History Go Time!

Why do people seem to think that the library of Alexandria was the only library in the ancient world?

In 1938 the German pharmaceutical company Temmler patented the drug Pervitin. In 1939 the Germans conquered…a lot of places. These two events may be linked. We do all of that to get to the story of Aimo Koivunen, the Finnish soldier who makes John Belushi look like Jim Belushi.

The infamous story about Horus and Set. You asked for this. I cannot stress enough - you asked for this. This was originally a bonus show for Medicis, but now everyone gets to suffer psychic damage.

You wanted it, be careful what you wish for. Pointing out all of the historical inaccuracies in Gladiator 2 actually took twice as long as Gladiator 2.

The song isn't problematic, the interpretation is. Here's why we shouldn't judge the past by the mores of today.

I promise this is the last 'people are being wrong on the internet' for a while.

Most of what you read on the internet is false. Not this, of course, but other things. Here's why every time you see 'did you know that word came from an acronym' is always wrong.

Cambyses, son of Cyrus, goes a little bit insane. Bardiya, other son of Cyrus, gets eaten by an evil wizard. Darius, future emperor of Persia, finds interesting uses for horses. That's as much as the censors will let me say.

I try not to do Halloween but you keep dragging me back in. This one is from the paid archives, now everyone can have a taste. It's about Victorian era crazy, urban legends, the Duke of Wellington, and the origin of the term 'painting the town red.'

One of my favourite shows from years ago disappeared off the internet, probably due to wizards. Instead of simply uploading it again, I decided to redo the whole thing from the ground up. Which is possibly why it's two shows now. This is all about the Achaemenid Persian Empire. We look at how advanced they were, how awesome Cyrus was, and somehow once again manage to find a way to disrespect Sparta. It's a talent.

In honour of International Talk Like A Pirate Day we explore why pirates didn't actually sound like that, and also how, technically, every day is Talk Like A Pirate Day

I didn't know why jacks in a deck of cards were jacks. Join me for a tumble down the rabbit hole. The other hour is a bunch of random history stuff you'll probably enjoy, loosely bound by this flimsy conceit.

Random trivia from the modern Olympics. Bizarre sports (poodle grooming, pretending to be a corpse), event disruptions (four person pileup, evil leprechaun), and numerous unfortunate things happening to pigeons. Why is it only every four years?

The Second Intermediate Period of Egypt. Or that time when people who weren't Egyptian took over and they don't really like talking about it.

A Musashi show

As requested by many

Show notes in haiku

Here's a Valentine's gift for everyone. One of the bonus shows is now available for all. This is all about Stuxnet, the most amazing computer virus you may not have heard about. You need to be wearing fingerless gloves to get the most out of this show.

I've been going through some stuff lately, and as part of the healing process I thought I'd do an interstitial bonus show. This is going to be a little bit different, but it should be plenty fun. Here's the unbelievably true story of Fine Cotton.

We finish up the Hannibal series in one go because Damo went mad. Everything from the fallout of Trebia to Cannae to Hannibal inventing snake bombs to Carthage being wiped out. You may have to hit the pause button a couple of times.

Hannibal marches on Rome, it turns out that story takes a while to tell. Due to ADHD there are side stories about ancient sieges and why Roman names are so weird. This is going to be more than one sitting, so be warned.

This one is eventually about Hamilcar Barca, the Carthaginian John Wick. He comes in at around the 2-hour mark. I've taken your feedback that the Tik Tok generation wants shorter episodes and I have determined that it is the children who are wrong.