The tragic story of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular hydrogen-fueled fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. But airships, those airborne...
Yesterday
It Took Russia 300 Years To Destroy the Final Pieces of Genghis Khan’s Empire
Before Ivan was the Terrible, he was a young tsar who had tried and failed to destroy the last fragments of Genghis Khan’s Empire in the Volga River Valley. In October of 1552, the 22-year-old Ivan stood outside the walls of a city that had raided, humiliated, and enslaved Russia ... Show More
49m 51s
Jul 30
The Wunderkind George Forster: Voyaging with Captain Cook at 10 and Dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris in his 20s
A ten-year-old boy gallops across the Russian steppe on a Kalmyk horse, collecting plants for his father while German settlers starve in earth dugouts along the Volga. Seven years later, that same boy is standing on the deck of Captain Cook's Resolution as it crosses the Antarcti ... Show More
43m 9s
Jul 28
Every 2 Weeks a Language Dies: Whether By Assimilation or Targeted Extinction
When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake tore through southeastern Turkey in 2023, the government posted that it would provide translation support in seven languages: Turkish, Arabic, Persian, English, Russian, German, and Pashto. Kurdish, spoken by fifteen million people in the affecte ... Show More
59m 27s
Mar 2024
429. Titanic: Countdown to Disaster (Part 3)
The drama and tragedy of the Titanic’s sinking has spawned all manner of myths about those who left Southampton on the 10th of April 1912, and for four days luxuriated in the ship’s modern facilities, extravagant interiors, and plush cabins. Among them were many magnates and tyco ... Show More
46m 36s