History Unplugged Podcast

The aftershocks of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor were felt keenly all over America—the war in Europe had hit home. But nowhere was American life more immediately disrupted than on the West Coast, where people lived in certain fear of more Japanese attacks.Today I talk with Bill Yenne, author of “Panic on the Pacific.” He describes how from that day until the end of the war, a dizzying mix of battle preparedness and rampant paranoia swept the states. Japanese immigrants were herded into internment camps. Factories were camouflaged to look like small towns. The Rose Bowl was moved to North Carolina. Airport runways were so well hidden even American pilots couldn’t find them.We talk about the panic on the Pacific coast and fear the Japanese were coming. As a result the most notorious events of World War Two in America—namely the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry—took place. It is a cautionary tale about how hysteria can cause leaders to seize on political issues in the name of public safety that may cause much more harm than good.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this anthology episode I answer questions from the audience all centered around one theme. Today's theme is about alternate history and alternate theories to historical questions. Well, three of the questions have to do with this (the ones about the Confederacy, the Titanic, and an American Indian in Iceland). The other two are about quack doctors in the American frontier and the influence that Zoroasatrianism had on Christianity and Islam.Here are the questions answered in today's episode:How would America's economy be different today if the Confederacy had won the Civil War?Are there alternative explanations to an iceberg sinking the Titanic?Did a Native American woman come with Vikings to Iceland 1,000 years ago?Tell me about quack doctors and snake oil salesmen in early America.What influence did Zoroastrianism have on Christianity and Islam?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In American history, four U.S. Presidents have been murdered at the hands of an assassin. In each case the assassinations changed the course of American history.But most historians have overlooked or downplayed the many threats modern presidents have faced, and survived. In this episode I talk with Mel Ayton , author of the book Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts—From FDR to Obama, who has looked at the largely forgotten—or never-before revealed—malicious attempts to slay America’s leaders.We talk about the profiles of a typical would-be assassin and what they think they have to gain by slaying the U.S. president. Mel also has many stories, including:How an armed, would-be assassin stalked President Roosevelt and spent ten days waiting across the street from the White House for his chance to shoot himHow the Secret Service foiled a plot by a Cuban immigrant who told coworkers he was going to shoot LBJ from a window overlooking the president’s motorcade routeHow a deranged man broke into Reagan’s California home and attempted to strangle the former president before he was subdued by Secret Service agents.The relationships presidents held with their protectors and the effect it had on the Secret Service’s missionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prostitution, often known as the world's oldest profession, can be traced throughout recorded history. This cliché is so often repeated it remains completely unexamined. Is prostitution really a natural by-product of human society or does it only appear in circumstances where human sexuality is limited or curtailed?In this episode we dive deep into the history of prostitution, from ancient Sumeria and its temple prostitutes to Old Testament Israeli sex workers, to Ottoman Istanbul, and finally to the red-light districts of Amsterdam. In particular we will look atHerodotus' account of the Mesopotamian ritual of sacred prostitution in which Babylonian woman had to attend the temple of Ishtar and agree to sex with any male that askedOld Testament prostitutes from Rahab—heroine of Jericho—to Gomer, a harlot whom the prophet Hosea married as an analogy of Israel's unfaithfulness to YahwehCivic brothels that existed in every medieval European cityOttoman prostitutes who used Islamic law about widows and temporary marriage to cheat the tax codeThe 19th century question over whether prostitution should be legalized and regulated to reduce syphilis or made illegal to reduce public immoralitySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” assassinated a U.S. President? John Wilkes Booth has been despised as a traitor, hailed as a martyr, and dismissed as a lunatic. But in the 1860s he was considered the “handsomest man in America”? Before cementing his name in history by assassinating President Lincoln, this actor extraordinaire was the Leonardo DiCaprio of the 1860s. Women packed the audiences wherever Booth played, pawed him for autographs, and tore at his clothes for souvenirs.Women could not resist him—nor could he resist them.Today on the show I am joined by E. Lawrence Abel, author of the new book John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him. He discusses stories of stories of infatuation, flings, and heartbreak that Booth interwove throughout his theatrical career and assassination plot. We specifically discussHow Actress Henrietta Irving attempted to kill him in a jealous rageThe “Star Sisters” broke up their act after a jealous falling-out over himPhotos of five women were found on Booth’s body, and only one was of his fiancéeBooth’s life was as dramatic as any play. Actor, lover, and assassin, Booth was a complex man whose shocking crime changed the course of American history and cast him forever in the role of an American villain.