The Concert of Europe held the continent together for years after the Napoleonic Wars, but as the leadership of great nations weakened over time, the stage was set for a colossal tragedy.
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria decided to visit Serbia on a day of national pride, he angered young nationalists like Gavrilo Princip and touched off the series of events that tumbled the world into war.
In the wake of Franz Ferdinand's assassination, the great powers of Europe scramble to find an answer to the looming threat of war. While Germany urges Austria-Hungary to resolve the matter quickly, Russia begins to mobilize its forces to defend the slavic state of Serbia. A handful of people across the nations recognize the danger and do their best to stop it.
Serbia responds to Austria-Hungary's ultimatum after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the pretext for war grows thinner and thinner. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold makes a desperate decision to declare war. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Czar Nicholas II of Russia call upon their family ties to each other in a last ditch effort to avert the war, but their previous inattention has left their prime ministers Bethmann-Hollweg and Sazonov in impossible positions. With their forces mobilized, unable to back down, Russia must accept Germany's declaration of war from ambassador Pourtalès - and as our series ends, the Seminal Catastrophe begins.
The Onin War tore Japan apart, but also kicked off the Sengoku Jidai or Warring States Period that's a seminal part of Japanese history. The power of the shogun dissolved and regional clan leaders or daimyo fought for control of the country. In the mid 16th century, near Kyoto, a clan called the Matsudaira found itself pinched between two great rivals: the Oda and the Imagawa. Abducted as a hostage by the Oda, the scion of the Matsudaira clan (the young Tokugawa Ieyasu) grew up to fight alongside of the Imagawa when he was released. Their combined forces threatened to destroy the entire Oda clan, but Oda Nobunaga had a different idea. They clashed at the Battle of Okehazama.
With his western borders secure, Oda Nobunaga turns his attention east in the direction of the Shogun. When diplomacy fails to subdue the Saito clan that stands between him and Kyoto, Nobunaga enlists the aid of his brilliant diplomat and engineer, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Toyotomi turns the Saito's vassals against them and constructs a fort for Nobunaga's samurai to siege Inabayama Castle. After his crushing victory, Nobunaga allies with the former Shogun's brother and uses him as a political shield to take Kyoto.
Now that he holds Kyoto, Oda Nobunaga finds himself the focus of enemies on all sides. Even the Shogun, who no longer needs his military assistance, turns against him. Oda marches north to quell the Asakura clan, only to be betrayed by the Azai clan leader, his own brother-in-law, who allies with his enemy and embroils Oda and his remaining true ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu, in the Battle of Anegawa. No sooner has he won a narrow victory than Oda launches into in an eleven year siege with the Ikko-ikki warrior monks at their mountain temple of Hongan-ji. Unable at first to turn that siege in his favor, he learns from it when facing a second group of Enryaku-ji warrior monks at Mount Hiei. Oda shows his true brutality by setting fire to the temple and ordering his troops to massacre all 20,000 inhabitants - men, women, and children.
Oda Nobunaga's control of Japan grows shakier by the day as more rivals emerge to challenge his hold on Kyoto. Egged on by the puppet shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the powerful daimyo Takeda Shingen brings his army down upon Oda's closest ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and destroys them, Tokugawa escapes with his life and the aid of a ninja, Hattori Hanzo, whose subterfuge succeeds in turning back the Takeda forces. They return under Takeda's heir, however, to besiege Nagashino Castle. Tokugawa's forces hold out until a lowly footman named Torii Suneemon gives his life to bring Oda and Tokugawa reinforcements back to the troops at Nagashino. Oda's innovative strategy with his arquebusiers defeats the famous Takeda cavalry charge and wins the day, but his military victories do nothing for him in the end. His own general, Akechi Mitsuhide, leads his army against him in a surprise attack at the temple of Honno-ji. Rather than be captured, Oda Nobunaga commits seppuku.
With Oda Nobunaga dead, Japan hangs in the balance. His old retainer, Tokugawa Ieyasu, must flee for his life from the usurper Akechi Mitsuhide. He narrowly escapes with the help of his ninja ally Hattori Hanzo, but Oda's heir is not so lucky: Akechi assassinates him. With power up for grabs, Toyotomi Hideyoshi sweeps into Kyoto and destroys the usurper, then appoints a puppet heir to replace Oda Nobunaga while he truly rules Japan. Toyotomi, today known as a great unifier whose reign is called the Momoyama Period, enacts three policies to reinstate taxes, eliminate banditry, and instill a rigid social caste system. He succeeds in restoring national civil government to Japan, signalling the beginning of the end for the Sengoku Jidai. But Tokugawa Ieyasu waits in the wings...
After Toyotomi Hideyoshi passes from old age, control of Japan passes to his young son - or more accurately, to his council of advisors. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the most powerful among them, looks poised to seize power for himself, but a rival named Ishida Mitsunari plots against him. After his first treacherous plot is discovered and foiled, Ishida joins with Uesugi Kagekatsu to mount a campaign against Tokugawa. An old friend, Torii Mototada, gives his life to counter the campaign and buys Tokugawa enough time to defend himself. The defection of the Kobayakawa clan from Ishida broke this opposition once and for all, leaving Tokugawa in uncontested control of Japan. Though he became shogun, Tokugawa ruled for only two years before passing succession to his son, establishing for the first time not only a stable shogun but a stable chain of succession, and bringing Sengoku Jidai period to an end in Japan.
When Robert Harley steps in as England's new Chancellor of the Exchequer, he discovers that not only is the government deeply in debt, but no one knows quite how much debt it owes. Because vicious political infighting between the Tory and Whig politic parties made it difficult to pass new tax laws, Harley turned to a private financier named John Blunt to help find enough money for England to keep up with its expenses for the year. Using Harley's government resources, Blunt instigated a series of get-rich schemes that drove artificial demand for unsustainable land and lottery investments with tremendous short term gains. Before the year was done, Blunt had successfully covered the shortfall for the government that year - albeit at the cost of driving England's already outrageous debt even higher.
Frustrated at every turn by the Whig-controlled Bank of England, Harley and Blunt decide to start their own instution: a trading company that will exchange government debt for stock shares. This new South Sea Company will have a monopoly on trade in the rich new lands of South America, but all the ports there are controlled by Spain, with whom Britain is at war. So Blunt pushes the country into a premature and unfavorable peace with Spain, enlisting famous authors to write his propaganda and convincing Queen Anne herself to tip the balance of Parliament in his favor. After the queen dies and the government changes hands, Blunt kicks Harley and his Tory leaders out of the company. He manages to bring King George I himself on board as a ceremonial leader, linking the success of the South Sea Company with the reputation of the monarchy. But while his maneuvering inflates the value of his company's stock, it's never produced anything close to the amount of money he's convinced people to invest in it.
The time has come for Blunt to enact the final act of his scheme: taking on the 31 million pound British debt. When Parliament initially balks at transferring responsibility for that much money to Blunt's insolvent South Sea Company, he bribes them with special deals on his own stock. Despite a legal clause that should have locked the stock price until the company began paying off the debt, Blunt keeps introducing new plans to inflate the stock price and pocket the money for himself. He does everything from selling stocks on layaway to loaning people money so they could buy more stocks from him, creating an artificial demand for South Sea Company stock that drives the company's worth up to 300 million pounds: a staggering ten times the initial value of the already stunning debt it had assumed. His success, founded entirely on speculation with no actual revenue from trade, not only starves out other businesses across Britain but exceeds the total amount of money in the country's entire economy. This bubble can not last.
With the South Sea Company's value dangerously inflated, Blunt drives one more scheme to raise stock prices - and it finally backfires on him. Early investors (including the famous politician Robert Walpole) seize the opportunity to sell their stock while the value is high, and the general public finally realizes that the South Sea Company has no actual worth. Everyone who didn't sell their stock in the first round finds themselves suddenly bankrupt as the stock value plummets. Even King George, on vacation when disaster strikes, loses a large amount of the royal fortune. Robert Walpole, however, sees this as an opportunity to make himself a hero of the public. Hiding his own involvement in the South Sea Swindle, he cancels all debts owed for the company's stock to help put its public investors back on their feet. Despite this, the public demands an inquiry and Walpole must walk a thin line between his facade as defender of the people and the reality of his, his party, and the King's blatant corruption.
Robert Walpole's attempts to use the South Sea Company scandal to enhance his own ambitions are threatened by the appearance of Robert Knight, a former South Sea employee whose records of corporate bribery implicate Walpole and his friends in Parliament. But faced with threats of retribution if he ever shares these records, Knight flees the country rather than face a public inquiry. Although he gets caught and sent to prison in Antwerp, Walpole deftly engineers his release and escape. With Knight finally gone, Walpole teams up with John Blunt to pin the blame for the South Sea stock bubble on his political opponents, conveniently clearing the way for himself to become essentially the first Prime Minister of England. He also makes sure that all of his own supporters get off easy (if not scot free) for their involvement, and even Blunt walks away from the South Sea Bubble with more money than he started with.
With no written records from the Zulus themselves, historians and anthropologists have pieced together their history from a smattering of sources. We first learn of the Zulu as a minor tribe of the Bantu people, living in South Africa. Shaka Zulu, the man who would organize them into an empire, was born the illegitimate son of a Zulu king. He was sent away with his mother Nandi to grow up in her tribe, the Langeni, but he eventually caught the attention of Dingiswayo, the leader of another powerful tribe called the Mtethwa. Appointed as the leader of a squadron called an ibutho, Shaka developed new tactics including a short "iklwa" fighting spear and a simple but effective military maneuever called "the Bull Horn." When his father died, Shaka - now a successful military leader - returned with Dingiswayo's backing to assassinate the rightful heir and assume control of his native tribe. Just a year later, though, the neighboring Ndwandwe tribe murdered Dingiswayo and Shaka vowed revenge on their leader, Zwide. He then launched a bloody war that, combined with the strains created by European colonization, led to the Mefacane, or the Crushing.
Shaka sought vengeance for Dingiswayo on Zwide and the Ndwandwe. He expanded his control over the Mtethwa and other tribes, then launched his assault on the Ndwandwe. Shaka scored two crushing victories over the course of an eighteen month war, although Zwide escaped both times. Shaka invaded the main Ndwandwe village, capturing Zwide's mother and burning her to death in place of her son. Shaka had won the war, but the people he pushed out created a ripple of instability across Africa: the Mfecane or the Crushing. Shaka himself became dangerously disturbed when his mother died and he began to take his grief out on his people. His brothers assassinated him to take the throne, leading to a new king: Dingane. Dingane began to treat with the Dutch colonists in South Africa, but what began as a friendly relationship became a betrayal when he turned on them. Dingane attacked their wagon train at the Battle of Bloody River, but the Dutch with their guns held him off. The Dutch then threw their support behind Dingane's last surviving brother, Mpande, who successfully overthrew him and became the new Zulu king.
Europe had a presence in South Africa dating back to 1652, but the colonies and the native tribes really began to clash in the 1800s. The conquest of the Netherlands by Napoleon had left the Dutch colonists in a state of limbo, with the British claiming authority over them despite their homeland being ruled by the French. Many of these settlers, known as the Boers, moved inland to escape British oversight and pushed into land owned by the Zulus. Mpande, the new Zulu leader, attempted to keep the peace between the British and the Boers, but the treaties he negotiated on both sides only led to further conflict. Eventually, his son Cetshwayo peacefully took power over the Zulus around the same time that the Europeans discovered diamonds in South Africa. The government of Great Britain took an even greater interest in South Africa, stepping in to try to bribe or force the relucant natives to work the diamond mines established by European mining firms. Secretary of State Lord Carnarvon, who was responsible for the unification of colonies in Canada, made it his mission to unify the South African colonies and appointed Henry Bartle Frere as his governor and representative. Bartle Frere removed the local Capetown government, who had been largely sympathetic to the native peoples and opposed his harsh unification policies, then issued harsh and intentionally impossible demands against the Zulu. Cetshwayo refused to accept these demands, and thus began the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.
Lord Chelmsford, the British officer who commanded during the Anglo-Zulu War, vastly underestimated the power and aggression of the Zulu people. He split his army into three separate columns and left one of them stationed at Isandlwana while he searched for Zulu armies on the field. Meanwhile 20,000 Zulus were already flanking his force, but because Lord Chelmsford had not even ordered them to fortify the camp, the Zulu force swept through the ranks and destroyed the British army at Isandlwana. A small group of survivors fled to the hospital at Rorke's Drift where officer James Dalton organized a desperate defense. Cetshwayo's half-brother, ignoring orders to halt his pursuit, stormed the hospital with his small force and lost disastrously. Despite this, the main Zulu army continued to hand defeats to the British army until finally the British government stepped in to reinforce them with artillery and extra soldiers. Finally, Great Britain succeeded in capturing both the Zulu capitol at Ulundi and King Cetshwayo himself. They divided Zulu territory into 12 small kingdoms that quickly fell into civil war. Out of desperation, they returned Cetshwayo to the throne, but too late: a rival attacked and killed him. His son Dinuzulu allied with the Boers in an attempt to regain power and independence, but the British seized this excuse to finally annex Zulu land for good in 1887.
Justinian arose from humble roots, the nephew of an illiterate pig farmer named Justin. Justin joined the army and rose to become leader of the palace guard, then took his nephew under his wing and made sure that he was well educated. When Emperor Anastasius died, Justin used his position (and his standing army inside Constantinople) to claim the crown for himself. His nephew guided the early years of his reign, helping Justin secure support both in the capitol and abroad. When Justin died, rule of the Byzantine Empire passed to the young Justinian, who had grand ambitions to restore its waning glory. It also freed him to marry Theodora, a famous actress who was far beneath his social station, and who would also rise from her humble beginnings to become a revered empress.
Justinian wanted to restore the glory of Rome, but many obstacles stood in his way. He brought on talented advisors to help him reform the tax system, the law code, and the military might of the empire. With them he made great strides, but these advisors had very human flaws. His tax collector, John the Cappadocian, centralized tax collection and crushed corruption in his agents, greatly increasing the revenue to the empire - but he also skimmed money off the top to feed his private corruption. Meanwhile, a lawyer named Tribonian took centuries of confusing and even conflicting legal precedents and resolved them into a single code, the Corpis Juris Civilis, which remains the foundation of modern law today. He even made a textbook for students to learn from. But he was also a practicing pagan during an era when Justinian was trying to crack down on pagan rituals. And last, Justinian's chief military commander Belisarius helped the Empire recover its military glory. He defeated the Sassanid Persians in the Battle of Dara, crushing a force of 50,000 men with only 25,000 of his own through clever strategy: he dug a trench to halt their infantry's advance, then baited the Persian cavalry into overextending and sprang a surprise attack on them with Hun mercenaries. Although Belisarius seems to have been an upstanding person, his personal historian Procopius tainted even his clean record. Procopius wrote glowing official histories of the reign of Justinian, but his long lost secret history depicted Justinian as a literal headless demon and Theodora as a debauched monster.
A group of monks declared sanctuary for two hooligans from the demes (Constantinople's fanatical chariot racing factions) who had miraculously survived a hanging. The public wanted them pardoned for their crimes, so when Justinian made his public appearance at the next chariot race, they begged him to have mercy. When Justinian refused, the crowd turned on him and became a rioting mob that tore through the streets of Constantinople. During the Nika Riots, they burned down neighborhoods and even the Hagia Sophia cathedral, rampaging until Justinian agreed to pardon the two men from the demes. Now, however, the mob would not accept that. They demanded that he fire his advisors. Then they decided to appoint their own emperor, a man named Hypatius who was related to the previous emperor Anastasius. Assaulted on all sides, Justinian made plans to flee, only to be confronted by Theodora. She gave a now famous speech asking whether he would rather live a failure or die an emperor, announcing that she would choose the latter. Justinian followed her lead and made new plans to retake his city. He called Belisarius and Mundus, his best generals, to marshal a force. He also sent the eunuch Narses to bribe one faction of the demes and begin dismantling their leadership. Then he ordered his forces to invade the Hippodrome, where they cut down some thirty thousand civilians and executed the false emperor Hypatius. Justinian's reign was once again secure.
Thirty-nine days after the disastrous Nika Riots ended with the slaughter of 30,000 civilians, Justinian directed the city to rebuild the Hagia Sophia. Together, they built an even greater cathedral - but Justinian was not satisfied. He was called a Roman emperor, but he did not rule Rome itself. He resolved to reconquer the west, starting with Carthage in Africa, which had been conquered by Vandal tribes and turned into the seat of their budding empire. When the cousin of the Vandal king overthrew him for being pro-Roman and a follower of Rome's orthodox Christianity, Justinian had his excuse for war. He stirred up rebellion in the Vandal colonies, creating a distraction while he sent his general Belisarius to Carthage with a small army of men. Belisarius landed successfully and moved on Carthage, winning the support of the local people on his way. Gelimer teamed up with his brothers in two separate attempts to crush Belisarius and drive him out of Carthage, but after both of his brothers died, Gelimer lost his will to fight. He broke, and the Vandal resistance broke with him. Justinian awarded Belisarius a triumph, the greatest honor a Roman general could receive, but it would turn out to be the last formal triumph Rome would ever see.
The conquest of Carthage and the North African provinces was just the beginning for Justinian's ambition. He must have Rome. But like Carthage, he must find a reason to attack the Ostrogoths who now hold it. And like Carthage, this reason is given to him when the Ostrogothic Queen Amalsuntha, his ally, is murdered. But unlike Carthage, Belisarius now has only 7500 men, barely half of what he had for North Africa. He sails out anyway, making his first stop at the island of Sicily. All the cities except Panormus surrender to him, and Panormus he takes quickly by seizing their harbor with his ships. Meanwhile, Justinian has bribed the Franks to invade Italy from the north while another his generals marches from the east. But just when the Ostrogothic king is on the verge of surrender, disaster strikes. The other Byzantine general dies, and Belisarius is forced to return to Carthage to quell a revolt. The conquest loses its momentum and the Ostrogothic king imprisons the Roman ambassador. Justinian will not be stopped, and orders Belisarius to return to Italy once North Africa is secure. Alone, Belisarius marches up the coast of Italy until he meets resistance at Neapolis. With his forces too thinned to mount a siege, he engineers a sneak attack by invading through the pipe of a dried, broken aqueduct. Neapolis falls and the way now lies open to Rome.
Belisarius has only just taken Neapolis when the king of the Ostrogoths is overthrown. The new king, Vitiges, withdraws from Rome entirely to consolidate his power, allowing Belisarius to take Rome without a fight. But after Vitiges gathers his troops, he marches to retake Rome. He springs a surprise attack on Belisarius at the Salarian Bridge, which the Roman general barely escapes. Now he must survive in a city under siege, invening ship mills to continue producing the grain that feeds the city and training the civilians as soldiers. He holds off the Ostrogoths until reinforcements from Justinian arrive. After an indecisive battle, he agrees to a truce with Vitiges, which gives him time to position his troops. When the Ostrogoths break the truce, Belisarius is ready for them and crushes their force to drive them finally out of Rome.
Belisarius had broken the siege around Rome. Now he wanted to push on to the Ostrogothic capital in Ravenna, so Justinian sent fresh troops with new commanders: Narses and John. Belisarius ordered John to take his cavalry north and secure the route the Ravenna, but John bypassed several cities that seemed too difficult until he was offered a willing surrender by the people of Ariminum. When Belisarius ordered him to return to the main army, John refused, and soon found himself surrounded by the same forces he'd declined to fight earlier. Narses insisted that they rescue him, so Belisarius devised a plan and tricked the Ostrogoths into thinking his force was larger than it really was, so they fled without joining battle. John gave all the credit for his rescue to Narses, and a divide grew between the old guard loyal to Belisarius and the new troops loyal to Narses. Even though Belisarius had a letter from Justinian giving him sole control of the army, Narses argued over the semantics of the order and continued to do as he liked. He roped Belisarius into besieging Urbinus, then decided to abandon his own plan and return to Ariminum. Belisarius took Urbinus by a stroke of luck and wanted to send reinforcements to the Ostrogoth-besieged city of Mediolanum, supposedly under Roman protection, but John would only accept orders from Narses and stalled until after the city fell. When Roman troops finally arrived in Mediolanum, they found the entire city butchered and burned to the ground.
Mediolanum had fallen. Belisarius wrote a furious letter to Justinian explaining what happened, and the emperor immediately recalled Narses and reaffirmed Belisarius's leadership. His army tore through the Ostrogothic territory and soon laid siege to Ravenna, which they brought to the brink of surrender. But the Ostrogothic King Vitiges had written to the Persian Empire urging them to take advantage of Rome's distraction. Sure enough, Justinian found himself faced with a Persian army in the East, and he sent orders to Belisarius to leave Ravenna and return to defend Constantinople. Belisarius hated seeing his victory snatched from him, however, and almost refused to do it. Hearing of his displeasure, the Ostrogoths reached out to him and offered to make him their new king - no surrender necessary. Belisarius accepted their proposal, then immediately turned on them and declared the city for Justinian. Still, his greed cost the empire time. Justinian was furious that Belisarius had disobeyed his orders to return and wasted precious months solidifying control over the Ostrogoths while Persia threatened to overrun the heart of the empire. He could no longer trust his most valued general.
A comet flew over the empire for forty days, heralding bad news to come. Raiders struck from the west, coming within mere miles of Constantinople. But the biggest threat lay in the south, where a border dispute threatened to reignite the war between the Romans and the Persians. Since Belisarius was still in Italy, Justinian had to send other generals to attempt to resolve the matter peacefully. Both failed spectacularly. The Persian king Khosrau seized on this as a pretext for invasion. But instead of laying expensive sieges to the cities, he simply extorted them for tribute in exchange for being left alone by his army. As he advanced north, he took advantage of every opportunity to mock Justinian and remind him how little power he had to push the Persians back. Finally, the city of Antioch refused to surrender to Khosrau and he made quick work of it, convincing Justinian at last of the need to pay his own tribute to the Persians to make them go away. This bought him enough time for Belisarius to return, but even his great general was unable to make much progress. At last, he found himself pinned down in an un-winnable fight... which the Persians mysteriously decided not to engage against him. They did not want to risk contact with the Romans, whom they feared were rife with disease.
The first recorded outbreak of the Bubonic Plague occurred in Pelusium, an isolated town in the Egyptian province, but soon it moved on to Alexandria. Alexandria was the breadbasket of the Empire, and ships carrying grain (and plague-bearing rats) spread across the Empire. The Plague reached Constantinople to disastrous effect: 25% of the population died. Justinian set up a burial office but even they couldnt keep up with the demand. When they ran out of burial land, they started piling corpses into ships and setting them afloat; they even packed them into the guard towers along the wall. So few people survived that when word got out that Justinian had contracted the plague, hope seemed lost... until Theodora stepped up. She had always been a force within the Empire, Justinian's co-regent, and now she used that power to fight off the plots against him and keep the Empire together. She dealt ruthlessly with anyone who threatened them, and since many people wanted Belisarius installed on the throne as Justinian's heir, she recalled him and pushed him out of power. She managed to keep the Empire from disintegrating into Civil War and became the symbol of hope and perserverance for a sorely demoralized city. And then, miraculously, Justinian pulled through.
Theodora had kept the empire together, but it was deeply scarred. The Plague had killed a quarter of the citizens and imperial revenues were in dire straits. In Italy, the Gothic tribes had rebelled again under the united leadership of Totila, while the disorganized Romans failed to mount an effective defense. Italy quickly fell back into Gothic hands, and even when Justinian sent back Belisarius, he could barely raise an army and didn't have the money to support his few conquests. Eventually he had to be recalled to defend Constantinople, and Rome was lost forever. A similar rebellion occurred in Africa, but was mercifully quelled. And then Theodora died. Justinian wept at her casket. He refused to remarry and designated a nephew-in-law as his successor. Even in mourning, he managed to organize a defense against Persian aggression and reorganize the Empire's tax system to bring revenue back into the coffers he'd drained for grand monuments and expensive wars. As his final tribute to Theodora, he attempted to heal the divide between Monophysite and Orthodox Christians, which had been one of her life goals. He went about it by pressuring the Pope to join him in condemning the Nestorian religious leaders who'd championed monophysite beliefs at the Council of Chalcedon. The Pope reluctantly agreed, but as he feared, it did not heal the divide in the east and only created new controversy in the west.
Faced with a crumbling empire, Justinian remained determined to realize the dreams of his youth - even though he was now over 65 years old and without Theodora by his side. He worked tirelessly to bring revenue back to the empire, and with money in hand he could finally deal with the forces that threatened it. He assembled his last company, an odd selection of leaders for his army, made up of men who were either old, or inexperienced, or even known for failure - yet they succeeded. His instinct for choosing the right person for the job did not fail him, as one by one his last company made peace with Persia, tamed the Balkan threat, and reclaimed Italy from the Ostrogoths. But fate was not yet done with him. A wave of natural disasters and the return of the plague shook the empire while its foundations were still being rebuilt, and left it vulnerable to an invasion by the Bulgars. Justinian turned to his old friend Belisarius, calling him out of retirement for one final campaign. As always, Belisarius succeeded against the odds, but it would be his last fight. One by one, all of Justinian's close friends and advisors died of old age. Increasingly alone, he spent his last years trying to consolidate his empire and struggling to reconcile the Christian church. Finally, after one of the longest reigns in Roman history, Justinian died in 565 CE. His reign was a great "What If:" What if all those disasters hadn't struck? Would his grand amibtions have succeeded? He accomplished so much with the expansion of empire, the construction of the Hagia Sophia, and his overhaul of the legal code. But in the process, he risked - and perhaps lost - everything. He emptied the treasury, overextended the borders, and left the empire vulnerable to the Ottomans years later. Good or bad, his legacy reaches through the centuries to touch our lives today.
