Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchHans Christian Andersen: Poverty, Heartbreak, and the Real Ugly Duckling
Episode 11816
When Hans Christian Andersen died in 1875, those preparing his body found a pouch over his heart containing a letter from a woman who had rejected hi…
19 hours ago
Li Bai: The Drunken Swordsman Poet of Tang Dynasty China
Episode 11815
The legend says he drowned reaching for the moon's reflection in the Yangtze River. The truth is far wilder. This deep dive uncovers the real life of…
19 hours ago
Lewis Carroll: The Rigid Mathematician Behind Alice in Wonderland
Episode 11814
The creator of the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts was not a wild bohemian but a deeply conservative Oxford mathematics lecture…
19 hours ago
Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy: Exile, Revenge, and Redemption
Episode 11813
Imagine losing your home, your political power, your money, and your reputation overnight, and being told you will be burned at the stake if you ever…
19 hours ago
Charles Darwin: The Seasick Dropout Who Discovered Natural Selection
Episode 11812
Before he became the bearded face of biology, Charles Darwin was a twenty-something medical school dropout who fainted at the sight of blood and spen…
19 hours ago
C.S. Lewis: From Cynical Atheist to Wartime Voice of Faith
Episode 11811
The architect of one of history's most beloved Christian fantasy realms spent his formative years as a fiercely cynical atheist who resented a God he…
19 hours ago
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Aristocrat Turned Radical Outcast and Poet
Episode 11810
On an Italian beach in the summer of 1822, a group of famous writers cremated their 29-year-old friend, whose decomposed body had washed ashore after…
19 hours ago
The Count of Monte Cristo: The Real Revenge Plot Behind Dumas's Epic
Episode 11809
In the archives of the Paris police, a file compiled by archivist Jacques Peuchet in 1838 contains an 1807 report about a shoemaker from Nîmes named …
19 hours ago
Alexandre Dumas: Revolutionary, Serial Novelist, and Spendthrift
Episode 11808
At a glittering Parisian gathering, a man publicly mocked Alexandre Dumas's mixed-race heritage, and the writer responded that his family started whe…
19 hours ago
Sun Tzu and The Art of War: History, Myth, and the 1972 Discovery
Episode 11807
The most famous military strategy book in human history, studied by four-star generals and corporate titans, opens with a plea to do everything possi…
19 hours ago