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever since the end of the Civil War, a mythology of Robert E. Lee's military genius was developed by Confederate veterans as a way to support the idea that the South was defeated only because of the Union's overwhelming advantages in men and resources. Known as the “Lost Cause” interpretation of the Civil War, it provided a sense of relief to white Southerners who feared being dishonored by defeat.In this episode, I explore the research of the late Civil War historian Edward Bonekemper, who wrote many books challenging this thesis. He argues that Grant—far from being a bloodthirsty drunk who won by brute force alone—was the most successful Union or Confederate general of the war. Grant won the war by excelling in three theaters. He fought six Confederate armies, defeated all of them, and captured three of them. He succeeded for two years in the West with amazingly minimal casualties—particularly when compared with those of his foes. He conquered the Mississippi Valley and chased the Confederates out of Chattanooga and Tennessee. Lee, in contrast, has been praised for his offensives against the Union Army of the Potomac, he was carrying out an aggressive strategy with aggressive tactics that were inconsistent with what should have been a Confederate grand defensive strategy. The Union, not the Confederacy, had the burden of winning the war, and the South, outnumbered about four-to-one in white men of fighting age, had a severe manpower shortage. Nevertheless, Lee acted as though he were a Union general and attacked again and again as though his side had the burden of winning and also had an unlimited supply of soldiers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Foreign governments did not only start trying to influence American presidential elections in 2016. It goes all the way back to the 18th century. In this anthology episode I answer this question and three others from you, the audience. Two of the questions have to do with presidents, one of them is only indirectly related to presidents, and the last one has nothing to do with presidents, but it's an interesting question about Nazis so we'll go with it. Here they are:How long have foreign governments attempted to meddle in American elections? Does this go back before 2016? Can you tell me about presidential assassination attempts? Do they go all the way back to Washington?How did the Cold War come to an end?Why did so many Nazis flee to Argentina after the Second World War, and how did they get there?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whether you have a BA in philosophy or have never read a book, your daily life is impacted by Aristotle. Have you ever tried to win an argument? Have you ever tried to solve a riddle? Have you tried to rationalize eating twelve doughnuts? Congratulations: you are engaging in logic, the bread-and-butter of the most impactful philosopher in history.In this episode I talk with Lantern Jack (pseudonym of the host of Ancient Greece Declassified and graduate student in philosophy at Princeton). We get into 4th century BCE Greece, the life of Aristotle, his tutoring of Alexander the Great, and how his philosophy conquered the world. But it's more than the life of Aristotle. Thanks to archaeology and modern scholarship, we now know more about the ancient world than we ever did before. However, the average person today doesn't have access to free, reliable, up-to-date information about ancient Greece. Unlike other fields, the Classics have remained largely confined to the ivory tower of academia. Thats why Lantern Jack started his show. The idea is to declassify the classics and help everyone know about the ideas that kicked off the modern world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spies have been a feature of state security and military intelligence since the beginning of warfare. Entire wars have been won or lost according to these secret activities. Today we will look at spycraft during World War Two, a golden age of espionage.Spycraft was an essential element to the war effort as ships, planes, or weapons. At no time were military secrets so valuable. Nuclear technology was vital for both sides if they did not want to fall behind the other. Learning the troop movements of the enemy could make it possible to launch an attack on the level of D-Day, permanently crippling their war machine.In this episode I will discuss the careers of...Richard Sorge, the German playboy based in Tokyo who stole nearly all of Japan's World War 2 plan, sent it to the Kremlin, and prevented Nazi Germany's attempt to invade and capture Moscow.Nancy Wake, a socialite in France-turned- Resistance Fighter who saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives of Allied airmen by smuggling them to the Spanish border.George Koval, the Iowa-born Soviet spy who worked on the Manhattan Project and fed all the scientific breakthroughs to Russia, accelerating their nuclear program by yearsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You probably know what the Underground Railroad is—you know, the network of secret routes and safe houses set up in antebellum America and used by African-American slaves (with the help of abolitionists