Tacitus: The Historian Who Survived by Staying Silent
Tacitus served under the tyrant Domitian, kept his head down, and then wrote histories so scathing that they defined how the Western world understands Roman imperial corruption. His Annals and Histori...
17 Jun 18min
Sulla: The Dictator Who Wrote Caesar's Bloody Playbook
Lucius Cornelius Sulla marched on Rome twice, published proscription lists that legalized the murder of his enemies, and ruled as dictator with absolute power. Then he voluntarily resigned and retired...
17 Jun 21min
Sophocles: The Scandalous General and Greatest Playwright of Athens
Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, won more dramatic competitions than any other tragedian, and served as an Athenian general and treasurer. He was also sued by his own sons, who tried to have him declar...
17 Jun 20min
Sargon of Akkad: The Cupbearer Who Built the World's First Empire
Sargon of Akkad rose from obscurity to conquer all of Mesopotamia and build the first empire in recorded history around 2334 BCE. His origin story reads like Moses: abandoned as an infant in a basket ...
17 Jun 19min
Nefertiti: The Queen Who May Have Ruled Egypt as King
Nefertiti was the wife of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten and the owner of the most famous portrait bust in ancient art. She may also have ruled Egypt as pharaoh in her own right under a different name....
17 Jun 19min
Nebuchadnezzar II: The Tyrant and Architect Who Built Babylon
Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, deported the Jewish people to Babylon, and built the Hanging Gardens and the Ishtar Gate. He turned Babylon into the most magnificent city in the a...
17 Jun 23min
Murray Gell-Mann: Quarks, Jaguars, and Billionaire Scandals
Murray Gell-Mann predicted the existence of quarks and reorganized particle physics with the Eightfold Way, winning the Nobel Prize for his work on elementary particles. Outside the lab, he pursued li...
17 Jun 19min
Marc Chagall: The Painter Who Turned Survival Into Color
Marc Chagall grew up in a Hasidic Jewish community in Belarus, survived two world wars and the destruction of everything he knew, and transformed that experience into some of the most joyful and visio...
17 Jun 24min