In 1095CE, Pope Urban gathered the leaders of the Christian community at the Council of Clermont. Urged on by Emperor Alexius Comnenos of Constantinople, he called for a crusade to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims who occupied Jerusalem. Muslims had occupied the Holy Land for over 400 years, but the timing was politically right for the Pope and the Byzantine Emperor. Pope Urban wanted to re-unite Christendom after the anti-Pope kicked him out of Rome, while Alexius Comnenus wanted to retake the territory he had recently lost in Anatolia from the Seljuq Turks. As incentive, the Pope offered crusaders a plenary indulgence: complete forgiveness for past sins in the eyes of God and the church. It worked too well. While the official armies of the Crusade prepared, a charismatic leader named Peter the Hermit began breaching directly to the people, claiming Jesus had sent him to lead them on Crusade. Walter sans Avoir joined him in France, and a man named Count Emicho of Leiningen emulated him in Germany. Both peasant groups met with and created disaster: Walter Sans Avoir's group pillaged Belgrade while Count Emicho's group turned on the local Jewish population as an excuse to slaughter them. Thus the First Crusade began with a disastrous People's Crusade.
Emicho of Leiningen and Walters sans Avoir certainly made a mark, but the largest group in the People's Crusade was led by Peter the Hermit. To gain passage through Hungary, they swore an oath not to destroy anything, but the lack of real leadership for their group became clear when they very quickly started a market brawl, stormed the local citadel, then fled to Belgrade and immediately repeated their aggression by turning on the Byzantine troops sent to keep them in line. At the city of Niŝ, the Byzantine troops pinned them down and slaughtered a quarter of the entire crusading "army." The remainder fled to Constantinople and secured passage into Turkey, but the group fractured from within and became two separate factions, with Peter leading one and a man named Reinald leading the other. Both factions competed for bragging rights, committing horrible atrocities to outdo each other. One group actually managed to siege a castle, but it had no water supply, so they were easily starved out by the Turks. The Turks, however, spread a rumor that this group had actually gone on to capture the capitol city, and the remaining crusaders set out to join what they thought would be a loot extravaganza. Instead, they ran into a Turkish ambush that left only 3,000 of their 20,000 soldiers alive. Now led by Geoffrey Burel, they retreated to Constantinople.
Although it finds Peter the Hermit's group from the People's Crusade in shambles, the summer of 1096 finally sees the "official" forces of the First Crusade set out for Jerusalem. This was not one army, however, but five separate armies led by men with very different motivations and sympathies - many of them surprisingly hostile towards the Pope or the Byzantine Empire. Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the King of France, led one army despite his brother having been excommunicated by Pope Urban II. Godfrey de Bouillon from the German territory had actually helped kick the Pope out of Rome and install the anti-Pope. Bohemond of Taranto brought an army whose experience primarily came from fighting the Romans twelve years prior. Raymond of Toulouse led the largest army and believed himself the main leader of the Crusade, despite the fact that he traveled with the Pope's appointed leader, Bishop Adhemar. Only Robert of Flanders could be said to be on good terms with both the Pope and the Eastern Roman Empire. When the five armies arrived in Constantinople, Emperor Alexius Comnenus approached them all privately with bribes and threats to get them to swear an oath that any land they conquered on Crusade would be returned to him. They all took it (except Bohemond's nephew, Tancred) and so the emperor sent them across the Bosphorus to attack the Turks at last.
Having sworn their oaths to Emperor Alexius Comnenus, the Crusaders finally sailed across the Bosphorus River to Turkey. When they disembarked, however, there were no Turkish armies waiting for them. Unopposed, they marched to Nicaea, the capitol of the Sultanate of Rum, and laid siege to it. At last word reached the sultan, Kilij Arslan, who rode back to save his city (and his family) only to realize that this army of crusaders was much larger and better organized than the People's Crusade which had come before. They had not yet realized, however, that the city of Nicaea was being secretly resupplied by ships arriving by night from Lake Askania. Once they did, the Byzantines transported their own ships overland to blockade the lake and launch a coordinated assault with the crusaders to force the city to surrender. The crusaders marched towards Jerusalem, but along the way, the Turks launched a surprise assault on Bohemond's army. He ordered his knights to form a shield wall around the priests and civilians traveling with them, and they held for hours under a burning sun until reinforcements from the other crusading armies arrived. They rallied, defeated the Turks, and resumed their march.
After their victory at the Battle of Dorylaeum, the Crusaders have an open path to Antioch and beyond that, Jerusalem. After the Sultan of Rum, Kilij Arslan, ordered the wells destroyed along their path, the Crusaders struggled through the desert and eventually decided to split their forces. Tancred and Baldwin set off towards Tarsus and Tancred tricked the Turkish garrison into surrendering to him, but Baldwin claimed the city for himself and broke his oath to the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenos. Tensions between the two lead to another confrontation in the next city, after which Baldwin abandoned the Crusade entirely and conned his way into becoming the Count of Edessa. Tancred meanwhile returned to the main force of Crusaders, who were besieging Antioch. When a force led by Bohemond and Robert of Flanders met Antioch's Turkish reinforcements on a foraging mission, they attacked them and scared them away. Then Bohemond tricked the Byzantine general into leaving as well, and threatened to leave himself unless the Crusaders let him keep Antioch. They had no choice but to agree to keep their forces together. With this assurance, Bohemond engineered the capture of Antioch: he bribed a Turkish commander to let them through the gates. The Crusaders massacred the people of Antioch when the city fell, but they had no time to rest after their victory: a huge Turkish army was already bearing down on them.
The Crusaders now held Antioch, but not securely. The Turks still control the citadel atop the mountain and had a massive army coming to reinforce them. The situation grew worse when Stephen of Blois deserted from the Crusades, and told the Byzantine reinforcements not to bother: he believed Antioch would fall immediately. Now entirely on their own, the Crusaders held the wall in constant vigil until a mystic named Peter Bartholomew claimed to have received a vision from Saint Andrew. Guided by his vision, he discovered metal which he claimed to be the holy lance of Longinus - nevermind that the church already had the holy lance in its possession. Though the Crusade leaders had doubts, the soldiers were inspired so they launched an assault on the Turkish armies. Surprisingly, they won the day: the Turks did not fully support their leader, Kerbogha, and many took the Crusade counter-attack as an excuse to abandon the siege. Bohemond now kept Antioch, while Raymond of Toulouse - after the disastrous Siege of Maarat led the soldiers to commit acts of cannabalism - took the remains of the army south to Jerusalem. His attempt to capture a small city called Arqa along the way almost fractured the crusade army again, and did lead to the death of Peter Bartholomew. They arrived in Jerusalem to find the local wells poisoned, giving them no choice but to attack the city head-on. After days of intense fighting, they won their way inside the walls and began a massive slaughter of the people who still lived inside Jerusalem - the Christian population had been expelled, leaving only Muslims and Jews still in the city. And thus, with Antioch and Jerusalem both in crusader hands, the First Crusade came to an end.
Admiral Yi Sun-sin of Korea began his legendary career with a series of disasters. Fate (and corrupt officials) conspired against him to have him repeatedly knocked down from the success he had earned, often because his insistence on strict military codes and refusal to ignore corruption made enemies of his fellow officers. Even when his superior had him tortured and blamed after a loss to the Jurchen raiders from the north, Yi perservered. Stripped of his rank and now reduced to a common enlisted man, Yi nevertheless served Korea with distinction. Meanwhile his childhood friend, Ryu Seong-ryong, had risen to become the prime minister of Korea. Ryu recognized the threat of war from Japan looming on the horizon, so when Yi asked to retire in 1588, Ryu convinced him to stay.
Japan invaded Korea after a series of long civil wars that had finally culminated in Toyotomi Hideyoshi leading a unified Japanese army. Their martial society had trained extensively with weapons like the arquebus, early guns, and the civil war had given them tremendous experience with siegecraft. By contrast, Korea had not been at war for hundreds of years: they were mostly troubled by raiders from without and corrupt government officials from within. However, their unique situation meant that they had great cannons for fighting off pirates and secure if minimal hill-top forts. As a tributary ally of the Chinese, the Koreans were startled and confused when Japan asked permission to march through their territory and make war on China. Many officials thought the Japanese were only bluffing, but Ryu Seong-ryong recognized the threat and made sure his friend Yi was moved to naval service to help defend the country. Yi trained his men and commissioned a new ironside ship design called the Turtle Ship. Unfortunately, other commanders did not take the threat seriously: even when Japanese ships appeared on the horizon, the southern commander convinced himself it was a trade fleet and took no action while the ships docked, then unloaded their soldiers onto Korean soil. The well-trained Japanese army crushed the Korean army and quickly advanced to Seoul. Meanwhile, Yi organized his small fleet of warships and launched quick strikes against the Japanese navy, catching them off-guard and on-patrol. He destroyed 43 enemy ships without losing a single one of his own, and was promoted accordingly to become the new Southern Commander of the Korean navy.
While Yi found success at sea, the Korean land army suffered terrible losses. Yi Il, the man who once accused Yi of negligence, lost one battle after another, until finally the regular forces were annhilated at Chungju. The Joseon court that ruled to Korea fled to Pyongyang, on the verge of being pushed out of their own country. But that same day, Admiral Yi tore through a Japanese fleet at Okpo. He moved on to Sacheon, where he baited the Japanese commander into a trap and debuted his turtle ship. The unstoppable turtle ship carried the day, so he used this tactic again and again he destroyed a Japanese fleet while suffering no losses of his own. Finally, Hideyoshi ordered his naval commanders to take Jeolla, Yi's headquarters. Sadly for him, his general Wakisaka Yasaharu grew too eager and engaged Yi without backup at Gyeonnaeryang Strait, only to find himself lured into an even more sophisticated version of Yi's bait-and-retreat strategy: a "Crane's Wing" of ships that collapsed on the overextended target from all sides. In one of the largest naval battles in history, Yi scored a decisive win and again didn't lose a single ship. He headed to Angolpo to attack Hideyoshi's two remaining generals and seal his victory, but they refused to be baited. He had to settle for a long range exchange of cannon fire, which worked at the cost of many injuries to his own men. In the end, he destroyed all but a few Japanese ships, and those he only spared to give the Japanese some means to escape and stop raiding in Korea. But he had accomplished his goal: Hideyoshi ordered a halt to all naval operations except guarding Busan, and without this control of the sea, Japan could not re-supply their troops nor hope to resume the assault that would have finally pushed Korea's leaders out of Korea.
Yi's success had forced the Japanese to give up offensive naval operations, but their huge fleet remained entrenched in Busan harbor. While Yi pinned them down, reinforcements from the Chinese army had finally arrived and helped the Korean army take back the country on land. Yi petitioned for marines to take Busan back from the Japanese, but his requests were ignored. Instead, he focused on making his base on Hansando self-sufficient: he promised protection to refugees in exchange for them working the island, building his equipment, and even researching military technology. But a truce was called with Japan, one that dragged on for years until Hideyoshi broke it by ordering a second invasion. An informant brought word of secret, unprotected Japanese fleet movements, but Yi recognized it as a trap and refused to go. However, his friend Ryu's enemies at court seized on this as an opportunity to put Yi on trial for treason. They demoted him again, and gave his fleet to Won Kyon. Won Kyon fell into the trap Yi had refused, and a coordinated surprise attack from the Japanese resulted in the destruction of all but 12 ships. Yi was quickly re-instated, but ordered to disband the navy. He refused, and planned his counterattack carefully: he would fight at Myeongnyang Strait, where he hoped the natural currents would do what his numbers could not. His plan worked: the reversing tide caught the Japanese by surprise and flung their ships against each other right as he pressed the attack. With 13 ships versus 133, he once again drove back Japan with zero losses to his own navy. Word of his success brought other ships out of hiding and convinced the Chinese navy to ally with him at last.
After his success at Myeongnyang, Yi began rebuilding the Korean navy and strengthening his partnership with the Chinese. But then, Toyotomi Hideyoshi died. Japan's new leaders had no interest in continuing the war, but although they sued for peace, Korea now held the upper hand and was determined to punish the people who had committed so many massacres against their people. Yi and the Chinese fleet bottled up the Japanese at the fort in Suncheon. When the Japanese called for reinforcements, Yi interrupted them in Noryang Strait. Again they were outnumbered, 500 to 150, but the Chinese commander did not yet understand Yi's long range style of warfare and immediately closed for close combat. Yi ordered his flagship to rescue their allies, and as soon as the Japanese recognized him, they focused fire on him. This allowed the Chinese, suddenly forgotten, to fire freely on them. The Japanese realized their error and tried to flee, but Yi would have none of it. Beating the war drum himself, he urged his ships to chase the Japanese - to punish them for all the slaughter they brought to Korea. It was then that he was struck by a fatal gunshot. Before he died, he ordered his son and nephew to command the battle for him. They dressed in his armor to hide his death from the troops and continued beating the dream. Together, they carried the day - only for Yi's tragic death to be revealed at the moment of victory. But although Yi did not live to see it, 300 Japanese ships were captured and destroyed that day and the rest of their invading force was rounded up soon after. For his tireless service, his brilliant leadership, and his unwavering devotion to Korea, Yi was given the posthumous title of Chungmugong, the Martial Lord of Loyalty.
In 260 CE, the Roman Empire was falling apart on all sides. Emperor Valerian gathered the legions to push back on the worst incursions from the Sassanid Empire in the east. They not only lost - they were massacred, and the emperor was taken captive. This left the empire in disarray. Into this desperate moment stepped Odenathus from the city-state of Palmyra. Palmyra was a vassal state that owed fealty to Rome and had been decorated with many honors and recognition in the past. If Rome fell, the Sassanid Empire would certainly look to conquer and annex Palmyra, so Odenathus rode to the rescue. He gathered all the soldiers he could find and took the Sassanid army by surprise on their way back from the battle with Valerian. He destroyed them. From there, he rode north to protect the emperor's son, and the next heir to Rome, then south again where he pushed the Sassanids all the way back to their capitol twice. Despite his success and undeniable military power, he never took power for himself or declared himself an emperor. Rome showered him with appreciation and titles. Sadly, he was murdered by his nephew in 267 CE, but his loyalty had bought the Roman Empire enough time to recover and survive for another 200 years.
Palmyra is an embodiment of our shared past, but right now it's under the control of ISIS. They have destroyed the antiquities that remind us of our shared past. We would like to take a moment to honor Dr. Khaled al-Assad, the museum director who gave his life rather than reveal the locations of more Palmyrene relics for ISIS to destroy.
Thanks to his mother's support, John Snow rose from humble beginnings as a coal miner's son and apprenticed to a doctor in Newcastle. As a young man, he treated many patients during the cholera epidemic that struck Newcastle. He noticed that the traditional explanation for cholera's spread - miasma from graveyards and swamps - could not explain its appearance in Newcastle where he treated patients. He took that knowledge with him to London, where he formally studied medicine and achieved the highest honors in his profession in only a year. His formal study of anesthesia earned him such great recognition that on two occasions he was trusted to work on the Queen. But then cholera broke out in London again. Snow wanted to prove miasma didn't cause it and find the real cause, so he interviewed patients and doctors across the city. He theorized that the diarrhea which came from cholera also helped to spread it. He even wrote up a case study where one street whose well water mixed with sewage had a huge infection rate while across the street their neighbors with pure well water barely suffered at all. Confident that he had found the cause, he published his findings, but the medical community was not thoroughly convinced.
John Snow's single case study was not enough to convince the medical community that cholera was spread through the water, but he did not give up. He founded the Epidemiological Society of London in 1850, the first organization dedicated to studying not just cures for disease, but also their causes. And so when cholera returned in 1854, John Snow saw a chance to finally prove his theory and set about studying the patterns of disease. The disease appeared to strike randomly, both rich and poor, but he realized that in his district were two different water companies, one of which he theorized might be contaminated. Finding evidence proved more difficult than he anticipated: going to door to door, he was often met by people who didn't even know what water company supplied their building. He tracked down landlords and even developed a water test to help him identify which water source each house had, but before he had the time to compile and analyze his findings, another terrible outbreak struck in Broad Street.
John Snow raced to discover the causes of the cholera epidemic that swept Broad Street. He went door-to-door talking to the locals, then surveyed government records for extra clues. He began to craft a map of deaths, and drew the first Voronoi Diagram to assess the victims' proximity to the pump. All but 8 of the 84 victims were closer to the Broad Street Pump (and hence more likely to use it) than any other pump, and most of the remainder had daily commutes that took them past the pump. He also noticed that a local workhouse and a tavern were conspicuously cholera-free despite their proximity to the pump, and found that they had access to their own drinking supplies which unbeknownst to them had kept them safe. With his evidence in hand, he met with the local health commission and convinced them to deactivate the Broad Street Pump. But his theory was still not widely accepted, and after the epidemic passed everything returned to normal. At last, a local pastor named Henry Whitehead set out to debunk the wild theories about what had caused the epidemic in his parish. He doubted Snow's results, but as he investigated, he found more evidence that backed them up. His relationship with the neighborhood also meant he could get information Snow couldn't, and it was thus that he found Patient Zero: a baby who died two days before the epidemic, and whose mother had been throwing her dirty diapers in a cesspit under the house. The government investigated and found that the poorly-built cesspit had begun leaking into the Broad Street Pump's water supply, infecting all who drank from it with cholera passed along in the baby's diapers. It would take many years before John Snow's theory became accepted fact, but his research paved the way for the modern medical field of epidemiology.
John Snow's report on the causes of cholera provided yet more evidence of the dangers of filthy cities. Cities had always been unhealthy places to live, generally with a higher death rate than birth rate, but fixing them just wasn't the focus of an agricultural world economy. The Industrial Revolution in the 1700s brought more people to the cities, and suddenly, cities had to grow in order to maintain the vastly expanded manufacturing and shipping operations of the new era. Edwin Chadwick published a report about the sewage in city streets and clearly explaining the need to remove it. His report led to legislation that created local health boards and drove the construction of complex sewer systems. These sewers were massive, expensive undertakings that, even today, remain the foundation of many large modern cities. They reduced diseases across the board and saved countless human lives, part of a legacy that John Snow would be proud of.
Mary Seacole treated soldiers during the Crimean War - but she took a long path to get there. She grew up in Jamaica, the daughter of a local hotel owner and a Scottish soldier. She admired her doctress mother and wanted to be like her, but she also yearned to travel and see the world. In 1821 she accepted a relative's invitation to visit London, and turned herself from a tourist to a businesswoman by importing Jamaican food preserves. She traveled with her business for several years before returning home to Jamaica, where she married a white man named Edwin Seacole and started a general store. Their venture failed, and disaster struck: fire destroyed most of Kingstown, and both Mary's husband and her mother died in 1843. Mary survived and rebuilt the hotel, but she set out to start a new life in Panama and was immediately greeted by a cholera epidemic. She helped contain it, and earned a reputation that helped her start her own business across the street from her half-brother's. When word reached her that the Crimean War back in Europe needed nurses, she left her business behind and went to sign up. Both the War Office and Florence Nightingale's expedition rejected her, but Mary determined to find her own way there.
Unable to find any official sponsors, Mary Seacole decided to send herself to the Crimea. She recruited her husband's cousin, a fellow business person, and the two of them set off for the war zone. Unlike London, where she'd met a chilly reception, Mary's help was welcomed by the overworked doctors and suffering soldiers. She built a new version of her British Hotel and invited officers to dine or shop there, using their money to buy medical supplies and creature comforts for the poorer soldiers. She had set herself up next to the army camp, and during battles she helped provide emergency care. But when at last the city of Sevastopol fell, Mary's medical services were no longer in much demand. She enjoyed a few months of prosperity as the soldiers celebrated their newfound time off, but in March of 1856, a treaty was signed and troops began returning home. Many of them left unpaid debts, and Mary could no longer sell her supplies, so she and her business partner were forced to return home to London and declare bankruptcy. When that news got out, the soldiers she'd cared for rallied to her aid, donating money to help pay her debts. Although Mary tried to continue serving soldiers in warzones, the government never recognized her and in the end, only her homeland of Jamaica remembered her contributions after her death. In the 2000s, her story came back to light in the United Kingdom and she was recognized in 2004 as the Greatest Black Briton.
James explains why World War II series on Extra History won't use the swastika of Nazi Germany.
James explains why World War II series on Extra History won't use the swastika of Nazi Germany.
In June 1941, Nazi Germany launched an attack upon the Soviet Union. The German Reich had been building up forces along the Eastern Front for a long time, but the sudden aggression caught Soviet forces unprepared. Many troops were captured and the Germans quickly conquered territory from the Soviet states. But the Soviets reorganized, improved their communication structure, and pulled together a defense at Smolensk. Although they lost again, they critically slowed the German advance and halted their race towards Moscow. Instead, the Germans tried to lay siege at Leningrad, only to be struck themselves by insufficient supply lines and a brutal winter that claimed the lives of many soldiers. With that, the Wehrmacht withdrew and redirected its efforts towards Stalingrad. Josef Stalin refused to let them take any land "further than the Volga" in Russia, and mounted a stiff defense. Even when the Luftwaffe, the German air force, reduced the city to rubble, Soviet soldiers continued to wage war from the debris. Meanwhile, the Germans were so focused on their offensive that they let their defensive lines collapse, and in October 1941 the Soviets managed to surround and pin down the German 6th Army. Their commander refused surrender terms because he didn't want to displease Adolf Hitler, but the 6th Army's resistance inevitably collapsed in February 1942.
Richard "the Challenger" Cutland, ex British tankie and military specialist at Wargaming, stops by to talk about the types of tanks involved in the Battle of Kursk! Early in Operation Barbarossa, the Germans didn't expect much from their opponents. They did not know about the T-34 and KV-1 tanks, which turned out to be superior designs. The Germans deployed a special commission to study Soviet tank designs and soon introduced the Tiger, Panther, and Ferdinand tanks which Hitler believed were key to victory. The Panther in particular was now outclassing Soviet tanks, but it had giant mechanical issues and broke down frequently. The Soviets had produced a new T-43 model tank, but it was designed to tackle the old German Panzer IV and didn't measure up well to the new German tanks. So they preferred to focus on the trusty T-34 tanks, which made up in speed and numbers what they lacked in range and firepower. The Kursk region also played to the Soviets' advantage in Russia: the dust storms and mudfields hindered air support from the Luftwaffe and the advance of the Wermacht. Erich von Manstein, the German commander, decided not to advance. Instead he yielded ground to the Soviets in an attempt to lure them into overextending. He successfully caught them out at the First Battle of Kharkov, but even though the Soviets suffered heavy casualties there, it wasn't enough to make a dent in their huge army. Manstein needed to do something more drastic. Both he and the Soviets recognized that the Soviet line had a weakness where it bulged out to defend the city of Kursk, making it an obvious target for the next stage of operations.
On July 5, 1943, the long-awaited German assault began. Despite the arrival of the powerful new German tanks, the Soviets ground their advance down to a crawl thanks to the stiff fortifications they'd had time to lay in place. The Germans planned their assault for July 5, 1943 but a defector warned the Soviets and denied them the element of surprise. Even without the warning, General Zhukov had found plenty of time to fortify Kursk with layer upon layer of pillboxes, minefields, and more. He planned to bloody the Germans with this staunch defense and weaken them for later. The new German tanks, such as the Tiger, arrived only to find themselves outnumbered by numerous Soviet T-34s and ill-supported by maintenance crews who were stretched too thin by the number and variety of new tanks being deployed. General Manstein ordered his strongest tank unit to push through, targeting the small town of Oboyan, but although he made the most progress along the line of the assault, even he had not expected resistance on this scale. By the next day, the Germans had barely reached the second line of Soviet defenses, and while they hadn't been forced to retreat anywhere, they were distinctly behind schedule. Hitler needed them to win. It wouldn't win the war, but he hoped that it would force the Soviets to withdraw, leaving him free to concentrate on the Western front and the threats from the United Kingdom and the United States.
Twelve days of ferocious battle wore both sides down to the bone. Each German push was met with a Soviet counterattack in places like Ponyri and Prokhorovka, until finally the Allied invasion of Sicily forced Hitler to recall his troops. German divisions had not expected the level of resistance they met from the Soviets, and their planned advance was behind schedule. At the same time, the Soviets were concerned by the breaches in their first level of defense and by the Tiger tanks which so decisively outgunned their T-34. Fighting on the north side of the Kursk salient came to focus on the small Russian town of Ponyri, where the Germans saw an opportunity to break through and encircle the Soviet defenders. But every time they took control, the Soviets countered and took it back, until finally it became clear that they would never hold Ponyri and could only hope to divert troops from reinforcing the Soviet line elsewhere. But in the south, General Vatutin of the USSR had come up with a clever strategy: he literally buried his T-34 tanks up to the turrets, making them fortified anti-tank guns whose small profile negated the range advantage of the Tiger. His methods were extremely effective, but the Germans continued to fight forward inch by bloody inch. The Soviets needed to hold until reinforcements arrived. An attempted counterattack failed, but managed to slow the Germans, as did the sudden arrival of rainy weather that bogged down their materiel. In the midst of this, the brutal war criminals in the SS Division fought on with a ferocity best exemplified by Joachim Krüger, who once ripped off his pants to escape a smoke grenade and charged bare-assed at a Russian tank. But this wild back and forth could not continue. On July 12, 1943, the Germans sought a decisive outcome through a hard push at Prokhorovka. They did not get it, and the tides quickly turned against them. The Allies invaded Sicily, pressuring Hitler. He gave the command to withdraw the troops at Kur
A young Suleiman ascends the throne of the Ottoman Empire. He wants to be a benevolent ruler, but he must prove that he is no pushover. Perhaps it all began when Suleiman's father died... Suleiman's father, Selim I, had pushed the borders of the Ottoman Empire further than any before him. Suleiman and his childhood friend, a Greek named Ibrahim who'd once been his slave, had to race back to Constantinople to claim the throne before news got out. Suleiman immediately bestowed gifts on the janissaries and court officials whose favor he would need for a successful reign, but he also carried out executions against those he suspected of treachery. He could not afford to be too kind. Indeed, his rule was challenged immediately by a revolt in Syria, which Suleiman crushed with overwhelming force to secure his reputation as a powerful leader. He wanted to stretch the empire even more, to bring it into Europe, which brought his attention to Hungary (his gateway to Europe) and Rhodes (a thorn in his side in the Mediterranean). The young prince of Hungary gave him the excuse he needed by executing an Ottoman envoy who'd come to collect tribute. Suleiman prepared his troops for war.
