Alan Pinkerton: The Private Detective Who Saved Lincoln’s Life and Built America’s Contract Security State
Alan Pinkerton is perhaps the most over-achieving barrel-maker who ever lived. After practicing his trade in rural Illinois for a few years in the 1850s, the Scottish immigrant busted up a counterfeit...
12 Juni 202550min
MacArthur’s Plans to Drop 50 Nuclear Bombs During the Korean War
The Korean War came dangerously close to going nuclear, and if would have if Gen. Douglas MacArthur had gotten his way. He proposed using 30 to 50 nuclear primarily to targeting air bases, depots, and...
10 Juni 202550min
The Many Ways That Rome Never Fell and Lives On Today
Rome’s Western Empire may have fallen 1,600 years ago, but its cultural impact has a radioactive half-life that would make xenon jealous. Over a billion people speak Latin (or at least a Latin-derived...
5 Juni 202537min
Hooves of History: How Horses Created Ancient Warfare, Built the Silk Road, and Became the Dividing Line Between Nobleman and Peasant
In order to become rich, powerful, and prestigious in the pre-modern world, nothing mattered more than horses. They were the fundamental unit of warfare, enabling cavalry charges, and logistical suppo...
3 Juni 202544min
Moonshining Survived (and Thrived) At Least Two Decades After Prohibition Ended
The Prohibition era (1920–1933), enacted by the 18th Amendment, birthed an overnight economy of moonshiners who distilled and distributed homemade liquor to meet America’s insatiable demand for alcoho...
29 Maj 202545min
How to Cross the Sahara as a Tenth-Century Cameleer
What comes to mind when we think about the Sahara? Rippling sand dunes, sun-blasted expanses, camel drivers and their caravans perhaps. Or famine, climate change, civil war, desperate migrants stuck i...
27 Maj 202553min
How American Slaves Fled By Sea, Whether as Stowaways or Commandeering a Confederate Ship
As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South, finding safe harbor along a network of passageways across North America via the Underground Ra...
22 Maj 202546min
Did WW2 Heads of State Want to Preserve Their Empires As Much as Defend Their Homelands?
2025 marks the eightieth anniversary of Germany’s surrender and the fall of the Third Reich. Likewise, World War II is the single most studied conflict in human history. But most Western accounts offe...
20 Maj 202547min
