Learn Spanish with Stories

Fine, right off the bat I'm cheating - Equatorial Guinea is NOT a Latin American country, I know... but it's also incredibly linked to the Spanish-speaking culture, and is a case study in itself of how colonization has entirely derailed the future of a nation in good ways and in bad. Equatorial Guinea has a curious story behind it. Unlike with Christopher Columbus's "serendipit...

Have you heard of the "War of the Pacific" before? Your mind will inevitably go to WWII, where the American soldiers fought the Japanese in an endless, bloody battle that culminated in the two atomic bombs being launched on Japan, but...  That's certainly NOT what this was. What I'm talking about today is the war that occurred between Chile and the alliance of Bolivia and Peru,...

On April 22, 1997, at 15:23, one of the world's most incredible military operations occurred on the planet, and you've probably never heard of it... Operation Chavín de Huántar was a surgical military operation that took place after the MRTA (a far left-wing guerrilla movement) took close to 800 hostages at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru. It was not just any operation, however, but o...

Few names of Venezuelan gangs and cartels have made as many headlines as El Tren de Aragua, especially in recent months. Named a terrorist organization by President Trump's administration and called "the most disruptive criminal organization operating nowadays in Latin America" by an esteemed Colombian former vice-president, this gang is among the most dangerous in the world. And th...

A wealthy and respected family... hiding dark secrets of kidnapping and murder behind the scenes. Nope, it's not your newest documentary on a streaming platform - this actually happened in Argentina in the 1980s, just after the right-wing state terrorism of Operation Condor, when a wide range of corrupt cops and torturers were left unemployed, and had to find another way to use their "ta...

Whenever you think of the Cuban Revolution, the first names that come to mind are Fidel and Raul Castro, and Che Guevara - right? But the amazing thing is that there is a name that should always equally appear alongside them, as one of the nicest and kind of the Cuban revolutionaries, who acted as a pacifying presence and kept everyone level-headed: Camilo Cienfuegos. And the most incredible part...

Neighbors, rivals, and sometimes even enemies: Argentina and Chile have long shared the tall but thin mountain range of the Andes as their border, many times coming close to blows over territorial differences, and long eyeing each other with distrust over their neighbor's plans. But both sides have their points to make, their truths, and their reasons to be as they are - and today we'll...

What happened at Jonestown, Guyana, is something that has spawned an immense number of books, movies, and even day-to-day phrases, but what it created the most were questions. The biggest of all: why were his followers so easily convinced to drink the Kool-Aid (literally)? And why didn't anyone see this coming? In this episode of the Learn Spanish with Stories podcast, we travel to a country...

Just over 10 years ago, on September 26, 2014, a tragedy occurred in Guerrero, Mexico. 43 students heading to a protest in the capital vanished off the face of the Earth — or actually, they were taken off the face of the Earth. But nobody knew where, and nobody seemed to know who had taken them. All there was, was a flimsy explanation that was quickly accepted as "the official truth" by...

Climatology might seem like it's been around forever, but it's actually one of the newer sciences. One of the fathers of this science was Alexander von Humboldt, who traveled to South America and Mexico with one goal in mind—to demystify the New World and illuminate how the so-called "primitive" natives really lived there. In an extended journey across several nations with his...

The U.S. has a shady history in Latin America - we all know this, as much as might love the United States. From the full-blown coups in Operation Condor to CIA involvement in protests, Latin America has often been relegated to becoming "the United States' back yard". But nothing is worse than what happened at the Bay of Pigs. You see, the invasion was planned and approved, and every...

Mexico has been through its fair share of injustice when it comes to foreign powers, and I'm not even talking of that time when they signed away 55% of its territory to the United States of America, but of something much more ridiculous. You see, in the 1830s, a small dispute over a local bakery turned into an international geopolitical conflict between Mexico and France, with bombings, embar...

Billionaires, whether you love them or hate them, have shaped a big part of the modern tech world, and are well-known for building some of the most impressive business ventures. Latin America, though not a Silicon Valley, has individuals who have amassed a large amount of their own wealth, whether through going big on a single startup or by patiently build their own empires. In this episode of the...

