Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchPyotr Tchaikovsky: The Private Agony Behind Swan Lake and the 1812 Overture
Episode 6837
Pyotr Tchaikovsky composed some of the most emotionally overwhelming music ever written — Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture — while living…
1 week, 2 days ago
Malcolm X: The Radical Reinventions of America's Most Misunderstood Civil Rights Leader
Episode 6839
Malcolm X reinvented himself more completely than almost any public figure in American history. He went from street criminal to Nation of Islam minis…
1 week, 2 days ago
Pele: The Real Man Behind the Myth of Football's Greatest Player
Episode 6840
Pele scored over a thousand goals, won three World Cups, and became the most famous athlete on the planet. But the man behind the perfect smile was m…
1 week, 2 days ago
Walt Disney: The Private Obsessions Behind the Magic Kingdom
Episode 6838
Walt Disney built the most beloved entertainment empire in history, but the man behind Mickey Mouse was driven by obsessions that went far beyond car…
1 week, 2 days ago
Jackie Robinson: The Fierce, Uncompromising Reality Behind Baseball's Integration Pioneer
Episode 6832
Jackie Robinson is remembered as the man who quietly endured racist abuse to break baseball's color line. The real Robinson was anything but quiet. H…
1 week, 2 days ago
Brigham Young: The House Painter From Vermont Who Built an Empire of 56 Wives
Episode 6835
Brigham Young was a barely educated house painter from Vermont who took over a persecuted religious movement after its founder was murdered and trans…
1 week, 2 days ago
John Calvin: The Fugitive Lawyer Who Wired the Psychological Foundations of Modern Capitalism
Episode 6833
John Calvin trained as a lawyer, fled France as a religious fugitive, and built a theocratic city-state in Geneva that reshaped Western civilization.…
1 week, 2 days ago
Saint Augustine: The Hedonist Who Mapped the Human Mind and Invented the Autobiography
Episode 6834
Before Augustine became one of Christianity's most influential theologians, he was a partying philosophy student who kept a mistress for fifteen year…
1 week, 2 days ago
Thomas Aquinas: How the 'Dumb Ox' Mapped the Entire Universe With Pure Reason
Episode 6831
Thomas Aquinas was so large and quiet that his classmates called him the Dumb Ox. His teacher Albert the Great replied that the bellowing of this ox …
1 week, 2 days ago
Sitting Bull: From Holy Man and Warrior Chief to Buffalo Bill's Traveling Show
Episode 6826
Sitting Bull led the Lakota alliance that destroyed George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn — the most famous Native American militar…
1 week, 2 days ago