Grimdark History

Inspired by the TV miniseries and novel, Pillars of Earth by Ken Follet today's episode looks at the real history surround a period of time in English history known as The Anarchy. A 20 year long civil war between the grandchildren of William the Conqueror over the throne of England. Rightful ruler of England, Empress Matilda lands in England with a force of no more than a few hundred initial supp...

Covering the series of events the leads to the tinderbox of French life that enables the French Revolution. From the day-to-day life of the hundreds of thousands of peasants and migrant workers, their meagre subsistence living, to the nobility and growing bourgeois middle class and court of Versailles that has slow turned the French government at every level into a plutocracy able to be bought and...

From 1764-1767 the Gévaudan region of France was terrorized as a supernatural animal attacked and killed over 100 women and children with dozens more who were attacked but survived. The attacks were especially horrific with several decapitations reported or throats torn out. The rumours swirled of a supernatural wolf or strange hybrid beast stalking the area. Multiple professional hunters organize...

From 1910-1919 New Orleans would undergo a period of rapid social change. WWI would break out, Prohibition was just around the corner. The Spanish Flu was ravaging the country. And, the famed Storyville would be shut down causing an exodus of jazz musicians to the famed Second City of jazz, Chicago. Through this turbulent era of increasing mob violence, increasing prohibition era political activit...

In 208 CE Septimius Severus travelled with his legions, and a massive entourage of as he travelled to Britain to conquer Caledonia. Through the course of his campaign many Roman forts settlements along his path were fortified and, at least temporarily, blessed with the Imperial court as it moved through what is now Carlisle in England. 1800 years later flooding in the region revealed a rich legacy...

In the late 1890’s a well-dressed man from Mississippi on the run from the law moves into New Orleans under the name of Robert Charles. By all accounts he’s a well-groomed and well-spoken man who enjoys a well fitted suit, and bowler hat. One evening he and his friend are approached by police officers. As the officers and Robert get into a scuffle, Robert is shot, but escapes returning to his home...

In the wake of the death of Chief of Police Hennessy the mayor and the city council form a special unit to govern the investigation and arrests of suspects. Venting a racial hatred on the Italian Quarter of New Orleans a 6-month long dragnet descends on the city culminating in over 100 arrests and 20 suspects charged. The trial quickly turns into a circus as both prosecution and defense are accuse...

The history of Storyville, and jazz has its roots in New Orleans, and America’s struggle for virtue and racial division. Post Reconstruction New Orleans is a city of corrupt officials, poorly managed government, and the virtues and ideas of Spanish/French identities clashing with the incoming protestant elites of the Temprance Movement.   This episode goes into the era that Vampire Chronicles...

With the unexpected death of Aurelian and no designated heirs to the empire Rome suffers a number of emperors in quick succession with several only lasting months to a few short years. Looking like the Roman Empire might fracture yet again except for a shrewd officer named Diocletian who through good fortune and good planning is able to wrest the control of the empire and enforce stability upon it...

In 260 CE the fortunes of the Roman Empire are at the worst they could ever be. In a matter of months the Empire has shrunk to a third the size, the senior Emperor Valerian is a prisoner of the Persians, and most of the treasury has been lost during Valerian’s defeat and the subsequent declaration of one of Valerian’s generals (Macrianus) of his own candidacy as new Emperor.   Macrianus raise...

In 200 CE the Roman Empire is at the tale end of a period of relative internal peace and stability across the empire known as the Pax Romana. No one could imagine that within 30 years the empire would begin to crumble with almost nightmarish speed.   The first non-Roman emperor, Maximinus finds his moment at the very pinnacle of Roman power by virtue of the Edict of Caracalla which only a few...

In 110 CE Pliny the Younger is appointed governor of the Roman province of Pontus-Bithynia. Within just a few months of starting the job he uncovers a community of Christians, some of which are executed. This just scratches the surface of a much more pervasive spread of the strange religion as more and more Christians are uncovered, either through anonymous accusations or as a result of torture. P...