Knowing that most of Europe is preoccupied with internal struggles, Suleiman launches his wars against Hungary and Rhodes while they're cut off from outside reinforcements. Suleiman wanted to erase the failures of his predecessor, and extend the Ottoman Empire into Europe... The boy king of Hungary had given Suleiman the perfect pretext for war by killing his envoy, and he'd done it at a time when Hungary was especially isolated from the rest of the continent. The Holy Roman Empire and Papal States were being torn apart by the declarations of Martin Luther. Spain and France were busy fighting each other. Suleiman even ensured that Venice would stay out of the dispute by offering them a lucrative trade treaty with his empire. Though he felt certain of victory, he still studied every route and painstakingly worked out the logistics of moving his army. He would not risk failure through carelessness. Yet the siege from his cannons could not bring down the walls of Belgrade, so he turned to treachery: eventually, the Orthodox Serbian contingent in the city gave him access in order to escape the oppression of the Catholic Hungarians. Suleiman massacred the Hungarians, but honored his agreement with the Serbs and let them leave. Then he turned to Rhodes. He offered them a chance to surrender in advance, but they refused. The Knights of Rhodes were after all a sacred order, equal in discipline to his janissary forces. They fought hard, repulsing several attempts by the Turks to invade through collapsed walls and repeatedly refusing Suleiman's offers to let them surrender. But at last they wore down and agreed to terms of truce. Suleiman allowed them to leave along with any Christian subjects who wished to go with them. It had taken him two years to complete his wars, but he had succeeded.
The victorious Suleiman begins to consolidate his empire and his home. With Ibrahim and his favorite concubine, Roxelana, by his side, he reorganizes the empire and begins his great work: a book of laws. But Hungary still stands untaken, and he must have it. Suleiman had made so many decisions out of earnest love, but now he could only look back with regret... Suleiman returned from his campaigns to find that two of his sons had died of illness that year, but also that his favorite concubine had borne him a new son. Her name was Roxelana, and although she was only a Polish slave, he loved her deeply and soon elevated her to become his legal wife, the Hürrem Sultan. He also promoted his best friend, Ibrahim, up the ranks until he finally appointed him grand vizier. With these two ruling at his side, he felt ready to take on the world. But Ahmed Pasha, his second vizier, was jealous of Ibrahim. He'd expected to get the position of grand vizier for himself, and when he didn't, he asked for a governorship of Egypt instead - which he then used to mount a rebellion against Suleiman. His rebellion triggered a wave of uprisings through the empire. Suleiman sent Ibrahim to quell them all, which he did, and then reorganized the provinces to break up the power blocs that had acted against his sultan. At the same time, Suleiman had begun working on a great work of law, reforming the hodgepodge legal heritage of the Ottmans into a unified code that would guide the empire for the rest of its days. While it was still in progress, he saw an opportunity to reach for Hungary again and he took it. His troops marched through a torrential downpour of rain until they encountered the Hungarian troops on the Field of Mohács. Impetuous nobles had pushed the young King Louis II to take the field and go on the offensive, despite being outnumbered and outgunned by the vast Ottoman force. Their brave but foolhardy charge failed, and the Ottomans surrounded and destroyed them. Although S
When a dispute arose over the control of Hungary, Suleiman saw an opportunity to extend his empire into Europe and gain allies from those who'd asked for his help. Though he took Buda quickly, Vienna had time to fortify against him and pushed his troops back. Suleiman looked back on those heady days, and wondered how his victories had all turned to ash... After the Battle of Mohács, Suleiman found himself quickly pulled into the politics of western Europe. The Queen Mother of France asked him to intercede for her in a quarrel with the King of Spain, and the Austrian Hapsburgs had claimed Hungary as their own territory despite his recent victory there. The Hungarians, meanwhile, had elected their own king John Zápolya and refused to acknowledge the Austrians. Suleiman decided to settle the matter by marching with his armies again, and found Zápolya a willing ally. Bad weather slowed his advance and cut his numbers, but he nonetheless took Buda by storm and made an example out of the Austrians they found there. When they got to Vienna, however, they found that the city had been fortified and reinforced by several European nations. Though Suleiman offered a king's ransom to the first man over the walls of Vienna, his troops just couldn't push through. The arrival of winter forced him to withdraw the siege, unsuccessful. He pretend to consider it a victory, but he knew that this defeat meant he'd never be able to acquire the European empire he had dreamed about. Besides, he was growing older, and the question of succession weighed heavy on his mind. By tradition, only one of his sons would be allowed to live and inherit the throne, but he couldn't bear the thought of his beloved Roxelana forced to watch her sons die. Especially considering his most likely heir, Mustafa, wasn't a son of Roxelana's at all. The quandary weighed heavy on him.
Suleiman's empire stretches across the Mediterranean, but in the midst of his success, he suspects betrayal in his own house. His best friend, Ibrahim, and his most promising son, Mustafa, both seem to have designs upon the throne. Suleiman was alone in his garden, unable to escape the doubts and regrets that shadowed him... Suleiman and Ibrahim marched south upon the Safavid kingdom, where they met no resistance. Faced with an unbeatable Ottoman army, the Safavids simply yielded and scorched the earth behind them so Suleiman would not be able to hold the territory he took. Ibrahim suggested that he take on the role of sultan in this new territory so that he could govern it, but his words enraged Suleiman. Roxelana had been warning him that Ibrahim had grown ambitious and disrespectful, and now he saw it. He had Ibrahim assassinated and appointed a new chief vizier. But now his Western empire was in shambles. He allied with the French against his enemy, Charles of Spain, but they conducted their war in Italy, well beyond his usual sphere of control. The mismanaged war had to be called off after Charles and Ferdinand attacked Hungary in the wake of John Zápolya's death. Suleiman defeated them and annexed it officially. Again war called. This time he sent his troops south without him, only to hear word that they felt Mustafa was a better leader than he was and Mustafa didn't disagree. He joined them in the field and ordered Mustafa to come to him and prove his innocence, but it was a trap. He had Mustafa killed. The consequences rippled out. He killed Mustafa's son, his grandson. One of his own sons died from grief. Roxelana died of old age. His two remaining sons, Selim II and Bayezid, began to quarrel for the throne, and he ordered them both out of the capital. Bayezid hesitated, and Suleiman turned against him. Even after Bayezid fled to the Safavids, Suleiman pressed for his execution and bribed the Safavid sultan to carry it out for him. Now, he had only o
Suleiman's decisions came back to haunt him, starting with the Knights of Malta (once Rhodes). He tried to kick them off their island again, but failed. He launched a new campaign to take Vienna and prove the might of his empire. But he was so old... A messenger disrupted Suleiman in his reverie. He brought news from Malta... Suleiman had outlived both his friends and his rivals. Charles V had passed, but his throne had passed to a son who proved just as vexing. An ardent Catholic, Philip II set his ships to harass Ottoman fleets in the Mediterranean and emboldened others to dispute Suleiman's mastery of the sea. The Knights of Malta, whom Suleiman had defeated at Rhodes and allowed to leave peacefully, once again gave safe habor to these Christian ships. Suleiman sent a force to take their island, but his commanders argued with each other and Christian Europe united against him in a way that it could not when he'd been a younger man. The Knights Hospitallier withdrew into their forts. His army struggled for three weeks to take just one of them, and although they succeeded, Suleiman's commander died and the Christian reinforcements had time to join the remaining two forts. At last, faced with yet another fleet of reinforcements, Suleiman's commanders decided to withdraw. Back in his garden, Suleiman knew that this defeat would destroy the invincible image of his empire. He resolved to prove that the Turks were still a force to be feared, and organized a campaign to take Vienna. He would lead them himself. They left in 1566 with great fanfare, but they were immediately greeted by torrential rains that slowed their advance and cost them materiel. Suleiman spent the whole trip confined to a carriage, and when they finally arrived to siege Szeged, he had to retreat a sickbed in his tent. He died while the battle still raged outside, never to know his empire's fate.
To understand nations at war, you have to look at how their economies function. With World War II on the horizon, Europe and Asia dug themselves in for a fight - and a look at each other's resources told them what to expect. European economies were so closely connected that some people expected they have to avoid another world war or destroy their finances, but in fact World War I had taught them how to prepare for just such a scenario. Germany, France, and Great Britain all invested in their military before war broke out. When evaluating these economies to see how war would affect them, we look at four main factors: GDP, population, territorial extent, and per capita income. Broadly, this helps us determine how resilient, expansive, self-sufficient, and developed a nation is. All of those factors determine how a nation must conduct its war. For example, the vast territorial holdings of the British Empire meant that they had vast resources to draw upon but needed a long time to mobilize them, which helped Germany determine that they needed to strike fast and win big if they hoped to win the war before Britain's full resources came into play. Japan also estimated that they could win a war in the Pacific if they managed to win before the US had been involved for more than 6 months. These calculations drove the early strategies of the Axis powers, but the participation of the US would later prove to be a crucial factor.
After Germany's early push, the situation looked dire in Europe. The United States had resources to help out, but initially clung to an isolationist policy. Gradually, measures like Cash and Carry and the Lend-Lease Act expanded their involvement. Germany's blitzkrieg had been largely successful. France fell early, and Great Britain appeared on the verge of collapse. Europe needed more resources to sustain their resistance, but the United States was bound by the Neutrality Act which established a policy of isolationism and forbade the US from supporting foreign wars in any way. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt skirted those restrictions. He lobbied Congress to reinstate a provision in the law called Cash and Carry, which would allow other nations to buy US war materiel with cash and transport it themselves into the warzone. He also established an agreement which allowed him to place American military bases on British colonies in exchange for destroyer ships, thus safeguarding the far reaches of the United Kingdom from possible Axis invasions. When it turned out that the English won the Battle of Britain and successfully staved off the attempted Nazi conquest, America decided to support them in a more substantial, long term way. Thus the Lend-Lease Act was signed: the US would loan equipment to their strategic partners (who were not the Allies yet). Though supposedly the equipment had to be returned, it was pretty obvious that war materiel would not come back in the same shape if at all, so this was really the largest donation of war supplies ever. But it wound up benefiting the US in turn, since the increased production galvanized an economy that had been stagnant since the Great Depression. It also kickstarted the involvement of the US Merchant Marine, who were among the earliest US citizens to give their lives in World War II and suffered the highest casualty percentage of any branch of the service. These unarmed ships navigated U-boat infested waters to bri
The armies and technology of World War II required a vast supply of resources. A close look at Germany and Japan shows how the need to secure those resources played a significent role in determining strategy throughout the war. The armies of World War II needed a vast supply and variety of resources. The Allies had many of those resources on their side, but the Axis powers did not. Germany imported many of its resources from countries it would soon be fighting, and needed their war strategy to account for the acquisition of those resources. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed with the USSR set up a trade agreement to bring them oil from Russia for a while, in addition to establishing temporary non-aggression with the Soviets. When the war began in earnest, Germany targeted Norway with its supply of aluminum and iron as well as its access to the even more resource-rich Sweden. Conquering France also gave them access to rich farmland to feed the troops. But even though they had gained control of the oil fields in Romania, it wasn't enough to power their war machine. Many Nazi generals wanted to target North Africa for this, but Hitler had his sights set on the Soviet Union and wound up squandering much of Germany's reserves in a fruitless effort there. Meanwhile, Japan's entrance into the war had cost them their primary trading partner: the United States. The Japanese army wanted to pursue the Northern Expansion Doctrine (Hokushin-Ron) and push through China into Siberia, wounding the USSR in the process. They attempted this strategy, but the Soviets met them in Mongolia and pushed them back in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. So they turned to the Southern Expansion Doctrine (Nanshin-Ron) advocated by the navy, and began to sweep up islands in the Pacific. They planned to strip the European colonial powers of their holdings, and they succeeded in capturing 90% of the world's rubber production. But the US responded by synthesizing rubber, and built an industry so large t
A series of missed airstrikes resulting in the death of civilians sparked the no-holds-barred Battle of Britain. Germany launched a Blitz to bomb London into submission, but inadvertantly sparked more resistance and gave British industry a chance to bounce back. On August 25, 1940, a group of German bomber planes got lost on a night-time mission over England. They wound up dropping bombs not on their industrial target, but on the city of London itself. Winston Churchill ordered a retaliatory strike against Germany, but this time it was the RAF who missed their target and hit civilians. Hitler was convinced this was intentional, so he rescinded his prohibition against targeting civilians. The Luftwaffe organized a massive attack against London, intending to break the British people's will to fight. The Blitz backfired in several respects. First, it diverted Germany's attention from strategic targets, which meant they were no longer putting real pressure on the British industrial war efforts. Second, they wound up bringing the British together and strengthening their will to fight on in the names of those who'd been lost to German bombs. Ultimately, the cost in men and material for Germany to wage the Battle of Britain exceeded the cost of damage they inflicted.
Understanding the early theological struggles of the Christian church is vital to understanding history. This series will focus on Rome and the political and religious forces that drove various interpretations of Christ and his teachings - and a push towards orthodoxy. Disclaimer: This series is intended for students, to give them a broad overview of a complicated subject that has driven world history for centuries. Our story begins and focuses on Rome. One of the toughest questions early Christians had to face was Mosaic Law. Did the laws of Moses still apply, or did the teachings of Jesus Christ replace them? The issue of circumcision became a focal point for this conflict. In an era without surgical anaesthetic or procedures, asking grown men to have their foreskins removed was a painful process. Paul the Apostle argued vehemently against the practice because he believed that Christianity needed to be accessible to Romans, the gentiles, and he knew that requirements like circumcision would vastly reduce the number of people willing to convert. Gradually, Judaizing forces were pushed out of mainstream Christianity as the religion began to convert more Romans. But it soon faced another crisis: what was the nature of Christ? This issue would come up time and time again, but one of the earliest conflicts over it came from the Docetists. They believed Christ was a being of pure spirit, and that it would denigrate his godhood to consider him a human man. But in the Epistles, John argued fervently against that idea, saying that Christians must believe in Christ "in the flesh" in order for his sacrifices to be meaningful. A bishop named Ignatius of Antioch embraced that idea when facing a conviction to be thrown to lions in the Colossuem, believing that his martyrdom echoed Christ's and he was proud to give his body to prove his faith. Then the 3rd Century Crisis hit, and the Roman government fell apart. The Church stepped in, and many people believed its prophesie
Constantine had restored full rights to Christians in the Roman Empire with the Edict of Milan, but he did not expect theological debates to divide the church. Conflict between the orthodox church and both the Donatists and the Arians drew him to intervene. Disclaimer: This series is intended for students, to give them a broad overview of a complicated subject that has driven world history for centuries. Our story begins and focuses on Rome. Constantine had gained control of the Roman Empire, its first Christian emperor, and he restored full rights to people of the Christian faith with the Edict of Milan. But his generosity immediately raised a question: what did the church do with so-called traditors, who had renounced the Christian faith during the days of persecution and now wanted to return? The Roman Church demanded they be restored, because the doctrine of penance declared that anyone could repent for any sin, no matter how grievous. But in North Africa, one group was outraged when a traditor named Caecilian was not only restored to the faith but elected Bishop of Carthage. They refused to accept him and elected their own bishop, Donatus, instead. Donatus performed the role of a bishop without official church authority and he insisted on re-baptizing traditors in contradiction to the doctrine of penance. The church wanted to put him on trial, but since Donatus had rebelled against the people calling for his trial, he didn't believe it would be a fair trial. He wrote Constantine asking for help and the emperor decided to intervene, setting a dangerous precedent for imperial involvement in affairs of the church. Over a series of several trials, church leaders continued to condemn Donatus and he continued to ask Constantine for retrials until the emperor grew fed up and washed his hands of the matter. The unrepentant Donatists went on to become a splinter church that divided North Africa for centuries. Around the same time, a bishop named Arius had begun to
The Council of Nicaea convened to decide the guiding rules of the church - and to resolve the questions posed by Arian theology. A deacon named Athanasius set himself against Arius and succeeded in getting his teachings declared heresy. Disclaimer: This series is intended for students, to give them a broad overview of a complicated subject that has driven world history for centuries. Our story begins and focuses on Rome. Constantine called the Council of Nicaea not only to address the teachings of Arius, but also to decide basic matters for how the church would go forward. Yet it was the debate over Arian theology which quickly came to dominate the council's time. The bishops effectively split into two factions, one backing Arius and the other led by a deacon named Athanasius. Athanasius vehemently opposed the Arian teachings and would not allow any compromise to be formed with the other group. Yet he played the politics very carefully, adopting in his own arguments the phrase "homoousian" (or "of the same substance") to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, knowing full well that Arius would never accept an agreement which included this idea. Even when others tried to compromise with the phrase "homoiousian" (or "of similar substance"), Arius would not agree. Athanasius used the extra time to make private deals and assemble a majority coalition, with which he successfully caused Arianism to be declared heresy and forced Arius himself into exile. Emperor Constantine was just happy a decision had been reached, but a bishop in his own court would not let matters rest so easily. This bishop, Eusebius, campaigned tirelessly for the restoration of Arius and managed to get Athanasius exiled instead. Constantine himself wound up being baptized by Eusebius, and his son Emperor Constantius II would be a die-hard Arian in his turn. Eusebius even ordained a Goth named Ulfilas to preach to the Gothic tribes, and his sucess meant that the tribes became
The Council of Ephesus meant to heal a rift between Nestorius of Constantinople and Cyril of Alexandria, but instead it set off a chain of ecumenical councils that disagreed with each other, excommunicated rivals, and ultimately led to more factions within the church. Disclaimer: This series is intended for students, to give them a broad overview of a complicated subject that has driven world history for centuries. Our story begins and focuses on the Romane Empire. A centuary after Constantine, the Emperor Theodosius II found himself wrapped up in yet more theological disputes. His chosen patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Nestorius, had angered many other church leaders with his teachings that Christ had separate human and divine natures. Cyril of Alexandria wrote to the Pope in Rome for support against Nestorius, and received permission to excommunicate him. Nestorius responded by having the emperor call an ecumenical council, at which he intended to excommunicate Cyril. But Cyril acted first, declaring for the excommunication of Nestorius and forming a majority by pushing the council to begin early before the supporters of Nestorius could gather. When they did, they formed their own council and excommunicated Cyril right back, only to be excommunicated in turn by Cyril's Council of Ephesus. Theodosius II attempted to resolve this by calling a second council, but this time none of the Western delegates had time to arrive and in their absence, monophysite leaders from the East excommunicated Nestorius again and declared monophysitism the official doctrine of the church. Those who didn't get to participate called this the Robbers Council and refused to acknowledge it. Then Theodosius II died, and this fight devolved onto his successor, Marcian. Marcian called together the Council of Chalcedon to rule on the previous councils, where it was finally decided that Christ had two unified natures, human and divine, and everyone who'd supported the Robbers Counci
How did the ancient civilization of Sumer first develop the concept of the written word? It all began with simple warehouse tallies in the temples, but as the scribes sought more simple ways to record information, those tallies gradually evolved from pictograms into cuneiform text which could be used to convey complex, abstract, or even lyrical ideas.
Where did the alphabet come from? How did it develop, and why? The writing systems first developed in Sumer provided a basis for the written word, but their system of characters also inspired a shift to single phoneme systems where each letter represents a distinct sound.
Forced to flee from his home in Cordoba, Samuel HaNagid made a new name for himself in the kingdom of Granada. He picked his allies carefully and rose to the position of vizier, an unheard of honor for a Jew in a Muslim kingdom. His fame as a poet, a leader, and a patron of Judaic studies spread across the Mediterranean.
The British Empire's grasp on the Americas was slipping right at the time when they needed those resources most. The massive amounts of tea they imported from China had created a huge trade deficit, but the Chinese were reluctant to let any Europeans trade outside of the Canton port strictly controlled by the Hong. So Britain sent a formal embassy led by Earl George Macartney.
Opium was illegal in China, but that didn't stop the East India Company from manufacturing it for the black market. The Chinese emperor appointed an official, Lin Zexu, to stop it. He seized and burned huge opium caches held by British merchants, and ultimately ordered the British out of China entirely. Instead, they set up base on a barren island that would become known as Hong Kong.
The British set up a blockade outside Canton, but one of their own private merchant ships tried to run through it. When the Chinese came to its defense, war began in earnest. Since the British had far superior firepower, they easily conquered Chuenpee and Chusan. Elliot and the Emperor's new envoy, Qishan, soon sought a treaty and agreed on generous terms... which their overseers harshly rejected.
The Chinese attempt to retake Canton by force failed. New British commanders took charge and would accept nothing less than total Chinese capitulation. They captured cities all the way up to Nanking, forcing the Emperor to negotiate. He had no choice but to accept an unequal treaty, kicking off a period of subservience to Europe which China still remembers today as the Century of Humiliation.
Federico da Montefeltro shone brightly as the "Light of Italy," one of many torches that helped light the flame of Renaissance. He made his name as a wily yet honest mercenary captain, but he also ruled as prince of the small, remote town of Urbino. There, he and his wife built an illustrious court that celebrated creativity, knowledge, and justice.
Bishops. Manuscripts. Pilgrimage. Wealth. In 793 CE, the island monastery of Lindisfarne thrived in a state of harmony. Then, everything changed when the Viking raiders attacked. Once they discovered Europe's weakness, not even mighty kings like Charlemagne could stop them. They transformed their power at sea into an avenue for conquest and expansion: the Viking Age had begun.
Rome had doubled the size of its empire in a single generation, but such expansion came at great cost. The wars enriched the wealthy and impoverished the soldiers who fought in them. Into these turbulent times came a talented and well-connected young man named Tiberius Gracchus, who soon learned the power of appealing to the populace over the elite.
Tiberius Gracchus took up the cause of land reform, determined to restore property rights to the average citizen and curtail the abuses of the rich. But another tribune vetoed his proposed law, so Tiberius began to fight back with his own veto and ground the government to a halt. At last, he held a special vote to remove his opponent from office so that his land reform bill could pass.
To protect himself from retaliation for his populist policies, Tiberius Gracchus ran for tribune a second time. On election day, he sought protection from the crowd among rumors that wealthy elites planned to assassinate him, but accidentally sent a message that he wished to be not elected, but crowned as king. A Senator formed an opposing mob that killed Tiberius and 300 of his supporters on the spot.
Gaius Gracchus took up the mantle of his dead brother, overcoming resistance from the Senate and the elites to win the election for tribune. Although he had a hot temper, he shared his brother's charisma and talent, so he built a powerful base of popularity by creating programs for the poor, the army, and the middle class.
The Senate stole credit for all Gaius's proposals, and stole his popular support. Once he failed to win re-election for tribune, the Senate repealed his reforms. Gaius organized a protest, but the Senate brought it down with armed force and killed Gaius. Not a century later, the Republic would fall.
Before Tiberius and Gracchus got famous, their father led such a break-out political career that it must have seemed impossible to live up to his legacy. Yet, his success set the stage for their falls...
Hiawatha wanted peace, but a more powerful chief named Tadodaho opposed him. So he joined forces with a man called the Peacemaker and a woman named Jigonsaseh, who dreamed of uniting the five Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nations under one Great Law of Peace.
After getting the Seneca to join the Great Law of Peace, Hiawatha came up with a plan to convince Tadodaho. But it took Jigonsaseh to confront him and make him become a true leader. Now united, the Five Nations created a participatory democracy rooted in the Peacemaker's ideals, one that still lives on today.
Giant stones sunk under the sea? Cows? Cowrie Shells? What do they all have in common? They were all money. Find out how we got from exchanging these things to doing 8 hours of work for a stack of paper that takes 2 seconds to print on The History of Paper Money.
How does paper money get introduced? Who has to lose their head to do so? And what does Marco Polo have to do with anything???
Poor England. First Charles I and civil war, then losing to the French, then the Great Fire of London in 1666. Luckily, Nicholas Barbon comes along to help. And make obscene amounts of money. Who says you can't do both?
What happens when you really try to put paper money doctrine into practice? And why would you put a gambler, womanizer, and fugitive criminal like the ironically named John Law in charge of running it?
The first question of paper money is not how much you can print, nor even what its value is - but who prints the money? When every bank started to print their own bank notes, it caused confusion and frustration. Enter the Central Bank.
