All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 in total
116 - Winston Churchill and the Battle of Britain
I’m going to make a quick confession to you here: The Battle of Britain is one of my three favorite parts of all of human history. The other two would be the Roman E...
115 - Blitzkrieg! The Germans Invade France
You might have noticed that I kind of used the same title twice in a row, which might seem like kind of lazy writing, but I really couldn’t think of a better title to ...
114 - Blitzkrieg! The Germans Invade Poland
Ok, here we are, poised right on the edge of World War II. I’m going to try to not bog down as much as I did on the US Civil War, but I still have 9 episodes planned ...
113 - Adolf Hitler and the Rise of Nazism
Well here we are, about to introduce one of history’s most notorious villains. I’m talking about Adolf Hitler. He really is remembered as one of the worst, most dang...
112 - The Great Depression and FDR
This episode, we’re going to talk about the great depression. Last episode, we talked about the stock market crash of 1929, and mentioned that it was one of the cause...
111 - Prohibition, the Bull Market, and Black Thursday
The 1920’s was a very prosperous time for America, and for much of the world. As I mentioned last episode, during the 20’s the American economy became the largest in t...
110 - The Roaring 20's
Well, the war to end all wars was over. After a period after several months, the surviving soldiers began to return home. The Treaty of Versailles was signed, and Eu...
109 - The End of World War I
We’ve been here on World War I for seven episodes, if you count the 2 on the Russian and Soviet revolutions. See? I’m getting more concise. It took me 10 episodes t...
108 - America Enters the War
Well, last episode, we left the chaos of the eastern front and the founding of the new country of the Soviet Union. In this episode, we’re going back to France and Be...
107 - The Soviet Revolution (Part 2 of the Russian Revolution)
здравствуйте, еще раз, товарищи. добро пожаловать в советский союзFor Lenin, transforming a society from near feudalism to communism was a tall order. To do that, yo...
106 - The Russian Revolution Part 1
здравствуйте, товарищи. добро пожаловать в русскую революцию.One of the weirder and more catastrophic side effects of the First World War was what happened to Imperial...
105 - Big Battles of World War I
One of the unique aspects of World War I was simply the huge scale of the battles, with numbers of soldiers, sailors, and even airmen that the world had not seen in a ...
104 - Stalemate in the Trenches
World War I was a very different war than all the other wars fought before it. There main reason for this was that military technology had advanced incredibly quickly...
103 - World War I Begins
Last episode, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire, all of Europe began to mobilize their armies, and move them to the bo...
102 - The Alliances and the Assassination (and Airplanes)
You know, we had an assassination last episode, too, didn’t we? Well, this one is going to cause a lot more difficulty for the world, especially for Europe. Things a...
101 - Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement
Well, welcome to the 20th Century! I’m sure a fair number of those of you who are listening to this were born in the 20th Century, as I was, and the rest of you were ...
100 - The History of the World so Far
And here we are! Episode 100!!! It’s only taken us 100 episodes to cover the first 12,000 or so years of human history. I have a tentative plan to get us all the w...
99 - The World in 1899
Wow, episode 99. I like the symmetry of having episode 99 be a summary of the world in 1899. Last episode, we looked at the changes in technology, science, and worl...
98 - Science, Technology, and the Birth of Modernism
Well, look at that. We’re finally coming to the end of the 1800’s! Only two more episodes, then we’ll be in the 1900’s. It only took us 30 episodes to cover that 10...
97 - The Spanish - American War
Last episode we talked about the robber barons, and the changes in technology and manufacturing that they exploited to become phenomenally rich. Part of that growth of...
90 - Sherman's March to the Sea
Last episode, we looked at the very last chance the south had to win the war outright. After Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the south’s only chance was the election of 186...
96 - Capitalism and the Robber Barons
The dystopian surveillance state we live in today has been called by some people ‘Late-stage capitalism,’ and is perhaps the inevitable result of the capitalist system...
95 - World-Wide Imperialism
Well, we talked last episode about the expansion of the British Empire during the 1800’s, but there were a lot of other countries that were trying to build their empir...
94 - The British Empire in the Late 1800's
When we last looked at the British Empire, 15 !! Episodes ago, Queen Victoria was on the throne. And she still is. I mean, not today, today it’s King Charles and his...
93 - Reconstruction
When Lincoln died, Andrew Johnson became the President. Johnson was from the south, having been born in North Carolina. When he was 17, his family moved to Tennessee...
92 - The Assassination of President Lincoln
Well, the Civil War is over. Mostly. The big battles are over, and though there are going to be a few more battles, everyone knows that the south has lost. The ques...
91 - Grant vs. Lee and the Surrender at Appomattox
At the same time that Sherman was burning his way through Georgia, but avoiding major battles, Grant was up in Virginia, trying to provoke major battles. In March of ...
89 - The Battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg
The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, well, the draw at Antietam that forced the South to stop their invasion of the north, was seen as a huge victory in the no...
88 - The Battle of Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation
The war has been going pretty well for the south at the mid point of 1862, but the south has less men, less guns, less cannons, less of almost everything. Less manufa...
87 - Ulysses S Grant and the Battle of Shiloh
At this point, in late 1861, the war is not going well for the Union. The early battles of the Civil War were mostly Union defeats, or at least draws where the Rebel ...