Badass of the Week

This week, Ben and Pat discuss the fantastical life of Heinrich Schliemann. His life was full of far travels, great riches, bold lies, and even bolder thievery. What was real about the man and what was his own imagination?  Perhaps one of the founding father's of archeology, he discovered the ancient city of Troy, and then sort of blew it up.  A badass at the time, in retrospect, a bit of a mixed...

Every now and then, the sequel is better than the original. In today's episode, Ben and Pat discuss just one of those rare occasions. In fact, Ramesses II was so badass, they made Ramesses III through X. Tune in to find out why! And if you're enjoying the podcast, be sure to tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell the weird dude at work who looks like he's up to something shady. And be sure to...

Today Ben and Pat tell the story of the 396th Infantry Regiment - an all African American unit that spent 191 days in combat in WWI, more than any other unit, they fought so ferociously, the Germans called them the "Hollenkampfer" aka Hellfighters. Tune in to find to hear more... And if you're enjoying the show, tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell your mom and leave us a rating and a commen...

This week Ben and Pat dive into the story behind the scientist - Marie Curie - the first woman to win the Nobel prize. From the battlefield to the laboratory, she put herself in harm's way (dodging bullets and not really dodging gamma rays) to make the world a better place. Her work led to chemotherapy and also nuclear weapons. Listen now! And if you're enjoying the show, rate us, leave a comment,...

In today's ep, Ben and Pat discuss Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Haitian Hero. Born a slave, L'Ouverture eventually turned into rebel and later a leader, in the Haitian Revolution before eventually becoming the Govenor-General of the whole island. He beat the French, the Spanish and even British, while liberating his people. Not too shabby.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn...

In today's episode Ben and Pat pull from the world of Norse legend a vengeful, pitiless necromancer sorceress. We're talking bear massacres, viking zombies (hell yeah!) and general epic bloody battles. Even her name is awesome: Skuld!   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

King Naresuan was a badass warlord who, while he was the reigning King of Thailand, won freedom for his people and fought off a foreign invasion by battling a tyrannical enemy king in a swordfight fought on the back of two rampaging elephants. That's right, an elephant duel with swords.  And if you liked this and or previous episodes, tell your friends, tell your enemies, give us a rating and defi...

The A-10 Warthog is a big, slow, heavily armed flying machine equipped with enough explosives to blast the Moon into about eight billion tiny inedible cheese wheels. And Ben and Pat are going to chat all about it today. But also, one it's more famous pilot's Kim Campbell who flew the warthog over Iraq in the early 2000's.  If you liked this episode, please rate us, leave a comment, and share this...

Happy new year! In 2024 we're going to be rolling out some new fun things. Today we wanted to give you a preview of one of them: Bonus episodes. We'll be rolling these out occasionally to deliver fun stories that don't quite fit into the regular Badass of the Week mold.  Take a listen. And if you're reading this: scroll on down and like, rate and share this show with your friends!  See omnystudio....

Klondike Joe Boyle was a Yukon Lumberjack Commando Secret Agent who managed a Stanley Cup hockey team, outfitted a World War I machine gun company, received astronomically high military honors from England, Canada, France, Romania, and Russia, stole the Romanian crown jewels from a vault in Moscow, hijacked a train, probably romanced European royalty, and once fought a shark in hand-to-hand combat...

One of the most colorful and hilariously-narcissistic figures in all of history, Alcibiades was a hard-partying, self-obsessed Athenian nobleman who caused mischief anywhere he went, shifted alliances as it suited him, and routinely found himself fleeing from people who wanted to murder him. But he also happened to be a genius military commander who won huge battles in the Peloponnesian War... whi...

In this episode Ben and Pat dive into the story of Abdel Kader Haidara and his librarians who, in 2011, formed a secret plot to smuggle hundreds of thousands of ancient and priceless books and texts out of Timbuktu and away from the book-burning jerkwads known as Al Qaeda.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tsar Peter Romanov was a strong leader who overcame difficult odds to seize the throne of Russia, then forge his dominion into a dominant Empire that became a powerful force in European politics for years to come, but he was also possibly the hardest-partying world leader in all of human history. Ben and Pat discuss Peter the Great's lifelong fight... for the right... to party! See omnystudio.com/...