Even as the use of paper money grew, ties to the gold standard remained... and remained challenging. From the First Opium War to the Great Depression, events around the world stretched the capacity of bullion based economics. So what - and who - finally abandoned it?
Veterans Day, or Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, commemorates the end of World War I: a day the world hoped to bring our soldiers home for good. But the War to End All Wars was failed by a peace that only brought more conflict. Today we honor our troops worldwide and come together with War Child's Armistice Campaign, where gamers can lay down their arms to raise money for children affected by war.
Born to one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela, Simón Bolívar imbibed the ideals of revolution from a tutor who inspired him to travel to Europe as a young man. What he saw and learned, he would one day bring back to foment revolution in the Spanish colonies of Latin America.
When Napoleon conquered Spain, the Spanish colonies no longer had a clear leader to follow. Bolívar seized on this opportunity to promote his dreams of Venezuelan independence, but he stumbled from lack of experience. A man named Francisco de Miranda took control instead.
The failure of his first attempted revolution in Venezuela only fanned the flames of Simón Bolívar's determination to end Spanish reign over South America. Convinced that he needed to unite the entire continent in freedom, he gathered troops and set out with a new purpose. But his ferocity threatened to overwhelm his ideals.
Failure had taught Simón Bolívar one important lesson: no single state in Spanish South America could win independence alone. To succeed, he needed to form one great state, united and able to stand up to the might of Spain.
After so many failures, Simón Bolívar finally began to find success: Gran Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia all stood free from Spanish rule. He raced to found new governments and consolidate the liberty he'd earned, but resources had been stretched too thin.
Simón Bolívar hoped to bring the nations of South America together in one great federation, but he feared that people would think he meant to make himself a king. He tried to step back, but revolution threatened from within his ranks and his body had grown weak with illness.
Before she became Catherine the Great, legendary empress of Russia, she was a smart but lonely girl named Sophia. Her mother ignored her until family connections proposed a marriage between Sophia and the presumptive heir to the Russian throne - and suddenly she was thrown from her quiet life in a backwoods mansion to the center of a cutthroat political world.
Sophia's excitement to meet her future husband deflated when she realized Peter III was a boor who cared nothing about Russia. By contrast, she threw herself into learning the culture with such vigor that she earned the love of the people. She was rechristened Catherine and married Peter... but when he became emperor, his mistakes and her popularity began to add up to a crisis situation.
When the conspiracy to seat Catherine on the throne of Russia was exposed, she had to move quickly. While Peter III blundered through a day of miscommunications, Catherine swiftly seized power, secured the loyalty of the army, and demanded his abdication.
Catherine had great ambitions to reform Russia according to her own highest ideals, but she soon found that the reality of governance made those ideals difficult to achieve. She also found herself tangled in war, rebellion, and (scandalously) smallpox.
Catherine had many lovers during her life, but perhaps none meant so much to her as Grigory Potemkin. Although their romance did not last a lifetime, it did form the basis of a working relationship that would change the face (and future) of Europe.
The optimism that marked Catherine the Great's early years turned on its head. She oversaw the partition and final dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. She also alienated her son in the same way her own mother once did, leaving him ill-equipped to succeed her.
When Ned Kelly lost his father at a young age, he became the man of the house but didn't know how to support his family. Swept up by the grandiose tales of a visiting bushranger, young Ned decided to give crime a try.
Ned's second venture as a bushranger brought him to the attention of the local police. He did time in prison, then tried to clean up his act, but became frustrated by the suspicion that continued to dog him.
Ned Kelly and his infamous band of horse thieves tormented the police. It seemed they could not be caught... until Ned fired shots at an officer who wanted to arrest his brother. Ned fled into hiding, and when police pursued him, he ambushed them in their camp at Stringybark Creek.
Hunted by the police, the Kelly Gang decided to strike back instead of hiding. Since he blamed the rich for all his troubles, Ned took aim at the banks and pulled off a pair of brazen robberies that helped win him renown across the countryside.
Ned Kelly sought revenge against the police. He built plate armor and planned to derail their train so he could kill them, but his plan was betrayed and police surrounded him and his hostages. It all came to one final showdown in Glenrowan, Australia.
"She sells seashells by the seashore." Many have heard this old English rhyme, but few know the true story of the woman who inspired it. Her name was Mary Anning, and she did much more than sell seashells: she discovered some of the very first dinosaur fossils and laid the groundwork for the brand new field of paleontology. But she never got credit for her work.
When the thirteen colonies of North America broke away from Great Britain, they struggled to draft their first constitution. After great debate, they created the Articles of Confederation and formed the United States of America.
The Continental Congress sent the Articles of Confederation to the thirteen states for ratification, but Maryland insisted on changes that Virginia rushed to oppose. Meanwhile, the American Revolutionary War raged on.
With the newly United States on the verge of bankruptcy, Congress reaches out to the most able financier in the nation: Robert Morris. His ambitious plans attract the aid of Alexander Hamilton, but fall to ruins when the states abandon him.
The war finally ended and the United States secured their independence from Great Britain, but immediately their Confederation seemed to be on the verge of falling apart. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison teamed up to organize a new convention where all the states would not just reform the Articles of Confederation, but replace them entirely.
During World War II, the Bismarck was the pride of the German navy - and the nightmare of Great Britain. It was enormous, overpowered, and a constant threat to the seas. So when they got word that the Bismarck had mobilized, the British raced to stop it.
The Bismarck had been sighted, and the British fleet raced to intercept it with their own flagship: the mighty HMS Hood. As Hood and her escort caught up, a harrowing battle between four giant ships ensued.
The order went out: Sink the Bismarck. Ships converged from all over the Atlantic to hunt down the pride of the German navy, and Swordfish planes launched from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal raced to harry the great warship.
Sink the Bismarck. Churchill's orders were simple, but executing them had proved tricky. Admiral Tovey and his hastily summoned handful of ships and planes had one more opportunity to sink the German juggernaut, and they were determined not to waste this chance.
Kamehameha I of Hawaii sought greatness not only for himself but for his people. He rose up in the face of many setbacks and hunted advantages wherever he could find them with an unstoppable determination to form the Kingdom of Hawaii under his rule.
Kamehameha brought the islands together and introduced the first human rights code, the Law of the Splintered Paddle. He continued to trade with Western countries, enriching the islands and enhancing his personal status as leader of the new Kingdom of Hawaii.
D-Day: June 6, 1944, the day when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy to retake France from the Germans. They hoped to take the Germans by surprise, and their decision to brave rough weather to make their landings certainly accomplished that, but despite these small advantages, the American forces at Utah and Omaha Beach had to overcome monumental challenges to establish a successful beachhead.
The Germans expected the Allies to invade France to re-open the Western Front, but they did not know when or where the invasion would start - thanks largely to the operations of MI5, British intelligence services, who staged an elaborate deception called Operation Bodyguard designed to make the Germans think they would be invading Pas de Calais instead of their real target: Normandy.
Although the French government surrendered to the German invasion, French people rose up and formed resistance groups to take their country back. Charles de Gaulle and his Free French took advantage of these independent movements to help organize actions that would greatly aid the Allied landings at Normandy.
The Germans had established a secure barrier against the Allied invasion of France - or so they believed, until the D-Day landings in Normandy caught them by surprise and the Atlantic Wall quickly fell apart.
Egyptians. Hittites. Assyrians. Myceneans. Long ago, these four Bronze Age civilizations lived together in a healthy system of trade, agriculture, and sometimes warfare. But then, everything changed when the Sea People attacked.
Bronze Age societies built intricate networks of trade, advanced military infrastructure, and hugely organized central governments. But when crucial parts of those systems began to disappear, the societies built on them began to crumble.
At last, we have the Sea People: marauders who swept into Bronze Age cities and ground them into dust. But while they're often blamed for the Bronze Age Collapse, were they really its cause? What else must have been going on to cause such illustrious civilizations to crumble?
It started with famine... and ended with four great civilizations' utter destruction. The Bronze Age Collapse is still a matter of scholarly debate, but our favorite theory rests on an understanding of Systems Collapse and how societies build themselves to survive disaster.
A humble signal station manned by only twenty one Sikh officers of the British Empire finds itself beset by 10,000 attackers. There is no hope for relief, but even knowing it will come at the cost of their lives, the Sikhs refuse to stand down.
A young boy king had inherited the crown of the Swedish Empire, and his neighbors saw an opportunity to attack. To their surprise, young Charles XII of Sweden turned out to be a fearsome opponent who quickly repelled their assaults - and then sought revenge.
Augustus the Strong was determined to prove his might by defeated Charles XII on the battlefield. He gathered his Polish-Lithuanian forces, met the Swedes, and proceded to... lose. And lose. And lose. Then he got deposed and started a civil war which of course he also lost.
Flush from his victories against Poland-Lithuania, Charles XII of Sweden sets his eyes on an even greater enemy: Russia. But its ruler, Peter the Great, is no pushover: as the Swedish troops advance, he burns down the countryside and leaves them starving and exposed as a ferocious winter sets in.
Charles XII had gone to the Ukraine hoping for supplies and reinforcements, especially from the cossacks led by Ivan Mazeppa. But Peter the Great was hot on his trail, and had no intention of letting him off that easy.
Charles XII narrowly escaped the Russian pursuit, with help from the Ottoman Empire. But the weak points in his army had been clearly exposed. Northern Europe united against him - but of course, Charles XII responded by launching a fateful counter-offensive into Norway.
The empire built by Charlemagne would end up divided by his grandsons, all of whom wanted to rule their own piece of it. But the division worked poorly, and may have set a precedent that shaped wars in Western Europe for centuries to come.
Otto von Bismarck became the greatest statesman of a generation, but he began as an intransigent and irresponsible youth. He coasted through college, got himself thrown out of an early political appointment, and caused havoc with his divisive opinions during a meeting of parliament.
1848. Revolution swept Europe as the working class rose up to claim their freedoms from an oppressive ruling class. But as a member of that ruling class, Bismarck had some resistance to this movement. He channeled his wild energy into productive avenues, gradually becoming the man of realpolitik that we know today.
Bismarck was just starting to get the hang of diplomacy when the throne of Prussia passed to a new Frederick Wilhelm who promptly sent him away to Russia. But then Bismarck got tapped to serve as the Head of Government and began pushing for his great project: the unification of Germany.
Bismarck turned up the heat on his long-term plan to unite the German Confederation under Prussian leadership. He allied with Austria to seize a piece of disputed land, then maneuvered them into a war that he decisively won. Even an assassination attempt could not stop him.
The northern German states now looked to Prussia for leadership, but that power brought increased attention from their enemies. Bismarck engineered a war with France by striking at Napoleon III's pride and wound up winning a runaway victory to secure Prussia's diplomatic power.
You would think that capturing the Emperor of France would end the war, but... no. Who could Bismarck negotiate with? Eventually he forced an interim government to cave to his demands, and at the same time convinced the rest of the German states to unite with Prussia.
Tension between the Soviet Union and their former World War 2 Allies escalated into a hostile blockade of Berlin. All sides wanted to avoid another war, but the United States, Great Britain, and France refused to bend to Stalin's pressure. They came up with a daring plan to supply Berlin by air.
Khosrau Anushirawan ushered in a golden age of Iran, but only after his father Kavadh suffered through the near collapse of the empire. Once he broke free from a controlling minister and radical religious reformer, Kavadh realized that the empire needed to change.
Kavadh asked his allies in Eastern Rome for help getting Iran back on its feet. The Romans' replies were not only unhelpful - they were insulting. By the time Khosrau inherited the throne, resentment and war had turned the delicate alliance with Rome into an open rivalry.
Once the chaos settled, Khosrau enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace. He brought reform to the army and the economy, invested in a great center of learning, imported knowledge from around the world, and earned his new title of "The Immortal Soul."
Iran and Rome had agreed to an Eternal Peace, but tensions between them proved too great and Khosrau decided to invade while Justinian's guard was down. His army swept into Rome practically unopposed, and he made a mockery of Justinian at every opportunity while treating himself to a grand old time pillaging and parading across the Roman border.
Plague had brought an end to Khosrau's war against Justinian, but Justinian's nephew soon reignited the rivalry. Khosrau was at the peak of his political power and eager to crush this young upstart personally... but old age had also crept up on him.
On Christmas Eve in 1914, soldiers in the trenches sang together across the wastes of No Man's Land. Some were brave enough to step out of their trenches and meet face-to-face, forming an unofficial truce that lasted (with a few blemishes) until the end of Christmas Day.
"Yesterday there was a fierce and terrible onslaught... of Christmas packages into our trenches." So began one soldier's letter home after the Christmas Truce of WWI. These letters give us a peek at the joys and sorrows experienced by troops on deployment, from the pleasure of a surprise holiday truce to the pain of being too long apart from families.
She was the most ferocious pirate China had ever known. She was a powerful fleet commander, a sharp businesswoman, and a consummate strategist. She was Cheng I Sao, leader of the Pirate Confederation, and she lived her life on her terms.
An eye for an eye, a missile for a missile--that's how the saying goes, right? So thought the Soviet Union and the United States in the early fall of 1962, kicking off a 13-day staring contest that scared the world.
After President Kennedy's television address, tensions are rising. Fidel Castro is getting annoyed at the US and Soviet Union alike, and everyone else has their own ideas on what retaliation looks like.
With simultaneous nuclear tests by both the US and Russia, and tense miscommunications among troops on the ground, in the air, and on the water, the doomsday clock ticked to 11:59 PM for one fateful day.
As a child, Temüjin was afraid of the world, saddened by its cruelty and an outcast from his own tribe. But his mother, Hoelun, passed on her risk-taking personality to him, a boy who would one day become the famed conqueror Genghis Khan.
When Temüjin needed help to find his kidnapped wife, Börte, his blood brother and friend Jamukha came to his aid, and the two eventually combined their camps and families. But peace would not last long...
Jamukha and Temüjin were officially fighting for control of the Mongolian steppes, appointing themselves the titles of "khan." But each man practiced wildly different strategies to gain prestige--Jamukha showed no mercy, but Temüjin took a more egalitarian route.
Temüjin had a plan: a set of strategies to keep amassing wealth and followers for himself while keeping unity between all the disparate Mongol tribes he was collecting. But Jamukha and Ong Khan had other plans...
The man now known as Genghis Khan, leader of all Mongols, was ready to show the world what he was made of. He acted in fairness towards his own people and happily began integrating Chinese citizens and their culture, but showed no mercy to those who opposed him.
Genghis Khan wanted to establish a long-lasting legacy of conquering and growth for the Mongols, but at what cost? Even his own sons fought each other for the throne. Would peace truly last in the lands he had conquered?
The Vikings moved from Scandinavia to the coasts of Britain, intent on establishing a new kingdom by any blood necessary. What they probably didn't expect was that one of their own leaders, Guthrum, and the local king, Alfred, would end up cooperating on the creation of a kingdom for the Danes.
After peace was made between King Alfred and Guthrum, the Danelaw was born--a geographic area in England controlled by the Danes, but also extremely reliant on the cooperation by the Anglo-Saxons and the local Christian population.
A throwaway cigarette landed on a pile of cloth. 146 workers died from the resulting fire. But this tragedy motivated citizens and politicians to take a stand from workers' rights, creating a far safer world that we still live in over a century later.
While the old Ghana Empire waxed wealthy due to taxes on trade passing through its lands, the new Empire of Mali born in its stead had expanded borders that included vast lands of gold...
Seeking a meeting with the emperor of the Mali Empire, a man named Ibn Battutah journeyed across the perilous Sahara sands to discover Mali's gold... instead, he found out how Mali blended its Islamic and African cultures.
Mansa Musa is remembered as the richest person in the entire history of the world, but he also worked hard to establish the empire of Mali as a political and even religious superpower. However, his excessive wealth started creating bigger problems...
After Mansa Musa's death, the rivers of gold started drying up, and bitterness snaked out from the fringes of the vast Mali Empire. Wars were coming...
The Mali Empire comes to an end after the rise of rival powers and weakened by colonial influences, but not without leaving a legacy as a place of wealth and splendor.
Before we get into non-Euclidian geometry, we have to know: what even is geometry? What's up with the Pythagorean math cult? Who was Euclid, for that matter? And what the heck is the 5th Postulate?
For hundreds of years, Euclid's geometry disappeared with the fall of the Roman Empire. But in Constantinople, Islamic mathematicians, including Al-Khwarizmi (who gave us the word "algebra") worked long and hard on proving the Fifth Postulate.
Euclidean geometry eventually found its way back into Europe, inspiring René Descartes to create the Cartesian coordinate system for maps, and Isaac Newton to invent calculus. Both these tools helped humanity understand the world better.
In the early 19th century, people started to wonder if the Fifth Postulate couldn't be proven at all--meaning that it could be right, but it could also be wrong. Bolyai, Lobachevsky, and Riemann started exploring hyperbolic geometry and other strange realms...
Up until the 20th century, people assumed light behaved like a wave, passing through the "aether wind"--a fluid with incomprehensible properties. When the Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the aether's existence, Einstein put out the theory of relativity--that space and time were part of the same package.
A small handful of Grecian city-states have come together to stand off against the invading Persians at Thermopylae. At this fateful mountain pass, Greece will discover its identity as a nation.
Why does everyone know the Greek defeat at Thermopylae, but victories like Salamis and Plataea remain obscure? Because it helped define Greek, and thus “western” culture. And that’s thanks to one man: Herodotus.
Between 3 and 6 percent of the world's population died in 18 months when the flu first tried to take over the world. In today's episode we explore the flu outbreak's origins from military camps across the United States and Canada.
The flu arrived in France. It found a pleasant home in the crowded wartime trenches, much to the dismay of the Allies who tried to keep the flu a secret. When it made its way to Madrid, not subject to wartime censorship, it picked up the nickname "Spanish flu."
Dr. Welch, Dr. Avery, Dr. Park, and Dr. Williams are on the hunt now to correctly identify this new pathogen and make a vaccine. But public officials are in denial.
Philadelphia gets hit the hardest. New York fares somewhat better, but everyone is trying to keep hush-hush about a pandemic that still found its way into a children's rhyme: influenza.
This is a global pandemic. The flu jumps ship, literally, onto the docks of American Samoa, of South Africa, of Alaska, of India. The 1918 flu infects every human continent.
Why did everyone forget about the flu pandemic so fast? Partly because its effects were intermingled with the death and depression of World War I, and partly because we chose to forget.
With coronavirus in the news, we've seen a resurgence of interest in our 1918 Flu Pandemic series. Given that, Head Writer Robert Rath (who lives in Hong Kong) provides a short video retrospective on the series in light of recent events, describes the quirks of life under voluntary self-quarantine, and shows us his castle of toilet paper and hand soap. Please note that this video was filmed on February 18th, and conditions may have changed since then.
Pellagra can cause depression, dementia, and diarrhea, eventually leading to death. Dr. Joseph Goldberger was put on the case to crack it.
In this series we will explore the history of a short-lived kingdom that united the diverse, 13,000+ islands of Indonesia: Majapahit. Before Majapahit came along, however, the Kingdom of Srivijaya and the Kingdom of Mataram laid the stepping stones.
The Mongols came to the island of Java--the King of Singhasari had defied them for too long. But by the time they got there, the king had died, and instead someone claiming to be his stepson, Raden Vijaya, promised to be their vassal. The Mongol forces were in for quite a surprise.
After Raden Vijaya passed away, the crown passed on to his son Jayanagara--along with his reputation to create scandal and vice. Gajah Mada, whose name literally meant "elephant general" stepped up to make sure that the kingdom would run smoothly--maybe a little too smoothly.
The new sixteen-year-old king, Hayam Wuruk, had inherited an empire. Gajah Mada acted on his behalf, reshaping the way that the throne of Majapahit would be run, but he made a big mistake with the Sundanese princess...
When Islam arrived in Indonesia, life changed--except within Majapahit, where court drama kept them focused on themselves and unaware of the visits and alliances between Admiral Zheng He and the Sultanate of Malacca--forming new powers in the southern seas.
The battle of Saipan would decide the fate of the Pacific War. On a tiny island, just five miles wide, thousands died under advanced artillery and amphibious tanks.
As the ruthless clash of the Saipan invasion drags on into the second week, a unique and unlikely hero emerges. Marine scout Guy Gabaldon can speak Japanese. He deserts his post, not once but twice, to reach out to the enemy soldiers and civilians.
Is light a particle? Is light a wave? Let's take a look at Thomas Young's famous double-slit experiment--creating those really super funky interference patterns you might remember from your high school physics classes.
Today we're exploring one of Albert Einstein's most controversial papers: his ideas on the photoelectric effect, which describes light as quanta (discrete packets of energy) instead of a classical wave. This new understanding of light helped Niels Bohr create a new model of the atom.
To understand the power and the challenges of the quantum computer, we have to spend a little more time watching the intense debates between Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein about the Uncertainty Principle. Can we really know the energy of a photon?
What happens when we can't link physical cause and effect between two actions? Well, quantum bits (or qubits) do this all the time. Let's look into how quantum entanglement can be used in computing.
Quantum computing isn't a replacement for classical computing... yet. Quantum decoherence happens when anything gets in the way of a qubit's job, so sterile low-temperature environments are an absolute necessity.
What does the quantum revolution mean today? We talk about quantum computing application possibilities in machine learning, cybersecurity, environmental science, and more.
Julie d'Aubigny lived during an unusual time in 17th-century France when political and cultural norms were shifting. She was allowed to exist openly as a bisexual woman pursuing her swordsmanship and singing talents in the court of King Louis XIV.
The medieval Scandinavians left an impact not just on Greenland and Iceland, but on France, England, Russia, and even briefly North America. But how did Scandinavian society begin, and what incited its voyage across the seas?
Rollo the Walker led the Great Heathen Army and had his sights set on sacking Paris, in a time when relations between the Vikings and the Franks had become, essentially, getting paid to raid. Eventually his sights would turn to stability--and he became the founder of Normandy.
When Thorgest arrived on the coasts of Ireland with over a hundred long ships, he was ready to raid--and to establish cities like Dublin and many others that shaped the religion and culture of Ireland, much to the population's excitement.
The Rus Vikings headed further inland into eastern Europe, raiding Constantinople (unsuccessfully) at first, and then eventually falling into negotiations with the Byzantines and changing their own culture over time. One of their most famous descending rulers was Olga of Kiev, who was also the grandmother of Vladimir.
The Scandinavians stumbled on Iceland, at first on accident--then, gradually exploring it--and finally intentionally migrating there because despite the clash of glaciers and volcanoes, Iceland was full of uninhabited empty land--perfect for settlers and saga-writers.
From Greenland, explorers like Bjarni, Freydis, and Leif Erikson--aka "Leif the Lucky"--ventured into Vinland, the very first bit of North America sighted by Europeans. It was rich in natural resources, including the grapes (and thus wine) for which it received its title, but this set of expeditions would be very, very short-lived...
Poland is threatened in 1939 not just by the Nazis, but by its own precarious geography between Germany and Soviet Russia. Edward Rydz-Śmigły spreads the Polish cavalry and tanks as thin as he has to around the border...
Poland, alone, faces off both Soviet Russia armies and the Germans for five long weeks. Foreign reporter Julien Bryan captures footage of the siege of Warsaw to deliver to the outside world. A resistance builds inside.
Growing up in Honolulu, Sun Yat-sen had an expansive, exciting education, which would inspire him when he moved to Hong Kong as a young adult ready to change the world as a doctor--and as the leader of the "Revive China Society" interested in overthrowing the Qing government.
Sun Yat-sen moves to a new city for safety, but it will not last long--a year after the Revive China society is destroyed and scattered, he is unwittingly kidnapped in London. He must rely on the ingenuity of his outside ally, Dr. James Cantlie...
Sun Yat-sen spends the next ten years following his London adventures trying to organize the rebellion in Tokyo--and ends up not recruiting just Chinese reformers, but radical fighters from Japan and the Philippines too.
Another group of revolutionaries in China, the Wuchang Uprising, accidentally kicked off their own plans earlier than expected, which lead to Sun starting an international diplomatic mission and then being appointed the head of the new republic. But Yuan Shikai, the current Prime Minister, had plans of his own...
Sun's attempts to found democracy in China were thwarted by the chaos of the authoritarian warlords who still stayed around. But, inspired by the youth of the New Culture Movement, and (surprisingly) Soviet Russia's aid, he pressed on, and history would remember him as "the Forerunner of the Democratic Revolution."
Fascinatingly enough, tuberculosis was actually considered "trendy" in the Victorian era of Europe--but Dr. Robert Koch, hero of the German Empire, was convinced that he could cure it. A British writer named Arthur Conan Doyle, however, was a little skeptical, and for good reason...
Tuberculosis couldn't be cured and eliminated by just one person like Dr. Robert Koch, but thanks to the collective efforts of the medical community since Koch's time--including public health initiatives and the introduction of randomized clinical trials--TB is steadily being wiped out.
Jane Austen wrote in the name of making critical social commentary of the privileges she and others held while the rest of Europe was in political turmoil. Her novels like "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," and "Emma" made waves in their time for how they criticized Victorian-era society.
The potato blight hit the United States first before it came to Ireland (and other countries). But what made it particularly devastating in Ireland was the factor of human influence--behind-the-scenes bureaucracy that prioritized economics over human lives.
Prime Minister Robert Peel was caught between the political pressures of the Whigs and the Tories. He repealed the corn laws in Britain to keep food prices low in Britain, with the secondary goal of famine relief for Ireland, but that bureaucratic multi-tasking would not help the Irish very much...