and allies) to escape into free states and Canada. But how did it work? How far apart were these slave houses? Five miles, twenty miles, or more? And how did abolitionists help the escaped slaves? Did they provide them food and shelter and send them on their way, or did they personally guide them? And what happened if a slave or Underground Railroad “conductor” got caught? Here to tell us one of the most amazing jailbreak stories in pre-Civil War American history is Gary Jenkins, a retired Kansas City police officer. He tells us about the capture, incarceration, trial and rescue of Dr. John Doy. In 1859, twelve free African-Americans asked Lawrence Kansas leading citizens to help them flee north to escape being captured and sold into slavery. Dr. John Doy and his son, Charles Doy volunteered to go on this dangerous mission. His book, The Immortal 10, tells this exciting story of the slave trade in Missouri though the eyes of Dr. Doy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this anthology series I answer four listener questions. Three of them have to do with World War II, one of them has to do with the second amendment. Here they are:What are the arguments for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki?What are the arguments against?The Second Amendment is one of the most controversial parts of the American constitution today. We always talk about the part that refers to private firearm ownership but we rarely talk about well-regulated militias, even though the amendment gives equal weight to both. What was the importance of militias in the past and when did they decline in impact?Can you tell me about the history and importance of Close Air Support?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For those who haven't studied the Middle East, the historical lives of women there can be thought to be a black hole: no information available about those who were thrown under a burkha and locked up at home or in a harem. Never mind that few women wore the clothing of modern-day Saudi Arabia in the past; women had vibrant lives there regardless of social restriction. Even in the harem, ostensibly most restrictive place in the pre-modern Middle East, women ironically could exert more power than anywhere else. In fact, if you wanted to rule an empire through your weak-minded husband or son, there was no better place to be. To discuss these issue I am joined by Marie Grace Brown, professor of history at the University of Kansas. She is a cultural historian of the Modern Middle East with a special interest in questions of gender and empire. Marie does a great job of making academic concepts about Westernization vs. modernization accessible to a non-scholarly audience. But we don't get too scholarly. At one point I ask her how she would take over the Middle East as a woman in the pre-modern world. Her award-winning book, Khartoum at Night: Fashion and Body Politics in Imperial Sudan (Stanford University Press, 2017), traces gestures, intimacies, and adornment to give a history of northern Sudanese women’s lives under imperial rule.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Webster is a cultural resource management archeologist. That means when the National Registry of Historic Places is thinking about adding a mining town, Spanish mission, or Native American burial site to its list, it calls in Chris.He has worked in all phases of contract archaeology, from literature searches and Class 1 surveys to full scale excavations and lab work.He also has to figure out what's worth preserving and what isn't. The choice usually isn't easy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The deadliest army on earth can't top the weather for its destructive potential. History's mightiest empires have fallen for no more of a reason than climate change leading to failed harvests and a starving population.But you wouldn't know that from most stories of the past. History was long about diplomatic treaties, battle tactics, or the biographies of great leaders. In the last 40 years researchers have increasingly compensated by looking at climate as a major factor in the course of human civilization. They have analyzed the history of weather patterns, climate change, ocean currents, and even geology to explain why some societies thrive and others die.In this episode we look at four civilizations that were destroyed or permanently crippled by changes in the weather. They includeThe Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was destroyed by a joint Babylonian and Median attack in 612 BC, but initially crippled by a severe drought that was so bad a priest commented that “no harvest was reaped” one year The Greenland Vikings, a one-thriving trade empire that stretched from Denmark to Newfoundland and delivered walrus tusk to medieval royalty but dissapeared suddenly in the 1400sMedieval Iran—the economic powerhouse of early Islam that grew enough cotton to change the fashion tastes of the Middle East...until a cold snap killed whole crops, leaving it weakened until the Mongols finished the job in the 1200sEurasia of the 1500s, which due to the Little Ice Age saw massive revolts, from the 30 Years War between Protestants and Catholics to the Jelali Revolts of the Ottoman Empire to civil unrest in India and ChinaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Washington—widely considered a man of honor, bravery and leadership. He is known as America’s first President, a great general, and a humble gentleman, but how did he become this man of stature?My guest today is Austin Washington, a great nephew of George. He wrote a book called The Education of George Washington that answers this question with a new discovery about his past and the surprising book that shaped him.In this episode we discuss the book that truly made George Washington who he was and little-known info about Washington’s past that explains his true model for conduct, honor, and leadership.