A Talk With The Polar Geographer Who Discovered Shackleton’s Endurance Under 10,000 ft of Frozen Water
On August 1, 1914, British explorer Sir Ernest Shackelton and his crew sailed from England, set on making history as the first to cross Antarctica. Their ship never returned from her maiden voyage. On...
2 Jan 202543min
The Founding Fathers Were 20 and 30-Somethings. Why Is America Now a Gerontocracy?
A house on the Florida coast. An assisted living program. A lively retirement community. Medicare. Our modern concept of old age—and even the idea of old age as a distinct stage of life—are products o...
31 Des 202442min
A Pre-WWI French Philosopher Was More Popular Than Elvis and Possibly Entered the US Into the Great War
In New York City, 1913, French philosopher Henri Bergson gave a lecture at Columbia University, resulting in fanfare, traffic jams, and even fainting spells among the thousands of people clamoring for...
26 Des 202443min
While Starving at Besieged Leningrad, Scientists Hid Drought-Resistant Crop Seeds That Could Prevent Future Famines
In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad—now St. Petersburg—and began the longest blockade in recorded history, one that would ultimately claim the lives of nearly...
24 Des 202440min
Surviving Nearly 2 Years of Shipwreck on a South Pacific Island in the 1880s
Today, half of the world’s population lives around the Pacific Rim. This ocean has been the crossroads of international travel, trade, and commerce for at least 500 years. The economy was driven by w...
19 Des 202443min
How Did 450 Boers Defeat 15,000 Zulus at the Battle of Blood River in 1838?
By the 1830s, the Zulu kingdom was consolidating its power as the strongest African polity in the south-east, but was under growing pressure from British traders and hunters on the coast, and descenda...
17 Des 202448min
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 9: The End of North African Piracy and the Beginning of American Global Naval Hegemony
In this final episode of our series on the Barbary Wars, we look at the fates of the Barbary States. After 1815, the Barbary States lost their independence, with Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco s...
12 Des 202458min
When Did Americans Become Americans? 1945, 1865, 1787, or 1776?
When news reached Parliament of the Boston radicals’ destruction of the Royal East India Company’s tea, it passed the Coercive Acts, a collection of punitive measures designed to rein in that insubord...
10 Des 202446min