Watching the Irish suffer from the view of London, Sir Charles Trevelyan believed that the potato famine was part of God's will. Inspired by the meritocracy-based philosophy of starvation that Thomas Malthus held, Treveylan created a relief plan with the sole goal of protecting the markets, and not the people. Thus the new year of "Black '47" brought chaos and horror to the Irish people.
Not all of the 214,000 Irish immigrants in 1847 made it safely to their new homes--and of those who did, many faced classism and xenophobia and even bullying from the "Ulster Irish" or "Scots-Irish" folks who had previously established themselves. In New York City specifically, the Five Points neighborhood became an infamous center of conflict--while local Irish-American John Joseph Hughes became instrumental in restoring Irish Catholicism.
Irish leaders entered the picture when the 1847 Poor Laws backfired, leading landowners to mass-evict their starving tenants. Daniel O'Connell tried to maintain an alliance with the Whigs, and failed. The Young Irelanders split off from the Repeal Association, and as a result, both the rebellious and the moderate minds of the country lost significant traction, unable to fight the famine alone.
The Boston Massacre didn’t come out of nowhere--resentment between the early US colonies and the British army had been brewing for some time over the Stamp Act. A propaganda war ensued between the loyalists and the radicals. John Adams would get his revolutionary start as he worked to resolve this injustice...
Mehmed IV wanted to live up to, and even surpass, the legacy of his forefather Mehmed II, who had secured the Ottomans' inheritance to the Roman Empire through his conquest of Constantinople. So the current Mehmed decided to target Vienna--but Emperor Leopold dismissed these threats...
The siege presses on from its initial active resistance phase to the long, routine drudgery of survival on the inside and elaborate defense building on the outside: earthworks and revelins designed by Georg Rimpler. Meanwhile, the Ottomans prepared to attack via gunpowder prepared inside mining tunnels.
Leopold knew it was time to get the Holy Roman Empire involved if he wanted to keep Vienna, but it wouldn't be as simple as asking for a favor. Charles of Lorraine and Sobieski of Poland would be the ones to lead the charge on the battlefield against the Janissaries.
Nzinga didn't start out as a queen--but when she saw how incompetently her brother was running affairs in Ndongo (what would become Angola), she took advantage of his decision to send her to negotiate with the Portuguese--much to his grief later. Nzinga established herself against colonial forces and did not budge.
Nzinga was briefly, temporarily supplanted by Ngola Hari who had been installed by the Portuguese, but she was determined to let nothing get in the way of keeping West Africa safe from colonial powers. To achieve this end, she would go on to form--and break, as she pleased--alliances with the Dutch, the Imbangala, and even the Catholic Church!
Historians have been learning that the US civil war armies were a lot more diverse than previously accounted for--partly because many soldiers who hailed from other countries and nations used adopted names. Chinese, Hawaiian, Hispanic, and Cherokee soldiers all participated on both sides of the US civil war--suffering even more conflict in some cases.
Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu--these were the men who would define the Three Kingdoms period. Even though the actual history of this period is often conflated with the events of the historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there was still a lot of compelling drama and intrigue we can explore--let's delve in to the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which really did happen!
Yuan Shao’s forces cross the Yellow River, assaulting Cao’s fortifications. Yuan has 110,000 soldiers—including the runaway warlord Liu Bei—while Cao Cao has only twenty thousand. But things are about to go in a very unexpected, brutal twist for the next eight years...
At stake on the English side was trade, the English role in Christendom, the king’s lands in France held by right for 150 years, and the reputation and honor of the king. On the French side, a unified country, national prestige, and the right of their monarch to his own throne.
On the 26th of August,1346, Philip's army drew near the English force. The French were strung out for miles. Phillip's best commanders advised caution: put on those comfy jim-jams the Queen gave you last Christmas, don the royal slippers, get a goodnight's snooze, and let everyone catch up, then drown the English in a river of their own blood after a light breakfast. But Phillip looked upon the current puny size of the English army, and ordered the attack anyway...
From the end of the battle of Crecy, Edward charged on to besiege Calais (successfully), and then returned home. Right about then was when the Black Plague hit Europe head-on. But Edward carried on as king establishing order among his subjects, forming the Knights of the Garter. In France, John le Bel, son of Philip, had learned from the French defeats and was making small victories here and there...
Bertrand du Guesclin was the hero the French needed. Focused on fortifying defenses and cities, Guesclin rebutted the advances of the Black Prince--who ended up contracting an illness that undid his iconic image of triumph and chivalry. Edward became beset by drama in the royal court, and England started to lose power...
Henry V was formidable and ruthless. Leading an army struck by dysentery, he pressed on to claim more large swaths of France, forming the irresistible Anglo Burgundian alliance.
The 116-year struggle helped define and unite the English. In France, the wars forced the kings to tackle the separatist forces, and France would become the undisputed arbiter of Europe.
Before we can really get into Joan of Arc's life, we have to get a bit into the civil war between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. Time for some royal family drama with King Charles VI's madness and Queen Isabeau's friend Louis.
Joan of Arc was on a mission from God--a mission to guide the Armagnacs into a holy war.
When Joan met the army of Orleans, they weren't exactly keen on her idea to just GET 'EM and go completely offensive--thinking she would have more use as a mascot. But both they, and she, would be in for many surprises...
City after city surrendered to Joan of Arc without a fight. Her mission was complete... or was it?
Joan had been sold out to the English. Bishop Pierre Cauchon was determined to prove the inaccuracy of her visions and her motivations so that Charles could have no claim to the throne. But Joan held on till the bitter end.
The Polish are determined to make Poland matter on the world stage, and they will not wait for whatever mercies may come from the Russians. So the Home Army stages their own uprising to liberate Warsaw, and for some 60-odd days, their strongest members, the Grey Ranks, tragically held steadfast.
In 1494, among the colonization forces from Spain, eight pigs arrived in Cuba. With multiple uses in culinary and craft trades, as well as their general top-tier hardiness, pigs would naturally propagate themselves throughout the Caribbean, and then to Central, South, and North America--but they were also incredibly destructive.
There's a lot that we don't know for sure about the Inca Empire, because we have conflicting accounts among Spanish colonizers, as well as the fact that Inca history itself is told non-linearly. But we do know that they used Andean accomplishments, from architecture to knotted quipu, to create a city that ruled the largest Indigenous empire in the Americas, starting with Manco Capac and the successive Sapa Inca rulers.
Pachacuti, the Earth-Shaker, was the ninth leader of the Inca and the one who took the ambitions of the city of Cusco into an all-out military campaign to expand the empire--alongside bribing and engineering and negotiating their way to expansion.
To understand daily life in the Inca Empire, we travel from Cusco to Quito (located in modern-day Ecuador), where Thupa Inca wanted to establish a second capital city. From efficiently designed work assignments, to elaborate death rituals, life was neatly organized, masking rising tensions.
Disease--likely, smallpox or measles--had arrived in the Inca empire, and it was ruthless. Two of the (now dead) Emperor Huayna Capac's sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar, decided that a civil war over who should be Sapa Inca was perfect to do right now--nevermind the fact that Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadores had just showed up.
Atahualpa vs. Francisco Pizarro. The Incas had never seen horses before, and it wasn't long before the Spanish had captured Atahualpa as a hostage for gold and silver. But Atahualpa had a plan. He found a way to use this situation to his own political advantage--and Pizarro eventually destroyed himself through his greed and violent carelessness that appalled the Spanish government, eventually allowing the Incas to thrive again.
We've been ACHING to talk teeth. I think it's time that we got to the ROOT of the matter and explore the early and surprisingly mystical history of dental work.
The invention of anesthesia changed dentistry forever, but the implementation was not painless, ironically. Between nitrous oxide, ether, and even cocaine, people tried a lot of different methods to try and make the dentist visit an easier option.
The 1830s were an exciting time for science. All throughout Europe, there was a great movement to explore, map, and classify the world. And it was this expanding world that young Charles Darwin graduated into… albeit with the wrong degree. Because although he would one day be known as “the Father of Modern Biology,” Darwin’s father was set on his son following in his footsteps—as a doctor.
Let's lay down the foundations for one of the architectural marvels of the ancient world: At its height, the city of Angkor was, by several measures, the largest city of the medieval era. With a million people and a footprint larger than modern-day New York, it was arguably the world’s largest pre-industrial city. And at its center lay the magnificent Angkor Wat.
Let's take a little tour around Suryavarman II crowning achievement, the temple that took only 33 years to complete, while Europeans were taking centuries to build their cathedrals. With a two mile long wall, gates large enough to allow elephants to pass and steps so steep that the average person needed to climb them like a ladder, Angkor Wat's every feature was made to be impressive. But what lies at the heart might be surprising...
Jayavarman VII, a Buddhist pacifist, was forced to give up his pacifism and rise to the throne at the age of 60. But once seated on the throne, he built Angkor Thom. The architecture was a fusion of buddhist and hindu stylings and included a comprehensive medical system. But will Angkor be able to stand after Jayavarman VII has passed?
We've talked about the magnificence of Angkor at its peak, but how did this sprawling metropolis become a city of ruins? The city of Angkor depended on the reliability of the seasonal monsoon. Several decades of drought left them with little choice than to modify the whole water system. But when the waters returned, they returned in force. As did enemy forces. Thus begins the death spiral of the city of Angkor.
After its decline, Angkor had become the Ancient, Lost City so prominent in our pop culture. Just one problem: Angkor was neither ancient (having declined around the same time as Hundred Years War) nor lost (people still lived there!). That didn't stop the European visitors from trying to invent all kinds of stories for how this city could possibly exist, and stealing parts of the temple to bring back home. But despite all the hardships Angkor faced, it managed to become a national symbol for Cambodia and still remains to this day.
What do Ptolemy and ancient Chinese rockets have in common? Without either of these things, space flight wouldn't be possible! In order to understand how we started traveling amongst the stars, we have to talk about how we started studying stars in the first place. Since the very first civilizations we've always looked at the night sky with wonder & curiosity but also as a way to try and understand the future and time itself.
As the Renaissance breathes new life into Europe, Copernicus develops mathematical proofs for the sun resting in the center of the universe. And from his works, a new world is born. The scientific world gets faster and faster. Revolutions of all kinds begin to set off chains of events that reshape human history. And as science improves, so do the tools of war. Both will be necessary to propel humanity to the stars. Join us on this race through the scientific works between the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution.
Early flight started as a utopian dream but quickly became the military's top priority: first as reconnaissance vehicles, and then as weapons in their own right. After WW1, the threat of German aircraft led to the Treaty of Versailles banning Germany from having an airforce at all. But the Germans also found a loophole: rockets didn't count as an airforce. Enter Wehrner Von Braun & the V-2 rockets.
While rockets had been proven to be indispensable to the Second World War, the idea to send people up into orbit was still seen as fantasy. Space was important only as a method to further the range of missiles meant to land oceans away from their original launch point. But a man named Korolev will change all of that, with work so secretive, he will be referred to as Chief Designer for nearly his entire life. But we all know the name of his first project into space: Sputnik.
The United States was losing the space race. A number of unfortunate missteps and mistakes had hindered their progress. But the United States had also structured its space program entirely differently from the USSR. Instead of being helmed by the military, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration was created by Eisenhower with an emphasis on exploration and research. And in the end, the later but more advanced satellites will collect the data required a dream firmly placed in the American consciousness by JFK. A dream to place a man on the moon.
What happened after we touched down on the moon? And where are we going in the future? While we may have lost the glitz and glamor of the Space Race, we have continued to make incredible progress in reaching the stars. We've come together to build space stations while in space, create the international space station, and started developing new technologies that could take us to Mars and beyond.
The Berlin Wall has become a symbol of the Cold War. It encircled West Berlin, separating it from the Soviet-controlled East Berlin, placed to try and stop the flood of skilled professionals leaving to the West. Multiple US presidents had penned speeches about tearing down the wall, to no effect. But the Wall did fall. As the USSR underwent massive reforms and the Velvet Revolution was underway, East Germany was undergoing its own reform. And one clerical oversight in a press conference will destroy the Wall for good.
A revolutionary dreamer or a tyrannical despot? That is a question at the heart of Akhenaten's rule, a pharaoh so unusual, that his successors tried and almost successfully erased him from the historical records. You may know his more famous wife, Queen Nefertiti but Akhenaten was a fascinating ruler. He went against the grain of almost all of Egyptian traditions including trying to establish a monotheistic religion and unite the kingdom Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt.
These days we kind of assume that police are a normal part of law and order. But that wasn't always the case. In fact, it wasn't the case for a lot of human history. So how did we start thinking of police as a natural part of a city? It all starts in London with the Thief-Taker General Jonathan Wilde, a man of two faces. Which one is real: valiant crime fighter or the puppet master of London's underbelly?
Jonathan Wild had the whole crime system figured out. A man of justice by day, and leader of a criminal empire by night. But that is when Jack Sheppard came into his life. Jack Sheppard was a talented thief but an even more talented escape artist. And one of the last criminals in London who refused to bend the knee to Jonathan Wild. This was unacceptable. Jonathan Wild became obsessed. But obsessions can be dangerous. Every prison escape causes Sheppard's popularity amongst the people, sick and tired of corruption, to grow. And the consequences may be deadly.
Henry Fielding was a dangerous man... with a pen. He had a razor-sharp wit and created the page-turner novel, but that's not what we want to focus on here. Because Henry Fielding is also responsible for assembling London's first organized police force. The Bow Street Runners were inspired by Wilde's operation just... not corrupt. But Fielding quickly found that in London's justice system, corruption was the assumed default, not the exception. He certainly had his work cut out for him!
John Fielding, Henry Fielding's brother, took over the Bow Street Runners after his brother's death. He was well known as a man who could identify over 3,000 criminals by voice alone. After all, he was blind. But his real contribution to policing was his organizational skills. He created the first Central Database of stolen goods and suspect descriptions and published papers that included not only London criminals but also descriptions of criminals wanted by other prisons in the country. And while the courts may have loved him, the public was much more skeptical. These were times marked by distrust in authority and having a criminal database seemed like an intrusion on personal liberty. What was required to change public opinion?
Even if you've never studied the history of the police force, chances are good you're familiar with the Scotland Yard as a heavy feature of Sherlock Holmes stories. But how did London take the final steps from the privately funded and highly specialized Bow Street Runners to a police force salaried by the government itself? We talk about the inspirations behind the Scotland Yard and how London walked the fine line between social order and civil liberties, guided by Robert Peel. (We're just as surprised as you are)
Vaccines have been instrumental in our modern view of health and healthcare. But they haven't always been around and there's been more than some misinformation on what they are and how they work. So how did we even discover vaccines in the first place? It started with a disease that had plagued humanity for so long, it seemed like it was just a natural part of living. But thanks to the work of Edward Jenner, soon smallpox would become a disease known only to history. One of two diseases that humanity had managed to completely eradicate and all thanks to vaccines and vaccination.
The Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. A group synonymous with brutality, corruption, and private policing. But you may be surprised to learn about their founder, Allan Pinkerton, a man who was forced to flee his home country for supporting suffrage. So how did this progressive, working-class, activist become known for founding an agency famous for trading morals for money? It's a much stranger road than you may think.
The Haitian Revolution is a unique historical event in many ways. It was both an offshoot of the French Revolution, but also an anti-colonialist revolution. It was also the second American nation to successfully win its independence. But before we can talk about the Revolution itself, we have to talk about how influential Haiti was to France's economy and how it's complicated social structure primed it for revolt and revolution. Because here, in the colony built upon the countless bodies of the enslaved, sugar is king. But not for long.
Across the water, the French National Assembly debate a new document, drafted by Marquis de Lafayette, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Little do they know that this document will ignite the fuse leading to the powder keg in Saint-Domingue. Hold on to your fancy Revolutionary hats because things are going to get absolutely buck wild. Alliances will be formed and break within weeks, laws will last about the same time, and while all this chaos is happening, a revolt is forming.
The revolution kicks off with such strength and ferocity, the French leaders in charge couldn't believe that slaves had planned and executed the revolt. The Big Whites, Little Whites, and Free People of Color all began infighting. Meanwhile, Haiti's plantations and mills were quickly engulfed by flames as the uprising moved across the island. But as the Revolution began to claim lives and leaders, the formerly enslaved people found that they were not immune to infighting either. But amidst the swelling chaos, new leaders rose. Key figures like Toussaint Louverture.
Two commissioners sent from France arrive in Saint Domingue. Their goal is not abolition. Their goal is only to enforce the new commission from France, a commission that grants full rights to the free people of color. And yet, their arrival will alter the course of the uprisings and lay the groundwork for the full Revolution. And the Revolution finally decides its end goal: The complete abolition of slavery. But not without a little help. I hope you all kept your flowcharts ready because Spain and England are both joining the war!
With the end of slavery in French colonies and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the conflict, it looked like everything was going Toussaint L'Ouverture's way. There was just one little thorn in his side... André Rigaud. There had been a long-standing rivalry between the two men. But as the conflict with external powers seems to come to an end, this internal struggle is about to become explosive. And thus began The War of Knives.
And here we come full circle. After fighting France for their freedom, then uniting against international powers, you would expect that the fighting would be over for Haiti. But Napoleon Bonaparte had different plans. He would send 80,000 men under the command of Charles Leclerc to fight and arrest Louverture. But Louverure's words will prove to be prophetic. And when the diplomatic Louverture is removed from the picture, France will have to reckon with the wrath of Dessalines.
Ibn Battuta set out for the city of Mecca and expected to be gone for a little over two years, maybe three if he took his time. He had no way of knowing that he would not see his home city or town for another 24 years. In that time, he will have traveled almost the entirety of the Islamic world, gone for over 75,000 miles, and write a travelogue that scholars still refer to understand the world of the 15th century. He's also a bit of a narc.
Ibn Battuta had finished the hajj but decided that since he was already in the area... why not take a small trip to India? And since he was going to India, he might as well make some side trips along the way! We recount Battuta's travels along the east coast of Africa, the Mongol conquered lands off the Arabian peninsula and some of the stranger sights that he wrote about in his book!
Ibn Battuta meets Uzbeg Khan and finally makes his way to India! And at first, things seem fantastic. Ibn Battuta is showered with gifts and that's even before he has a job. But soon he'll find out why Muhammad Bin Tughlaq is known in some circles as The Mad Sultan.
After spending 9 days under house arrest and awaiting execution, Ibn Battuta was sure that his time had come. But fortunately, when he was finally called, the sultan greeted him like an old friend. Ibn Battuta was lucky, but he knew he had to escape Delhi. And so began the ups and downs of Ibn Battuta's fortune.
Having fled India to China, Ibn Battuta found that China's cultures and customs were too different for his comfort. But there was no mad sultan here, and he settled into a small routine for a while. It wouldn't be long before Ibn Battuta was back on the road, fleeing a new foe. This one microscopic in size but larger than anything he has yet to face: the Black Plague.
Ibn Fadlan might not be as popular or as well-traveled as Ibn Battuta, but his travels took him north where he ran into some of the strangest people he had ever met. The Vikings. Ibn Fadlan fawned over the impressive Rus Vikings, but was also disgusted by their habits. But most importantly, he wrote down all of his observations, including a Viking funeral.
Rasputin had built quite a reputation for himself. Originally a peasant, he would become a traveling monk. So great was his charisma, he caught the attention of the tsar and tsarina. And a 70s eurodisco band. Do we really need more research than that?
With our current economic climate being... dubious, we thought that it would be a good time to look at another economic disaster in American history. Just six months before Herbert Hoover gave a speech highlighting the economic success The 1929 Stock Market Crash which is closely tied to the Great Depression and felt like it came out of nowhere. But that might be a bit of a misconception. We explore what kicked off the drop, what people did to try and stop/slow it down, and why stock markets and the Economy are NOT the same thing.
Way back in one of our first Extra History series, on the beginning of World War I, we talked about how at the end of the war the victorious powers carved up the Middle East—men in drawing rooms deciding the fate of peoples they did not understand, and in some cases, lands they had never visited. This is the story of how that came to happen, a tale of revolts, secret treaties, betrayal, a struggle for homelands, and a British counterinsurgency operation in Iraq.
The Allies thought that defeating the Ottoman Empire would be an extremely simple matter but it was, in fact, not simple (this will be a reoccurring theme for the allies). As they try to take Constantinople, the surf will turn red with the amount of blood spilled from the landing parties. Luckily, they're about to get a boost from the internal strife of the Ottoman Empire. So long as the British promise to help establish an Arab kingdom. A promise they definitely intend to keep. Right???
Ah good. The war is over and now everyone can get exactly what they wanted in a neat orderly fashion... yeah you all know that's not how it went. The double-dealing of the British finally comes to light and the same people who helped secure victory in the ottoman empire were quickly being pushed out of the negotiations.
Now that the Middle East has been divided and turned into a jumble of new countries and nations by the British and French, we take a look at how the citizens reacted. After all, drawing borders on a map doesn't mean anything if you can't enforce it. Revolts will rise and be violently put down. Infighting with pop up between the shariffian faction and the Saudis. A solution will be found, but that solution will only promise more bloodshed.
Winston Churchill is convinced that his Cairo Conference has solved all of the problems of the Middle East but he is going to be proven wrong. The British find themselves trapped between two allies who will not stop fighting. The Balfour Declaration makes everything... tricky. Thousands of lives are lost in various uprisings and brutal retaliations. And the kingdom of Saudi Arabia emerges. It's not a conclusion so much as an endpoint for how our modern maps look.
When people think of the age of knights and kings, there's one image that comes forward as readily as shining armor and that's the tournament! And this particular tournament will go down in history as one of the most lavish and expansive affairs as a way to broker peace between Henry the VIII of England and Francis I of France. The two kings were locked in a bitter rivalry and were determined to outshine (and outspend) the other.
The tournament kicks off and quickly becomes a very careful balancing act of making sure that both kings are on even ground. This 18-day party is probably one of the most detailed and carefully planned diplomatic events in history. But will it be enough to cement the peace between England and France and to ratify the Universal Peace treaty?
Thanks to 300, everyone is familiar with the Spartan troops & Spartan military power. But let's talk about the 300 that served the Theban army. An elite force of shock troops, these 300 men were well trained, fearsome in battle, and were the first to defeat the Spartans while having a smaller force. This was the Sacred Band and they had one very important trick up their sleeve: the literal power of love. Yup. Every member of the Sacred Band fought alongside their partner. It's pride month, baby.
Welcome to our first episode on the Pacific Ocean and the cultures that explored and settled on the island chains. We'll be talking about the three sections of the Pacific: Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. But before we can talk about the people, we have to talk about the ocean itself. The Pacific Ocean was nicknamed the Peaceful Ocean by Ferdinand Magellan, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Ringed by volcanoes, and resting over several tectonic plates, the Pacific Ocean is vast, deep, and a hotspot for earthquakes and tsunamis.
So if the Pacific Ocean is so huge and dangerous, how in the world did the Austronesians find their way to land? As it turns out, they had an impressive array of tools at their disposal. Songs & chants to remember particular techniques, feeling currents through the water, memorizing star positions for each time of the year... And the unique design of their boats!
We have the Pacific & how the Austronesians navigated from place to place but when did they arrive at the islands? And how are there so many diverse cultures within such a small range of land? Time, distance, and extremely adaptable people.
Ferdinand Magellan has made a very, very big mistake. Determined to circumnavigate the world, and cross the ocean Balboa had sighted in 1513, he’d just finished a perilous four-month journey—rounding South America and making it all the way to a previously unknown series of islands: the Philippines. He’d gotten involved in local politics, converting a ruler and his kingdom to the Catholic faith. But to keep their new conquest secure, they must crush a rival sub-chieftain, Lapulapu, who would not submit to Catholicism. Magellan tells his local allies to stay on the ship—he will take forty-nine men and overawe Lapulapu’s men with muskets and crossbows. They wade into knee-deep water, firing muskets, but to little effect. The Mactan warriors are unafraid of their weapons. Magellan has come a long way to die in the surf.
The attempt to catalog the Pacific was made a little tricky by the nature of European exploration. Everything that was discovered by one country was usually kept a state secret so that other countries couldn't contest the ownership of their colonies. Enter France. With Louis Antoine de Bougainville came the ideas of the Enlightenment and scientific voyages dedicated to exploration rather than setting up colonies or claiming new territory. And that would be exemplified with James Cook, the commander of the HM Bark Endeavour, an explorer that would inspire the Starship Enterprise and James T. Kirk & Tupaia, the incredible navigator & priest mentioned in episode 2.
Tulsa, Oklahoma was a bright spot of hope in the middle of segregation. Through hard work, the Black community of Tulsa had created an area that prospered in a time when it was hard enough to just survive. It was so well known for its wealth, it was nicknamed Black Wall Street. And in just a few days, all 36 blocks would be absolutely destroyed.
Marie Antoinette is famous for saying "Let them eat cake" (which she may or may not have said) but her bad reputation with the people of France went fairly deep. To the point she was blamed for an intricate heist to steal a diamond necklace... that she didn't actually ever want. That diamond necklace by the way? Worth 14 million dollars. Yeah. That's a lot of cake.
On Extra Mythology we've been covering the myth of the Trojan War recorded in the Iliad, but that's all it is right? There's no way a massive war like that was actually fought. Well... yes and no. The Trojan War might not have unfolded the way Homer's muses sing with the Trojan Horse, Achilles, Agamemnon or Hector, BUT there was a real, historical Troy! How exactly did we find it? That's a story in and of itself and it all begins with a man named Schliemann.
