History Go Time!

Why do you keep hearing the term "Thucydides Trap"? Here's why. Short answer: Smart Dude (Thucydides) talks about the nature of empire (Peloponnesian War) and why it inevitably leads to people dying (current global power shift). I think we'd all like to stop living through history, but what are you gonna do?

For this Anzac Day special we explore the underrated story of Australia's only Navy Victoria Cross recipient - Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean and how he not only fought until his last breath, he fought well past it.

Why do Americans put cheese on everything? In the tapestry of history it begins with Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot arbitrarily drawing lines on a map at the end of WW1. You wanted a show about an economic crisis caused by a criminal Republican president of the USA fighting a war in the Middle East, you really should have specified which crime/president/war/Middle East.

The BBC rather audaciously called the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor "without precedent." History knows better. Enough people asked that I made a show, enjoy.

This was a mandatory subject when I went to high school, so I didn't think I needed to cover it. Boy, was I wrong. So here's how the Nazis came to power. You're supposed to stop it from happening again.

Do you want to know what a bonus show sounds like? Merry Christmas! This is about the weird origins of April Fool's Day, but surprisingly you can't explore that without going into Christmas and New Year's, they're all the same magical animal. By the way, do you know why New Year's Day is always exactly a week after Christmas? Have fun with that.

This is old enough that you've probably forgotten it. Tonight (December 5th) is Krampusnacht. Which means that it's the only time of the year when I'm justified in reseeding this show about Krampus, the terrifying German Christmas monster.

The slapstick tragedy that is the Gunpowder Plot, one of the dumbest things that has ever happened.

So it turns out that to talk about the Gunpowder Plot, you need to do over an hour of stuff to lay the groundwork for the Gunpowder Plot. In the beginning...in 1517 Martin Luther staples an essay to a church, leading to millions of deaths for dumb reasons. These are those reasons.

You all know there's no such thing as curses. Sure. You all know there's no such thing as the Curse of the Pharaoh. But you may not know just how brazen the lie is.

It's part of the history podcasting contract that you have to cover this topic eventually, so here you go, the infamous "Murder in the Cathedral."

If you're not familiar with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire then you're probably not expecting the Guy Ritchie level of dark comedy that actually happened. Or the sheer volume of craziness involved. Whatever level of crazy you're thinking, double it and add 30, like you're doing a fahrenheit conversion.

My favourite episode of The Simpsons is packed with a lot of very niche political references. Here's why it's so funny. Also, it's always worth exploring how everything is Ronald Reagan's fault. Because it is.

"The history of popes is too boring." Is it? A pope goes to war with Germany because he had too much sex, there's a skeleton lawyer, two - TWO - wizards, and a little something called THE JOUST OF WHORES!

Why do people seem to think that the library of Alexandria was the only library in the ancient world?

In 1938 the German pharmaceutical company Temmler patented the drug Pervitin. In 1939 the Germans conquered…a lot of places. These two events may be linked. We do all of that to get to the story of Aimo Koivunen, the Finnish soldier who makes John Belushi look like Jim Belushi.

The infamous story about Horus and Set. You asked for this. I cannot stress enough - you asked for this. This was originally a bonus show for Medicis, but now everyone gets to suffer psychic damage.

You wanted it, be careful what you wish for. Pointing out all of the historical inaccuracies in Gladiator 2 actually took twice as long as Gladiator 2.

The song isn't problematic, the interpretation is. Here's why we shouldn't judge the past by the mores of today. I promise this is the last 'people are being wrong on the internet' for a while.

Most of what you read on the internet is false. Not this, of course, but other things. Here's why every time you see 'did you know that word came from an acronym' is always wrong.

Cambyses, son of Cyrus, goes a little bit insane. Bardiya, other son of Cyrus, gets eaten by an evil wizard. Darius, future emperor of Persia, finds interesting uses for horses. That's as much as the censors will let me say.

I try not to do Halloween but you keep dragging me back in. This one is from the paid archives, now everyone can have a taste. It's about Victorian era crazy, urban legends, the Duke of Wellington, and the origin of the term 'painting the town red.'

One of my favourite shows from years ago disappeared off the internet, probably due to wizards. Instead of simply uploading it again, I decided to redo the whole thing from the ground up. Which is possibly why it's two shows now. This is all about the Achaemenid Persian Empire. We look at how advanced they were, how awesome Cyrus was, and somehow once again manage to find a way to disrespect Spart...

In honour of International Talk Like A Pirate Day we explore why pirates didn't actually sound like that, and also how, technically, every day is Talk Like A Pirate Day

I didn't know why jacks in a deck of cards were jacks. Join me for a tumble down the rabbit hole. The other hour is a bunch of random history stuff you'll probably enjoy, loosely bound by this flimsy conceit.