History Unplugged Podcast
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The Hatfield-McCoy Feud Started Over a Pig and Nearly Escalated Into a Regional War
45 mins; April 17, 2025
The 1845 Potato Blight Struck Across Northern Europe. Why Did Only Ireland Starve?
48 mins; April 15, 2025
A Simple Tennessee Preacher Transformed Abolitionism from a Deeply Unpopular Radical Movement to a Centrist Cause
51 mins; April 10, 2025
How Benjamin Franklin’s Stove Invention Kept Early America From Freezing
41 mins; April 08, 2025
Roman Churches Had No Involvement in Marriage. How Did It Become a Holy Sacrament by the Middle Ages?
38 mins; April 03, 2025
How a Mess Cook Saved Dozens of Sailors from Shark Infested Waters Off the Coast of Guadalcanal
28 mins; April 01, 2025
Humanity’s Past Suggests We Only Have 10,000 Years to Change or Go Extinct
53 mins; March 27, 2025
The 16th Century Ottomans Nearly Conquered Europe. Why Did European Kingdoms Make So Many Alliances With Them?
51 mins; March 25, 2025
Fort Stanwix and the Forgotten Revolutionary War Siege That Convinced France to Help the US
42 mins; March 20, 2025
Enough is Enuf, Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell
39 mins; March 18, 2025
Did Haiti’s First and Last King Squander the Revolution or Succeed in Underappreciated Ways?
51 mins; March 13, 2025
What Ancient Greeks and Victorian Explorers Thought Was at the North Pole
41 mins; March 11, 2025
Nothing Healed America’s Wounds After the Civil War Like Baseball
50 mins; March 06, 2025
How an 1870 Murder Created San Francisco
37 mins; March 04, 2025
Failed Futures: If Alexander The Great Hadn’t Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road
34 mins; February 27, 2025
Why the Anabasis is the Second-Most Influential Greek Epic (After Homer’s Works)
48 mins; February 25, 2025
The American Revolution Would Have Been Lost Without a Ragtag Fleet of Thousands of Privateers
59 mins; February 20, 2025
Did Lincoln Save Global Democracy or Undermine It Using Wartime Powers?
57 mins; February 18, 2025
The 1541 Spanish Expedition Down the Amazon to Find the Imaginary “El Dorado” and Valley of Cinnamon
40 mins; February 13, 2025
Everyday Life for the 500K German POWs House in America During World War Two
62 hours 31 mins; February 11, 2025
The Arsenal of Democracy: How the Revolver and Repeating Rifle Democratized Gun Ownership and Armed the United States
56 mins; February 06, 2025
Owning Land Was The Best – and Usually Only – Way to Be Rich in the Ancient World
44 mins; February 04, 2025
Benjamin Franklin – In the 200 Years After His Death – Funded New Businesses, Supported Boston and Philadelphia, and Play Pranks
37 mins; January 30, 2025
When American Gilded Elite Bought Up English Country Houses, It Create an Epic Transatlantic Clash of Cultures
44 mins; January 28, 2025
The Untold History of Earth: Hobbits Really Existed, Dinosaurs Had Feathers, and Yetis Roamed Our Planet
68 hours 48 mins; January 23, 2025
How Did Gold Beat Out Every Other Precious Metal To Become Humanity’s Dominant Currency For the Last 2,600 Years?
36 mins; January 21, 2025
The 160-Minute Race to Save the Titanic
47 mins; January 16, 2025
200 Years Before the French Revolution, German Peasants Tried to Overthrow The Holy Roman Empire
54 mins; January 14, 2025
What the Middle Ages Can Teach Us About Pandemics, Mass Migration, and Tech Disruption
53 mins; January 09, 2025
Did Orson Welles’s 1938 ‘War of the Worlds’ Broadcast Really Cause a Mass Panic?
48 mins; January 07, 2025
A Talk With The Polar Geographer Who Discovered Shackleton’s Endurance Under 10,000 ft of Frozen Water
43 mins; January 02, 2025
The Founding Fathers Were 20 and 30-Somethings. Why Is America Now a Gerontocracy?
