Putschcast

It wasn't just a war of independence, it was a civil war, a bloodbath, and the blueprint for modern nationalism all rolled into one. The Greek Revolution of the 1820s reshaped Europe, but the real story is darker and more complicated than the heroic tales suggest. We chat with Dr. Michalis Sotiropoulos, historian of modern Europe, author of Liberalism after the Revolution . We ask: was there...

He was a hot-dog seller who became a warlord. A convicted criminal who commanded the world's most feared mercenary army, the Wagner Group. And then he did what no one had dared since the Soviet collapse: he pointed Russian tanks at Moscow and took a swing at the Kremlin. On this episode, we sit down with Mark Galeotti, a leading expert on Russian security and organised crime, and co-author of...

In the early 20th century, Mexico was a playground for a dictator, foreign corporations and a tiny elite while millions of peasants lived in desperate poverty. In this Putschcast episode, we ride into the chaos of the Mexican Revolution . Joining us is Dr Robert Weis , an expert on modern Mexico, who walks us through the long collapse of Porfirio Díaz's regime and the revolutionaries who trie...

How could a city break away from its own country to try and build a radical, democratic utopia from scratch? In the middle of a war with a foreign power. In the spring of 1871, Paris did exactly that. Amidst the chaos and starvation of the Franco-Prussian War, the working class rose up to establish the Paris Commune, a revolutionary experiment that lasted just 72 days before being crushed in a sea...

What happens when a dead Pope is dug up, dressed in vestments, and put on trial by his living successor? A necrophilic coup? Yes, this story is true and Steve Guerra from The History of the Papacy podcast joins Putschcast to unpack the Cadaver Synod of 897 AD, the single most bizarre chapter in Rome's history. Steve walks us through the grisly scene: Pope Stephen VI exhumes his dead predecess...

111 years after the Armenian Genocide, we provide context around the turbulent years that lead up to the massacres and the subsuquent fall of the Ottoman Empire.  In this episode, historian Professor Adrian Jones and political scientist Dr Tezcan Gümüş dismantle the narrative of the "Sick Man of Europe" to explore the empire's desperate gamble on the world stage at the start of the...

Exactly thirty years ago, a single Russian missile strike, guided by his satellite phone, ended the life of former Soviet General turned rebel leader, Dzhokhar Dudayev. For five years, he had been in charge of a tiny speck of land in Russia's deep south called Chechnya. His fellow Caucasian mountain rebels put up a fight against the once-mighty Red Army that humiliated Boris Yeltsin in the Kr...

Western media calls Hezbollah a terrorist group and leaves it at that. This Putschcast episode does something more: it shows how the organisation governs; terrorising its own people while supporting others. Journalist Dr Rami Aycha offers an inside look at Hassan Nasrallah – his rise, 30-year reign, and brutal death by Israeli forces. Aycha's connection is deeply personal: his father was Nasr...

John the Baptist was not just a prophet and religious firebrand; he was also a political revolutionary, according to the Bible. He took on the Roman client King Herod Antipas and called for more equality while challenging the status quo, immoral behaviour, and hypocritical religious leaders. However, what was his relationship and connection to Jesus Christ? Was he merely the forerunner, or was he...

The Haitian Revolution is the only successful slave revolt that birthed a free republic. Professor Nicolai von Eggers brings a crucial perspective to understanding the revolution not just as a military event, but as a profound political upheaval in the colony of Saint-Domingue, which at the time, was the world's most profitable colony. We unpack the radical ideas of former slave and revolutio...

He was once hailed as the "Kaiser of Peace." By 1918, his empire lay in ruins, and millions had died in vain. To avert a "Russian scenario" like the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Germany's military dictatorship under Hindenburg and Ludendorff made a desperate, calculated move: they handed power to civilians to seek peace. We trace the sailors' mutiny in Kiel and the Kais...

In August 1831, Nat Turner , an enslaved preacher, acted on visions he believed were divine. The uprising he led in Virginia, is often remembered in stark terms: a bloody slave rebellion that hardened the South’s defenses of slavery. But the true story of how his story was told during the past two centuries, is far more complex. Was Nat Turner's faith a source of personal liberation, a strate...

Five hundred years ago, a radical firebrand emerged to take Martin Luther's Reformation in a far more dangerous direction. While Luther preached spiritual reform, Thomas Müntzer demanded a heaven on earth, fusing scripture with revolution and arming the peasantry against the feudal lords. On Putschcast , we trace this rivalry from the theological schism to the bloody Peasants' War of 152...

The Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been captured, not while on a state visit abroad, but at his own stronghold in Caracas. While the US President opted for a sudden military operation, regime change was not the ultimate goal. So, was it a putsch from abroad and how did people on the streets respond? After years of economic strife, international sanctions, and a divided opposition, the cou...

At Putschcast, we can’t cover all the riots, rebellions, and revolutions that occurred over the past 12 months, plus we have only launched this global podcast in the second half of 2025. Accordingly, in a special episode, all four co-hosts gather in the Putschcast interrogation room to share a coup that, they insist, people need to know about.  Dave: South Korea - President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted...

In 1980, Türkiye was teetering on the brink of civil war amid relentless political violence and economic decline. To end the chaos, the military, led by General Kenan Evren, seized power in a coup that surprised no one. The move was swiftly endorsed by Washington, preoccupied with Cold War priorities. But was this a necessary reset or a disaster for Turkish democracy, and why did the U.S. greenlig...

Initially predicted to fall during the 2011 Arab Spring, Bashar al-Assad clung to power through a devastating civil war, surviving only after critical military intervention from Russia and Iran. It was in the midst of this conflict that Australian journalist Luke Waters secured a rare one-on-one interview with the President in Damascus. On this episode of Putschcast, Luke reflects on that historic...

He was a prince, an outlaw, a prophet. Or was he? He stood before the most powerful ruler on Earth and delivered a single, thunderous demand: "Let my people go!"  Long before Spartacus, Moses led a slave revolt that children still learn about today, and it is a foundational story for the Jewish faith and the State of Israel. Was Moses more than a biblical hero? Was he, in fact, one of th...

After the gruesome end of World War II and in a city filled with rubble, a disciple of Stalin built a fortress. He was the goateed architect of German Socialism who made it onto the cover of Time magazine and who didn’t shy away from setting up one of the most rigid police states to cement his power. His name? Walter Ulbricht. Now almost forgotten, Ulbricht rose to power and faced an uprising only...

From most-wanted terrorist and enemy No. 1, with a US$10 million bounty on his head, to a respected statesman giving a historic speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has defied the odds and made a name for himself in only 11 days, after setting out from his mini state in Idlib to bring down the dreaded Assad regime, follow...

Putschcast is here! Keep your bayonets and guillotines sharpened as we explore current and historic coups and revolutions on a new global podcast.  Each episode will focus on a unique event in history where power changed hands for better or worse, suddenly or through a long decline. We will get to meet powerful dictators, revolutionary protagonists, and unsung heroes who shaped history across the...