Camillo Cavour: The Machiavellian Diplomat Who Manipulated Italy Into Existence
Camillo Cavour never fired a gun or led a charge, but he unified Italy more effectively than any general could have. The prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia manipulated France into fighting Austria, e...
16 Jun 21min
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: The Military Commander Who Created Modern Turkey From Ottoman Ruins
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk took a defeated, occupied empire and built a secular republic from its wreckage in less than a decade. He abolished the caliphate, replaced Arabic script with Latin letters, bann...
16 Jun 18min
Grover Cleveland: The President Who Had Secret Cancer Surgery on a Yacht
Grover Cleveland had a cancerous tumor removed from his jaw aboard a friend's yacht in Long Island Sound while the nation was told he was on a fishing trip. The surgery was kept secret for twenty-five...
16 Jun 22min
Gerald Ford: The Accidental President Behind the Caricature History Got Wrong
Gerald Ford was the only person to serve as both vice president and president without being elected to either office. Saturday Night Live turned him into a stumbling buffoon, but the real Ford was a Y...
16 Jun 20min
George Patton: The Brilliant, Reckless General Who Was Only Built for War
George S. Patton was the most aggressive and most controversial American general of World War II — a man who believed he had fought in previous lives, slapped shell-shocked soldiers, and drove his Thi...
16 Jun 21min
Maximilian I: From European Royalty to Executed Emperor of Mexico's Chocolate Empire
Maximilian I was an Austrian archduke installed as Emperor of Mexico by Napoleon III — a European aristocrat who genuinely tried to govern a country he did not understand, funded partly by the chocola...
16 Jun 18min
Emiliano Zapata: The Revolutionary Watermelon Farmer Who Fought for Land and Died for It
Emiliano Zapata was a horse trainer and watermelon farmer from Morelos who became the moral conscience of the Mexican Revolution. While other revolutionary leaders grabbed for political power, Zapata ...
16 Jun 21min
Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Contested Legacy of America's First Black President
Barack Obama went from community organizer to state senator to United States senator to president in twelve years — the most rapid political ascent in modern American history. He was the first Black p...
16 Jun 18min
