Travelers and Explorers, Part 7: Sir Henry Stanley (1841-1904) – “Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?”
Henry Stanley was a soldier-turned-journalist-turned explorer who charged wide swaths of the Congo. He famously searched for the source of the Nile, commanded the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition (a major...
6 Heinä 202141min
Travelers and Explorers, Part 6: James Cook (1728-1797), England's Poseidon
James Cook came from a humble village upbringing. But by the end of his career, he circumnavigated the globe several times, discovered Australia and explored its west coast, mapped much of the South P...
1 Heinä 202151min
Travelers and Explorers, Part 5: Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) and His Terrifying Voyage Across an Endless Ocean
Ferdinand Magellan was ready to conquer the natives with nothing but a few loyal soldiers. He had already discovered vast new swaths of the globe and crossed the world's largest ocean. Capturing this ...
29 Kesä 202141min
Announcement: “Beyond the Big Screen” – a New Movie Podcast – Launches Next Week
I’m please to announce that Steve Guerra is launching a new podcast called Beyond the Big Screen that comes out next week. If you member from a few years back, Steve and I co-hosted a series called Ho...
28 Kesä 202117min
Travelers and Explorers, Part 4: Zheng He -- the Admiral Who Turned the Indian Ocean Into a Chinese Lake
What would have happened if China discovered America before Europe? Moreimportantly, what would have happened if it colonized America? It is aplausible scenario. Prior to the nineteenth century, China...
24 Kesä 202131min
Travelers and Explorers, Part 3: Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) -- The Everlasting Pilgrim
Abu Abdullah Ibn Battuta was a 14th-century Islamic scholar who spent 20 years travelling the full extent of the Islamic world, which stretched from West Africa to the Middle East to Southern Russia t...
22 Kesä 202143min
Travelers and Explorers, Part 2: Marco Polo (1254-1324) -- Opening the Door to the East
Marco Polo’s legacy is arguably the greatest of any medieval figure. While he was by no means the first European to reach China – his father and uncle did so a generation earlier, making the younger P...
17 Kesä 202142min
Explorers Who Pushed the Boundary of the Known World, Part 1: Rabban Bar Sauma (1220-1294) – the Reverse Marco Polo
This is the first in a multi-part series on the most consequential travelers and explorers in history and how their discoveries, land conquests, and diplomatic negotiations shaped the modern world.Whe...
15 Kesä 202153min
