History Unplugged Podcast

1453 was the most shocking year in Europe since the starting of the Bubonic Plague (1347), the beginning of the First Crusade (1095), or the crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800. Many called it the Year the Middle Ages ended. That’s because the Ottomans, an upstart empire less than two centuries removed from being a semi-nomadic chieftainship and vassal state of the Mongols, conquered Constantinople, the crown jewel of eastern Christendom and the “still-beating heart of antiquity”Learn how Mehmet, the 21-year-old Sultan, conquered the city by assembling an army of 100,000, commissioned a cannon that could fire a 1,200-pound ball, and had warships hauled out of water and over hills in order to enter the enemy’s harbor.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For George Washington, the “foreign” nation that posed the biggest threat to the survival of the infant United States wasn’t Britain, France, or Spain; it was the numerous Indian nations that still dominated large areas of the North American continent and threatened to destroy the fragile nation. Washington’s major goal as president was to secure the future of America and build the republic on Indian land. That’s not to say that Washington wanted to trample on Indian rights. His secondary goal was to establish fair policies for dealings with Indian peoples. Washington and his Secretary of War Henry Knox believed that the most honorable and cheapest way to acquire Indian land was to purchase it in a fair treatyThis episode looks at George Washington’s dealings with American Indians, and his hope that he could grow his nation while treating the current inhabitants with justice and respect. He did not have the policies of Andrew Jackson of the 1820s or 30s, who tore up treaties and forcibly relocated Indian peoples west of the Mississippi (in fact, the Cherokee leader John Ross at this time remembered Washington so fondly that he named his son after the first president). Washington sought a national Indian policy that might somehow reconcile taking Native resources with respecting their rights even as the nation expanded across their homelands and ignored earlier Indian treaty rights. He failed in these goals, and his failure eventually became America’s failure.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did Hitler die in his bunker…or not? I’m talking with Robert J. Hutchinson today to explore what really happened to Hitler. He’s the author of the book What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler. According to official accounts and numerous eyewitnesses, the dictator of the Third Reich shot himself, loyal Nazis burned his body, and the bones were removed by the Russians. Yet, after WWII, 50 percent of Americans polled did not believe the captured Nazis who said Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their Berlin bunker. They thought the Führer had faked his death and escaped justice. Joseph Stalin himself told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler’s body and that he believed the Nazi leader had gotten away. There were numerous reports of top Nazi officials successfully fleeing to South America.Incredible as it sounds, the mystery surrounding Hitler's final days only deepened in 2009 when a U.S. forensic team announced that a piece of the skull held in Soviet archives was not actually Hitler’s. So, what really happened? Hutchinson sifts through the mountains of primary resources and debunks urban legends to uncover the truth about Hitler’s last week in Berlin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor and geopolitical power. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans, with extraordinary military dominance and unparalleled monopolies over trade routes, controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World.Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire’s history has for centuries been downplayed. But today’s guest Alan Mikhail presents a recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470–1520) in his book “God’s Shadow.”Born to a concubine, and the fourth of his sultan father’s ten sons, Selim claimed power over the empire in 1512 and, through ruthless ambition, nearly tripled the territory under Ottoman control, building a governing structure that lasted into the twentieth century.It was the Ottoman monopoly on trade routes, combined with military advances, that thrust Spain and Portugal out of the Mediterranean, forcing the merchants and sailors to become global explorers. This included Christopher Columbus, who cut his military teeth as a “Moor-slayer.” Also, Selim’s conquest of Yemen allowed his army to control the “first truly global commodity”—coffee—and subsequently made it the phenomenon it is today, a product that “energizes nearly every kind of social interaction across the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a preview of a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unpluggedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Making a book in the Middle Ages was extremely hard work. It took the skin of several calves to make the vellum (a writing material), an army of monks in a scriptorium, rare ink for the illustrations, and six months’ time. Writing for hours on end was torture (monks called it just that when they wrote in book margins, which read like ransom notes). Yet if not for the work of these monks, every single work from antiquity would have been lost. Almost no writing from ancient Greece or Rome survives in its original form; all of it was copied and preserved in medieval monasteries.In this episode, we explore the arduous process of making a book. We will specifically look at the Codex Gigas, the largest medieval book in the world (it’s a yard tall, 19 inches across, 9 inches thick, and weighs 165 pounds). It is also known as The Devil’s Bible because according to legend, the author sold his soul to the devil to complete it.Overall, we have these monks to thank for keeping ancient science and philosophy alive. If not for their punishing efforts to record these ancient documents, they would have been lost forever.