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Middle Ages were a terrible time to get sick. There was no sanitation inside cities and hardly any in rural areas. The common way to relieve pain amongst sick people was to inflict more pain upon them, and then hope to the stars for a bit of luck. Monks with little to no experience, aside from castrating animals and having access to a few medical books, performed surgery on human beings. The medicine was basic, and the terrible illness that plagued those times was complex.Yet people came up with surprising ways to cope with illness in this time. In this episode I discuss...Theriac: History’s amazing wonder drug. From the 1st century A.D. to the late 19th century, one medical compound reigned supreme over all other remedies: theriac. First concocted by a Greek king worried about poisons, theriac went from being a general antidote to snake bites to an all around panacea, used to treat everything from asthma to warts, including the Black Plague.How Europe dealt with the plague: It spread from Genoa through Europe, reaching France and England by 1348. Both countries were embroiled in a devastating war that had already spanned many decades, leading many to believe that the sins of men were punishing humanity. By 1350 Germany and Scandinavia, too, had suffered deadly losses. Equally massive were the deaths in the Middle East, as 40% of the population across Egypt through the Levant, Syria, Palestine and Yemen would be lost.Where people think that illnesses came from. Most people today believethat medievals assumed all illnesses came from devilish or demonic sources, or, a variant, from some hidden sin in the sick person. It's more complicated than that. Instead, they first saw all illnesses as coming ultimately from God but also perceived and affirmed many levels of causality, and they were comfortable shifting back and forth between these levels depending on the audience and occasion of their writings.How the foundations of modern medicine were built in the Middle Ages, especially in the Islamic World. Islamic scholars and doctors translated medical texts from all over the known world, including the Greeks and Romans, Persians and Indians. They not only gathered this knowledge and translated it into Arabic (and later into Latin), they added their own medical observations and methods. Islamic doctors developed new techniques in medicine, dissection, surgery and pharmacology. They founded the first hospitals, introduced physician training and wrote encyclopaedias of medical knowledge.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, two-hundred-fifty Marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The Marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Today I'm talking with Maj. Scott Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, He discussing retaking the city street-by-street in the dead of night, what it was like to fight 4-5 skirmishes a day for months on end, and the challenges of asymmetrical warfare where the frontline is everyone and no enemy wears a uniform. We discuss how the military shifted tactics from Cold War-style combat to effective street fighting, why he thinks women belong in combat units, his relationship with Iraqi translators, and the battle to overcome post-traumatic stress in the years following service.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to part two in our series on Mesopotamia. The last installment covered the lives of the elites; now let's go several steps down the social ladder. We are going to be covering everyday life in Sumeria, Akkadia, Assyria, and any other civilization that rooted itself between the Tigris and Euphrates. In particular we will explore the lives of merchants and traders, farmers, women, temple priests, and prostitutes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloody battles, lionhearted leaders, valiant victories, and lamentable losses—the history of the Civil War has been told time and again. Yet, one monumental component of the Civil War has gone untold… until now. Delving deep into rare Civil War memoirs and letters, today's guest, an “alco-historian,” is Mark Will-Weber, author of the book Muskets & Applejack: Spirits, Soldiers, and the Civil War. He discusses stories of the “whiskey war” to life by showing alcohol’s potency on and off the battlefield. From who drank what to how major turning points of the war happened “under the influence,” Mark sheds a unique, unconventional light on one of America’s most historic moments—and the imbibing that took place by both the Confederacy and the Union.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the first episode in a two-part series on Mesopotamian civilization. In this episode we are going to be covering four topics: 1) The origins of Mesopotamian civilization with Sumeria, its evolution into the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian Empires, and why education and literacy was so important (knowledge was passed down on information-dense cuneiform tablets, even though gigabyte of information on cuneiform tablets weighted nearly as much as a 747. 