Death and the King's Favorite (with Benjamin Woolley)
George Villiers was in his early twenties when he caught the eye of King James the VI and I. Almost immediately, George became an intimate "favorite," catapulted into a new title and world of courtly ...
7 Mai 202442min
The Nun of Monza, Part 2
CW: murder, gore. Sister Virgina (born Marianna) had made a terrible choice in secret lovers. When a young secular boarder at the convent where she was a nun threatened to expose her illicit relations...
30 Apr 202442min
The Nun of Monza, Part 1
For plenty of young women in the early modern era, if their families couldn't afford their dowries, they simply shipped them off to a nunnery. That was the case for Marianna, a young girl who rose in ...
23 Apr 202443min
Lucretia as a Symbol
Why did the Roman Empire do away with kings? Simone de Beauvior would write that, through women, "certain historical events have been set off, but the women have been pretexts rather than agents. The ...
16 Apr 202442min
A Grand Duchess Above the Barber Shop
History is fascinated by the possible escape of Anastasia Romanov, the Grand Duchess killed alongside her family in the Russian Revolution. But there was a Grand Duchess that DID escape - Anastasia's ...
9 Apr 202427min
The Daring Prison Break of the Emperor in Exile
When a coalition of European nations invaded Paris in 1815, they offered Napoleon what they believed to be very generous terms of surrender: he would keep his head, but be exiled to a life as Emperor ...
2 Apr 202444min
The Dinner Party at the End of the Iranian Monarchy
When Mohammad Reza Shah got into a helicopter in 1979, he had no idea that it would be the last time he would ever see his country again. Nor did he know that he would be ending a 2,500 year tradition...
26 Mar 202432min
Odoacer and Theodoric, the Barbarian Kings of the Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire was conquered by Odoacer, who styled himself as the "King of Italy." But the leader of the Ostrogoths, a warrior named Theodoric, would challenge Odoacer for supremacy. But we...
19 Mar 202441min
