History Unplugged Podcast

Since the first successful flight of an airplane, people had imagined and dreamed of airplanes being used for combat. H. G. Wells's 1908 book (The War in the Air was an example. When World War One broke out, there were only about 1000 planes on all sides. Planes were very basic. Cockpits were open, instruments were rudimentary, and there were no navigational aids. Pilots had to use maps, which wer...

Russia had lost a great deal of territory to Germany and Austria in 1915, and they wanted to gain it back. Russian General Alexei Brusilov put together a plan in April 1916 to launch a major offensive against Austria. It ended up being Russia's greatest feat of arms during World War I, and among the most deadly military offensives in world history. Brusilov hoped to take pressure off France and Br...

This is a preview of an episode in a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Although overlooked today, the war at sea was a crucial part of World War I overall. The German use of the Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (in which non-military ships could be blown up by submarines without the latter surfacing, making it impossible for innocent men, women, and children to abandon ship) against commerce not only threatened the Allied war effort, but also drew the United States int...

The Battle of Verdun--fought from February 21-December 18 1916 in the Western Front of France--was horrifying and hellish even by the standards of World War One. Over a 299-day-period, there were 1 million total casualties. The French were bled white, but so were the Germans. Of these, 300,000 were killed, which is about 1 death for every minute of the battle. The French most likely lost slightly...

In 1915, the Central Powers and Allies dug in their heels and tried desperately to break the stalemate of the war, still hoping for a short conflict on the scale of a few months. Poison gas was used for the first time. Germans experimented with flamethrowers and armored shields, while the French began using hand grenades.  In April, Germans began the Second Battle of Ypres and used 168 tons of chl...

The Allies desperately wanted to take control of the Dardanelles (the straights connecting Constantinople with the Mediterranean). They were crucial to Russia and would make it possible for Russia to (in effect) have a warm-water port. The only problem is the Ottomans had controlled the Dardanelles for five centuries and were backed by Germany and the rest of the Central Powers. The Allies wanted...

This is a preview of an episode in a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Rats came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. A new officer joined the company and...when he turned in that night he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.” The scene that Captain Robert Graves described in his autobiography was common for that of many soldiers. There...

This episode is an overview of the profile of an average soldier in World War One. We will look at the backgrounds, training, and provisions allotted to troops in the British, French, German, Russian, and Ottoman armies. We will look at their lives in the trenches, which were with very few exceptions absolutely miserable. We will also look at the terrible experiences that they faced on the battlef...

The beginning of World War One was marked the breakdown of the western powers’ war plans. Leaders on both sides experienced surprises, shocks, and the failure of plans. The first few months saw shocking violence on a scale never experienced before, at least not in Western Europe. During the first few months of the war, an average of 15,000 lives were lost each day. (five times as much as the worst...

The Battle of Tannenberg was the first major battle of World War One, fought between Germany and Russia, who surprised everyone with its fast mobilization. This muddled the plans of Germany, which sought to quickly fight a two-front war against France and Russia, knock France out of the war, then focus its resources on Russia. The plan didn't work, but Germany issued a crushing blow against Russia...

This is a preview of an episode in a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An impossibly complex web of alliances that maintained a fragile peace in Europe (and surprisingly held it together since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815) always threatened to unravel. The 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, by Serbian nationalists, made Austria declare war on Serbia. A doomsday machine kicked into gear: Russia mobilized against...

World War One is the watershed moment in modern history. The Western World before it was one of aristocrats, empires, colonies, and optimism for a future of unending progress. After four years of hellish trench warfare, shell fire, 10 million combat deaths, and another 10 million civilian deaths, the world that emerged in 1918 was irrevocably changed. Nation-states came out of the rubble, along wi...

Next week James Early and Scott Rank will kick off their massive series called Key Battles of World War One. By the end, you'll know every aspect of the Great War, arguably the most horrific event in human history. History Unplugged also has a new Youtube channel. Go check it out to see live recordings of each new podcast episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Claims of India's fantastic wealth lead Europeans through the centuries to seek to trade with this fabled land, which existed on the far eastern reaches of known civilization. As far back as the 500s BC, Scylax of Caryanda, a Greek explorer sailed down the length of the Indus in the service of Darius. Later Alexander's troops passed through India, and many troops stayed behind, creating an incredi...

The American Revolution has received a burst of attention in the last two decades, with Pulitzer Prize-winning monographs from David McCullough and Ron Chernow (and the biggest Broadway musical in recent history, with Hamilton). But it’s come under attack as well, with historical revisionist projects like the New York Times 1619 Project, which says 1776 was a colossal mistake steeped in racism. To...

In 1939, as the Nazis closed in, Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to an American stranger who happened to share his last name. He and his wife, Viennese Jews, had found escape routes for their daughters. But now their money, connections, and emotional energy were nearly exhausted. Alfred begged the American recipient of the letter, “You are surely informed about the situation of all Jews in...

This is a preview of a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1453 was the most shocking year in Europe since the starting of the Bubonic Plague (1347), the beginning of the First Crusade (1095), or the crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800. Many called it the Year the Middle Ages ended. That’s because the Ottomans, an upstart empire less than two centuries removed from being a semi-nomadic chieftainship and vassal state of the Mongols, conque...

For George Washington, the “foreign” nation that posed the biggest threat to the survival of the infant United States wasn’t Britain, France, or Spain; it was the numerous Indian nations that still dominated large areas of the North American continent and threatened to destroy the fragile nation. Washington’s major goal as president was to secure the future of America and build the republic on Ind...

Did Hitler die in his bunker…or not? I’m talking with Robert J. Hutchinson today to explore what really happened to Hitler. He’s the author of the book What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler. According to official accounts and numerous eyewitnesses, the dictator of the Third Reich shot himself, loyal Nazis burned his body, and the bones were removed by the Russians. Yet, after WWII, 50 percent...

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor and geopolitical power. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans, with extraordinary military dominance and unparalleled monopolies over trade routes, controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New...

This is a preview of a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.