Second, the std::terminate call doesn't get called from the dtor, it gets called from the stdc runtime in the call frame of the throw (with OS code in between). The stack isn't actually unwound at this point, it's more like the stdc runtime is walking up the call stack looking for a landing pad at each frame.

Third, I didn't know about how this all worked, so I was trying to piece it all together for the first time.

Yes, I saw the throw happen. But the symptom was then that the program just... terminated.