Podcast Episodes
Back to Search7194: Rimsky-Korsakov — The Naval Officer Who Became Russia's Greatest Orchestrator | pplpod
Episode 7194
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was a naval cadet who composed a symphony while sailing around the world, despite having almost no formal musical training. H…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7191: Domenico Scarlatti — How Spain Transformed a Baroque Italian into a Genius | pplpod
Episode 7191
Domenico Scarlatti spent the first half of his career in his father's shadow, writing competent Italian operas that no one remembers. Then he moved t…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7190: Stephen King — The Real Monsters Behind America's Master of Horror | pplpod
Episode 7190
Stephen King has sold over 350 million books by writing about monsters, but the real horrors in his work come from alcoholism, domestic violence, iso…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7195: B.B. King — The Man Who Made Lucille Sing and the Blues Weep | pplpod
Episode 7195
B.B. King named his guitar Lucille after nearly dying in a fire caused by two men fighting over a woman by that name. He played her every night for t…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7192: H.P. Lovecraft — The Tragic Recluse Who Created Cosmic Horror | pplpod
Episode 7192
H.P. Lovecraft died in poverty at forty-six, unknown outside a small circle of pulp magazine readers. Today his invented mythology — Cthulhu, Arkham,…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7188: Samuel Johnson — The Man Who Defined the English Language Alone | pplpod
Episode 7188
Samuel Johnson spent nine years compiling a dictionary of the English language almost entirely by himself. The French Academy needed forty scholars a…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7189: Isaac Asimov — The Paradoxical Life of Science Fiction's Greatest Mind | pplpod
Episode 7189
Isaac Asimov wrote or edited over 500 books spanning nearly every category of the Dewey Decimal System. He was terrified of flying, never learned to …
5 days, 6 hours ago
7187: Bob Marley — The Bullet Scars Behind the World's Most Famous Smile | pplpod
Episode 7187
Two days before a peace concert in Kingston, gunmen burst into Bob Marley's home and shot him, his wife, and his manager. He performed the concert an…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7186: The Blues Giant Who Traded Ledgers for Licks | pplpod
Episode 7186
Before the stage lights and the wailing guitar, there was an accounting textbook. One of the blues' greatest figures started with plans for a respect…
5 days, 6 hours ago
7185: W.B. Yeats — The Bizarre Afterlife of Ireland's Greatest Poet | pplpod
Episode 7185
W.B. Yeats won the Nobel Prize, led the Irish Literary Revival, and wrote some of the most quoted poetry in the English language. Then he died in Fra…
5 days, 6 hours ago