2) How the Epic of Gilgamesh created the genre of epic literature (or is at least the oldest such work that survives). 3) The reign of Sargon of Akkad: The King Arthur of Mesopotamia, who less known for what he actually did as much as the idea of who he was -- a symbol of justice and righteousness that people looked to in dark times. 4) Waging war the Mesopotamian way: How warfare evolved from simple infantry combat in Sumerian times to the massive siege towers and psychological warfare of the Assyrian Empire.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the age of adventure, when dirigibles coasted through the air and vast swaths of the Earth remained untouched and unseen by man, one pack of relentless explorers competed in the race of a lifetime: to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole. What inspired their dangerous fascination? For some, it was the romantic theory about a “lost world,” a hidden continent in the Arctic Ocean. Others were seduced by new aviation technology, which they strove to push to its ultimate limit. The story of their quest is breathtaking and inspiring; the heroes are still a matter of debate. In this episode I talk with Sheldon Bart, author of “Race to the Top of the World: Richard Byrd and the First Flight to the North Pole.” about Richard Byrd, a Navy officer and early aviation pioneer; and Roald Amundsen, Byrd’s and a hardened veteran of polar expeditions. Each man was determined to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole, despite brutal weather conditions, financial disasters, world wars, and their own personal demons.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Mongolian Empire has a well-deserved reputation for its brutality (it did, after all, kill 40 million in the 12th century, enough people to alter planetary climate conditions). But it's positive legacies are nearly as profound, if less well known. In this episode I talk about the lasting influence of Genghis and his descendants on world civilization. The Mongolians patronize the arts on a scale not seen since the height of Rome; the Pax Mongolica consolidated the Silk Road and kicked off a boom in trade where ideas, technologies and goods flowed freely from Europe to Asia (spices, tea, and silk headed west while gold, medical manuscripts, and porcelain headed east; and the Mongolian approach to religious tolerance was so flexible that Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians were invited to debate their ideas before the royal court in Karakorum.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the oldest traditions in America is trying (and failing) to set up a utopian community. French Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed if man could return to a state of nature – free from social conditioning that put him in conflict with his neighbor – then a new, perfect social order could emerge. This sounds like hopefully wishful thinking today, but in the context of the 1800s, a utopian community really wasn't all that far fetched. The French Revolution failed, but the equally radical American Revolution succeeded. If a country could rule itself without a king and queen, some thought, why couldn't it rule itself without any ruler at all? Many utopian thinkers asked themselves that if one Greek form of government, democracy, could be dusted off after thousands of years on the shelf, then why not try other discarded ideas? Perhaps the time had come for Plato's vision of a utopia. From the 1830s to 1850s, charismatic leaders formed groups of 50 to 100 Europeans who followed a basic ideology or religious denomination and set up communist communities across America. Widely believed by the larger public to be sinks of drug-ridden sexual immorality, the communes both intrigued and repelled the American people. The intentional communities of the 1960s era were far more diverse than the stereotype of the hippie commune would suggest. A great many of them were religious in basis, stressing spiritual seeking and disciplined lifestyles; others were founded on secular visions of a better society. In fact, hundreds of them became so stable that they survive today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mongols were fierce on horseback, but so were the many other steppe nomads who tried and failed to conquer the walled cities of China, Persia, and Rome. Yet the Mongols succeeded where their predecessors failed by incorporating siege engineers into their army, taking full advantage of their light supply chain, and using shock attacks in ways no other military leader had before.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Steppe nomads plagued the ancient world with their cavalries, but nobody perfected this form of warfare like the Mongols. A horse archer had such a deep kinesthetic relationship with his steed he could feel when all four hooves were off the ground, allowing for a perfect shot. Chroniclers say they could hit the wings off birds from 50 yards and fell an enemy from 500.Learn why the bow and the horse were the foundations of Mongolian military power.