Colonel Jack Churchill was a British military Commando who went into World War II armed with a claymore sword, an English longbow, and a set of bagpipes, and led all his cover special ops operations by pointing his sword at the enemy and screaming the word "COMMMMANNDOOOOO!!!!" as loudly as possible. He was a model, an actor, a war hero, and a world-traveling adventurer who fought the Nazis with w...

The Father of All Turks, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a revolutionary, a hardcore military commander, a bulwark against Fascism, a reformer, a humanitarian, and a man who worked to rebuild bridges with the peoples he had warred against. The United Nations declared him a humanitarian hero, the Australians built a statue for him even though he'd fought against them in war, and it's actually illegal in...

If you're not familiar with the mythology of ancient Mongolia, strap in for this one. Pat recounts one of the great stories from the epic Jangar Cycle of heroic myths, a series of bone-crushing sagas detailing the exploits and adventures of the Kalmyk peoples. In this story, Scarlet Lion Khongor single-handedly attempts to avenge the honor of his Lord against the massive unyielding armies of Khan...

If you are in to badass swordfights, debauchery, classical music, big fancy hats, and a couple unlikely heroes face-stabbing their way to success against seemingly-impossible odds, then this is the episode for you. Julie D'Aubigny and Joseph Boulogne -- better known as La Maupin and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges to the adoring hordes of onlookers cheering them on in battle and on the musical stag...

Ben and Pat are joined on a special Halloween episode by Tani Caesar (Unhinged History) to talk about a couple of infamous (and spoooooky) Eastern European nobles -- Elizabeth Bathory, the terrifying Blood Countess of Hungary, and th equally-notorious Vlad III of Wallachia, better known outside of his native Romania as Vlad the Impaler (or, if you prefer, Vlad Dracula). This one is going to be gru...

Ben and Pat discuss two warrior queens from the fringes of the Roman Empire who stood against impossible odds and defied the Caesars with their military might: Amaniraneas, the Kandake of Sudan, who led war elephants into battle against the armies of Emperor Augustus; and Zenobia, a Syrian Queen who conquered Roman Egypt and squared off against the legions of Aurelian. See omnystudio.com/listener...

Two of Imperial Rome's most infamous women come together for this episode, as Pat and Ben discuss Locusta the Poisoner -- perhaps the most prolific and deadliest assassin of the Ancient World -- and the woman who gave her the majority of her most notorious missions: Julia Agrippina. Caligula's sister. Nero's mom. If you like political intrigues, murder mystery, amateur botany, cutthroat diplomacy,...

St. Olha of Kyiv was a Viking Warrior Princess who unleashed a dump truck of bloody vengeance on all who opposed her, cleansed the countryside of her enemies in a sea of unquenchable flames, conquered hordes of vicious barbarians, pissed off a Byzantine Emperor so hard he kicked her out of Constantinople, successfully outwitted two foreign kings who tried to marry her, saved her people during in t...

This week we talk about America's most badass president! Professor Greg Jackson of History That Doesn't Suck joins the show to talk about the rough-riding cowboy, amateur boxer, former NYPD commissioner, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Medal of Honor Recipient who once declared war on Spain without any authority to do so and once gave an 80-minute campaign speech with a .38 caliber bullet in his c...

America's most famous commander from the Second World War, "Old Blood and Guts" was a bombastic leader who fought hard, swore harder, and thought that defending his flanks was for cowards and losers. We follow the complicated, intense, and action-packed life of George S. Patton from an Olympic athlete to his adventures fighting Pancho Villa, to his career as one of America's founding fathers of ar...

Born in an Ottoman prison and raised on the high seas, 19th century Greek revolutionary admiral Laskarina Boubolina build a shipping empire that spanned the Mediterranean, defended it against pirates, rival companies, and corrupt politicians, and then led a fleet of warships into battle to liberate her country from Ottoman rule. In this episode, Ben and Pat talk about the Greek heroine, her role i...

In part 2, Pat and Ben continue the story of Miyamoto Musashi, who has now drawn the rage of the Yoshioka Clan of sword instructors. They swear vengeance upon the strange wandering ronin, set a trap for him, and hope to ensnare Feudal Japan's greatest swordsman in a massive ambush. Musashi may be a peerless fighter, without equal, but with the enemy outnumbering him so heavily, it will be a strugg...