How a British Governor of Virginia Raised an Ex-Slave Regiment in 1776 to Fight Patriots and Triggered the Revolutionary War
As the American Revolution broke out in New England in the spring of 1775, dramatic events unfolded in Virginia that proved every bit as decisive as the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hil...
15 Maj 202555min
How a Marine Embedded with Mao Zedong’s Guerrillas in the 30s Became WW2’s Most Celebrated Special Forces Leader
He was a gutsy old man.” “A corker,” said another. “You couldn’t find anyone better.” They talked about him in hushed tones. “This Major Carlson,” wrote one of the officers in a letter home, “is one o...
13 Maj 202555min
Microbes Were Discovered in the 1600s. Why It Take 200 Years For Doctors To Start Washing Their Hands?
Scientists and enthusiastic amateurs first confirmed the existence of living things invisible to the human eye in the late sixteenth century. So why did it take two centuries to connect microbes to di...
8 Maj 202554min
From Einstein’s Chalkboard to Oppenheimer’s Nuclear Test: The 50-Year Path to the Atomic Bomb
The story of the atomic age began decades before Robert Oppenheimer watched a mushroom cloud form over the New Mexico desert at the Trinity nuclear test in mid 1945. It begins in 1895, with Henri Becq...
6 Maj 202548min
Japan’s Desperate Air Battles Against the US in the Final Months of WW2
The B-29 Bomber led the Allied strategic bombing offensive against Japan, succeeding when US Bomber Command switched from high-level daytime precision bombing to low-level nighttime area bombing. The ...
1 Maj 202537min
D-Day From the East: The Soviet Operation Bagration Crippled the Wehrmacht in Late 1944
Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. But by 1944 it had a ...
29 Apr 202542min
Pilgrimages Involved Penitent Marches, Visiting Holy Places, and Watching Drunken Emperors Go on Chariot Rides
Pilgrimages are a universal phenomenon, from China’s bustling Tai Shan to the ancient Jewish treks to Jerusalem. But why? What is it about a grueling penitent march to an isolated temple that has beco...
24 Apr 202544min
Britain Learned How to Set Up Its Global Empire on a Tiny Bermudan Island
Years before Jamestown planters made New World farming profitable by growing tobacco, and years before their countrymen up north in Plymouth Colony managed to overcome their starvation conditions and ...
22 Apr 202544min
