Historically High

Why did ancient civilizations, on every inhabited continent at different points in history independently decide the world was run by a giant scaled lizard? This week we break down humanity’s ultimate shared mythological trip—from our primate brains mashing big cats, raptors, and venomous snakes into an evolutionary super-predator, to the massive cultural clash between European knights stabbing sub...

The Phoenicians conquered the ancient world, not with sword or spear, but with ink, rotting mollusks, and the finest of Lebanese Cedar. In this episode, we take a wild ride through history's ultimate glue guys, starting with a cluster of competitive city-states that never even called themselves Phoenicians. We break down the secrets behind their maritime supremacy, uncovering how their agricultura...

Strap in, because this week on Historically High, we’re heading back pre-Chernobyl, to 1979 to unpack the absolute disaster that was the Three Mile Island meltdown. When a routine cooling malfunction collided with a stuck valve, a blizzard of confusing control-room alarms, and operators making fatal guesswork, roughly half of Unit 2's uranium core melted down into radioactive sludge right in the m...

In August 1969, four twenty-somethings—two trust-fund heirs and two music hustlers—tried to fund a recording studio by throwing a music festival in Woodstock, only to trigger one of the most glorious logistical trainwrecks in American history. After getting evicted from two different towns, they convinced conservative dairy farmer Max Yasgur to lease his alfalfa pasture, but only had enough time t...

This episode is a long strange trip into the mind of John Hinckley Jr. John attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Firing five shots, Hinckley would strike the President once. He was arrested immediately following the shooting. That's when the Hinckley case takes a turn. John Hinckley Jr had quite an obsession with Taxi Driver, and Jodie Foster. In John's mind, he was a Travis Bickle ty...

In the conclusion of our two-part September 11 deep dive, we step straight into the chaos of the morning itself—and the global fallout that followed. We walk through the timeline as it unfolded in real time: how the planes were taken, the shock of the strikes, the collapse of the towers, the hit on the Pentagon, and the fierce resistance aboard Flight 93, where ordinary passengers mounted a revolt...

This week on Historically High, we begin our two-part deep dive into September 11 by pulling back the curtain on everything that led to that fateful Tuesday morning. To understand how four commercial airliners were turned into guided missiles, you have to rewind decades. We start in the brutal, scorched valleys of the Soviet-Afghan War, tracking how the mujahideen resistance gave birth to both the...

The Japanese incorrectly thought they sink her three times earning her the moniker, The Grey Ghost. This week on Historically High, we chart the legendary run of the USS Enterprise (CV-6)—the carrier that carried the Pacific War on her back when it was literally Enterprise vs. Japan, and served as the godmother of modern naval aviation by pioneering 24-hour night combat and revolutionizing damage...

This week, we’re diving into the absolute circus of the late '90s: the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. We trace Bill’s slippery journey from slick Arkansas Governor dodging the Paula Jones lawsuit straight into the Oval Office, where a federal government shutdown, a strategic flash of a whaletail, and an unpaid intern collided to change American politics forever. Add in Linda Tripp armed with illegal ca...

This week on Historically High, we journey into the heart of ancient—and present-day—Cambodia to chart the epic rise and fall of the Khmer Empire. While Europe was just beginning to stumble into the Renaissance, Angkor had already perfected the largest pre-industrial city on the planet. From the uncomfortably massive Tonlé Sap lake to the awe-inspiring stone skyline, wonder at the jaw-dropping arc...

We are finally here. Ted Kaczynski. The Unabomber. Insane IQ. Graduated high school at 15. Had a run-in at Harvard with a professor who worked for the OSS. Youngest associate professor at Cal Berkeley. Left academia for a shack in the Montana woods. Ted Kaczynski had a strong belief that technology was ruining humanity. In 2026, I'm not so sure we disagree. What we do disagree with was sending bom...

Welcome to the Savage Mountain—a 28,000-foot pyramid of vertical blue ice, 60-degree rock walls, and a building-sized ice block that hangs over your head like a loaded gun. This week, we climb through the brutal history of the world's second tallest peak. Now while Everest might be just a little taller, 780' to be precise, K2 much tougher to summit and far deadlier. K2's historical death rate is 1...

