We live in the golden age of dragons – they appear in Game of Thrones, most film adaptations of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, and nearly everything tangentially related to fantasy. They date back millennia, appearing in every cultures mythology, from...
Oct 6
The Gold Rush Created Get Rich Quick Schemes and ‘Move Fast and Break Things’
On the morning of January 24, 1848, a carpenter named James Marshall climbed into a ditch beside a half-finished sawmill in the Sierra Nevada foothills, stooped down, and found gold. He crawled out clutching his hat to his chest like a hurt child, showed the men a teaspoon of yel ... Show More
46m 57s
Oct 1
Every Fight in American History Was Also a Fight Over Who Gets to Eat Good Bread
Early America’s most important invention wasn’t Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod, or the cotton gin. It was the world's first fully automated flour mill, built by Oliver Evans in the 1780s. Evans's mill used a conveyor-belt grain elevator, leather straps, wheels, and Archimedean ... Show More
47m 6s
Feb 2024
Dragons: From the Ancient World to the Hobbit
Take dinosaur bones, snake poison, volcanic lava, fear of the unknown. Mix it all together and you have a dragon!Today we're finding out about the ancient origins of dragons and why there used to be a much wider variety of dragon types than we see today. Our guide is dragon exper ... Show More
41m 25s
Jul 2022
21. The Father of Dragons
Glaurung, the first of all dragons, issues forth from Angband to break the siege, but is he ready yet? Also, let's talk about the origin of Dragons in Tolkien's mythology.Join our Patreon for weekly bonus episodes, early access, and ad-free listening: https://www.patreon.com/lotr ... Show More
34m 28s