Blown Off Course: How History’s Windy Turning Points Sank the Armada and Saved Japan from the Mongols

Blown Off Course: How History’s Windy Turning Points Sank the Armada and Saved Japan from the Mongols

The greatest energy source for civilization before the steam engine was wind. It powered the global economy in the Age of Sail. Wind-powered sail ships made global shipping fast and cheap by harnessing free, reliable ocean winds to propel large cargo loads over vast distances without needing fuel or frequent stops. It also powered windmills, the factories of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Windmills allowed for abundant bread by milling flour by turning heavy grindstones with wind-driven sails. They also powered trip hammers to forge iron and steel by lifting and dropping massive weights. We can credit them as well for pumped water, sawed timber, and processed oils, spices, and paper.

Wind is one of most elemental yet overlooked forces shaping our world today, and it is at the center of the human story. Many times it changed history – such as “Protestant Wind” saving England from the Spanish Armada, kamikaze winds halting the Mongol invasions of Japan, and easterlies carrying Chernobyl’s fallout. Wind also powers massive turbines today, but there was a forgotten moment in the 1880s when we could’ve chosen wind power over fossil fuels. It even creates certain types of civilizations. Some historians believe the cleverest and most civilized people lived in places where weather was varied and posed constant challenges.

Today’s guest is Simon Winchester, author of “The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind.” We look at how wind—life‐giving and destructive, chaotic and harnessable — has shaped civilization from antiquity to today.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jaksot(1075)

The Free French Army in North Africa, 1940-1945

The Free French Army in North Africa, 1940-1945

One of the principal architects of Allied Victory in North Africa during World War Two was French General Louis Dio. His importance in North Africa lies in his role as a key leader of the Free French ...

23 Loka 202549min

An Inventor’s Quest to Build a Pneumatic Subway System in 1870s New York

An Inventor’s Quest to Build a Pneumatic Subway System in 1870s New York

Alfred Beach built America’s first operational subway in secret beneath 1860s Manhattan, decades before the city’s official electric subway line in 1904. He designed and commissioned a 300-foot-long, ...

21 Loka 202545min

Spirited Rivalry: Did Ireland or Scotland Invent Whisky?

Spirited Rivalry: Did Ireland or Scotland Invent Whisky?

There’s a divide between Scotland and Ireland as fierce as the Protestant/Catholic split during the Thirty Years’ War or the battles between Sunnis and Shias in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. It’s th...

16 Loka 202548min

The Horse That Ate the Legion: Rome’s Cavalry's Triumph Over the Infantry

The Horse That Ate the Legion: Rome’s Cavalry's Triumph Over the Infantry

The cavalry 'wings' that probed ahead of the Roman Army played a key role in its campaigns of conquest, masking its marching flanks and seeking to encircle enemies in battle. However, at the very begi...

14 Loka 202541min

Beyond Joan of Arc and Agincourt: How the 100 Years War Crushed Medieval Europe and Launched its Global Order

Beyond Joan of Arc and Agincourt: How the 100 Years War Crushed Medieval Europe and Launched its Global Order

Modern France and Britain were forged in the fires of the Hundred Years War, a century-long conflict that produced deadly English longbowmen, Joan of Arc’s heavenly visions, and a massive death toll f...

9 Loka 202558min

Reverse Ellis Island: American Migrants Who Fought for Mussolini and Built Stalin’s USSR

Reverse Ellis Island: American Migrants Who Fought for Mussolini and Built Stalin’s USSR

America saw a significant reverse-migration in the 1800s and 1900s, with 20–50% of Italian immigrants returning to Italy as ritornati and tens of thousands of Americans, including ideologues and worke...

7 Loka 202538min

Don’t Use Rome as a Model of Why Societies Collapse; Use Crime Syndicates and Somalia Instead

Don’t Use Rome as a Model of Why Societies Collapse; Use Crime Syndicates and Somalia Instead

12,000 years ago, human history changed forever when the egalitarian groups of hunter-gathering humans began to settle down and organize themselves into hierarchies. The few dominated the many, seizin...

2 Loka 202549min

A Union General Found a Loophole in the Fugitive Slave Act, Causing 1 Million Slaves to Flee North

A Union General Found a Loophole in the Fugitive Slave Act, Causing 1 Million Slaves to Flee North

After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, enslaved people feared running away to the North, as their return was mandated, and they faced brutal punishment or even death upon return to deter...

30 Syys 202545min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
sita
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
kaksi-aitia
i-dont-like-mondays
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
uutiscast
poks
antin-palautepalvelu
rss-nikotellen
kolme-kaannekohtaa
mamma-mia
rss-murhan-anatomia
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
aikalisa
meidan-pitais-puhua
rss-haudattu
loukussa
rss-palmujen-varjoissa
mystista