Vol 4 Ep 67 - The Mongols, Part One

3500 BCE - 1600 CE - Uncover the ancient earthworks of North America’s Pre-Columbian Mound Builders—exploring ritual, trade, astronomy, and society from the Adena to the Mississippians, in this immersive historical journey. 

700 BCE - 1497 CE - Long before European contact, North America was home to vibrant civilisations. From the Ancestral Puebloans, Hohokam, and Mogollon in the Southwest to the Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian cultures of the Eastern Woodlands, these societies thrived. In the Arc ... Show More

1325 - 1521 - The powerful Mesoamerican civilisation known for advanced city-building, military strength, religious rituals, and human sacrifices before their downfall to Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés. 

The Crusades are well-known but only part of the complex history of the medieval Near East. During the same era, the region was completely remade by the Mongol invasions.  In a single generation, the Mongols upended the region’s geopolitics.  In this edition of Gone Medieval, Mat ... Show More

The Mongols are widely known for one thing: conquest. Through the ages, word "horde" has entered the English lexicon with a negative connotation, conjuring up images of warriors on horseback, sweeping across the plain--a virtual human flood destroying everything in its path and t ... Show More

The Crusades are well-known but only part of the complex history of the medieval Near East. During the same era, the region was completely remade by the Mongol invasions.  In a single generation, the Mongols upended the region’s geopolitics.   In this edition of Gone Medieval, Ma ... Show More

The most disruptive and transformative event in the Middle Ages wasn’t the Crusades, the Battle of Agincourt, or even the Black Death. It was the Mongol Conquests. Even after his death, Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire grew to become the largest in history—four times the size of Alex ... Show More

The Achaemenid Empire, or better known as the First Persian Empire, was one of the largest empires in History - led by Cyrus the Great it covered 2.1 million square miles. But where did it come from? And what do we know about their society? It was in their DNA to travel and explo ... Show More

In the late Middle Ages, the Mongol Empire became the largest the world had ever seen. At its peak, maybe 100 million people lived under its banner, led by the Great Khans of the Asian steppe. But what unified the first disparate, nomadic clans? Who was the real Genghis Khan, and ... Show More

There's a growing culture war over history with efforts throughout western nations to revert to "virtuous origin" stories. IDEAS explores what happens when we sanitize history and remove criticism and doubt from the myth. If we kill history, how can we look to the future? 

The British Empire was one of the most influential and far-reaching empires in history. Dan and his guest journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera remember school lessons on the small island that rose to global dominance. From the 16th century to the 20th century, the British Empir ... Show More