Extra History is an educational series of Extra Credits about historical moments. From the Punic Wars to the The Brothers Gracchi, the series has endless stories to tell.
The Third Century Crisis has it all. Assassinations, plotting, uprisings by the people, military, and nobles alike. Burning and looting. And a year where there were 6 emperors all at the same time. We will be covering Aurelian and Diocletian, we promise. But first we need to set up the backstory for how these two managed to staple the Roman empire back together. And we'll cover the 14 emperors leading up to Aurelian. One whose death might seem... familiar.
Aurelian came from... well, we don't really know where exactly. But boy did he leave his mark on Roman history. While ancient Rome was being gripped by the Third Century Crisis and most emperors could rarely last for a year, Aurelian became emperor and managed to claim several titles, including Restitutor Orbis, restorer of the world. Quite a hefty title, that. We cover his battles with the German tribes, the Goths, and Zenobia.
A messy and petty assassination plot kills Aurelian after 5 years of ruling. Would Rome be doomed to start the crisis a new? At first, it seemed like it. Emperors rose and fell and were assassinated, died in accidents, etc. Definitely not by the elite commander Diocletian though. Even if Diocletian benefited greatly from the crisis. Like becoming the new Emperor of Rome. Now the civil war and conga line of assassinations and political plotting might make it sound like Diocletian is just another horse on the merry go round of absolute chaos Rome had become. But this new Emperor had BIG ideas.
The Third Century Crisis becomes manageable under Diocletian, but the emperor still faces many problems, and not all of them as exciting as assassination. The rampant devaluing of currency and lack of formal tax system makes it very difficult for the state to accumulate wealth. So Diolcletian will overhaul the tax system and that will become his most long-lasting achievement. But his more famous invention is the tetrarcy, Rome's imperial boy band who will work to stabilize the massive empire.
Diocletian worked hard to pull together the Roman Empire from the brink of collapse but remember, his strategy was to return the Empire to some mythic past that really never existed in the first place. But that meant something had to be done about this new pesky religion that had shown up, one that centered an executed criminal. Something must be done about Christianity. Thus began The Great Persecution and the Cult of Martyrs that would grow to become the practice of saints. But even without the religious troubles, there was unrest brewing in the empire. Diocletian and Maximius retired, only for their sons to throw the empire back into civil war.
Ho boy this one is rough. Syphilis was not an untreatable disease but sometimes the cure could be worse. Malaria was used to burn out the disease from patients, but the patients this was tried on were often in the late stages of the disease, which left them paralyzed, mentally ill, and unable to consent to the experiment. Advancements in sexual health were made thanks to Ettie Rout, including widespread condom use in the army (hiding condoms as "barrel protectors"). And through the work of Sahachiiro and Paul Erlich, a magic bullet appears. But we also saw one of the world's most unethical studies, one that would radically change how we approach medical science forever: The Tuskegee Study or The Tuskegee Experiment.
When World War 1 kicked off, black Americans were not allowed to serve in the army until a draft was implemented. Even then, the 15th infantry regiment was off to a rocky start. They were trained in a town that hated them, and delayed 3 times from making it across the sea. And when they finally did make it across the ocean, they were pushed onto the French army. But that didn't stop them from being some of the most fierce combatants in WWI. With legends like Henry Johnson, Needham Roberts, and James Reese Europe, the Hellfighters fought the longest of any US regiment without giving up any ground & without a single member captured by the enemy.
Bartolomé de las Casas had it all. A conquistador at the height of Spain's power, he had earned an encomendia for helping take over the island of Cuba. This gave him rights to land... and the enslaved indigenous people on the land. Bartolomé thought nothing of it. Even when he became the first Catholic priest ordained in the Americas, he continued to turn a blind eye to the suffering of conquered peoples. But in 1514, a particular scripture passage would flip his world view upside down and turn Bartolomé de las Casas into one of the first human rights activists.
Cleopatra VII Philopator. One of the most famous women of all history with one of the most dramatic stories. We've all heard how she gained the affections of two of the most powerful men of Rome, and committed suicide through snake bite. And while that story is very dramatic, it doesn't really capture the full brilliance of Cleopatra. More than just a romantic figure, Cleopatra was cunning, charismatic, and ruthless. And to understand how she developed into such a fierce politician, we gotta talk about her family, the Ptolemys. Talk about a nest of vipers.
What's a girl to do when your brother-husband is trying to murder you? Well, cozy up to one of the world's largest military powers of course. But while Cleopatra knew that she had to get to Caesar if she stood any chance of reclaiming the throne, there were a few complications in the way. Namely, that whole... brosband sending assassins and guarding the city with military force thing. But Cleopatra was nothing if not resourceful and clever. And if she's going to get smuggled into Caesar's bedchambers... she's going to do it with the kind of dramatic style that will ignite romantic imaginations for centuries to come.
Cleopatra had put all the chips on Caesar and we all know how that played out. So now she has a choice: back Mark Antony or Octavian. For Cleopatra, the choice was obvious. She had a son with Caesar which conflicted with Octavian's claims to be the heir of Caesar's legacy. Mark Antony on the other hand was looking for a long-distance relationship and knew how to party. The choice was rather obvious. But will it pay off for Cleopatra in the end?
Ah, the most famous part of Cleopatra's story. After riding high with Mark Antony, the two rulers decided to make a huge gamble to cut Octavian out of the picture and ensure their dynasty for ages to come. Unfortunately, they made an error. Octavian exploited the optics with a propaganda campaign that targeted not Mark Antony, but Cleopatra. And that seals their fate. So let's talk about the military campaign and how Cleopatra fell from the dizzying heights of power... but her story isn't over yet.
It's impossible to talk about Cleopatra without addressing her legacy. How did the Queen become so well known that nearly every person knows about her today despite having lived several thousand years ago? We have her enemy to thank, Octavian. In setting himself as the first Roman Emperor, he used Cleopatra as a foil, and immortalized her. And when the Renaissance came along, William Shakespeare picked her story back up and used it as the basis for one of his most famous plays. Cleopatra never needed to build monuments. We built them for her.
Voting can be a bit of an ordeal in America, but that's been true for as long as we've decided to put the chips down on democracy. Before secret ballots and booths, we used to vote loud and proud. Literally. Just yell out the person you wanted to vote for at the carnival. What could possibly go wrong? We talk about all the different voting systems we've tried in America from shouting your vote, to colored slips that were an entire party, to ballot boxes, booths, and even touch on mail-in voting.
Happy Halloween to all! Beauty and the Beast is a great fairytale, but a real beast stalked the French countryside in 1764. It attacked not just children or teenage shepherds, but grown women in the middle of the night. It was said to have a head like a wolf, glowing eyes, and stood on two cloven hooves. It couldn't be an ordinary wolf. Bodies were found so savaged, the heads of its victims were found weeks later. What could the monster possibly be?
Art, music, film, and writing. These are the things that make life worth living. And as we talk about the importance of representation in modern media, it's worth taking a look back at one of the movements that solidified many of the American styles we take for granted today. And it started in the neighborhood of Harlem.
With international pressure to form new (and often unfair) treaties, the political divide in Edo was growing deeper and deeper. The Emperor, a formerly apolitical position, suddenly aligned himself with the sonno joi, the anti-foreign/pro-imperial party. Several rebellions rose up against the shogun and led to the creation of the shinsengumi - a dreaded police force meant to put a stop to the chaos in the streets of Kyoto. But this is just the beginning of the tinderbox. And all we need now is a match..
There was an agreed upon transfer of power between the shogun and the emperor but that all quickly broke down. The Restorationists wished to strip the shogun clan of their power and their lands, not incorporate them into the new system. And with the assassination of a revolutionary diplomat between the two, there was only one option left. The Boshin War had begun.
There was an agreed upon transfer of power between the shogun and the emperor but that all quickly broke down. The Restorationists wished to strip the shogun clan of their power and their lands, not incorporate them into the new system. And with the assassination of a revolutionary diplomat between the two, there was only one option left. The Boshin War had begun.
The chapter of history for the samurai is coming to a close. The Three Great Nobles of the restoration have fractured. Saigo Takamori returns to his land and vows not to get involved in politics but that in itself was a very strong political statement. And not a promise he could keep as dissident samurai and other factions flock to his military academy. One final battle will put an end to the last of the samurai. Or will it?
Polio was a strange disease that seemed to explode in the 20th century. It challenged a lot of preconceived notions about diseases and how they spread. And even a US President had been affected by the disease. But it's because of his struggle with polio that FDR threw his presidential weight around to try and find a cure. And funding medical research would never be the same again.
With pop culture staples like James Bond & Fletchly Park, there's a strong association of England and spies. But the tradition and association is older and deeper than we might expect. Enter Francis Walsingham, spy master for Queen Elizabeth I and he is determined to get rid of her enemy, Mary, Queen of Scots. But first, he needs to set up a smoking gun for Mary that will guarantee her execution. There's no protection against entrapment here is there?
Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem. Raymond III, Count of Tripoli. And The Grandmaster of the Knights Templar. Before them, they carry the True Cross, a piece of wood from the cross Christ died on, secured in an ornate silver box. And they’re on a rescue mission to relieve the besieged city of Tiberias. But they are not allies. Until a few days ago, these men were divided over a bitter succession crisis. However now they put that aside to face a threat so great no one kingdom can face it. The man who’d united the Muslim middle east against them: Saladin.
A king does not kill kings. After the battle at Hattin, Saladin had dealt a grievous blow to the Crusader states. Important figures captured, and the majority of Guy's forces had been decimated at the Horns of Hattin. But there was another place that was vital for Saladin to take to keep his uneasy alliance strong. Jerusalem, a city of holy sites for the Abrahamic faiths, had been occupied for 80 years. Now it was time to take it back.
Saladin had just taken Jerusalem which meant that it wouldn't be long before a Crusade was called. He had some time to prepare thanks to infighting amongst the English and French kings, King Richard I and King Phillip II. So he will... do nothing! Let's go on a journey together folks and watch how Saladin begins to lose power through a series of mistakes and ill-considered gift baskets.
And so we come to the negotiations between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart, where some of the best-known stories of the Crusades will play out. Starting with a mass execution of prisoners. Yikes. Saladin's luck begins to run low while Richard III shows himself to be a much better tactician and general that Saladin's previous enemies. But by the time the Crusaders are knocking on Jerusalem's door, Saladin realizes. He doesn't have to beat Richard. He just needs to outlast him.
Things look bleak for Saladin. Richard I had returned and the Lionheart can be seen right outside Jerusalem. Internally, his coalition is starting to fracture. There are divisions amongst his advisors and amongst his soldiers. He's certain that this is the end. But his camp isn't the only one troubled by desperate divisions. The Crusaders are beginning to see cracks in their structure as well. Who can outlast whom?
We tend to think of sports as pure entertainment. Some people even get angry when politics makes its way into the conversation. But sports are played by people who live within systems and societies and nothing makes that clearer than the stories behind some of boxing's biggest names: Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and of course, Muhammad Ali. All three are legendary for their fights in the ring. But that's not where their struggles ended.
Redlining has come up often in our discussions of systemic racism in the last year and a half but it's poorly understood by folks who never have had to face economic discrimination. Worse, some people believe that the effects of redlining were ended as soon as the practice was outlawed in 1968. But it isn't that simple. Redlining is an octopus with many tentacles and housing discrimination is just the beginning. We take a look at the history of redlining to understand how it impacts the present and how folks like George Morrison & Daisy Myers fought against the system. Learn more about how we're fighting this today at https://greenlining.org/
King Baldwin IV is in a bit of a pickle. He's dying of leprosy, but unfortunately there are very few options for a suitable successor. There are Sibylla, his sister and his nephew, Baldwin V. There's Guy de Lusignan, the first cousin to the King Henry II of England and married to Sibylla. And then there's Raynald of Chatillon, a noble pirate (of sorts). And all of them are vying to be the next king of Jerusalem. You know, while it's under siege in the middle of a crusade.
Last week we talked about redlining and now we need to tackle another systemic issue. With minority groups denied money and loans to be able to grow the value of a property or their neighborhoods, cities began looking at minority communities as blights upon their urban landscape. Enter Robert Moses, the architect of the modern city. Moses had a plan to revitalize the urban landscape by redesigning it for the automobile. He designed lush parks and oases with the idea to make them accessible to anyone with a car, especially to the affluent folks of the suburbs. That meant highways and building projects... built right on top of already existing communities. And with the Federal Aid Highway Act, that problem spiraled out of New York and across all of America.
Theodore Roosevelt is famous for many things, but we tend to focus more on his foreign policy and his establishment of the natural parks. Not this series. We're going to take a look at how Teddy smashed up one of the biggest trusts America had ever seen: Standard Oil. But first, we have to lay out the groundwork. Who was John D Rockerfeller? What did Standard Oil do exactly that was so bad? And how did Ida Tarbell crack the story of a century?
Ida Tarbell's paper changed everything. Suddenly the public and the press were far more aware of businesses were becoming more and more powerful. J D Rockerfeller was not the monster Ida painted him as, but certainly, the business practices that he and folks like him (Carnegie, Morgan) were coming to light. But Teddy Roosevelt was familiar with this fight. He had been fighting it while he was in New York. And with the death of William McKinley, Roosevelt was going to take full advantage of the executive branch to start swinging.
The year is 1908. Teddy Roosevelt wins the election in a landslide, one of the biggest in American history. And as black gold flows over Kentucky all the way down to Louisiana, Standard Oil starts overreaching. Ida Tarbell goes down to help catalog the way Standard Oil circumvented anti-trust laws but this time, she has the government behind her. James Rudolph Garfield, Roosevelt's Secretary of Interior, was following Ida Tarbell's reporting and finally, there's enough to drag Standard before the courts. But will it be enough to break up these gigantic titans? Or is Teddy going to need something a little stronger?
Teddy Roosevelt figured out that the courts aren't a productive way to battle the Trusts. There's no way they can catch everyone and in order to protect the American people, it's not enough to punish the Trusts after wrongdoing. No, they're going to have to put down some proactive legislation to prevent this action before it event happens. But the conservative-leaning Senate is going to be some rough going. And matters are made even worse when the opposition finds leadership in one of Theodore Roosevelt's greatest enemies: "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman
Upton Sinclair didn't have to lie or go very deep undercover. All he had to do was carry a metal lunchbox and he blended right into the factory floor. But this wasn't any factory. This was a part of Chicago's main export, the slaughterhouse and meatpacking plants. And what he found there would shock him and all of American's when he published the results in his novel The Jungle. And the public outcry would be exactly what Teddy Roosevelt needed to help put two new regulations in check: The Pure Food & Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act.
Doctors often run into difficulties when reaching out to communities of color and the black community in particular. Outside of the regular financial barriers to healthcare, there's a greater lack of trust & faith that the health care system is meant to help. And this skepticism has a very real and very painful history behind it. From the early days of gynecology to the Tuskegee Experiment to the eugenics laws of the 1920s and even the unacknowledged contributions of Henrietta Lacks, there is a long history of exploitation of Black Americans in the medical system. And if there's any hope of rebuilding trust, we have to first acknowledge what has been done wrong in the past... and how that still influences beliefs in the present.
Medgar Evers was, like many who came after him, a civil rights leader who was murdered for speaking up. But while he might not be as well known as Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, he's no less vital to the history of the civil rights movement and is especially noted for his work with the NAACP and tearing down segregation within schools. And his tragic death would expose how deep the corrupted root of racism went in the system, when his killer would not be brought to justice until 30 years later.
After the Alhambra Decree was put into place by Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, the Spanish Inquisition kicked off in full. It was no longer legal to live in Spain as a Jewish person. One had to convert, or leave to never return. And many Jewish communities chose the latter. And of the Jewish people who were forced from their homes, some took to the sea and figured out a way to reclaim what had been stolen from them... and get a little revenge on top. Oh yeah, we're talking Jewish pirates! Great figures like Sinan Reis and Samuel Pallache will become known on the high seas but first, a look at where it all started.
After being forced from Spain, many Sephardic Jews were left with few places to go. Many other countries in Europe had similar anti-Semitic bans. However, across the sea, North Africa and the Ottoman Empire's relatively lax laws that were religiously inclusive allowed people to set up shop in many port towns. And as tensions rose between Suliman the Magnificant and Charles V, the sultan was looking to raise an armada. Enter Barbarossa and his right hand man, Sinan Reis or as the Europeans called him, Sinan the Jew.
A man sits in London, accused of piracy against Spain by the Spanish ambassador. If he is found guilty he will hang. But the Dutch Prince requests for his swift release. How is all of this possible? Well Samuel Pallache lived an extremely colorful life. A Sephardic Jewish man born in Morroco, founder of the Jewish community in Amsterdam, and a triple agent, Samuel made many friends wherever he went along with many enemies. Don't worry, Zoey will keep track for us.
After the Alhambra Decree was put into place by Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, the Spanish Inquisition kicked off in full. It was no longer legal to live in Spain as a Jewish person. One had to convert, or leave to never return. And many Jewish communities chose the latter. And of the Jewish people who were forced from their homes, some took to the sea and figured out a way to reclaim what had been stolen from them... and get a little revenge on top. Oh yeah, we're talking Jewish pirates! Great figures like Sinan Reis and Samuel Pallache will become known on the high seas but first, a look at where it all started.
Rome is in chaos. The same reforms that Diocletian had placed to stabilize the Empire after the 3rd Century are starting to grow the same poisonous vines. Infighting and heavy taxation wear down the populace and 6 emperors (and emperor-lite) figures struggle for control. Of these, two meet in battle after receiving two completely opposite prophecies. Maxentius rules from Rome, has rebuilt the fading city, and has been told that today, the enemy of Rome will fall. He takes this to mean Constantine, the junior emperor who wakes from a vision. A vision given to him by a god to paint a symbol on the shields of his men and to go and conquer. But that's the funny thing about prophecy... it's all about interpretation.
As scientific discovery made the impossible possible, many Europeans were gripped by the desire to explore the world. Expeditions made to all corners of the world became the stuff of legends and upper-class Europeans picked up a sport to match the times: mountaineering. But one summit remained unclaimed in the Alps and Edward Whymper was determined to be the man to conquer it. He gathered a team of Lord Francis Douglas, Michel Croz, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow and guides Old Peter and Young Peter Taugwalder to ascend the Matterhorn. But triumph and tragedy oft go hand in hand.
Edward Whymper paved the way for mountaineers to start climbing the Matterhorn and while you would be right in assuming that mountaineering was a boys club, that wasn't the full picture. After all, a big name in climbing circles was Lucy Walker. She ascended mountains in all the finery of the time, wearing blouses and petticoats despite the cold. She had her sights set on the Matterhorn but she had a rival. Marguerite Brevoort, aunt to the ailing W. A. B. Coolidge, also had a reputation. But which of these women would scale the mountain first?
The Thirty Years War is one of the bloodiest conflicts in all of human history. Depending on which historian you're consulting, the death toll ranges from 4.5 to 8 million. The next conflict that would claim more lives would be WW1, several hundred years later. And civilians died at an astounding rate, nearly 7 to 1. While there is a lot of focus on the military aspect of this conflict, we want to try something different. We'll be examining the effects of the war as a humanitarian crisis. To those living at the time, such conflict must have felt like the end of the world. And so, we start with the first herald of apocalypse: Conquest.
The Thirty Years War started as a localized conflict but quickly ballooned out into a multinational conflict that tore across the countryside. But the ones who bore the brunt of the damage were not the countries or even the soldiers, but the citizenry as armies from other countries poured across the land, pillaging and looting as they went.
Many things added up to create the famine that swept through the Holy Roman Empire. The 1600s were naturally lean years, as the environment dropped 2 degrees. But things got much, much worse. Let's unpack the economics of the 1600s, how debasement worked, and how while people were eating their neighbors, noble families just got richer.
The rider of the pale horse, Death itself, comes through and with it, plague. The plague itself was no stranger to the average medieval town. But the difference, as with most things, was scale. Having armies march for so long and in the poor sanitation conditions of war caused outbreaks of plague everywhere. And the international conflict turned the Holy Roman Empire into a mixing pot of disease.
As the war continued onwards draining the land of blood and coin, enough was finally enough. While the conflict started over religious grounds, by this time it had changed to a conflict about political power. Oddly, that made it much easier to find compromise and terms to finally bring the conflict to an end. We see its effect on the maps as the Hapsburg empire began to splinter but the Thirty Years War left a lasting legacy on Europe and the way we think about global conflict forever.
Let's dig into the origins of the Negro League Baseball, a baseball league that was created all the way back in the 1880s and the two players who were so successful, they broke the segregationist wall in baseball: Josh Gibson & Satchel Paige. Gibson was an absolute legend at the bat and Paige was one of the world biggest showmen as well as best pitcher. And both would pave the way for Jackie Robinson.
In 1930s America, we saw the rise of a new kind of organized crime in the big cities and fewer places are bigger than New York City. And there are huge personalities in this underground, from Dutch Schultz to Luck Luciano. But Stephanie St. Clair stands out for a number of reasons. From her work with the Harlem Numbers Racket, to her refusal to back down from anyone, Stephanie St Clair truly earned the name Madam Queen.
Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, the real life dracula, is surrounded by folklore, mystery, and myth. Even during his time the stories about his famed impalings traveled all around Europe. In his home country, he is hailed as a hero who stopped the Ottoman advance into Europe, but elsewhere, the tales tell of his thirst for blood & brutality. What is the truth?
After the death of his father at the hands of the Hunyadi, Vlad swore vengeance. But his bloody reign would be oft delayed. A number of circumstances both political and otherwise kept Vlad III from his throne. In fact, his first attempt net him a glorious reign of... 2 months before he had to flee into exile. But as he continued evading capture and staying alive despite all odds, he found an unlikely ally. Hunyadi himself.
Now that Vlad has the throne, the real work can begin. Vlad wanted to enact a kind of moral code, one that emphasized hard work and loyalty to himself above all else. And rulers during this time were known to use violence fairly frequently to get what they want. But Vlad went above and beyond, creating cruel punishments and horrific executions. Here's where we get to the horror show.
Vlad the Impaler may have cemented the throne for a little while but the Ottoman Empire was very keen on ousting him and replacing him with Radu the Handsome. And it seemed like all of his neighbors were either apathetic or working with the Ottomans. But he is not going to go quietly...
Vlad managed to reclaim his throne for the 3rd time, just before dying a few months later. Even his death is steeped more in legend than truth, but the stories do not end there! His legend was already beginning to spread across Europe. And we all know what happens when a particular Irish author gets a hold of the legend.
Coffee is the drug of choice for people and cultures all over. Originating in Ethopia, the tiny beans have had HUGE effects on mankind. From the rise of productivity during the evening hours, to the culture of the coffeehouse sparking even political revolutions and revolts, you can find the brew everywhere. How did it go from a special drink for the Sufi mystics to being enjoyed the whole world over? Strap in and let's take a look!
Coffee traveled the whole world and coffee houses became known as places of business, learning, and political debate. Penny Universities. But how did the trade expand from Africa to South America? And while caffeine may have kept the lights on the Enlightenment, there was a dark side to this roast as well.
You ever have a meeting go so poorly that 60 men all fell into a latrine and drowned? Yeah it's a hard bar to clear. So let's talk about the Erfurt Latrine Disaster in the Holy Roman Empire and how Luis III came away somehow smelling of roses. (Not literally)
Oh boy another figure in history steeped in more myth and legend than anything else huh? Who exactly was the Mad Monk of Russia? Why did he become so famous? And how many hands did he have in the fall of tzarist Russia?
Rasputin was known to the royal family but how exactly did he manage to get so close to them? There was a lot at work, and the royals were not in the best position. They married for love, but neither was exactly suited for the throne at the time. And their only male heir had hemophilia. How could they refuse this holy man who seemed to work wonders not only for their son but also eased Alexandra's anxiety? Unfortunately, the comfort he brought would be short-lived.
With Rasputin's reputation worsening by the day, the public had a single burning question: why did the royals refuse to get rid of him? Completely unaware of the real reason, Alexei Romanoff's hemophilia, the public started to speculate on further reasons. Hypnotism? Blackmail? Weak-willed rulers? This escalated conflicts between the crown and the new governing body after the revolution. And then, Gregori Rasputin had an attempt on his life... and survived.
Things are rapidly growing worse. While Rasputin recovers from the assassination attempt, Archduke Ferdinand has been shot. Rasputin writes to the Tzar to avoid getting involved in the Balkans to no avail. But this does not diminish Rasputin's influence. In fact, while Emperor Nicholas is away leading the army, Rasputin is one of the few close friends Empress Alexandra has left. Her popularity is quickly falling due to her own German heritage and the stress of being hounded by the press, police, and now assassins are causing Rasputin to crack.
Marcus Garvey is an interesting and divisive figure in civil rights history. Influenced by the writings of Booker T Washington, he pushed back against the philosophy of the NAACP and W.E.B. Du Bois. On the one hand, he was a passionate and fierce leader who unified the community and worked to fight injustice. On the other hand, he was a separatist to the core, a philosophy that led to him reaching out to the Ku Klux Klan. And that's never the best sentence to hear. But love him or hate him, there is no denying that he was extremely influential on figures like Malcolm X.
Australia is in crisis. After WW1, soldiers were offered land but honestly the land is both poor in quality and in some cases, stolen from the Aboriginese. The Great Depression slams into the country, meaning promises of fair pay for what wheat could be grown disappear into thin air. Western Australia is starting to murmer about independence from the rest of the country. And to top it all off, 20,000 emus have decended upon Campion. Senator George Pearce has an idea. Allow Western Australians to fight off the emus using weapons of war, film it for big spectacle, and reap the credit for helping in a time of crisis. What could go wrong?
