The Vietnam War Was About...Stealing Asia's Tin?
Fighting over scarce resources have fueled wars back to the Sumerian city-states squabbling over water-use rights of the Euphrates river. Did the same drive fuel America's entrance into Vietnam to tak...
26 Jan 20188min
About 70-90 Percent of a Society Needs to Die Before It Completely Collapses
Some disasters hurt society (Hurricane Katrina in 2005). Bigger ones permanently alter it (the Black Death in the 1300s; Mao's Great Leap Forward). The worst of disasters completely destroy a civiliza...
25 Jan 201812min
Why The Black Plague is Partially (But Not Completely) Responsible For the Renaissance?
The death of thirty percent of Europe's population in the fourteenth century permanently altered the medieval social order, and many scholars credit the Black Plague with ushering in the Renaissance. ...
24 Jan 20188min
Did Mussollini Really Make the Trains Run on Time?
Fascism is loved by few, but many at least credit Mussolini's heavy-handed rule for making Italy's notoriously disastrous train system operate effectively. Was this actually true or more of Il Duce's ...
23 Jan 20186min
How Teddy Roosevelt Became The Man He Was in the Badlands—William Hazelgrove of “Forging a President”
Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t born as the rough riding, big-game-hunting, Amazon-exploring legend that America has come to love. So how did he become the larger-than- life character portrayed in history book...
22 Jan 201842min
The Origin of the High Five
The origins of some cultural practices are lost to the mists of time. Not so the high five. We can trace it back to a specific day at a specific baseball game. From then on the world was never the sam...
18 Jan 20185min
Nobody in the Middle Ages Thought the Earth Was Flat
One of the most widespread and pernicious bits of common knowledge about the Middle Ages that is incorrect is the idea that everyone believed the world to be flat. This is ridiculous. Nobody thought t...
17 Jan 20186min
Which Leader Had the Best Shot at World Domination?
Which world leader or dictator had the best chance at world domination? (i.e. Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander the Great). In this episode I discuss whether such a goal is even possible, and if so, under w...
16 Jan 201814min
