The History Guy

The History Guy

If you love history, this is the podcast for you! Stories of forgotten history, presented by Josh Geiger with Lance Geiger, The History Guy, from the hit YouTube channel The History Guy: History Deserves to be Remembered. Visit the channel here: www.youtube.com/TheHistoryGuyChannel We believe that history does not have to be boring. At its heart, history is storytelling, and we believe that it should be told with passion and genuine love for the material. History might be tragic, it might be comic, but it is the story of who we are, and we should not be afraid to enjoy that story and be moved by it.

Episodes

Counterfactuals: The Three Kingdoms - or not?

October 7, 2025 • 65 mins
On today’s episode, we venture to Asia to talk about a battle that determined the course of Chinese history, and that has become such an integral part of Chinese historical mythology that it is sometimes difficult to sort fact from fiction. What might have changed if the battle went a different way?
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Counterfactuals: Just How Foundational IS Concrete?

September 24, 2025 • 62 mins
On today’s episode we talk about one of the most ubiquitous human creations in the modern world: Concrete. What would the modern world look like without this grey material we all take for granted?
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Counterfactuals: Roosevelt and Churchill at Christmas, 1941

September 9, 2025 • 60 mins
On today’s episode, we talk about a little-remembered presidential visit in the wake of Pearl Harbor - Christmas, 1941, when Winston Churchill risked the U-boats of the Atlantic to visit his new allies in the White House.
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Counterfacutals: WWI and The Battle of the Gulf of Riga

August 26, 2025 • 66 mins
Today we talk about a little remembered battle that could have been a turning point in the First World War - a battle between the German High Seas fleet and the Russian Baltic fleet in the Gulf of Riga.
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Counterfactuals: Confederate Espionage

August 12, 2025 • 65 mins
On today’s episode we talk about the little remembered espionage side of the civil war, particularly the CSA’s more outlandish ideas to take the war to the Union. And of course, we talk about what the world might look like if it all happened differently.
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Counterfactuals: The Passenger Pigeon's World

July 29, 2025 • 64 mins
On today’s episode we talk about a bird that was once so numerous that Americans thought it would be impossible to kill them all. Until, suddenly, they did. What might the world look like if the passenger pigeon hadn’t gone extinct?
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Counterfactuals: Did Ketchup Save the World?

July 15, 2025 • 64 mins
On today’s episode we talk about the incredible popularity and influence of an odd product: Ketchup. What would the world be like without it?
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Counterfactuals: 1983, The World's Most Dangerous Year

July 1, 2025 • 66 mins
On today’s podcast we talk about the year 1983 - called by some “the most dangerous year” in modern history. In the fall of that year, Western and Communist powers may have nearly stumbled into the one thing that neither side wanted - all-out nuclear war. How might the world be different if that close call went another way?
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Counterfactuals: Rome and Hannibal

June 17, 2025 • 54 mins
On today’s episode, we talk about one of the most famous battle in Roman history, when 50,000 Romans were killed in a single day. How would the world be different if that battle went differently?
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Counterfactuals: Task Force 34 and Leyte Gulf

June 3, 2025 • 68 mins
On today’s episode, we talk about one of the largest naval battles in history, Leyte Gulf, and the task group that was never created: Task Force 34. A series of decisions often called mistakes led to one of the most famous underdog fights when the small force called Taffy 3 faced down Japanese battleships in the Battle off Samar. If any of those decisions had gone differently, the world might have taken a different path.
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Counterfactuals: The Great Lisbon Earthquake

May 20, 2025 • 63 mins
Today we discuss one of the most powerful earthquakes to strike Europe in recorded history, an earthquake which knocked down Lisbon in a single, violent day in 1755. The aftershocks would be felt throughout history, however, as a shocked Europe came to terms with the power of nature. What might have happened if it went a little differently?
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Counterfactuals: The Axumite Empire

May 6, 2025 • 65 mins
On today’s episode, we tackle a forgotten empire that once ruled the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, and that once ranked with the likes of Persia, China, and Rome. The mighty Aksum declined before 1000 AD - but what might have happened if it all went a bit differently?
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Counterfactuals: The Battle of Tsushima and the 20th Century

April 22, 2025 • 60 mins
On today’s episode we talk about one of the most important naval events in modern history: the pivotal battle of Tsushima, fought during the Russo-Japanese war. The battle was crucial in the rise of Japan as a military and imperial power, setting the stage for huge parts of the 20th century. But what might have happened if it all went different?
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Counterfactuals: What if We Used a Different Calendar?

April 8, 2025 • 61 mins
On today’s episode, we talk about Calendars - specificall the Gregorian Calendar, and how and why it became the calendar we all use today. What does the calendar mean to us, and what might it mean if we used a different one?
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Counterfactuals: The White Ship and the Anarchy

March 25, 2025 • 63 mins
On today’s episode, we visit one of the most significant maritime accidents of the middle ages, when William Adelin, grandson of William the Conqueror and the only legitimate male heir to the throne of England, was killed with the sinking of the White Ship in 1120. His death would have dramatic consequences for the European continent and English history. But what if it had all gone differently?
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Counterfactuals: The Forgotten WWII Battle of Thala

March 11, 2025 • 62 mins
On today’s episode, we travel to 1943, and one of the earliest battles American soldiers fought with Nazi Germany, in the mountainous regions of Tunisia. There, the fortuitous arrival of artillery stemmed the tide after German forces broke through American defenses at Kasserine pass. But what might have happened if it all went differently?
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Counterfactuals: A World Without Potatoes

February 25, 2025 • 64 mins
On today’s episode of the History Guy Podcast, we talk about one of the most important parts of the Columbian exchange, and possibly the reason that Europe was able to colonize and dominate much of the world in the early modern period: The Potato.
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Counterfactuals: Viking North America

February 11, 2025 • 72 mins
On today’s episode we tackle the counterfactuals of some of the most popular peoples in history: The Vikings. In the tenth century norse colonists began settling in Greenland, where they found surprising success in some far-northern reaches, before making landfall in North America. The settlements had all faded away by the 1400s, but what might have happened if it had all gone differently?
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Counterfactuals: Westward Expansion and Ashley's 100

January 28, 2025 • 67 mins
On this special, 100th episode of The History Guy Podcast, we head back to the 1800s and the beginning of America’s expansion into the Rocky Mountains by taking a look at Ashley’s 100, a group of trappers, mountain men, and explorers who ventured into the West, helping to define an era and open up the land for settlement. How might things be different if they didn’t?
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Counterfactuals: What if there were no Transistors?

January 14, 2025 • 71 mins
On today’s episode, we talk about the development of one of some of teh most important communication technologies in history, from the telegraph to the transistor, and what the world might be like if we went without them.
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