The Emu War was started because it was assumed to be an easy political victory but these birds had different ideas. Despite heavy machine gun fire, the emus learned, adapted, and overcame. Joseph Lyons faced pressure to put an end to the whole silly affair. And unfortunately, the towns of Campion and Walgoolan would see their support evaporate as more emus trampled the wheatfields so necessary for living.
The Conquest of India, a historical paradox of the ages? Find out why historians can't get enough analysis of this historical event as India's king becomes a lazy, chain-smoking British playboy!
Bombay, April 1619, the British were cowering in a small fort on the coast of India as the Mughal Empire wrecked the British! How did the British Empire get from this loss to their paradoxical conquest of India? Find out in our next installment as we discuss the East India Companies and their contribution to this entangled history!
Calcutta June 20th, 1756. The EIC has crossed the line! Leading India to capture yet ANOTHER British Fort (Yes, The British are really bad at this). Thus making an example of the EIC by locking them in the dreaded The Black Hole of Calcutta. Where 146 prisoners go in and only 26 come out. How will the British's response drive this historical paradox further?
Westminster Hall, February 13th, 1788. The House of Commons, The House of Lords, Members of the Royal Family, Foreign Dignitaries, historians, and socialites are packed into the Palace of Westminster but they aren't here for a monumental vote, or a declaration of war, or even a coronation. They're here for an impeachment trial! The defendant is Warren Hastings who until recently was the East India companies top man in Bengal who is accused of a litany of crimes. How will the British Government's ruling in this trial change the course of history?
Cawnpore, India July, 1857. We've been here before, another small British garrison is under siege but this is where our story comes to a head. The EIC, now under "new management" seeks to add India to its "Age of Reform". Scrubbing away the last vestiges of the Mughal Empire and paving the way for "British Civilization".
Jan 19th 1922, University of Toronto. Day and night for 11 days James Collip has been in the lab preparing sample after sample of a hormone taken from beef pancreas. His team hopes this will save thousands of children a year but in truth, it's one specific child Collip is trying to save, and it's a race for the cure. Follow John James Rikard Macleod, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, and James Collip in the discovery of insulin, a miracle cure, and stay tuned for part 2!
May 3rd, 1922. Washington, D.C. Dr. James Macleod stands before the annual meeting of the Association of Physicians, presenting a paper that makes public the findings of their study on insulin. Surely this is a win for the research team responsible? Maybe not, as Banting seems to have a different view of the situation.
Bowling Green Plantation, Wilkinson County, Mississippi, 1795. Eli Whitney has planted the seed of the American cotton industry's industrial revolution by engineering the cotton gin! Which would revolutionize cotton production and create less of a need for slavery. However, these were just the seeds of a lie.
Tokyo Station, November 4th 1921. Hara Takashi is a symbol of the new Japan. He was born into a minor Samurai family and opted to be classed as a commoner. He worked to become the first commoner and first Christian Prime Minister of Japan. Watching as Japan stepped into a role among the world nations but none of his achievements for himself or his country could save him from the knife being drawn for his assassination.
Yokohama, September 1st, 1923. A city of liberal ideas like labor unions, women's rights, and democracy. A city of foreign delights like chocolate and cigars. A city about to be destroyed! Buildings collapse crushing hundreds and fires rage across the city as a 40ft tsunami has hit Yokohama leaving it in ruins. The tides have turned sweeping people out to sea and letting ultra-nationalists like the Black Dragon Society and Black Ocean Society rise from the ashes. Changing Taisho Democracy forever.
Manchuria, June 4th, 1928. A train speeds through the darkness carrying Chinese Warlord Zhang Zuolin. Once a dictator of the Republic of China, now forced from the capital by nationalist Chiang Kai-shek. That is until an explosion on the tracks rips the train apart. With blood on the railway and Zhang mortally wounded he questions why he was betrayed by his ally Japan.
Manchuria, September 19th, 1931, General Tatekawa found out something was afoot in Manchuria! Insubordinate members of the Kwantung Army were looking to start a war with China. However, when he got there he told the leaders his message from Tokyo could wait as Tatekawa thought war in China might not be so bad. So Tatekawa reserved a room in a hotel, enjoyed the Gesha dancing, the sake running, and quietly ignored the chaos happening in the streets.
League of Nations General Assembly, Geneva, Switzerland, February 24th, 1933. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the League of Nations had tasked British politician Lord Lytton to investigate the circumstances of the Mukden Incident. With the report in hand, The League of Nations votes to condemn Japan as the aggressor but Japan refuses to accept the report conducted by the assembly. Withdrawing from the League of Nations and looking to different allies.
The Holy Roman Empire 1504, Götz von Berlichingen was the youngest son of a Swabian noble. Inheriting nothing apart from a military education and a suit of armor. He joined the army as a Knight but an incompetent artillery crew changes his life. Severing his right hand and forging a the legend, Götz of the Iron Hand!
British Foreign Affairs Office, London, February, 23rd 1917. In the afternoon, Arthur Balfour, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, hands the American Ambassador Walter Page a sheet of paper. It's an intercepted message sent by Germany, encouraging Mexico to enter the Great War against the United States. In short, it's the type of message that can change the course of history! How will this staged and dramatic charade of the Zimmerman Telegram change the course of history?
Lisbon, Portugal, November 30th, 1807. Napoleon’s troops have entered the city, and the unthinkable has happened. The House of Braganza has fled! Ships that carry the queen and prince regent can be seen in the distance and the whole court has abandoned the heart of their empire. Fleeing into exile and reestablishing its rule in its wildest and largest imperial territories, Brazil.
Rio de Janeiro, November 6th, 1817. Today is something Brazil has never seen before, a royal wedding! Prince Pedro I, son of John VI, has just met his wife, the Austrian archduchess Maria Leopoldina. Who is clever, sincere, and has prepared herself for this new world. Learning her seventh language, Portuguese, and bringing with her a collection of interesting plants and minerals to introduce to Brazil. However, this marks the beginning of a struggle between the ruling powers of Portugal and the budding new independence of Brazil.
Rio De Janeiro, November 12th, 1823. It's the early hours of the morning and Brazil's Constitutional assembly is in crisis! Originally formed to choose which Portuguese laws would apply to Brazil. The assembly has decided that instead, they will draft a Brazillian constitution. With the Brazillian party wanting to restrain the power of the monarchy and the rival Portuguese party wanting greater royal power, Emporer Pedro had to step in. Ensuing what is now called The Night of Agony.
Rio De Janeiro, April 7th, 1831. The crowds are celebrating as Emperor Pedro I has abdicated the throne and left for Portugal. The Brazillian people are overjoyed to see the native-born and raised Pedro II take power but will this 15-year-old boy be able to calm the rising tension and unite the people?
Philadelphia, May 10th, 1876. Prosperous and stable, Brazil has gained international respect as a second great American power but at home in Brazil, people were no longer cheering for Pedro II. Brazils' many social issues had been neglected and left unsolved and war was on the horizon. A long and deadly Paraguayan War, which would change the people of Brazil forever.
London England Dec 3rd 1968, Maya Angelou sits in her hotel room, reliving her past and writing her autobiography, "I know why the caged bird sings". A book that will sell over 4 million copies and change the way we see the struggles of women, minority communities, and reinventing how autobiographies are written. Her legacy built on giving a voice to the voiceless.
Mary Toft, Mother of Rabbits! First of her name and executioner to the medical community who was obsessed with the Maternal Impression Theory. It's true that pregnancy was a mystery to modern-day medicine not so long ago. Leading to medical myths and harmful runaway media campaigns. Which is perhaps are more common in today's society than we think.
Just how old IS beer? Join us as we dive into Part 1 of the History of Beer and the civilization that has been built around it. Starting from the neolithic era and the theories on how it was invented. To the ancient recipes that were found in the Goddess Ninkasi ruins. The history of beer has a long and bountiful past, so grab a pint and have a seat!
Beer was the drink of the fertile crescent of Egypt and North Africa. The beverage ruled the ancient world until it was conquered by the same enemy that menaced all of Europe... The Romans... Who had a strong wine culture since the drink was considered synonymous with civilization. So, how exactly did beer survive in history?
Ale versus Beer! Women versus The Law! Churches versus Taverns! Our History of Beer series is stirring up trouble and making people hopping mad. Loosening the tongues of people at the nearest alehouse and changing beer into a full-fledged industry, sprawling around the world!
Porter, Russian Stout, Lager, Indian Pale Ale, what's the difference and where did it come from? In this week's History of Beer Series we talk about fermenting and the revolution it sparked. Modernizing breweries and creating a worldwide industry that is with us today.
It is THE AGE OF SCIENCE! Well, scientific beer! As Frenchman Louis Pasteur leads the way, brewing up a new way to pasteurize beer that will help prevent it from spoiling and leading our five-part series into the 1920s prohibition era. Strengthening the Beer Companies that we know today!
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into our History of Beer Series. With questions like, Why did we leave out Belgium? What did we ACTUALLY drink in biblical times? And what is the difference between a Doppelbock and an Eisbock? Recommended Reading: The United States of Beer by Dane Huckelbridge A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol by Iain Gately Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization by Edward Slingerland
Listen to "Prost!" the theme track to our History of Beer series!
Defenestration was once used as a symbol of the start of a conflict! That's a pretty powerful message if you ask us!
We all know about the 1929 stock market crash but what about the lesser-known 1907 crash? Its impact paved the way for events that would take place in 1929.
The perfect biological weapon, although cute, was used by the 16th Century Spanish Empire to ravage the countryside! Its effects are being seen even today!
Catherine the Great might have had a spicy love life but not as bold as we've been led to believe!
The Great Disappointment! A historical mathematical miscalculation that foretold the second coming of Jesus Christ... or so we were told by William Miller. Who ended up creating an entire religion based upon his own charts and calculations he interpreted from the bible. Which was the start of some religions that are seen today!
There's a ton of mystery and lore that surrounds vampires, those blood-sucking creatures of the night, but what really inspired those tales? One related event caused the New England Vampire Panic! Where superstitious villagers were faced with an outbreak of consumption. Digging up some of the dark Vampire Superstitions we that are recognized have today.
Amsterdam, The Dutch Republic, 1630. Here Tulips are all the craze! You want them, your mom wants them, even that ship merchant across the road wants them! But, we're not planting them in our gardens. We're INVESTING! Triggering the first-ever "financial bubble" from these Nice Flippen Tulips.
Amsterdam 1625, The competition for new plant specimens is fierce! Especially since Europe has a new love affair with TULIPS! Not just any tulips though! Specimens with broken colors fetched a higher price but how DID these non-native species make their way to Europe? Find out now, as we geek out and show you how the seeds were sown for Tulip Mania!
Haarlem 1636! It's time to go to the Tulip College and INVEST! We'll be buying up tulip contracts to sell to the next highest bidder! And then they sell the contract... and it gets sold again, and everyone gets rich in the process? I'm sure nothing could go wrong with this.
Haarlem, February 10th 1637. The college opens up to another exciting day of trading tulips but as the auctioneer starts the bidding, the floor becomes quiet. Panicked stares cross the room as no one begins to bid and those holding Tulip Contracts realize that this is the beginning of the Tulip Market Crash.
Tulip trading has come to an end! Although, that is not the end of our story. Pamphlets make the rounds, criticizing the moral and social norms that trading tulips brought upon the community. Going as far as to call it idol worship with rumors of a dark cabal promoting the mania for their own gains.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into our Tulip Mania Series. With questions like, How many flowers does the Netherlands actually produce? Just how expensive was that mirror trick with the tulips? And are broken tulips still a thing? We sure haven't seen one! --- Recommended Reading --- Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age by Anne Godgar. Tulipomania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused by Mike Dash Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Goldden Age by Simon Schama
Listen to "First Financial Bubble" the theme track to our Tulip Mania series!
Richard Henry Pratt and his Carlisle Indian Industrial School set the standard for Indian assimilation in America and Canada. Causing ever-lasting damage to the Native American communities today.
Jazz singer Billie Holiday vs the US Government?! Her song Strange Fruit written by Abel Meeropol about the treatment of African Americans in the community is what started the whole altercation. Especially when Harry Anslinger, the Head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics got involved, he set out to ensnare the Idol any way he could.
The Ethiopian Christians lived in an ancient Christian Kingdom. One with a church as old as Rome, that held exotic beasts and great treasures like the Ark of the Covenant. A land ruled by a man, a myth, the legendary Priest-King Prester John! ... or so we thought.
Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Israel Circa 950 BC, the Queen Makeda of Ethiopia, AKA the Queen of Sheba, asked King Solomon to teach her statecraft. However, King Solomon has other ideas in mind to help with his legitimacy. Which is the story told through the somewhat historical and holy texts of the Kebra Nagast! Wait.. shouldn't this be an Extra Mythology episode?
Eleni will change Ethiopia for generations. Her conversion to Christianity was only the beginning of her influence over the future of Ethiopia. She sought out diplomacy for her nation, signed peace treaties, and even acted as co-Emporer. Bringing the first missionaries to Ethiopia and befriending Spain to create military allies that would help save Ethiopia from ruin.
Ethiopia, February 21st 1543. Here is where the Solomonic Dynasty lives or dies. Ethiopian and Portuguese Musketeers are poised and ready for battle. However, they will fend off only one of the threats that would bombard them for centuries. As Ethiopia will continue to have internal and external strife shaping its nation's borders and access to the red sea trade.
Ethiopia February 11th, 1855. Tewodros II, once labeled as an outlaw in his country, he was now one of the greatest leaders of Ethiopia! Acting as an excellent strategist Tewodros II knew Ethiopia needed a united front and an organized modern military to survive European Colonialism. So this Barefoot Emperor lived in extreme modesty, he fought to abolish slavery, founded government institutions, and educated the people of Ethiopia in new trades. With his reform in full swing what could go wrong?
Ethiopia 1868, Tewodros II is dead... Paving the way for Emperor Yohannes IV, and Menelik II. Who will change the way European powers view Africa forever. Menelik will go on to use political tactics to win favor abroad and disinformation campaigns to confuse his enemies. All tactics which can be seen today and exceptional strategies which gave him the upper hand over the Italians in the Battle of Adwa.
April, 1137 Paris. Elenor of Aquitaine's father has died and King Louis has the PERFECT husband for her. His own heir to the throne, Louis the VII! Who quickly becomes smitten with the young girl but after angering the pope, fighting in a crusade, and having a few daughters the young couple's relationship is on rocks. Good thing Eleanor has the perfect solution for them, Divorce!
1152, Outside Paris. Eleanor got her divorce and she's on her way back to Aquitaine with a proposal of marriage to the very handsome and young Duke of Normandy, Henry II! Here Eleanor's passions will rise and 2.5 years later she is not only the Queen of England but has reshaped European politics, created the Angevin Empire, and had the first of 8 children that she would have with King Henry. However, Eleanor's Court of Love is soon headed for disaster.
Spring 1173, Aquitaine. Henry's sons are in revolt and Eleanor is being painted as a conspirator in a dark plot against her husband by convincing her sons to rebel against him. So, Henry responds as any king would! By capturing her on the road and keeping her as his captive for the next 16 years!
Eleanor has reached the age of 71 and instead of taking some time off to retire, she's writing a letter to save her son King Richard from being held as a prisoner. Foreshadowing what was to come in the remainder of her life. As she arranged marriages, defended castles, and held together the Angevin Empire. Changing the relations between England and France forever.
Matewan, West Virginia. May 19, 1920. Police Chief Sid Hatfield sits in the town square. He's declined bribes and payoffs to help protect the coal miners of Matewan but the Baldwin Felts detective agency has its own plans. Backed by the coal industry and commercial railroad they've fabricated a deadly standoff, in the largest American uprising since the civil war.
McDowell County, West Virginia. August 1st, 1921. 15 months after the Matewan Massacre, Sid Hatfield was gunned down in front of a courthouse. The Baldwin Felts agents had gotten their revenge and planted guns on the dead. The miner's anger boiled over and they'd finally had enough. They got their rifles and headed to Blair Mountain. Where Sheriff Chafin, Governor Morgan, Logan County officials, and Military Leader General Harry Bandholtz waited for their charge.
Dublin Ireland. April 24th 1916. The seeds of a rebellion have been planted and revolution is on the horizon. It starts early Easter Monday, as Dublin Castle comes under siege. Triggering one of the most crucial events that will happen in Irish history.
The German Club NYC. August 24th, 1914 - Just 2 years before the rising. World War I rages on and German Officials are looking for allies. So enter the Irish Nationalists, who have requested a diplomatic meeting. Their request is simple, all they want is assistance in defeating the British and the German Officials can see only victory in helping the rebellion flourish in Ireland.
Dublin, April 24th, 1916. Easter Monday. Nationalists have occupied several key buildings in the area and begun to put their plans of rebellion into action! They've cut lines of communication and have even bombed the railroad tracks. They speak to the people of Dublin. Telling them this is the first day of a new nation, The Irish Republic but as night falls the British government works to funnel soldiers into the city. Opening fire into a city full of civilians.
North King Street, Dublin, Ireland April 26th 1916 Irish Nationalists have dug into the city of Dublin. They take cover in buildings and fire from rooftops but the British Military work tirelessly to Pry the rebels from their positions. They tunnel through walls from home to home and reduce the grand architecture to ruin. However, the most significant loss in the war for Ireland will come from the civilians…
In the aftermath of the Irish uprising, the British vowed to punish the rebels with impunity. Ireland now under martial law saw that the nationalists were tried with no legal counsel or defense. Putting many to death by firing squads over the next five days and leaving the people of Ireland confused, upset, and ready for change.
The Scottish Highlands, April 16th 1746. Prince Charles Edward Stuart has rallied a Rebel Jacobite Army. This group of Scottish Highlanders mixed with Lowland Scots and even French regimens set out to reclaim the throne for Charle's family. However, this would be the final confrontation of the Jacobites against the British
December 7th, 1941 is one of the most infamous dates in history but it's not the full story of how and why these two Pacific Empires of Japan and the US came to blows. Instead, the Path to Pearl Harbor was a crooked one, fraught with tense meetings, cultural misunderstandings, and dismissed warnings that led us into WWII.
Yangtze River, December 12th, 1937 A Japanese dive bomber lets its payload go, smashing into the USS Panay and sinking the vessel filled with evacuated civilians from china and journalists. A single event that set Japan on a collision course with the United States...
President Roosevelt's attempts at deterring Japan from invading Northern French Indochina through diplomatic and congressional moves only drove Japan closer to war with the United States. However, these unfriendly acts were nothing compared to the find in 1940. Where German troops boarded a merchant's vessel and found 15 bags of Top Secret mail meant for the British command. Mail that was directly forwarded to Toyko to fuel their plans of invasion.
Honolulu Hawaii April 12th 1941 The new vice consul at Japan's consulate general in Honolulu is none other than an Imperial Japanese naval intelligence officer. One who is a specialist in US Naval warships. He's been monitoring Pearl Harbor and reporting everything he's seen back to Tokyo. Completely unaware that the American Military has been listening...
The Japanese are working on peace with the U.S. They will deliver two proposals to President Roosevelt hoping to avoid war but American code breakers have already intercepted their proposals. Finding requests for peace but military positions set for war. It was clear the Japanese were preparing for something...
Japanese fleets are moving into southeast Asia and an attack is imminent. News of this gave President Roosevelt the fuel he needed to side with the British in the war but this only begins a series of misses and communication errors that fail to inform Hawaii, how to avoid the Pearl Harbor attack.
Eggnog! The drink that signals the beginning of the holidays, a deliciously coveted Christmas treat, and the starter of riots? That's what happened at the US Military Academy West point back in 1826. Where one Superintendents fight to abolish a holiday tradition turned into a disaster!
Frederick, Crown Prince of Brandenburg-Prussia will become a warrior king and an enlightened monarch that the likes of Prussia has never seen. His climb to power would be great but his childhood was not so easy. He would live with mistrust and violence at his heels. With relentless bullying from his own flesh and blood.
Frederick the Great would start a fire that would burn through the world but there was one thing standing in his way, his father. After developing a fascination with strategy battlefield tactics and leadership during the War of Polish Succession he was ready to become king. He'd studied philosophy, writing his own book. Hired architects, artists, and planned to fund science and education. However, Frederick soon found being king and talking about battle tactics was very different than waging your first battle.
April 11th 1741, After The Battle of Mollwitz Frederick, had learned a great deal about war and the people of the world were enthralled by such a small power like Prussia taking over Silesia. Frederick had succeeded at putting Prussia on the map! The first of many great things to come.
Berlin, December 28th 1746. Frederick the Great has become a common name but this was only the beginning, as a great monarch cannot know peace for long. In 1756 Europe's first world war had begun and Frederick was confident in his military. Priding himself on innovating troops and insuring his military was quick to react but Silesia would continue to be an issue.
The Battle of Kolin, June 18th 1757. Frederick's army is on the run. The Third Silesian War marked Frederisk's most legendary victories and catastrophic retreats with the Prussians losing nearly 14,000 men but that's not all!! We're going to be going over The Seven Years' War in the most epic sports matchup ever! - Let's get ready to rumble!
Frederick the Greats Horse, Mollwitz Grey, wasn't horsing around when it came to saving his king!
The Black Dinner is a dark side of history that starts with a chain of revenge that will reverberate through Scotland and the ages. Contributing to many murders and famous stories that you hear today.
Operation Avalanche was the allied invasion of Italy at Salerno during World War II and is known as "The Forgotten D-Day".
Operation Avalanche was not going well. Body counts were quickly adding up and the allied invasion of Italy at Salerno during World War II was looking like a failure. Objectives were being taken back and forth multiple times a day and green allied forces suffered against veteran german soldiers. The Forgotten D-Day was coming to an end.
John Brown was an American abolitionist leader who fought for the equality of all races. He helped countless slaves reach freedom in his lifelong pursuit of equality but his use of violence as a necessary tool is highly controversial, even to this day.
John Brown is starting an army, and he tells Frederic Douglas he's set on it. He believes slavery cannot be abolished without violence and his speech is very convincing. This would be his first step on the path to what is now called Bleeding Kansas.
Senate Representative Preston Brooks caning Senator Charles Sumner for his speech on "The Crime Against Kansas" is an event that showed how polarized the nation had become over slavery. An event that pushed John Brown over the edge. Old Brown was coming, with his militia leading to 56 political killings called Bleeding Kansas.
It's time for a revolution. John Brown has used his funding from the Secret Six to collect guns and begin his guerrilla war against slavery. With the help of his sons, Shields Green, Louis Sheridan Leary, John Anthony Copeland JR, Osborne Perry Anderson, Dangerfield Newby & Harriet Tubman, he would seize the Federal Arsenal and hold it. Beginning the fight that is now called Bleeding Kansas.
John Brown is cornered at Harper's Ferry and Robert E Lee's army rushes the armory doors. He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah.
The Massacre at Gnadenhutten, Ohio is the lesser-known and brutal slaughter of The Moravian Indians. These Men, women, and children who practiced Christianity and pacifism suffered at the hands of the Pennsylvania militia. Who invaded their village and slaughtered the 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children who remained praying and singing hymns throughout their execution. A moment in history that should not be forgotten.
The French invasion of Egypt vastly impacted Europe, Africa, and the middle east. However, Napoleon was not prepared for what he found when he lands in the ancient city of Alexandra.
Napoleon's army has been in the desert for a week. The troops are going mad and dying of thirst but Napoleon's ambition pushes them past the scattered bodies and into Cairo.
While Napoleon has been working on "reforming" a country with political sidesteps, religious catering, and brute force. The British have been searching the seas for Napoleon's fleet. Destroying his vessels and skinking his funding to the bottom of the ocean. Leaving Napoleon and his army stranded in Egypt.
Pauline Foures was really just living her best life!
Cairo has begun their revolt against the French and Napoleon is descending into darkness. He's issued extreme violence to be used, mass executions, and coined the term insurgents as he fights back against the uprising. Meanwhile, a Jihad has been proclaimed against French Troop and the bubonic plague sweeps through his forces. The French Republic of Egypt would not be an option and Napoleon did the only thing he could think of to save himself and his reputation. He left Egypt and his army behind.
Napoleon has left Egypt and General Jean-Baptiste Kléber is left in charge to "finish the job" per Napoleon's instruction. With the British on their heels, the Arabs revolting, and plague running through their ranks. Kléber will try to withdraw from Egypt and the directory will try to prosecute Napoleon for abandoning his post...but Napoleon has a plan.
French Savant Pierre-François Bouchard finding the Rosetta Stone is just the beginning of unlocking the secret language of ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Along with the efforts of Thomas Young, a polymath, Jean-François Champollion a talented linguist, and the discovery of the Philae Obelisk, the code was finally broken!
Since Hawaii is an island the introduction of new species can completely decimate an entire ecosystem. Which is exactly what happened when William Herbert Purvis introduced the mongoose to the islands. Contributing to Hawaii becoming the extinction capital of the world.
Welcome to the start of the first modern war. One that will begin with technology from the Napoleonic past that will grow into the industrial violence which was used in WWI. It will introduce steam power, telegraphs, photographs, and war correspondence to the battlefield and begins over who got to hold a set of keys.
The Russians are on the attack trying to take over the black sea but this battle has a new front to defend. The ruthless views and sway of the media, as newspapers mock British commanders and drum up nationalistic fervor.