The Mayan Civilization has long been held in an air of mystery - we're familiar with how the infamous calendar made everybody think the world was ending in 2012, due to how accurately the Mayans had mapped out the cycles and astronomy in such a primitive time. But there is more to the Mayans than apocalyptical scenarios and astronomy. In fact, they were one of the most advanced early civiliza...

Belize is a country you rarely hear about, but we can promise you: it is actually one of the most interesting in all of Latin America. With possibly one of the most interesting and diverse mix of ethnicities and cultures, Belize stands out from other nations as Spanish is *not* an official language here.  So today, we will accompany our traveling friend, Eduardo, as he explores this amazing nation...

Simón Bolívar is known as the Liberator, and he rightly gained this title... but there is another, one who fought as hard as Bolivar but was nowhere near as recognized as the Venezuelan: José de San Martín. Born in Argentina and raised as a Spanish soldier who fought for the Spanish Empire, José de San Martín's eyes were opened to the human desire for freedom, and made it his personal goal no...

One of the creepiest tales to come out of Venezuela was that of Dorancel Vargas. A homeless man with severe mental issues who lived outside the city of San Cristobal, Vargas had a fascination that no human should have... He enjoyed eating human meat. And the ugliest thing of it all isn't that he just feasted on the meat, but the fact that he hunted people down like game, taking special advant...

Latin America is beautiful, but it's also dangerous, and I'm not talking about the wildlife here... Holding 6 spots in the top 10 crimes rates worldwide, this region has unfortunately been one of the most deadly in recent decades, and its people have lived in fear of violent crime and terrorism for too long. And with organizations such as the FARC and ELN, FMLN, the US-backed Contras, Se...

We've given Mexico some love in recent times, after Season 3's finale "Te Amo, México" - and today is no exception. In fact, today we'll talk about how Mexico's modern political structure came to exist. The nation wasn't always a stable democracy (well, depending on who you ask these days). It has had its up and downs, and its downs have been preeetty low. With m...

Do you love chocolate as much as we do (and if you don't, WHY)? Well, in that case, you might be curious as to how we ended up having this delicious sweet all across the world, on every continent. And yes, that includes Antarctica. Born in the heart of Mesoamerica and originally consumed by the Olmecs, Mayas and Aztecs, cacao (the precursor of chocolate) was discovered by Spanish conquistador...

Have you ever seen flowers in the desert? One of the most curious climate phenomena worldwide is El Niño, which is the irregular warming of sea surface temperatures, which leads to a cascade of effects on weather patterns and ecosystems. In this episode, we talk about what it involves, how it affects the lives of animals and human beings in Latin America, and what is being done to lessen its effec...

Welcome back to the Learn Spanish with Stories podcast, this time for a fourth season! We've returned with a pretty interesting episode about something that isn't talked about enough... Latin America's Space Race! I bet you know the U.S., the EU, China, India and the Soviet Union (back in the day) had all built amazing missions to space, but Latin America doesn't often come to...

It's the final episode of Season 3, so let's admit it: we haven't been fair with Mexico during our podcast's lifetime. Yes, we've talked about the Aztecs, but we've also talked a lot about the border issues, El Chapo, and other negative circumstances in the beautiful country of "El Águila Real" (the Royal Eagle). But it's time to redeem ourselves. In th...

Do you like tea? Sure, maybe. But have you ever tried (or seen someone else try) yerba mate?  Mate goes beyond just a drink. It goes beyond the English tea time or that of other cultures. It's something which is almost... spiritual, you know? Having started as a tradition among the Guarani people and then adopted by Spanish colonizers, this drink has spread across the world and is now seen co...

You know of the Panama Canal (we already talked about it in Season 1 if you didn't), but you probably had no idea that a second canal has been in plans for a very, very long time now - one that passes through Nicaragua (that's north of Panama). But the delays haven't just been a problem of bureaucracy and budget... the canal would actually have to pass through a delicate natural res...