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to part one of Mongol Week(s). In this multi-part series, we will look at the Mongolian Empire from multiple perspectives, including its unprecedented level of brutality (so many died from their attacks that untended farmland returned to forrest, scrubbing the atmosphere of carbon and causing global cooling).But we will also look at their positive contributions -- the opening up of the Silk Road, religious tolerance, and rights granted to women. We will also consider the rise of Temujin (Genghis), the importance of the Mongolian horse and bow, battle tactics, and everyday life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chester A. Arthur, America's 21st president, lands on the lists of the most obscure chief executives. Few know anything about him besides his trademark mutton-chop sideburns. Moreover, he fell into the position unexpectedly when Garfield was assassinated; the political pros though he would be a failure as president. Maybe Arthur did also. After all, he was a flunkey in the New York political machine who spent his nights eating, drinking, and smoking cigars with the other good ole' boys and frequently didn't show up at work in the New York Customs House until 1pm. He only got on the Vice Presidential ticket of Garfield because Republicans were desperate to get support from New York and needed a native son on the ticket. But Arthur shocked everyone by doing well as president. He went up against the very forces that had controlled him for decades. He implemented new rules requiring the federal government to hire workers based on their qualifications, not their political connections. He supported a civil rights act to bar racial discrimination, even though the public overwhelmingly supported it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fighting over scarce resources have fueled wars back to the Sumerian city-states squabbling over water-use rights of the Euphrates river. Did the same drive fuel America's entrance into Vietnam to take its tin? Listener Toby asks if there's any truth to the the conspiracy theory that only reason the Vietnam war was waged was for a scarce metal, not to fight the communist threat like most of us has been taught. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some disasters hurt society (Hurricane Katrina in 2005). Bigger ones permanently alter it (the Black Death in the 1300s; Mao's Great Leap Forward). The worst of disasters completely destroy a civilization and leave behind so few they take centuries to recover (the Mongolian slaughter of Iran in the 1200s; the smallpox epidemic among Native Americans). Today we look at the tipping points between a society being hurt and a society being mortally wounded.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The death of thirty percent of Europe's population in the fourteenth century permanently altered the medieval social order, and many scholars credit the Black Plague with ushering in the Renaissance. But this is not the whole story—after all, plagues have ravaged the ancient world throughout human history without a similar cultural flowering to show for it. We look at other factors that ran parallel to the plague to transform Europe's culture.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fascism is loved by few, but many at least credit Mussolini's heavy-handed rule for making Italy's notoriously disastrous train system operate effectively. Was this actually true or more of Il Duce's propaganda?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t born as the rough riding, big-game-hunting, Amazon-exploring legend that America has come to love. So how did he become the larger-than- life character portrayed in history books? He was forged by the last vestige of the Wild West—the Badlands of the Dakota Territory. Yet this side of one of America’s most popular presidents has mostly gone unexploredIn this episode I talked with William Hazelgrove, author of the book Forging a President: How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt once stated, “I have always said I would not have been president had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.”Faced with tremendous heartbreak and extreme adversity, Roosevelt headed West for comfort and healing. Little did he know that the ways of trappers and thieves would create his bombastic personality, and later lead him to run for president of the United States.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The origins of some cultural practices are lost to the mists of time. Not so the high five. We can trace it back to a specific day at a specific baseball game. From then on the world was never the same.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the most widespread and pernicious bits of common knowledge about the Middle Ages that is incorrect is the idea that everyone believed the world to be flat. This is ridiculous. Nobody thought that. Anyone who knew about astronomy (which was almost everyone), had been on a boat, or had any sort of learning whatsoever knew this to be false. Then why do make this wrong assumption today?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Which world leader or dictator had the best chance at world domination? (i.e. Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander the Great). In this episode I discuss whether such a goal is even possible, and if so, under what conditions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Giussepe Pinetti: You might not know the name, but he's considered the guy who made magic into a respected theatrical art form. Before him, it was practiced mostly by buskers on street corners, or at private engagements for the rich, not public theaters. He single-handedly changed the persona of magician from shady trickster to consummate performerBrian Earl from the Illusion Podcast is here to talk about the granddaddy of all illusionists. He was there 200 years before David Copperfield, Chris Angel, or Penn and Teller.Here's some fascinating aspects of Pinetti's life that Brian and I discuss:His career began as a professor of physics in Rome in the 1770s. He performed magic tricks in class to illustrate concepts. His classes were very popularHe eventually began performing in Germany in 1780 as Pinetti, Roman Professor of Mathematics. He would pass off illusions as genuine scientific demonstrationsHe was very successful, selling out theaters across Europe. He started to dress like a general or nobleman onstage with custom tailored suits. Pinetti arrived in Prussia in a coach drawn by 4 horses. This angered Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia, whose carriage had only 2 horses. He ordered Pinetti to leave the cityA lawyer named Henri Decremps published an expose of Pinetti, explaining how his performances were just magic tricks, not demonstrations of little-known scientific principles. Pinetti publicly discredited Decremps by hiring a shabby person off the street to pose as Decremps at a performance and cause a public disturbanceA man named Count de Grisy in Naples had begun performing some of Pinetti's tricks at private parties. Pinetti pretended to mentor deGrisy and encouraged him to perform publicly. Pinetti sabotaged the performance, which the king attendedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The simple military salute is a symbol whose meaning goes back centuries earlier than most any soldier would suspect.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did technological and social change happen fast enough in the 2,000-year period between 1000 BC and AD that a time traveller would notice he were transported from one to the other?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why has a puny strip of sea stopped invading armies almost as effectively as the Atlantic Ocean has for America? Because staging a successful amphibious assault is extremely hard.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn about King Musa, the man so rich he crashed the value of gold in Egypt by giving away too many gifts while on an extended vacation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Korean War is widely misunderstood in the 21st century. Most have a sepia-toned nostalgia of the bravery of World War Two, or the less black-and-white nature of the Vietnam War. But not Korea. If anyone thinks of it, they might think of reruns of M*A*S*H on Nick at Nite or a barely-remembered high school history lesson on the U.S. Cold War policy of Soviet containment. For this reason, some historians have dubbed it the Forgotten War.To explore this forgotten war, I talked with Rachel Reed, who's written a new book on the conflict. But she doesn't write about the politics or military tactics of the war. Instead, she focuses on the four-legged heroes that supported the war efforts. Reed’s book K-9 Korea: The Untold Story of America’s War Dogs in the Korean War is an account of canines working side-by-side with servicemen to perform sentry duty on critical supply and weapons depots.When the 8125th Sentry Dog Detachment landed in Incheon, Korea, the soldiers—man and dog— were unsure of the fates that awaited them. The human warriors soon learned that their lives depended on their canine companions for safety and strength to face unimaginable situations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Want to conquer Europe in the Middle Ages? You need plenty of knights mounted on steeds to launch a full cavalry charge. Once they take out their enemies in pitched battle, you need engineers to launch a siege on your enemies castles.Want to conquer Europe in 1600? Everything has changed. Cannon makes castles obsolete. Firearms and pikes have displaced knights as the dominant force on the battlefield. The scale of war has also grown from a few thousand soldiers on the battlefield to tens or even hundreds of thousands.To explain this change is Patrick Wyman of the Tides of History Podcast. Patrick is a medievalist by training and explores how events in the far past still have influence today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do we separate myth from fact in ancient history? How do we do this when it comes down to one of the most beloved and well-known stories of all time: The Nativity? Fr. Dwight Longenecker, a Catholic priest from Greenville, South Carolina, is attempting to do that. He has set out on a quest to investigate whether there is a kernel of historical truth beneath the many legends of the Magi story. Now he thinks he has found it. The Magi were real, but they weren't from the “Orient.” Nor were they kings. Rather, they were a political delegation from a mostly-forgotten kingdom to the south called the Nabateans. And they set out for Israel for reasons both religious and political. It wasn't an easy project for Fr. Longenecker to research. While he was always fascinated by the nativity story, he knew that plenty of legendary embellishment had filled in the gaps. Matthew's bare bones account only speaks of “wise men from the East” who see a star and journey to Jerusalem, winding up in Bethlehem to pay homage to the newborn Jesus Christ before returning to their country by a different route. There's no mention of three kings, lavish costumes, camels, nor where they came from in the biblical account. No start leads them through the desert to Bethlehem. They aren't even called kings (?!) Furthermore, most Biblical scholars outright reject that the magi were historical at all. The Catholic Bible scholar Raymond Brown in his monumental study, The Birth