The Loss and Re-Discovery of the $20 Billion Imperial Spanish Treasure Ship
The most valuable shipwreck of all time is the San José galleon—an 18th century Spanish ship that carried 11 million gold coins, silver, and emeralds—and worth $20 billion in today's currency. It sunk...
12 Feb 51min
Thomas Willing: The Revolutionary War Arms Dealer Who Led the First Bank of the United States
America’s revolutionary war would have almost certainly been lost if not for the colony’s wealthiest merchant. Thomas Willing was a prominent Philadelphia merchant and financier who, in partnership wi...
10 Feb 54min
The Man Who Sold the War: Tom Paine's Journey from Common Sense to Global Firebrand
Most of us only know Thomas Paine for one thing: writing Common Sense in 1776, which helped kickstart the Revolution by selling hundreds of thousands of copies. But he was far more than a writer. Pain...
5 Feb 44min
The Original Body Builders: How Greek Halteres and Celtic Gabal Stone Lifts Built the World's First Strongmen
Fad workouts have been with us for decades, but they go back much further than we realize. Long before CrossFit, Zumba, P90X, Tae Box, Jazzercise or Jack LaLanne, we had 19th century strongmen. These ...
3 Feb 48min
Truman’s Deep Regret at the Atomic Age He Created
In the eight decades since the United States deployed the most destructive weapon ever used, conventional wisdom has held that American leaders were faced with a difficult choice: Invade Japan, which ...
29 Jan 57min
How Soccer Created African and Latin American Nations
National pride often comes from shared heritage—like a common language or ethnic background. Religious Nationalism can be seen in historical Russia, where being part of the Orthodox Church was conside...
27 Jan 46min
The Sawmill – Along With Gunpowder and the Printing Press – Created the Modern World
The wind-powered sawmill was invented around 1592 in the Netherlands, immediately transforming the nature of labor and industry. This mechanical marvel replaced slow, muscle-powered sawyers, allowing ...
22 Jan 34min
Gears, Gold, and Global Peace: A Steampunk Bitcoin Journey Through an Alternate 20th Century
We have paper money today because it functioned as an IOU, certifying that the holder could redeem it for an equivalent amount of physical gold or silver from the bank's vault. That’s where the Englis...
20 Jan 1h 5min
