S8 Ep264: THE BANISHMENT OF DION Colleague Professor James Romm. Plato returned to Syracuse to tutor Dionysius the Younger, hoping to create an enlightened monarch, but found a court defined by dru...
S8 Ep264: PLATO'S FAILED FIRST MISSION TO SICILY Colleague Professor James Romm. Professor Romm details Plato's background, including his connection to the Thirty Tyrants in Athens and his philosop...
S8 Ep264: THE SELF-IMDULGENT TYRANTS OF THE WEST Colleague Professor James Romm. James Romm introduces Syracuse as a dominant power in the 4th century BCE under the rule of Dionysius the Elder, who...
S8 Ep264: HOMEWORK AND HEARTACHE IN ANCIENT SCHOOLS Colleague Moudhy Al-Rashid. Excavations of a "schoolhouse" in Nippur revealed thousands of practice tablets, showing the messy first attempts of ...
S8 Ep264: GILGAMESH AND THE BIRTH OF WRITTEN LEGEND Colleague Moudhy Al-Rashid. Al-Rashid discusses Cuneiform, a writing system used for over 3,000 years to record languages like Sumerian and Akkad...
S8 Ep264: THE STORIES TOLD BY MESOPOTAMIAN BRICKS Colleague Moudhy Al-Rashid. Moudhy Al-Rashid explains how millions of mud bricks reveal the history of ancient Mesopotamia, from the construction o...
S8 Ep264: THE PRINCESS'S MUSEUM AT THE DAWN OF HISTORY Colleague Moudhy Al-Rashid. Moudhy Al-Rashid introduces Ennigaldi-Nanna, a princess and high priestess of the moon god in the ancient city of ...
S8 Ep263: PREVIEW: MOUDHY AL-RASHID ON THE ANCIENT PRINTING PRESS OF UR Colleague Moudhy Al-Rashid. Author Moudhy Al-Rashid discusses her book Between Two Rivers, describing how ancient Mesopotamia...
S8 Ep262: US BOLSTERS PACIFIC SOCIETAL RESISTANCE AS CHINA ENTRENCHES IN PALAU AND YAP Colleague Cleo Paskal. Cleo Paskal details the intensifying struggle for influence in Oceania, specifically re...
S8 Ep261: PREVIEW DION'S RETURN AND DESCENT INTO TYRANNY Colleague Professor James Romm. Professor Romm discusses Dion, a returning exile who liberated Syracuse but eventually adopted dictatorial t...
S8 Ep261: PREVIEW PLATO'S FIRST VISIT AND POLITICAL EXPERIMENTS Colleague Professor James Romm. This segment examines Plato's invitation to Syracuse by Dion, who sought an intellectual ally against...
S8 Ep261: PREVIEW THE STRATEGIC FORTRESS OF SYRACUSE Colleague Professor James Romm. Romm details the military might of Syracuse under the Dionysius dynasty, specifically describing "the island," a...
S8 Ep260: FERGUSON'S ANALYSIS, THE EMPEROR SYSTEM, AND AUGUSTAN AUTHORITY Colleagues Gaius and Germanicus, Friends of History Debating Society, Londinium, 91 AD. The speakers critique historian Nia...
S8 Ep260: THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, OPEN BORDERS, AND ELITE DETACHMENT Colleagues Gaius and Germanicus, Friends of History Debating Society, Londinium, 91 AD. The discussion turns to domestic turmoil,...
S8 Ep259: THEATER, BATTLESHIPS, AND THE ILLUSION OF AMERICAN POWER Colleagues Gaius and Germanicus, Friends of History Debating Society, Londinium, 91 AD. Gaius and Germanicus discuss the theatrica...
S8 Ep258: NOBEL SNUBS AND LATER CONTROVERSIES Colleague Professor Paul Halpern. In the aftermath of the Big Bang's confirmation, Gamow fought for recognition of his prior theoretical contributions...