The Russians aren't concerned with the British, French, and Ottoman troops heading toward the Crimean shores. They've fortified the river with cannons and even invited guests to watch the fight but the Battle of the Alma and its aftermath will surprise everyone.
The Russians threaten to cut off supply lines to Sevastopol and the Allied forces have taken up a final defensive line in front of the port of Balaklava. The thin red line holds against the calvary but it was a charge of the Light Brigade that will capture the hearts and impact the minds of the soldiers on the battlefield.
The siege of Sevastopol is in full swing but the Crimean War is becoming evermore unpopular in the public eye. Journalists are reporting on army scandals and starving troops and the military fights back with propaganda! Sending out a photographer to take patriotic photos of the conflict.
Deep within India, Prince Siddhartha has cast away all his belongings, power, and family. Seeking the answers to the woes of mankind. Here he sits under the bodhi tree in deep meditation, on the cusp of enlightenment of 8-Fold Secret. When he awakes he is Buddha and conveys the four noble truths to the people. However, the Demon God of Desire, Mara has different plans for him. For a mortal is forbidden to know secrets of death, rebirth, and the wheel of the cosmos.
Buddhism teaches people to meditate, moderate behavior, live by ethical codes, and maintain love for their family and community. But why did Buddha's message appeal to so many people? Even with heavy competition from other religions, his words spread and endured over the centuries, continuing to foster spirituality in an ever-changing and chaotic world.
The Great King Ashoka's relentless quest for the revered relic - "The Ashes of the Buddha" - marked the genesis of his transformation and ignited the global spread of Buddhism. As he tirelessly wove religion, monasteries, and compassionate policies into the fabric of society, Ashoka also spurred infrastructural growth across his realm. Giving people access to a practical moral system to guide their lives under Buddhism.
The Great Ashoka changed the model for future monarchs. The righteous King's reign would show how power should be wielded to create a Buddhist society and future kings would even invite monks to be a part of their courts. Buddhism expanded across the world along with The Emerald Buddha and change with the cultures it reached.
Vajrayana, Mahayana, and Theravada are the most practiced forms of Buddhism today but there were a lot of changes within the Mahayaha practice when the expansion of Buddhism crossed the Silk Road. Buddhism was adopted by the Chinese and adapted to fit their beliefs and pantheons. Creating some of the Buddhist symbols we see today including Shaolin Monks, Guanyin, and the statues used for blessings of wealth.
History: Henry Ford's life started with him working on his father's farm but his passion for engineering brought him to Detroit. Where he would end up working as a machinist for Westing House and companies like the Edison Illuminating Company. Building his reputation and knowledge, as he began to work on his explosion engine. Creating his very first vehicle, the Ford Quadricycle in 1896!
History: Grosse Point Racetrack 1901, Henry Ford got his first taste of racing but it was his partnership with Alexander Malcomsom and John and Horace Dodge that started the Ford Motor Company in Detroit's beloved Motor City! Where they wouldn't manufacture vehicles but assemble them using a new moving assembly line. Producing the Ford Model T, an affordable car that would change the world.
History: The Ford Model A would go where horses wouldn't and saved Californians after an earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, but it wasn't Henry Ford's best design. He was looking to make a car for rural America and that was the Model T. A mass-produced car that was affordable and made it so people could get better medical treatment in different locations, go on vacations, and be alone with loved ones However, as Henry Ford's company grew so did his "social engineering". Paving the way for his darker side in History.
Step into 1913 at the Highland Park Ford Plant as Henry Ford unravels. He was a pioneer who forever changed the automobile industry with his innovations and $5 minimum wage that vaulted millions into the middle class. Yet as he grew older his controversial beliefs would echo throughout history. Considering himself an expert in business, politics, society, and war. He began to force his beliefs on those around him. Undermining and undercutting business partners and shareholders.
1927, Dearborn, Michigan: Highland Park Plant becomes the backdrop for a pivotal moment in the Ford dynasty. As Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, commemorate the 15-millionth Model T, but an underlying tension casts shadows over their legacy. ????⏳ Through masterful innovation, Ford revolutionized the world, but internal family struggles and controversial choices marred his public image. Witness the rise and fall of one of America's most iconic figures.
On the outskirts of Kadesh, Pharaoh Ramesses II finds himself ensnared in an ambush set by the Hittites. Through a tumultuous clash of chariots and strategic might, the Battle of Kadesh unfolds—the first recorded battle in history. While Ramesses spins tales of victory, the true aftermath points towards diplomatic genius. Dive into the life of the Pharaoh who not only defined war strategy but set architectural legacies that stand to this day. Discover the man, the myth, the 'living god'—Ramesses the Great.
1274 BCE: Abu Simbel Temple Complex echoes with the grandeur of Ramesses the Great. More than just a Pharaoh, he has built this temple as a testament to himself, weaving tales of grand victories into its very walls. Yet as the sands of time shift, Nefertari, his greatest love, faces her end, and Ramesses must grapple with his own legacy.
Welcome to the 'Little Ice Age', where climate changes sent the world into unpredictable patterns. From clergy exorcising glaciers to communities torn apart by unusual weather phenomena, delve into a chilling era of Earth's history and the profound impact it has on civilizations.
The King's servants are in search of food. Crops have failed and bread prices soar. Livestock has perished and hunger is fueling desperation. The Little Ice Age has cast its frosty grip on the land and the relentless downpour has brought a kingdom to their knees. Experience this harrowing tale of the Great Famine of 1315-1317, one of northern Europe's most catastrophic crises.
From the rain-spoiled crops to the advancing glaciers and droughts that kill off livestock. Mass starvation has set in and there can only be one culprit. Witches manipulating the weather!
Explore the eerie effects of this volcanic aftermath, where sunsets turned red, crops failed, and snow fell in June. Witness how Europe and North America adapted to the changing climate, turning adversity into innovation. From the Netherlands' ingenious hydraulic engineering to England's agricultural revolution, humanity found ways to thrive amidst the challenges.
The search for truth in history is always a matter of blazing a path through multiple sources, each with a different perspective. We hope this series about the events that lead to World War I not only taught you new things, but encouraged you to ask new questions. Our writer, James Portnow, sits down to talk about what he learned from researching and writing this series - as well as the mistakes we made along the way. Did the world really hinge on Gavrilo Princip's sandwich? How do we know so much about Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov's day? We answer these questions and more, but above all, we encourage you to do more research on your own!
James Portnow, our writer, takes some time out from traveling in Europe to talk about the historiography of Extra History and the Sengoku Jidai series. Although of course we are simplifying matters for the sake of a ten minute show, we mix both the "Marxist" or "people's" history approach (where broad social patterns drive change) and the "great man" theory of history (where individuals drive change) because we believe the reality lies somewhere in between. During this episode, we examine the mistakes and ommissions made during the Sengoku Jidai series and tell some of the stories we didn't have time for during these six episodes. We hope that it piques your curiosity enough to look into the sources on your own and decide for yourself how you would tell and analyze the story of Japan's Warring States Period!
No historian is perfect, so it's important we acknowledge our mistakes where we find them (with the help of our viewers, no less)! After we clear up some discrepancies that emerged during the South Sea Bubble series, we turn to answering some common questions that came up during this series on economic history. In a period where financial masterminds like John Blunt engaged in trickery meant to confuse other people and hide his real activities, it's no wonder that many viewers had questions about what insider trading is and how Blunt could endlessly inflate stock prices for his unprofitable company. This is a history show, but we do our best to explain! As a bonus, James also reads Robert Knight's letter to Parliament on the eve of his illegal flight and tells some cool stories about Robert "It was Me" Walpole.
From pronunciation issues to flag errors (but at least we did it on purpose this time!), it's important to take a moment to look back over the series and remind ourselves that no historian is perfect, and you should always question what you are told. James answers some questions that kept cropping up in the comments, from how the Zulus obtained maize (European important during the 16th century) to the effect of the slave trade on Zulu history (minimal, since most of the slave trade occurred in West Africa). While some question the use of the word "empire" to describe the Zulu nation, the fact remains that they conquered other independent tribes and became their rulers, which qualifies the Zulus as an empire. Their conquests also explain another aspect of Zulu history: why was the basic flanking strategy of Shaka Zulu's bullhorn formation not already a common part of South African warfare? Previously, there had been plenty of land to go around, but the introduction of maize suddenly required lots of territory for fields and also caused a population boom. That excess population could now be dedicated to military training, and having so many people also meant that human lives had comparatively less value, so strategic innovations and more violent warfare suddenly came into play.
We take a rest in the middle of our Justinian and Theodora series to look back at the story so far and correct a few things! But the errors we made (minarets on the Hagia Sophia!) and the questions viewers have asked us give us the opportunity to expand on many parts of the story that we had to leave out of the series, and we encourage you to perform a full dive into this history to learn about the Hagia Sophia's construction, early doctrines of Christianity, and many more details about the life of Belisarius. Plus, James can't resist the temptation to play Five Degrees of Walpole to see how our infamous meddler from the South Sea Bubble series can be connected to the history of Justinian and Theodora!
Time to look back on the First Crusade and talk about errors and stories that didn't make the final cut! The religious nature of the First Crusade meant that many of the primary sources for it (certainly on the Christian side) had a vested interest in reinforcing the idea that the crusaders had the blessing of God. Untangling the truth from their stories reminds us that there is no such thing as "the real story" when it comes to history: our modern perspective cannot help but shape the way we see these events also, and even to the extent that we try to set aside our bias, the conflicting accounts mean we still have to conjecture about what's most correct. This episode also features answers to questions posed by our supporters on Patreon!
This was a short series, but we still want to set the record straight: correct our mistakes, elaborate on stories we left out, and reflect on what we've learned! One of the recurring themes of the Broad Street Pump series was people's continued resistance to John Snow's theories, even when he collected evidence to back them. But in the end, the truth won out: the march of progress can be very slow, since individual people cling to what they know and what feels most comfortable to them, but in the course of time, we do come to accept the truth. What seemed so unbelievable back then is common knowledge now. John Snow's struggles may have seemed futile at the time, and he watched himself dismissed at every turn, but his efforts added up to the foundation of epidemiology and contributed to the acceptance of germ theory.
♫ Music by Sean and Dean Kiner (Special Thanks: Wang Hong): http://bit.ly/1LBy9zh
♫ Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/1iYzuEx
By the time Narses was sent to join him Italy, Belisarius had been away from Constantinople for a very long time. The royal family wasn't sure if they could still trust him, or if his repeated victories had gone to his head, so they sent Narses (who had been in Constantinople and earned their trust) to keep an eye on him. But this laid the groundwork for disputes that would unravel the military effort there. John looked down on the "barbarian" Ostrogoths and did not consider them a threat, so he viewed the war in Italy as a political battlefield between his friend Narses and his commander Belisarius. Although Procopius defends John's courage and capability as a cavalry commander, John did not see the bigger picture in Italy and his actions interfered with Belisarius's overall strategy even though Narses and his family connection to the previous emperor helped keep him safe from repercussions. Belisarius wound up doing the same thing when he refused Justinian's orders to leave Italy immediately. And in the end, the arrival of the plague - Bubonic Plague, the Black Death - interfered with all their plans. Although we believe Theodora's actions helped hold the empire together, historians like Procopius take a much darker view: he thought she went power-mad and ruined everything. It's also worth taking a moment to point out that Theodora was a miaphysite Christian, not a monophysite as we described her in this series. We'll clarify the difference in a future series on Early Christian Heresies, but for right now we decided to simplify. And there was one thing we left out of this series, a story we love about how Justinian succeeded (where so many had failed) in getting silk worms out of China by bribing monks to smuggle silk worm eggs away in their canes. He helped found a silk industry that brought a lot of money to the empire, and helped it survive longer than it might have otherwise.
♫ Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://www.kinerbrothersmusic.com/extra-history/
Yi's life has been turned into a Confucian parable: a highly competent person who bore betrayal stoically and stayed loyal to the king. Since there was no record of his early life, that pattern is reflected in the way his early life is described. That pattern of thinking clearly influenced the historians who did cover Yi's life, but while it stands out as unusual to those of us who aren't familiar with that tradition, it has a subconscious impact on the people who were raised with Confucian thinking and wrote this history from it. If we looked at Western history from a foreign perspective, we would likely notice similar patterns being overlaid onto Western ways of telling history as well.
Suleiman lost faith in those who surrounded him, fearing that they schemed to replace him. Why do we so rarely see such destructive suspicion in our governments today? We also need to talk about what made the West dub Suleiman "Magnificent," and the flourishing of arts and education which took place under his reign. Towards the end of his reign, Suleiman saw his once trusted advisor, Ibrahim Pasha, and his own son, Mustafa, as enemies rather than allies. He feared that they would displace him to put Mustafa on the throne. Why don't we see such distrust turn into murder in our governments today, when it was such a common trope in the ancient world? Perhaps it's because our modern governments provide a regular means of succession, so that anyone with ambition is usually better served waiting for their turn rather than trying to take on the entire government. The series was too short to allow us to give Suleiman's reign the coverage it really deserved, but we want to take advantage of this opportunity to talk about why the West dubbed him "Suleiman the Magnificent" and his people called him "The Lawgiver." The laws he put so much effort into rewriting improved equality in the society, including creating additional protections for Christians and Jews within his Muslim empire. He was also a patron of the arts, and even a poet himself, under whose reign a distinctive Ottoman style developed and many beautiful buildings were constructed. Finally, as a leader of armies, he took many cities that were considered the bulwark of European defense against the Ottomans, and though he had huge armies to do it, many huge armies had failed at those tasks before since the cities were heavily fortified and actually had the odds stacked in their own favor.
We hope this series will serve as a primer to the Christian faith, specifically how it interacted with the Roman Empire - even though we had to simplify many complex theological concepts to fit an introductory series. James wanted this series to be the primer he always wished he'd had when studying the later history of Rome. Since it was focused on the impact of Christianity upon the Roman Empire, we left out the Gnostic movement which had a greater impact on the Persian Empire. Our history begins with Paul the Apostle, whose fundamental belief was that the sacrifice of Christ erased the sins of mankind and freed them from having to follow the old laws, specifically the Mosaic Laws which Judaism believed were the path to salvation. In abolishing these laws, he emphasized that circumcision would no longer be necessary because Roman men, while perfectly willing to give their lives for a noble cause (and Christianity at the time often required sacrifice), were pretty hesitant to let anyone cut off parts of their penises. Not until Constantine, though, would Christianity be embraced in large numbers - but was Constantine really Christian? Many scholars have suggested otherwise, and it may be hard to say given our current sources, but he did originate as a monotheistic Sol Invictus worshipper and probably saw the political advantage of ruling a people united under one God instead of thousands of cults. He may not have realized the difficulty of that, however, until the Council of Nicaea which brought together many bishops who had been actively persecuted for their faith - hence the eyepatches and missing limbs! - and felt very strongly about how it should be practiced. Even Saint Nicholas, who is the foundation for Santa Claus, supposedly punched Arius during this council over his heretical statements. And they were none too tolerant of each other's opposing beliefs. Although there were many different beliefs that evolved from monophysitism, miaphysitism being the mos
James talks about our mistakes, and adds additional stories, for Federico da Montefeltro and the First Opium War!
James talks about our mistakes, and adds additional stories, for the Brothers Gracchi!
James talks about our mistakes and adds additional stories and explanations for the History of Paper Money!
James talks about our mistakes, and adds additional stories, for the Simón Bolívar series!
Catherine the Great ruled for many years - too many for a six episode show to cover completely. James talks about the mistakes we made and the stories we left out!
Listen to "Ascension in C," the theme song of our series on Catherine the Great! Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
We know so much about Ned Kelly's life through documents recorded at the time, and yet disputes over those details remind us how much different people's perspectives shapes our understanding of events. James Portnow interviews series writer Soraya Een Hajji about Ned Kelly!
Listen to "Farewell to Greta," the theme song of our series on Ned Kelly! Lyrics below. Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
The Articles of Confederation gave the United States their name, but even beyond that, they exposed many of the issues that would underlie this new nation for the rest of its history. James Portnow interviews series writer Soraya Een Hajji about the Articles of Confederation!
Listen to "Article 11," the theme song of our series on the Articles of Confederation! Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
D-Day is too vast and important a topic to be completely covered by four short videos, but we hope our series offered some new insights into the massive effort that went into the Normandy beach landings. James Portnow and Richard Cutland, Wargaming's Head of Military Relations, take some time to chat about some more important D-Day stories.
How did the Bronze Age Collapse affect civilizations other than the four discussed in our series? When trade fell apart, why didn't those who relied on bronze switch to forging with other metals? James and Soraya look back on these questions on Lies!
Listen to "Collapse," the theme song of our series on the Bronze Age Collapse! Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
Could Sweden have won the Great Northern War? Was Charles XII actually assassinated? James answers questions from our Patreon supporters in this special edition of Lies!
Listen to "Song of Gunfire," the theme song of our series on the Great Northern War! Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
We've wrapped up our series on Otto von Bismarck, but we've only touched on the first half of his life! Maybe someday we'll get to come back. Until then, James answers questions and discusses errors in this episode of Lies!
Listen to "Art of the Possible," the theme song of our series on Otto von Bismarck! Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
Why did we refer to Khosrau's empire as Iran, not Persia? Did Mazdak really exist, or was his proto-communist movement pure propaganda? Dan (narrator) and Soraya (writer) tackle these questions and address the large issue of how perspective can shape one's idea of the truth.
Listen to "Immortal Soul," the theme song of our series on Khosrau Anushirawan! Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
You gently corrected out our math mistakes and artistic slip-ups, and we're here to tell you it was all part of Bismarck's plans--er, it's Euclid's fault. Time for another episode of Lies!
Listen to "Postulate 5," the theme song of our series on the history of Non-Euclidean Geometry! Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/23isQfx
Series writer Rob Rath is here to tell us about all the moving pieces and complex storylines he researched to write our Flu Pandemic episodes.
Listen to "The Cytokine Storm," the theme song of our series on the history of the 1918 Flu Pandemic!
Our fantastic writer Rob Rath reviews the mispronunciations we made, the sources we used, and the extra stories we ran out of room to fit into our series on the Kingdom of Majapahit.
Listen to "Candhi Ayu," the theme track of our series on Majapahit!
Listen to "Subatomic Fugue," the theme track of our series on the history of Quantum Computing!
Listen to "March of the Northmen," the theme track of our series on the Viking Expansion!
Writer Rob Rath talks about all the cool stories and facts we didn't get to cover in the already expansive Viking Expansion series.
Writer Rob Rath talks about all the cool stories and facts we didn't get to cover in the Sun Yat-sen series.
Listen to "Across the Pacific," the theme track of our series on Sun Yat-sen! Music by Tiffany Román
Writer Rob Rath talks about all the cool stories and facts we didn't get to cover in the Irish Potato Famine series.
Listen to "A Warmer Place - Rowan's Jig," the theme track of our series on the Irish Potato Famine!
Writer Rob Rath talks about all the cool stories and facts we didn't get to cover in our two special short series on the Siege of Vienna, and the life of Queen Nzinga.
Writer Rob Rath talks about all the cool stories and facts we didn't get to cover in our recent series on the hated and beloved Joan of Arc.
Listen to "Visions of a Martyr," the theme track of our series on the life of Joan of Arc!
From the quipu to the conquistadors, writer Rob Rath talks about cool stories we couldn't quite squeeze into the series, as well as some of the mistakes we made (like the impossibly fast runners) in our series on the Inca Empire.
Listen to "City of Cuzco" the theme track of our series on the rise and fall of the Inca Empire!
Where was the metric system?! What's the real deal with the dinosaur carving? And what is an axis mundi? We answer your questions from the comments, and Rob talks about all the cool things that we couldn't fit into the regular episodes.
Listen to "Nokor Thom" the theme track of our series on the building of the great temple city, Angkor Wat!
Here are answers to the first two episodes as well as a whole lot of fun facts from Rob's favorite subject!
Listen to "Alleyways and Truncheons" the theme track of our series on how the modern professional police force came into existence!
Listen to "Crête-à-Pierrot" the theme track of our series on the slave revolt that blossomed into becoming a full-on nation, the Haitian Revolution.
We answer your questions, correct small hiccups we made, and expand on the stories that were too wild, weird, or complicated to fit into the main series. Welcome to this episode of Lies! What about the Polish troops that helped the revolution? Where did we get our numbers from? How does Walpole fit into all of this???
Listen to "Battuta's Voyage" the theme track of our series on the extraordinary travels of Ibn Battuta and his accounts of the medieval world
We answer your questions, correct small hiccups we made, and expand on the stories that were too wild, weird, or complicated to fit into the main series. Welcome to this episode of Lies! Frightening bells, stretched truths, and too many kids to count.
We answer your questions, correct small hiccups we made, and expand on the stories that were too wild, weird, or complicated to fit into the main series. Welcome to this episode of Lies! LARPing the crusades, Civil War vs Independence, and illegal hats.
Listen to "Thread of War" the theme track of our series on how the Middle East was divided and how maps were drawn after World War One.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. There were a few hiccups in this series, like Taiwan becoming Japan, and New Zealand with a new origin story. But we also get to talk about the interesting differences between Polynesian cultures, such as cosmetic dental work and the famous unique tattoo art.
Listen to "Pasifika" the theme track of our series on the exploration and expansion of human cultures and civilizations into the vast Pacific Ocean.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. We Franced some Germanies, slighted Caesar, and are here to provide you with all the emperor names from the first episode and more.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. What was up with that first episode? Can you make a grody pearl cocktail in under 36 hrs? And what does it mean to look at historical memory?
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. Why did the French offer so much help to the traditionalists? The relatively in relatively bloodless is doing a LOT of work. And most importantly, how does Rob feel about The Last Samurai?
Listen to "The Streets of Kyoto" the theme track of our series on Japan's borders opening and the radical change that came to an end.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. What's the deal with Baldwin V's leprosy? How holy is a city really? And did Richard benefit from absence makes the heart grow fonder?
Listen to "The Boy from Tikrit" the theme track of our series on Saladin and the struggle to hold onto Jerusalem.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. Were we too mean to Rockerfeller? Is Ida Tarbell a feminist icon? And who exactly ran unopposed again?
Listen to "Monopolies" the theme track of our series on Theodore Roosevelt and taking down the monopolies.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. Were we too mean to Rockerfeller? Is Ida Tarbell a feminist icon? And who exactly ran unopposed again?
Listen to "Los Piratas Judios" the theme track of our series on the Jewish diaspora from Spain and the wild times on the high seas as a result.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. Why did the Protestants support Frederick V despite being a hardline Catholic? What is even the difference between these religions anyways? Why is Dutch and Danish so easy to mix up?
Listen to "May 15, 1648" the theme track of our series on the Thirty Years War and the apocalyptic consequences it had for Europe.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode proper. How do you talk about a figure like Vlad wrapped up in more myth than history? What castles did we swap around? And hey! No flag errors! (because we had no flags but hush we'll take it)
Listen to "The Real Dracula" the theme track of our series on Vlad the Impaler, the man who's legacy will never die.
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode properly. What happened to Rasputin's kids? Did he have massive influence with the Romanov family? And what is the difference between an Emperor and a Czar?
Listen to "Mad Monk" the theme track of our series on Grigori Rasputin, the holy man who hypnotized the whole of Russia!
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into the episode properly. Will Army the Armchair return? Did we mess up a map? How many powers were ACTUALLY in India at the time?
Listen to "British India" the theme track of our series on the Conquest of India, a historical paradox and analysis of India's history!
It was Christmas Eve 1914 and German soldiers had snuck across no man's land seeking what little joy they could find in a tree amidst World War I. After running into drunken french soldiers the unthinkable happened.
Not just another anime, the Steampunk Samurai existed! In 1867 during the Boshin War modern weaponry was introduced and it was common to see Samurai like Sakamoto Ryōma roaming the streets with a Smith & Wesson Army revolver holstered right next to his Samurai sword.
Listen to "Paranoia" the theme track of our series on Japanese Militarism, a historical review, and analysis of Japan's history!
Welcome Extra Historians to Lies, where we talk about the mistakes we made and the details we couldn't quite squeeze into our Japanese Militarism series. With questions like, What type of rifles did the Japanese army use? Was Genkokujo really a Japanese thing? And aren't communists supposed to be red?
Did you know the choice of one man saved the world on October 27th 1962? Senior Russian submarine officer Vasili Arkhipov came very close to starting World War 3 during the Cuban Missile Crisis but instead chose the future we all enjoy today.
Sinking the Bismarck, who actually did it? This tale turns into dramatized courtroom hearsay as Germans claim that the Bismarck was scuttled, while the British Royal Navy claims it was blasted away with torpedos! Will a deep-sea investigation reveal what really happened?
Cleopatra is the most famous woman in history but what did she look like? We know a lot about her past but depictions of her are rare and her ancestral line ties her to the Ptolemies, Macedonian Greeks. To learn more about Cleopatra click the link below!
May 31st 1921, the Tulsa Suburb of Greenwood has gone under siege. Where the most prosperous black community in America was torn apart. However, some residents of Greenwood fought back that day. Like O.B. Mann and Peg Leg Taylor, who defended the community or Mary E. Jones Parish who wrote the most solid account of this event that we have today.
Ever hear of Alexander Scriabin, the composer that wanted to Kickstart the Apocalypse? No? Well then have a seat learn about one of Russia's best-known musicians who was obsessed with mysticism and the occult!
From a London Pickpocket to a Chinese General! Morris "Two-Gun Cohen" lived a life right out of an adventure novel!
