Blown Off Course: How History’s Windy Turning Points Sank the Armada and Saved Japan from the Mongols
The greatest energy source for civilization before the steam engine was wind. It powered the global economy in the Age of Sail. Wind-powered sail ships made global shipping fast and cheap by harnessin...
23 Dec 202546min
Maps Have Bigger Problems Than the Mercator Projection. They Invent Mountain Ranges and Usually Eliminate New Zealand
Maps have always had problems. Five hundred years ago, maps were wildly inaccurate simply because cartographers were drawing the edge of the known world, limited by slow ships and nonexistent satellit...
18 Dec 202545min
The Great Mathematicians of the Early 1900s Ran into an Unsolvable Problem. They Realized Math Made No Sense
In the 1800s, it seemed like mathematics was a solved problem. The paradoxes in the field were resolved, and even areas like advanced calculus could be taught consistently and reliably at any school. ...
16 Dec 202545min
The American Revolution was a World War in All but Name
The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, known as the "shot heard round the world," marked the first military engagements of the American Revolution. Ralph Waldo Emerson named it that becau...
11 Dec 202556min
How Napoleon and Churchill Used Neuroscience to Make a Better Soldier and More Loyal Public
The brain acts in strange ways during wartime. Even in active combat situations, when soldiers are one mistake away from death, many can’t fire on their enemies because their brain is triggering comp...
9 Dec 202545min
William F. Buckley JR.'s Guide to Friendship in a Polarized Era
William F. Buckley Jr., the charismatic intellectual who defined modern American conservatism, was famously skilled at forging friendships across the ideological divide, a talent that helped him both ...
4 Dec 202539min
What it Was Like Living Through the USSR’s Collapse
The Collapse of the Soviet Union was twice as devastating as the Great Depression for those who lived there. It immediately led to widespread economic chaos and a breakdown of public services, plungin...
2 Dec 202555min
The Battle of Agincourt, 1415: Longbowmen, Bands of Brothers, and Henry V’s Triumph
From Shakespeare's 'band of brothers' speech to its appearances in numerous films, Agincourt rightfully has a place among a handful of conflicts whose names are immediately recognized around the world...
27 Nov 202553min