of the Messiah notes that it was a mark of modernist orthodoxy not to believe in the historicity of the Magi story. Fr. Longenecker found that as it turns out that because of scholars' assumption that the Magi story was a fairy tale very few scholars had taken the time to investigate thoroughly the possible identity of the wise men. His research brought him into contact with new technologies which shed light on the subject. Some fresh archeological findings and new understandings from the Dead Sea Scrolls also contributed to the quest. As it turns out, it is perfectly probable that there were wise men who had the motive, the means and the method to pay homage to Jesus Christ just as Matthew recorded. The simple truth is that Matthew’s account is factual not fictional. His book The Mystery of the Magi—The Quest for the True Identity of the Three Wise Men will be published next Advent by Regnery Press. In this episode we answer the following questions: Did the wise men ride camels? What was the star of Bethlehem? Were they really called Balthasar, Melchoir and Kaspar? Are their relics preserved in Cologne Cathedral? Where do Anthony and Cleopatra fit into the story? Why did they bring gold, frankincense and myrrh? Was there really a magical star that led them across the desert?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Being a historical consultant for movies is never easy. How do you get the period details right while keeping it contained within an interesting narrative? But being a historical consultant about one of the most recognizable figure in history is even harder. That’s why today’s guest Catherine Clinton had her work cut out for her.For the 2012 Steve Spielberg movie “Lincoln,” Clinton—a U.S. academic historian and expert on Mary Lincoln—was consulted by filmmakers over costume details and details about the Lincolns’ lives.In this episode we discussPopular misconceptions about Mary Todd that historians know is falseWhether her reputation as a hellcat or maniac is deserved, and if not, why it became distortedChallenges of portraying historical fact while cutting necessary corners for a 2-hour film narrativeWhat “Lincoln” portrayed about Abraham and Mary Todd that other film makers have missedLessons from the life of Abraham and Mary Todd we should remember todaySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jazz is the most American of musical genres. But its origins are shrouded in mystery. Some like to think that Louis Armstrong and his bluesmen friends were sitting at a bar in New Orleans, when a solar eclipse and Haley's Comet occurred at the same time, causing the musical troupe to start using a swing rhythm. But musicologist Bill McKemy thinks that the origins of jazz can be traced more directly to one man. That is Nathaniel Clark Smith: The Melchizedek of Jazz. Smith was African-American musician, composer, and music educator in the United States during the early decades of the 1900s. Over the next 30 years he would lead bands in Chicago, Wichita, Kansas City, the Tuskegee Institute, and in St. Louis. He was an important educator for many of the prominent early Jazz musicians from Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis. And man was his life hard. To make ends meet he played in a minstrel show in the 1890s. He threatened lynching by having Tuskegee students play classical music and other forms of “non-black” music, against the wishes of Booker T. Washington. He risked his life to embrace the slowly emerging new opportunities for non-whites in the United States.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Language not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries. For example... How did different languages come to be? Why isn't there just a single language? How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth? How does a language become extinct? In today's episode I speak with Dr. John McWhorter, a linguist from Columbia University. He, addresses these and other issues, such as how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today. We go broad and deep. For the broad, we explore language families, starting with Indo-European, comprising languages from India to Ireland including English. Other language families discussed are Semitic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Bantu, and Native American. This gets us into the heated debate over the first language. For the deep, we get into pidgins and creoles. When people learn a language quickly without being explicitly taught, they develop a pidgin version of it. Then if they need to use this pidgin on an everyday basis it becomes a real language, a creole. Some people argue that Black English is a creole, and Professor McWhorter really gets into this issue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the wreckage of World War 1, Germany was slapped with a war reparations bill worth billions and the loss of much of its land. This and many other reasons launched the Second World War.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The reasons for the Great War go way beyond the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Learn about the causes of one of humanity's most vicious wars.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hannibal's crossing of the Alps with war elephants is considered one of the most daring move of the Punic Wars. But is it professionally accepted among historians that he actually crossed the Alps, and if so, is there any physical evidence?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.