Today We Leave for Mexico

The Florentine Diamond was one of the crown jewels (sorry) of the Habsburgs—a 137-carat diamond that had come from the court of the Duke of Tuscany. But after World War I, when the Austrian Empire collapsed, the royal family fled to Switzerland, taking the diamond with them. From ...  Show more

Antoine Lavoisier was a French chemist, who gave us the name for oxygen and other terminology that we still use today. But he was also a wealthy man who collected taxes and served the Ancien régime, and when the revolution came, the elements were ripe for explosion. Support Noble ...  Show more

Great Britain didn't only send criminals to Australia as punishment; they also wanted to colonize the continent. But to do that, they had to send women in addition to men. This plan involved some unsettling facts, and had some unexpected consequences. Read the show notes here. ...

She was the Spanish empire’s most widely published poet of her time, and her work has survived until today, but not her own thoughts about much of her life. Consequently, her life, and her very complex poetry, has been really subject to interpretation. Learn more about your ad-ch ...  Show more

From her birth at a French dinner table to her place in the hearts of people all over the world, we revisit our 2018 coverage of the life of this American icon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 

Our focus today is on a woman who was actually covered in the podcast several years ago. But she's a figure so mythic and with so many variations to her story that we wanted to give her another look and a little more time.