S8 Ep258: THE ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY OF THE BIG BANG Colleague Professor Paul Halpern. Halpern explains how a horror movie inspired the Steady State theory, which posits that new matter is continuous...
S8 Ep258: STELLAR ORIGINS AND COMPETING COSMOLOGIES Colleague Professor Paul Halpern. The focus shifts to Fred Hoyle, whose musical mother taught him to read via silent film subtitles. Halpern deta...
S8 Ep258: FROM REVOLUTION TO QUANTUM TUNNELING Colleague Professor Paul Halpern. This segment introduces the parallel early lives of physicists George Gamow and Fred Hoyle. Halpern describes Gamow'...
S8 Ep257: IMPORTING THE MAFIA STATE: THE 2014 MOSCOW DINNER AND THE ROOTS OF TRUMP'S RUSSIAN ENTANGLEMENTS Colleague Craig Unger. Investigative journalist Craig Unger analyzes a pivotal February 20...
S8 Ep256: STARSHIP: THE FULLY REUSABLE ARCHITECTURE FOR MARS Colleague Eric Berger. At Boca Chica, Texas, SpaceX transformed a swamp into "Starbase," a modern rocket factory for the Starship and Su...
S8 Ep256: THE CHUTE SHOW AND THE RACE FOR COMMERCIAL CREW Colleague Eric Berger. SpaceX competed with Boeing to restore NASA's ability to launch astronauts, a program politically legitimized by Boe...
S8 Ep256: STARLINK: THE ECONOMIC ENGINE FOR MARS Colleague Eric Berger. To finance the massive costs of the Mars program, SpaceX developed Starlink, a constellation of thousands of low Earth orbit ...
S8 Ep256: THE TRIUMPH OF LANDING AND THE MYSTERY OF AMOS-6 Colleague Eric Berger. In December 2015, SpaceX achieved a historic milestone by landing a Falcon 9 booster at Cape Canaveral, a feat made...
S8 Ep256: PUSHING BOUNDARIES WITH DENSIFIED PROPELLANT AND BARGE LANDINGS Colleague Eric Berger. Following the 2015 launch failure, SpaceX introduced the "Falcon 9 Full Thrust," which utilized dens...
S8 Ep256: RISKING IT ALL TO DOCK DRAGON WITH THE ISS Colleague Eric Berger. To fund its Mars ambitions, SpaceX needed NASA contracts to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) using ...
S8 Ep256: THE STRUGGLE TO BUILD AND TRANSPORT THE FIRST FALCON 9 Colleague Eric Berger. Moving from the single-engine Falcon 1 to the nine-engine Falcon 9 involved a "long hot summer" of grueling 1...
S8 Ep256: THE AUDACITY OF THE MARS COLONIZATION VISION Colleague Eric Berger. In September 2016, Elon Musk presented a vision in Guadalajara that sounded like science fiction: a plan to colonize Ma...
S8 Ep256: THE COLLAPSE OF 1989 AND THE MODERN AUTHORITARIAN PIVOT Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. In the final segment, McMeekin challenges the narrative that the 1989 collapse was solely a popu...
S8 Ep256: THE COLD WAR TRAP AND GORBACHEV'S MISCALCULATION Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. The timeline shifts to the Cold War rivalry, arguing that Soviet aggression was driven by a genuine bel...
S8 Ep256: THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION: THE CULT OF YOUTH AND ANARCHY Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. This segment covers the chaos of the mid-1960s Cultural Revolution. Mao mobilized a "cult of yout...
S8 Ep256: MAO'S XENOPHOBIC REVOLUTION AND THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. Moving to China, McMeekin explains that Mao Zedong's ideology was a "bizarre melange" of Marxism,...
S8 Ep256: STALIN VS. TROTSKY AND THE LOGIC OF THE GREAT TERROR Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. The discussion turns to the rivalry between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. While Trotsky was an in...
