The Man Who Sold the War: Tom Paine's Journey from Common Sense to Global Firebrand
Most of us only know Thomas Paine for one thing: writing Common Sense in 1776, which helped kickstart the Revolution by selling hundreds of thousands of copies. But he was far more than a writer. Pain...
5 Feb 44min
The Original Body Builders: How Greek Halteres and Celtic Gabal Stone Lifts Built the World's First Strongmen
Fad workouts have been with us for decades, but they go back much further than we realize. Long before CrossFit, Zumba, P90X, Tae Box, Jazzercise or Jack LaLanne, we had 19th century strongmen. These ...
3 Feb 48min
Truman’s Deep Regret at the Atomic Age He Created
In the eight decades since the United States deployed the most destructive weapon ever used, conventional wisdom has held that American leaders were faced with a difficult choice: Invade Japan, which ...
29 Jan 57min
How Soccer Created African and Latin American Nations
National pride often comes from shared heritage—like a common language or ethnic background. Religious Nationalism can be seen in historical Russia, where being part of the Orthodox Church was conside...
27 Jan 46min
The Sawmill – Along With Gunpowder and the Printing Press – Created the Modern World
The wind-powered sawmill was invented around 1592 in the Netherlands, immediately transforming the nature of labor and industry. This mechanical marvel replaced slow, muscle-powered sawyers, allowing ...
22 Jan 34min
Gears, Gold, and Global Peace: A Steampunk Bitcoin Journey Through an Alternate 20th Century
We have paper money today because it functioned as an IOU, certifying that the holder could redeem it for an equivalent amount of physical gold or silver from the bank's vault. That’s where the Englis...
20 Jan 1h 5min
Before the Cold War, Russia and America Were the Closest of Distant Friends
Nearly a century of Cold War tensions between the United States and Russia hide the incredibly close friendship that the two nations enjoyed before this period. From America’s colonial founding in the...
15 Jan 46min
The Horrifying Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Titanic of the Great Lakes
One of the worst nautical disasters in recent American history is the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. On November 10, 1975, the “storm of the century” threw 100 mile-per-hour winds and 50-foot wa...
13 Jan 48min