42 mins; December 31, 2024
A Pre-WWI French Philosopher Was More Popular Than Elvis and Possibly Entered the US Into the Great War
43 mins; December 26, 2024
While Starving at Besieged Leningrad, Scientists Hid Drought-Resistant Crop Seeds That Could Prevent Future Famines
40 mins; December 24, 2024
Surviving Nearly 2 Years of Shipwreck on a South Pacific Island in the 1880s
43 mins; December 19, 2024
How Did 450 Boers Defeat 15,000 Zulus at the Battle of Blood River in 1838?
48 mins; December 17, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 9: The End of North African Piracy and the Beginning of American Global Naval Hegemony
58 mins; December 12, 2024
When Did Americans Become Americans? 1945, 1865, 1787, or 1776?
46 mins; December 10, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 8: The Second Barbary War (1815)
38 mins; December 05, 2024
How Much of a Nation’s Fate is Bound Up In Its Geography?
41 mins; December 03, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary War, Episode 7: An Uneasy Peace -- The Interbellum Period and the War of 1812
43 mins; November 28, 2024
The Scramble for More Aircraft Carriers in WW2 Meant Retrofitting Cruisers Into These Sorts of Ships
53 mins; November 26, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary War, Episode 6: Swashbuckling Ship Battles and 500-Mile Desert Marches Won the First Barbary War
41 mins; November 21, 2024
Knights Could Still Be Found on English Battlefields in the 1640s. What Were They Doing There?
41 mins; November 19, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 5: The Destruction of the USS Philadelphia
36 mins; November 14, 2024
The Jewish Confederates
56 mins; November 12, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 4: The First Barbary War (1801-05)
36 mins; November 07, 2024
Was The Vietnam War Unwinnable?
59 mins; November 05, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 3: The Barbary States and Their 300-Year Reign of Mediterranean Piracy
37 mins; October 31, 2024
What a Modern-Day Stonemason Can Tell Us About Hand Building 13th- Century Gothic Cathedrals and Carving Gargoyles
40 mins; October 29, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 2: The British Origins of the US Navy
40 mins; October 24, 2024
The Conquest of Constantinople in 1453 Permanently Altered Siege Warfare, Middle Eastern Demographics, and Global Trade
39 mins; October 22, 2024
Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 1: America Wanted to Take 1776 to the High Seas. North African Pirates Disagreed.
30 mins; October 17, 2024
New Series Launches Tomorrow: Key Battles of the Barbary Wars (with James Early)
1 min; October 15, 2024
How Civil War Vets Continued Living Despite Being Double, Triple, or Even Quadruple Amputees
54 mins; October 15, 2024
What’s the Difference Between a Pirate, a Privateer, and a Naval Officer? In the 1700s, Very Little
55 mins; October 10, 2024
After Genghis Khan Conquered the Earth, Kublai Khan Conquered the Seas
49 mins; October 08, 2024
Aesop’s Fables and Whether They Were Written By an Ugly, Enslaved “Barbarian” Who Discretely Mocked His Masters
32 mins; October 03, 2024
"Thermopylae, the “300” Spartans, and the 26 Other Battles Fought There Over the Last 2,400 Years
51 mins; October 01, 2024
The Last Emperor of Mexico: How a Habsburg Archduke Set Up a Kingdom in the New World in the 1860s
51 mins; September 26, 2024
First-Hand Account of Hiroshima: Before, During, and After the Atomic Bomb Drop
39 mins; September 24, 2024
America’s Professional Sports Grew From Farm Teams to Multi-Billion Dollar Franches Thanks to the Harlem Globetrotters Founder
38 mins; September 19, 2024
Why Did Presidents Seem Incredibly Rich Yet Were Completely Broke Most of the Time?
