Babylon: The Dramatic Rise & Fall

Welcome to Sleepytime History™ — true stories from the pages of history for a full night's rest.

Tonight, drift off to the remarkable true story of ancient Babylon, a marvel of the ancient world so extravagant in its grandeur and so formidable a military power it had to be seen to be believed. Rising from the sun-baked flats outside modern Baghdad is a low mound of mud bricks said to mark one of the seven wonders of the world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, terraces of emerald green stacked far above an endless, dusty plain. A traveller entering the city first met the lions, over a hundred of them, then a gateway glazed in vibrant lapis blue, and beyond it the Tower of Babel, stretching impossibly upward. Surrounding it all stood a wall so broad a chariot pulled by four horses could turn around upon its top. Thousands of years later, clay tablets pulled from the rubble would tell of a man formed from soil and a great ark built before a flood, stories that predate the Bible and the Torah by over a thousand years. This is relaxing history at its most soothing, a calm piece of Mesopotamia history and one of the finest sleep stories for adults, perfect as an audiobook for a full night's rest. From the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to a fall no one saw coming, we still keep time in Babylonian to this day, counting sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour. So how does a civilisation of such influence simply vanish, and why didn't they try to stop it?

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Chapters:

00:00:00 The Dramatic Rise & Fall of Babylon

00:46:26 Marco Polo: Great Explorer or Inventive Storyteller?

01:34:00 Stone Age Japan: Why Were They So Advanced?

02:20:27 The Dragon: Just a Myth or Forgotten Ancient Beast?

03:05:58 William Wallace: What Braveheart Left Out

03:48:55 Titanic: Why Did They Ignore the Warnings?

04:31:05 The Real Count of Monte Cristo: Pierre Picaud

05:10:43 Stonehenge: The Ancient Mystery No One Has Solved

05:53:41 Hopelessly Lost in the New World: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

06:25:05 Genghis Khan: From Outcast to Master of the Known World

07:10:56 Ernest Shackleton's Endurance: Stranded at the End of the World

07:45:07 King Arthur, Camelot, the Man Behind the Myth

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Written and produced by Pamela Erwin

Narration by Oliver Hale

Music by Pia Maya

Visuals by Ben Blight

This podcast contains AI-generated content.

Sleepytime History™ is a trademark owned by Pamela Erwin.

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