S8 Ep256: LENIN'S INNOVATION: REVOLUTIONARY DEFEATISM AND GLOBAL CIVIL WAR Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. Focusing on Vladimir Lenin, this section examines how he radicalized Marx's vision thro...
S8 Ep256: THE LINEAGE OF VIOLENCE: FROM BABEUF TO THE PARIS COMMUNE Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. This segment explores the intellectual roots of communist violence, starting with the French a...
S8 Ep256: TIANANMEN SQUARE AND THE UNMASKING OF THE COMMUNIST PROJECT Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. The conversation begins with the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, framed not as an anomaly bu...
S8 Ep255: JULIE MANET, THE VALUE OF TRANSIENCE, AND THE AVANT-GARDE Colleague Sebastian Smee. Berthe Morisot's legacy was carried on by her daughter, Julie Manet, to whom Berthe wrote a tender deat...
S8 Ep255: MANET'S FINAL YEARS AND THE POSTHUMOUS HONOR OF MORISOT Colleague Sebastian Smee. Following the war, Manet painted a series of intimate portraits of Berthe Morisot, capturing her erotic r...
S8 Ep255: PLEIN AIR PAINTING AND THE IMPRESSIONIST FOCUS ON THE PRESENT Colleague Sebastian Smee. The Impressionists revolutionized art by painting en plein air (outdoors), prioritizing the sinceri...
S8 Ep255: THE DEVASTATION OF BLOODY WEEK AND MORISOT'S RESOLVE Colleague Sebastian Smee. In May 1871, French government forces retook Paris during "Bloody Week," a period of atrocity where summary ...
S8 Ep255: THE RISE OF THE PARIS COMMUNE FOLLOWING THE SIEGE Colleague Sebastian Smee. By March 1871, following a winter of starvation where Parisians ate rats and zoo animals, the city's radical Re...
S8 Ep255: POLITICS, WAR, AND THE REPUBLICAN SPIRIT OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS Colleague Sebastian Smee. Édouard Manet was a passionate Republican who loathed the authoritarian rule of Napoleon III, a se...
S8 Ep255: THE ARTISTIC AND ROMANTIC BOND BETWEEN BERTHE MORISOT AND ÉDOUARD MANET Colleague Sebastian Smee. Berthe Morisot and her sister Edma were talented painters from a haute bourgeois family w...
S8 Ep255: THE 1874 EXHIBITION AND THE BIRTH OF IMPRESSIONISM Colleague Sebastian Smee. In the spring of 1874, a group of painters including Degas, Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir gathered at the studio...
S8 Ep258: SURVIVAL STORY: WOMAN OUTLASTS SNAKE TRAPPED IN HER SHOE Colleague Jeremy Zakis. In Southwest Sydney, a woman survived a bite from a deadly eastern brown snake that became entangled in th...
S8 Ep258: ENGLAND SECURES SURPRISE VICTORY AMIDST ASHES CONTROVERSY Colleague Jeremy Zakis. Zakis reports that England unexpectedly won the fourth Ashes test despite playing poorly earlier in the s...
S8 Ep258: DALLAS THE DOG TEAMS UP WITH MAGPIES TO FIGHT COCKATOOS Colleague Jeremy Zakis. Zakis recounts how his dog, Dallas, successfully chased destructive cockatoos off their property. While usu...
S8 Ep258: SUN, SAND, AND SANTAS IN BOARD SHORTS: AN AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS Colleague Jeremy Zakis. Jeremy Zakis describes Christmas in Australia as the polar opposite of the Northern Hemisphere, feat...
S8 Ep257: THE ATOMIC BOMB AND POST-WAR LEADERSHIP Colleague Craig Symonds. Nimitz and King believed a naval blockade could force Japan's surrender without a costly invasion, which they feared woul...
S8 Ep257: TYPHOONS, KAMIKAZES, AND UNFORGIVING WARFARE Colleague Craig Symonds. Halsey's aggression led to disaster when he twice steered the fleet into typhoons, causing significant loss of life a...
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