Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchBelisarius: The Greatest General the Emperor Feared
Episode 7367
Belisarius reconquered North Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain for the Byzantine Empire with armies too small for the task. Emperor Justinian rewarde…
3 days, 2 hours ago
Tecumseh: The Shawnee Leader Who Almost Redrew North America
Episode 7379
Tecumseh built the largest Native American military confederation since Pontiac, uniting tribes from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast against Americ…
3 days, 2 hours ago
Murray Gell-Mann: Quarks, Jaguars, and Billionaire Scandals
Episode 7384
Murray Gell-Mann predicted the existence of quarks and reorganized particle physics with the Eightfold Way, winning the Nobel Prize for his work on e…
3 days, 2 hours ago
Aeschylus: The Soldier-Playwright Who Invented Tragedy
Episode 7365
Aeschylus fought at Marathon and Salamis before writing the plays that created tragic drama as an art form. He valued his military service so highly …
3 days, 2 hours ago
Herodotus: The Father of History and the Father of Lies
Episode 7369
Herodotus wrote the first work of narrative history in the Western tradition, an account of the Greco-Persian Wars that mixed battlefield reporting w…
3 days, 2 hours ago
Euripides: The Playwright Who Humanized the Greek Hero
Episode 7372
Euripides won fewer prizes than Sophocles or Aeschylus, but his plays survived in greater numbers because later audiences preferred them. He gave tra…
3 days, 2 hours ago
Pompey the Great: The General Who Could Not Stop Breaking the Republic
Episode 7377
Pompey conquered the eastern Mediterranean, tripled Rome's revenue, and cleared the sea of pirates in three months. He was the most powerful man in t…
3 days, 2 hours ago
Ibn Khaldun: The Scholar Who Discovered the Cycle of Empires
Episode 7381
Ibn Khaldun served as a judge, a diplomat, and a political advisor across North Africa and the Middle East. In a mountain fortress in Algeria, he wro…
3 days, 2 hours ago
Al Pacino: How Hollywood's Greatest Actor Weaponized His Anxiety
Episode 7370
Al Pacino grew up in poverty in the South Bronx, dropped out of school at 17, and turned a lifetime of anxiety into the most intense performances in …
3 days, 2 hours ago
Charles Martel: The Warrior Who Became The Hammer of Europe
Episode 7371
Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad invasion force at the Battle of Tours in 732, a victory long credited with saving Christian Europe from Muslim co…
3 days, 2 hours ago