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1933, Martha Dodd, a 24-year-old aspiring writer who had already had several affairs and a failed marriage embarked with her family to Berlin, where her father was America's ambassador to Hitler's regime. Within a few weeks, she was romantically involved with Rudolf Diels, the first director of the Gestapo. Dodd was so celebrated by the Nazi elite that some believed she could become Hitler's wife (the two met but nothing came of it). She soon soured on the Nazis after witnessing their brutal anti-Semitism, but became involved with Boris Vinogradov, an agent of the Soviet secret police. Over the next several decades, Dodd's life was a whirlwind of spying, communist recruitment in America, and eventually, permanent exile. Dodd was a dreamer who believed in the power of communism to right the wrongs of an unjust. But after decades abroad (first in Mexico, then in Prague) she ended up disillusioned with the promises of the Soviet Union. Her story is one of what happens when you cast your lot with a movement that ends up losing its political and ideological battles.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the greatest unsung heroes of the twentieth century is Gene "Jacques" Bullard, a World War One fighter pilot, boxer, spy, and overall adventurer. He was the first American-born black fighter pilot in history- and he flew for France. Bullard grew up in Georgia and ran away from home after a lynch mob forced his father to flee and leave his family. He ran away from home and lived with gypsies, then hopped on German freighter to Scotland. He then continued his sojourn as a pro boxer, then as a drummer and assistant nightclub manager in Paris during the Jazz Age. Bullard took advantage of all the opportunities in Europe that would be denied to a black man back in America. He married a white socialite in Paris, opened a successful nightclub, and joined the French Foreign Legion. After being wounded, he joined the French Air Corps during WWI and shot down two German planes. Prior to World War Two he worked a spy for French Intelligence. He rejoined the Foreign Legion in WWII but was wounded and transported on a hospital ship to New York City.Bullard spent the rest of his life as part of the French expatriate community in New York and was a fixture of the city’s multicultural life.Today’s guest is Jon Hagadorn, host of the podcast “1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries.” He shares the fascinating life of a man whose story is worth remembering.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In August of 1831, a 16-year-old from Connecticut named Sam Colt boarded a ship of missionaries bound for a round-trip voyage to Calcutta. Restless and rambunctious, with a particular fondness for blowing things up—he’d been expelled from Amherst Academy not long before for repeatedly firing a cannon from the top of a hill to the horror of frightened townspeople—Colt had long been a source of distress for his family, who hoped that this time at sea might prepare him for a stable career in a respectable trade. Instead, it would become the setting for an idea that would change the course of American history. Today's guest is Jim Rasenberger, author of "Revolver: Sam Colt and The Six-Shooter That Changed America. " We explore the life of the inventor who introduced repeating firearms to the world. With Colt’s revolver (allegedly dreamed up during that long stint at sea), one could for the first time shoot multiple bullets from a gun without reloading—a revolutionary mechanism that would help spark the American Industrial Revolution and speed the settlement of the West.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the mid-1930s, just as the United States was embarking on a policy of neutrality, Nazi Germany embarked on a program of espionage against the unwary nation. Hitler’s attempts to interfere in American affairs by spreading anti-Semitic propaganda, stealing military technology, and mapping US defenses. Today’s guest is Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, author of the book “The Nazi Spy Ring in America.” Using recently declassified material, he shows how Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Abwehr, was able to steal top secret US technology such as a prototype codebreaking machine and data about the latest fighter planes. Enlisting the services of German-American fascists and anti-Semites, they resorted to ruthless methods to achieve their goals, including murdering the wife and daughter of an American industrialist. When the spy ring was busted in 1938 by FBI agent Leon Turrou, the ensuing trial caused a national sensation and played a significant role in shifting public opinion against Germany, awakening many Americans to the looming Nazi threat. This story provides essential insight into the role of espionage in shaping American perceptions of Germany in the years leading up to US entry into World War II and sheds light on a now-forgotten but significant episode in the history of international relations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.