could be the um. I Also, I had a lot of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow feelings when I got to that part of the research, because um, he wrote various poems that sort of romanticized and grieved for a lost people, simultaneously setting up a lot of like incorrect ideas about those people. Like uh he his song of Hiawatha has come up on the show in previous episodes. As I understand it, Evangeline was was pretty well received among Akadian people when it came out. I don't know that those feelings are still the same today. I don't want to speak for anybody, and I did not really get into that uh and when I was researching it, but like, it does seem like that people were glad that this poem raised awareness of what had happened, and though it did not very accurately represent like I don't think he actually ever talked to any Acadians before writing the poem. I don't know that his research went in that direction as he was writing it. But um, it was a very influential piece of literature. Yeah, I would bet almost certainly, not regarding the discussions of such things with people actively connected to it, because that's been the case for a long time. Um, that was the standard. Slowly but surely things shift. But now I want to go watch Princess and the Frog again, and also, you know, eat a lot of delicious things. I feel almost guilty that the beautiful thing to grow out of this is Cajun culture and all of the amazing music and food that we all get to enjoy. M hmmm, A lot of very delicious and wonderful stuff. If folks, I want more information about this, I know we still don't have a place to put our show notes. We continue to get questions about like where are the show notes, and we we don't have a great place to put show notes right now. Maybe that will change. I don't know it's fingers crossed totally unclear, but if folks are like I wish I knew a lot more about this. One of the books that I had as a as a source for this episode was called A Great and Noble Scheme, The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American homeland. Uh and it is like six hundred pages long. So well, I talked at the top of the episode about the gap between like a one pager and the you know, the realities of what happened. The gap between are probably forty five ish minute episode of this one. The gap between that and a six hundred page book, there's a lot. There's a lot. There's a lot of de sale that was in there that we didn't really get into. So again, Happy Friday. I hope everybody has a great weekend whatever is on your plate. We will be back Saturday with a Saturday Classic. I'm on Monday with a brand new episode. Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.