Context:

Tom mentions that Gordon Carrera told him about this book he had written about the untold story of World War II resistance in Europe involving pigeons. This is the main book discussed in the episode.

Context:

Tom references Pliny the Elder as one of his favorite classical writers and specifically mentions 'in his natural history' where Pliny discusses animals including pigeons, their lifespan, and various claims about their behavior.

Context:

Gordon mentions that Darwin 'spends quite a bit of time in origin and species talking about pigeons' in relation to selective breeding and drawing analogies between artificial and natural selection.