48 mins; September 17, 2024
A 1,300 History of the Middle East in Seven Religious Wars
48 mins; September 12, 2024
When Good Ideas Were Bad Medicine: Why Vitamin C and Handwashing was Rejected by the Medical Establishment
44 mins; September 10, 2024
Appleton Oaksmith: The Confederate Blockade Runner Who Became Lincoln’s Public Enemy #1
49 mins; September 05, 2024
The Bible Triggered Two Communications Revolutions: The Codex and the Printing Press
52 mins; September 03, 2024
Steering an Aerial Plywood Box Through Enemy Fire: The Glider Pilots of WW2
41 mins; August 29, 2024
Why Few Presidents Had Beards, And Only One Had a Mullet
34 mins; August 27, 2024
How Much Did Average Germans Know About the Holocaust During World War Two?
40 mins; August 22, 2024
Carthage Lost the 2nd Punic War from Hannibal’s Logistics Failure and His Brother’s Bad Strategy
47 mins; August 20, 2024
The Real Robin Hood May Have Been an Anglo-Saxon Hitman Who Killed an English King
43 mins; August 15, 2024
Civilization Owes Its Existence to the Horse
40 mins; August 13, 2024
Charles Cowlam: The Civil War Con-Man Who Received Presidential Pardons From Both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis
35 mins; August 08, 2024
The Extent of Soviet Infiltration Into Depression and Cold War America
49 mins; August 06, 2024
America’s First Crime Boss Was Female Immigrant-Turned-Criminal Mastermind
43 mins; August 01, 2024
The War Under No-Man’s Land: Military Mining and Tunnel Combat in World War One
45 mins; July 30, 2024
Eisenhower’s Logistics and Diplomatic Nightmare: Planning and Executing D-Day
61 hours 34 mins; July 25, 2024
53 Days on Starvation Island: How The US Marines Fought on Guadalcanal While Completely Surrounded
59 mins; July 23, 2024
Taiwan’s 100-Year Rise From Japanese Colony to Monopoly Producer of Microchips
43 mins; July 18, 2024
When States Rights Were Emancipatory and Federalism was Restrictive: The Interbellum Constitution of 1812-1865
48 mins; July 16, 2024
Is America Going Through a Late Roman Moment of Its Own?
46 mins; July 11, 2024
How Five Castaways Survived After Being Left for Dead on the Falklands in 1812
44 mins; July 09, 2024
The Capetians: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France and Gave Us the Fleur-De-Lys
55 mins; July 04, 2024
Why the Book is Humanity’s Most Important Invention
48 mins; July 02, 2024
How and Why Humans Started Speaking
52 mins; June 27, 2024
The American Detective Who Fought the Kaiser’s Spy Ring and an Anarchist Bombing Syndicate
43 mins; June 25, 2024
Patton’s Tactician: Geoffrey Keys, “The Best Tactical Mind” of WWII
39 mins; June 20, 2024
The Seven Cleopatras Who Ruled Egypt
46 mins; June 18, 2024
Modern Black Ops Warfare Began with a British WW2 Operation to Steal Boats Off Africa’s Coast
52 mins; June 13, 2024
The 7 Wonders of the Ancient World Were Colossal, Prone to Destruction, and Not All May Have Existed
46 mins; June 11, 2024
Being the Ultimate Constitutional Originalist in 2024 Means Donning a Tricorn Hat and Applying to Practice Piracy
46 mins; June 06, 2024
The Last Time Humanity Believed in Unstoppable Progress: Paris in the Belle Époque (1871-1914)
46 mins; June 04, 2024
The Silk Road Travel Adventures of a 16th Century Mughal Princess and Her Massive Royal Retinue
41 mins; May 30, 2024
The Months Leading up to the Civil War That Inflamed North-South Tensions from Animosity to Murderous Hatred
36 mins; May 28, 2024
LSD’s Origins in Nazi Germany Brain-Washing Experiments, the CIA’s MKUltra Program, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age
43 mins; May 23, 2024
How Duke Ellington and Other Jazzmen Became America’s First Globally Famous Musicians
42 mins; May 21, 2024
Why America Could Have a Presidential Succession Crisis
20 mins; May 17, 2024
Dunkirk from the German Perspective
39 mins; May 16, 2024
The Global Manhunt For The Confederate Ship That Sunk Union Supply Vessels, From the Caribbean to the South Pacific
39 mins; May 14, 2024