
Hosted by Damian Smith · EN

Why do you keep hearing the term "Thucydides Trap"? Here's why. Short answer: Smart Dude (Thucydides) talks about the nature of empire (Peloponnesian War) and why it inevitably leads to people dying (current global power shift). I think we'd all like to stop living through history, but what are you gonna do?

For this Anzac Day special we explore the underrated story of Australia's only Navy Victoria Cross recipient - Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean and how he not only fought until his last breath, he fought well past it.

Why do Americans put cheese on everything? In the tapestry of history it begins with Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot arbitrarily drawing lines on a map at the end of WW1. You wanted a show about an economic crisis caused by a criminal Republican president of the USA fighting a war in the Middle East, you really should have specified which crime/president/war/Middle East.

The BBC rather audaciously called the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor "without precedent." History knows better. Enough people asked that I made a show, enjoy.

This was a mandatory subject when I went to high school, so I didn't think I needed to cover it. Boy, was I wrong. So here's how the Nazis came to power. You're supposed to stop it from happening again.

Do you want to know what a bonus show sounds like? Merry Christmas! This is about the weird origins of April Fool's Day, but surprisingly you can't explore that without going into Christmas and New Year's, they're all the same magical animal. By the way, do you know why New Year's Day is always exactly a week after Christmas? Have fun with that.

This is old enough that you've probably forgotten it. Tonight (December 5th) is Krampusnacht. Which means that it's the only time of the year when I'm justified in reseeding this show about Krampus, the terrifying German Christmas monster.

The slapstick tragedy that is the Gunpowder Plot, one of the dumbest things that has ever happened.

So it turns out that to talk about the Gunpowder Plot, you need to do over an hour of stuff to lay the groundwork for the Gunpowder Plot. In the beginning...in 1517 Martin Luther staples an essay to a church, leading to millions of deaths for dumb reasons. These are those reasons.

You all know there's no such thing as curses. Sure. You all know there's no such thing as the Curse of the Pharaoh. But you may not know just how brazen the lie is.