History Unplugged Podcast

Was there a real life Dr. Frankenstein who tried to bring the dead back to life by science and alchemy? Yes there was, and his name was Johann Dippel. He lived in the transitional period between alchemy and modern science. He may have experimented on bringing dead animals back to life, but because of these daring experiments modern chemistry, biology, and even the medical sciences owes him much.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early 1800s there was no English explorer greater than James Holman. He covered a distance almost twenty times farther than Marco Polo on foot or cart—almost never using trains or steamships. He travelled among 200 different cultures, charted undiscovered parts of Australia, and by October 1846 had visited every inhabited continent. He did all this despite being completely blind. How did Holman travel the world when any sort of international exploration was exceptionally dangerous? Learn how in this episode.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Few will dispute that China has one of the most ancient cultures on earth, but is there any truth to the claim—made by many residents of China—that there is a 5,000-year-long line of continuity in its culture? Would an inhabitant of present-day China from five millennia ago really have anything in common with a bullet-train-riding businessman from Guangzhou drinking a Starbucks while on his way to Beijing? The answer, as always, is tricky, but there is some truth to the claim. Or at least more truth to the claim than almost any other culture could make.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do Americans celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks? Are we trying to take the National Anthem as literally as possible, creating “Bombs Bursting in Air”? Or is there another reason? It turns out that much of the festival trappings of the Fourth of July date way further back than most realize. They even predate the founding of the United States. Many of the most cherished "American" traditions go back to Renaissance Italy. Some even extend back to Imperial China. However, hot dogs are still pure U, S, and A. Nothing can change that.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Any fan of Shakespeare knows how much the English language has changed over the last 400 years. A student of Chauncer knows even better. A brave student of Beowulf knows almost better than anyone else. You literally have to be a scholar to read "English" of 1,000 years ago. But are there any languages that haven't changed to this degree? Languages that a normal citizen can pick up a text from a millenium ago and understand perfectly? The answer is yes. Listen to this episode to learn which one. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rome didn’t fall in 476 when Romulus, the last of the Roman emperors in the west, was overthrown by the Germanic leader Odoacer, who became the first Barbarian to rule in Rome. Nor did it fall in 1453 when the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople. Depending on how you define ‘Rome,’ it didn’t fall until the Napoleonic Wars. Or the end of hostilities following World War I. If you visit Turkey, you might meet somebody who still calls himself a Roman. Listen to this episode to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The horrors of the Holocaust are as vivid now as they were in 1945 when the world discovered the horrors of Nazi Germany's atrocities. But why did Hitler hate the Jews so vehemently? Furthermore, why did he shift precious resources away from the war effort and toward the eradication of an ethnic group that posed no military threat to Nazi Germany? To answer this question I called up Richard Weikart, a scholar of 20th century Europe and author of the book Hitler's Religion. Check out Richard’s book by clicking here. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard Weikart is a professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus, and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He has published numerous scholarly articles, as well as five previous books including The Death of Humanity: and the Case for Life (Regnery, 2016) and From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. He has appeared in several documentaries, including Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In addition to scholarly journals, his work has been featured and discussed in the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, National Review, Christianity Today, World magazine, BreakPoint, Citizen, various radio shows, and other venues. Weikart lives in Snelling, CA, with his wife and children. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

By the late 1800s Europe's Great Powers controlled nearly 80 percent of the African continent. Much research has analyzed the brutal aspects of its colonization—particularly in the Belgian Congo—but less on why Europe colonized Africa. Were the reasons only for financial exploitation or was there another reason? Listen to this episode to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's episode we are possibly going to bite off more than we can chew... by discussing the entire history of Russia. OK, maybe not the entire history of Russia. But we will discuss how invasions of Russia over the centuries have shaped its psyche today, and even explain Vladimir Putin's rationale for invading the Crimea. Thankfully we have a guest who can guide us through our figurative Siberia. He is Mark Schauss, host of the Russian Rulers in History Podcast. Mark has spent over 200 episodes looking at all rulers in Russia's history, from Rurik the Varangian Chieftan who founded Kievan Rus in the 800s to Vladimir Putin. Mark thinks that the dozens of invasions of Russian — the Viking raids of Kiev, the Mongol Raids in the 1200s, the Ottoman invasions of the 1500-1700s, the Napoleonic Invasion of the early 1800s, and Nazi Germany's invasion of 1941 — created the Russian psyche of today. That is why Russia invading its neighbors might seem aggressive to other nations but perfectly natural to a nation that spent much of its existence under threat of being swallowed up. But Mark notes that the constant flow of people in and out of Russia had good consequences as well. Catherine the Great, fearful of smallpox killing her population in the 1700s, had them inoculated on a massive scale. News of the program's success spread around the world, even reaching George Washington and prompting him to inoculate American soldiers in a similar way. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Russian Rulers in History Podcast Russian Rulers in History podcast in iTunes ABOUT MARK Mark's podcast has been downloaded more than 2 million times. He is also an internationally known lecturer on environmental and nutritional health issues and has spoken in North America, Asia, South America, Europe and soon in Australia. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Depression is not a modern phenomenon. Take the example of Abraham Lincoln. He is an unusual psychological case study. He was both chronically melancholy, and yet among the strongest people in history. Here's a quick rundown: Lincoln lost his one true love and married Mary Todd, a mentally unstable woman who abused him. He loved his sons deeply but one died very young, and another (Willie) died at 11 in the White House. This almost broke Lincoln. But the same philosophical-psychological outlook caused Lincoln to be both depressed and incredibly strong. Learn about how depression plagued the past as much as it does the present.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.