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WWII Operation Caesar
In February 1945, a brand-new German submarine slipped out of Norway bound for Japan, carrying jet engine parts, missile technology, two Japanese eng…
6 hours ago
The Julius Caesar Health Debate
In ancient Rome, a seizure during a public assembly could shut down the government — it was read as an omen from the gods. So what happens when the m…
1 day, 6 hours ago
Incident on Hill 192
In November 1966, five American soldiers set out on patrol in Vietnam's Central Highlands. Four of them kidnapped and murdered a young Vietnamese wom…
2 days, 6 hours ago
The House of Medici
Easter Mass, 1478. Assassins strike inside Florence's cathedral, and their targets are two brothers from a family of bankers. The plot has the backin…
3 days, 6 hours ago
Athens vs. Sparta: The Original Superpower Rivalry
At Thermopylae and Salamis, Sparta and Athens fought side by side and beat the largest empire on earth. Fifty years later, they spent twenty-seven ye…
4 days, 6 hours ago
Who Was the Real William Howard Taft? w/ Walter Stahr
William Howard Taft is the only person who has been both president and chief justice, and he is still usually filed under mediocre. He called his own…
5 days, 6 hours ago
When FDR Wanted Hoover to be President
In January 1920, Franklin Roosevelt wrote that Herbert Hoover was "certainly a wonder" — and that he wished "we could make him President." Before the…
6 days, 6 hours ago
How Baghdad Saved Ancient Greek Philosophy
Socrates never wrote a word. Most of Aristotle's polished writing is lost forever. And for six hundred years after Rome fell, Western Europe had bare…
1 week ago
The Third Tier: Theaters & Prostitutes
Look up from the stage of a big-city American theater in the 1830s and you'd see three levels of seats. The pit. The family boxes. And the third tier…
1 week, 1 day ago
The Home Remedies that Killed
For generations, nobody had to tell you what was in your medicine. Not the morphine in the syrup that quieted your teething baby. Not the arsenic in …
1 week, 2 days ago