Where Did Sea Monsters From the Edge of Medieval Maps Come From?

They never knew how he did it. Few composers write more than one or two symphonies in their lifetimes. Beethoven spent a year on his shorter symphonies but more than six years on his 9th Symphony. But Georg Philipp Telemann composed at least 200 overtures in a two-year period. Over his lifetime Telemann's oeuvre consists of more than 3,000 pieces, although “only” 800 survive to this day.He was not the only person whose productivity defied all reason. Greek scientist Archimedes discovered mathematical phenomena that weren't confirmed for 17 centuries. Isaac Newton invented classical physics and was one of the inventors of calculus. Benjamin Franklin wrote, published, politicked, invented, experimented, and humored, sometimes all at the same time.This episode is part one of two that explores the lives of the most productive people in history. We will look at the cultures into which they were born and see the methods that they used to achieve such sweeping results.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

29 Maj 20181h 8min

The Civil War is called the war in which brother fought against brother. But few knew of the“Gettysburg Rebels”: the five privates from that very town who moved south to Virginia in the 1850s,joined the Confederate army, and returned home as foreign invaders for the great battle in July 1863.I talk about this story with Tom McMillan, author of Gettysburg Rebels: Five Native Sons Who CameHome to Fight as Confederate Soldiers. It is the story of Gettysburg’s five native sons who abandonedtheir hometown ties to join the Southern cause. But that's not to say they forgot their familiesaltogether. At least one of these soldiers receive a leave of absence to cross enemy lines at night andvisit his family...while in full Confederate uniform.Willing to relinquish familial ties, Henry Wentz, Wesley Culp, and the three Hoffman brothers kepttheir hometown connections hidden from Confederate leaders—a decision that would ultimatelydetermine the fate of the Confederacy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

24 Maj 201846min

Lieutenant George W. Starks' worst fear came true when his B-17 was shot down over Nazi-occupiedFrance. Earlier that morning, the boyish 20-year-old and his crew were assigned to the most exposedsection of the bomber formation: the “coffin corner.” Now, scattered across the countryside ofChampagne, each of the B-17’s ten American crew members discarded his parachutes and began awartime trek. Some were hidden by heroic civilians, a few were saved by the French underground,others fell into the hands of the Nazis, but all miraculously survived.Carole Engle Avriett, joins me on the podcast today. She is author of the book Coffin Corner Boys:One Bomber, Ten Men, and Their Harrowing Escape from Nazi-Occupied France to tell thesestories. She worked with Captain George W. Starks—now ninety-four years old—to bring them tolight.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

22 Maj 201857min

How was Switzerland able to remain neutral in the two world wars? Why was a tiny mountainous nation of watch-makers, bankers, and chocolateers able to dictate their own fate at a time when nobody else could? In this episode I answer this listener question and three others, and they all have to do with critical events in European history that could have changed the continent's fate. The other three questions I answer are as follows.What if Spain had become disunified after the War of Spanish Succession?Could German Unification have taken place without Otto von Bismarck?What is the largest massacre still denied today?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

17 Maj 201841min

Mignon Fogarty has spent years helping others sort out the extremely peculiar grammar of the English language. But in the course of her research on how to navigate the weirdness of English, she learned the why of the weirdness of English.Did you know that egregious once meant outstandingly good? Or that the sport badminton comes from an English manor with a love of peculiar sports? Or that many of the words in the Oxford Dictionary of English got there from the suggestions of a serial killer?But the strangeness doesn't stop there. In today's interview Mignon tells us such stories asThe same person who came up with the rule that we shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition also said we shouldn't refer to children as "who" because they aren't rational beingsNoah Webster's first failed dictionary went too far with spelling reform. He included "wimmen" for "women" and "tung" for "tongue" and everybody hated it.The origin of certain phrases (run of the mill, beyond the pale, by the wayside)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

15 Maj 201852min

Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity that comes from megalomania or severe mental illness. When nothing stands between a leader's delusional whims and seeing them carried them out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible. Whether it is Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I practicing archery on palace servants and sending out his advisers to find the heaviest woman in the empire for his wife or Turkmenistan President Turkmenbashi renaming the days of the week after himself and constructing an 80-foot golden statue that revolves to face the sun, crazed leaders have plagued society for millenia. In this episode we look at mentally unbalanced rulers who made the lives of their subjects miserable. Some suffered from genetic disorders that led to schizophrenia, such as French King Charles VI, who thought he was made of glass. Others believed themselves to be God’s greatest prophet and wrote religious writings that they guaranteed to the reader would get them into heaven, even if these “prophets” were barely literate. Whatever their background, these rulers show that dynastic politics made sure that a rightful heir always got on the throne – despite that heir's mental condition – and that power can destroy a mind worse than any mental illness.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

10 Maj 20181h 11min

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Pico for short), was the wunderkind of the Renaissance. In 1486, at the age of 23 he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy, and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the “Manifesto of the Renaissance.”Today we are going to talk to Professor Matthew Gaetano about this remarkable figure. Pico was called a great genius, even in his own time. He defend 900 contested theses drawn from the Greeks, Scripture, rabbis, from Persians, and from Islamic scholars into a syncretic drawing together of learning and culture from all across the then-known world.There were also odd aspects of Pico's thought system— he defended magic and mysticism. But his complex life is an inspiration for us moderns today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

8 Maj 201858min

Everybody imagines the World's Most Interesting Man to be a fictional grey-haired lothario who drinks Mexican beer and boasts of his legendary exploits. But what if a man like this really lived?It turns out he did. He is Richard Francis Burton, a Victorian-era explorer who learned 29 languages, went undercover as a Muslim on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and wrote 50 books on topics ranging from a translation of the Kama Sutra to a manual on bayonet exercises.In this episode I explore Burton's life and his incredible achievements. He nearly discovered the source of the Nile with his expedition partner, John Hanning Speke. He had a massive facial scar that came from a Somali tribesman throwing a spear that passed through both his cheeks. He travelled 1,500 miles in a solo canoe expedition down Brazil's São Francisco River, discovering a jungle tribe and deciphering their language.Adventures aside, Burton is best known today for translating the Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra into English. He was the most educated explorer of the Victorian age, a time when only men of rough disposition set out to discover foreign lands, in stark contrast to the landed gentry, who were uninterested in international travel, unless it was in the comfort of a steamship to go administer a colony for the sake of the Crown or as a military officer deployed to extend the global landholdings of the British Empire.Burton published over three dozen volumes, ranging from such topics as linguistics, ethnology, poetry, geography, fencing, and travel narratives. He spoke Greek, Arabic, Persian, Icelandic, Turkish, Swahili, Hindi, and a host of other European, Asian, and African tongues.Learn about Burton's extraordinary life, and how a beer pitchman could never hope to live up to it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

3 Maj 20181h 8min