Europe’s Babylon: 16th-Century Antwerp was a City of Wealth, Vice, Heresy, and Freedom
Before Amsterdam, there was a dazzling North Sea port at the hub of the known world: the city of Antwerp. For half the sixteenth century, it was the place for breaking rules – religious, sexual, intel...
4 Jan 202252min
Parthenon Podcast Roundtable: Who Would You Eliminate From History? (And No, You Can’t Choose Hitler)
Today is a group discussion in which the four guys that make up the Parthenon Podcast Network (Steve Guerra from Beyond the Big Screen, Richard Lim from This American President, James Early from Key B...
1 Jan 202251min
WASPs: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy
From politics to fashion, their style still intrigues us. WASPs produced brilliant reformers—Eleanor, Theodore, and Franklin Roosevelt—and inspired Cold Warriors—Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, and Jo...
30 Dec 202140min
The Untold History of Earth: Hobbits Really Existed, Dinosaurs Had Feathers, and Yetis Roamed Our Planet
The Old English poem Beowulf is a vital source of information on history, language, story and belief from the darkest of the Dark Ages. Only one copy is known to exist (it’s in the British Library), a...
28 Dec 20211h 11min
George Washington’s 1789 Road Trip Across the New United States
In the fall of 1789, George Washington, only six months into his presidency, set out on the first of four road trips as he attempted to unite what were in essence thirteen independent states into a si...
23 Dec 202137min
The Allied Race to Retake Paris in 1945 Before the Nazis Could Destroy It
In a stunning move, the armies of Nazi Germany annihilated the French military and captured Paris, the crown jewel of Europe, in a matter of a few weeks. As Adolf Hitler tightened his grip on the City...
21 Dec 202129min
The Son of Mississippi Slaves Who Fled to Russia and Brought Jazz to Istanbul
Frederick Bruce Thomas was born in 1872 to former slaves and spent his youth on his family’s prosperous farm in Mississippi. However, a resentful, rich white planter's attempt to steal their land forc...
16 Dec 202157min
What the Middle Ages Can Teach Us About Pandemics, Mass Migration, and Tech Disruption
The medieval world – for all its plagues, papal indulgences, castles, and inquisition trials – has much in common with ours. People living the Middle Ages dealt with deadly pandemicsmass migration, an...
14 Dec 202154min