In 66 CE a nobody, and minor priest by the name of Eleazar stood up to the oppression of Rome and declared “No more” in the bloodiest way imaginable. Sending a message to Rome that would have devastating effects on the nation of people who lived in Judea.     Yoseph ben Matityahu (better known to us as Flavius Josephus) is likewise a minor priest, but of noble birth. Sent to defend the n...

“What Caesar wants, Caesar gets”. Famous words that would change history forever in 66 CE. Since the start of Roman intervention (and then later rule) in Judea there’s been a sense of unfinished business so to speak. The culture shocks that have been happening over the last 200 years still have not fully resolved themselves. Those events that had taken the form of violence against some communities...

In Episode Two of our series, we dive deep into the story of the Maccabee family. Beginning with Mattathias and his sons daring murder of Seleucid government officials and following through the revolt first with Judas Maccabeus and his gorilla war, and later all out war for independence with Judas’ brother Simon.   A vicious cycle of power struggles take place that rock the Judean countryside...

Getting at the heart of the first Jewish Roman Revolt war in 66 CE has a long history attached to it. Working my way backwards through time using the works of Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus as my literary sources raised more questions than answers. I found myself tugging on the threads of history and going all the way back almost 200 years in time to Modin Mattathias and his 5 sons who triggere...

Having just broken 10,000 downloads after only a year in running I thought it appropriate to mark the moment with a thank you episode. Since this milestone happened to coincide with almost exactly 1 year to the day of launching the podcast I thought I would commemorate the moment with a year in review of what was looked at, why we looked at it. Next up looking at the last two topics for Season 1 a...

After the death of Darius III and Bessus, Alexander is without a doubt king of the former Persian Empire. He’s left staring at huge chunks of former Persian provinces now declared independence standing between him and mysterious India, birthplace of his distant half brother Dionysus and rumoured tomb of Hercules laying somewhere in foreboding mountains.   As Alexander begins the conquest of w...

After the Battle of Issus Alexander conquered the bread basket of the Persian Empire (Egypt). Founding the city of Alexandria, and one of the Wonders of the Ancient World (the lighthouse of Alexandria, or the Pharos as it was known). While in Egypt Alexander got his first taste of what it was like to be worshiped and acknowledged as a god. After receiving some miraculously huge and clear salt crys...

After the assassination of Philip, Alexander faced a demanding and tense succession crisis. Forced to kill of a rival heir, opposing generals, and then put down rebellions against Macedonian rule in Thrace and mainland Greece, Alexander spent the first two years of his reign consolidating his power and control over the kingdom and alliances his father had built. The sack and destruction of Thebes...

The Hecatomb is a large scale sacrifice of cattle, bulls, or oxen to the gods of Greece. Nominally this means 100 animals to be sacrificed but it could easily have just meant a large scale sacrifice of perhaps several dozen. It would have been performed only at extreme or momentous occasions. The religious experience was an extremely important part of life of the everyday Greek world. Divine force...

Kicking off our series on Alexander the Great we look at previous 150 years of Greece; the Greco-Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, the Corinthian Wars, Philip of Macedon's Conquest, the Empire of Athens, the conflict between Athens and Sparta and the life of Philip of Macedon. Philip was a fascinating political figure, as much Persian as Greek, as much conqueror as politician, an innovator far...

Trailer episode to whet your whistle for our upcoming series on Alexander the Great, his mother, his father, the Greco-Persian Wars, the Corinthian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, and of course Alexander's conquest of Persia, Egypt and Northern India. We want to look deeper into his motivations past the technical details of his battles that have been covered thousands of times over in other podcasts...

This is a bonus episode that just talks about the approach and process I take to tackling a particular topic, specifically our upcoming podcast series on Alexander the Great. If you're a fan of the show you might have wondered about how I even go about building a podcast series on a particular person, time or place. This process is the topic of this meta episode discussing researching and building...

This Part 3 of a three Part Series exploring the destruction of the Tower of Babylon in Mesopotamia (Modern Day Iraq). In this episode we explore the rise of the Assyrian Kingdom to power within Mesopotamia, the Bronze Age Collapse. Next we review what the tower of Babylon looked like based on existing accounts, and finally explore the text of the Warhammer 40K universe and see how close that text...