In the late 1940's and 50's America went through a type of mass hysteria fueled by both foreign governments and our own. The Cold War had just begun between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Russians soon built and tested an atomic bomb so Americans no longer felt untouchable in our own country. It was a time when accusations of being a communist or even attending a meeting unknowingly c...

Here we are. The History of Cheese. My love letter to cheese. Cultures. Milk. Rennet. Salt. That's all you need to start making cheese. The history starts prior to written history. The cheesemaking process was carried across the world by war and exploration. That process mixed with the nature and animals of the regions, helped shape unique new kinds of cheese. We have a lot to cover from cheese cr...

  Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of pers...

The fallout of the 1929 crash proved that financial ruin is the ultimate catalyst for chaos. As global trade collapsed, countries turned inward ensuring their own survival. Germany's Weimar Republic fractured under catastrophic unemployment, creating the perfect environment for Adolf Hitler to market radical nationalism as the ultimate cure. Desperate populations traded democratic institutions for...

When you think of the Great Depression, you probably picture frantic guys in three-piece suits yelling on Wall Street as the tickers went wild. But the fuse for the greatest economic crash in history wasn’t lit in New York. It was lit in the wheat fields of the American Midwest during World War I. This week, we are kicking off a massive two-part series on The Great Depression. We start at home in...

Butch Cassidy was born Robert Leroy Parker to a mormon family in Utah. The man who would become The Sundance Kid would first be known as Harry Longabaugh from Pennsylvania. Butch, Sundance, and the rest of the Wild Bunch would make a name for themselves during the death rattle of the outlaw American west. To the public they appeared to be a group of Robin Hood-esque bandits and although they reall...

Just a few months after the Battle of Stalingrad ended in a crushing German defeat, Hitler decided he needed to reverse course on the Eastern Front. Enter Operation Citadel, the Nazi plan to pincer a large bulge (salient) the Soviets had caused in the German defensive line taking a large amount of Soviet troops prisoner. To make this happen Hitler would repeatedly delay the operation for months in...

Disneyland officially opened in Anaheim, California, on July 17, 1955 one year and one day after they broke ground. Originally built on 160 acres of former orange groves, it featured 5 distinct lands all inspired by Walt's loves. Main Street U.S.A, opened up to other lands of Adventure, Fantasy, The American Frontier, and Tomorrowland. Disneyland was an audacious idea to say the very least but was...

Catherine the Great, born a minor Prussian princess, transformed herself into one of Russia’s most famous rulers after orchestrating a coup to overthrow her unpopular husband, Tsar Peter III. Her 34-year reign saw the Russian Enlightenment begin to transform Russia, heavily expanding the empire’s borders and cementing them as a dominant European power. She did this by charming the pants off anyone...

The story of Margarita Robaval sees a French noblewoman marooned on the notoriously brutal Isle of Demons off the coast of Quebec after she infuriates her uncle by having an illicit affair with a young officer on board. Scottish privateer Alexander Selkirk tell his captain he won't get back on the leaky, worm-eaten state of their ship. Demanding to be left ashore on an uninhabited South Pacific is...

Escaping captivity, Spartacus and his army eventually reached over 100,000 former slaves, tearing across mainland Italy for two years and beating everything the Roman Republic could throw at them. Eventually they would be defeated by a man named Crassus, who would eventually go on to share power with Julius Caesar. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and w...

This week we come to the chilling story of Harold Fredrick Shipman. Over Dr. Shipman's 28ish year medical career, he treated thousands of patients. He also may have killed 250 of his patients. The uncertainty isn't because he may not have killed them. The uncertainty is because he may have killed many more. The case of Harold Shipman is a bit of a head scratcher. His early life and motivations see...

We start out with the Monroe Doctrine - the legal and political "rules" the U.S. used to claim dominance over Central America and the Caribbean. This set the stage for the rise of corporate giants like the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit, who grabbed so much control over land and labor that they literally controlled the operational infrastructure (ports, railways, communication)...