History worth listening to

How debt, promises and momentum carried a crusading army to the walls of Constantinople.

8:18 · 1201–1204 · 6 chapters

How two incompatible spacecraft—and two Cold War rivals—built an interface for cooperation in orbit.

9:47 · 1972–1975 · 6 chapters

A small prehistoric vessel reveals two different journeys: ideas spreading between communities and people moving across Europe.

9:54 · c. 2750–1800 BC · 6 chapters

How a non-sectarian republican ideal rose without coordination, descended into violence and helped end Ireland’s parliament.

11:16 · 1791–1801 · 6 chapters

How a pharaoh abandoned Amun, built a capital on empty ground and routed every approach to the sun god through himself.

10:39 · c. 1353–1332 BC · 6 chapters

After the Great Fire of 64 AD, Rome wrote new rules for how a city could be built, and Nero claimed the cleared ground for a palace.

8:50 · 64–80 AD · 6 chapters

How a coup in the emperor's name dissolved Japan's warrior class, and why men of that class carried it out.

9:18 · 1853–1889 · 6 chapters

Four years of crisis, compromise and restraint between Mandela's release and South Africa's first democratic election.

8:45 · 1990–1994 · 6 chapters

How a rearguard that broke ranks without orders forced Richard's hand, and why the charge that followed broke Saladin's army without destroying it.

7:15 · 1191 · 6 chapters

How a Roman fleet beat the Atlantic sailing ships of the Veneti with hooked poles, and what Caesar did to the people afterwards.

8:00 · 56 BC · 6 chapters

For fifty years a Nile cemetery was the oldest known massacre. A new look at the same bones turned one event into a generation of raiding.

6:29 · c. 13,000 years ago · 6 chapters

Sixteen Dutch ships against a fleet twice their size off Brazil: an admiral who chose the sea, and a battle both sides could claim.

7:03 · 1631 · 6 chapters

How the last phase of the Red Army Faction killed bankers and officials with precision, and why almost nobody was ever convicted for it.

7:07 · 1984–1998 · 6 chapters

A pit of thirty-four bodies in a German village turned an argument about whether Neolithic farmers fought at all into a question about how often.

8:04 · c. 5000 BC · 6 chapters

A usurper nobody defended, an island taken in fifteen days, and a conquest that outlasted every crusader state on the mainland.

8:09 · 1191 · 6 chapters

What Richard and Saladin actually agreed after three years of war: a coast, a pilgrimage, and a city that stayed out of reach.

8:26 · 1192 · 6 chapters

An eight-day running battle off Malacca that the Portuguese won on the day, and the Dutch turned into a victory weeks later.

7:52 · 1606 · 6 chapters

Why the Dutch Republic fought its wars with five separate navies, and why no province would ever give its own board up.

8:57 · 1597–1795 · 6 chapters