April 5, 1918. The first mention of a new influenza outbreak in Kansas appears in a public health report. That strain, later called the Spanish Flu, would go on to kill at least 50 million people worldwide. In a time before widespread global travel, how did this disease spread so far, so fast? And what does it teach us about fighting pandemics today?Special ... Show More
Today
The Uprising: Why the Peasants Loved Their King (w/ Paul Greengrass and Dan Jones)
1381. In the English countryside, one peasant has had enough. His resistance leads tens of thousands of armed peasants to march on London. They’re furious about taxes, about wages held down by law, about a world that feels abandoned by God. But they aren’t marching to overthrow t ... Show More
29m 34s
Sep 14
Saladin at the Gates of Jerusalem
September 20, 1187. It’s daytime outside the walls of Jerusalem. Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, ponders his next attack. His troops encircle and lay siege to the city. They vastly outnumber the Crusader knights inside, and Saladin is on the cusp of a victory he never dreamed possi ... Show More
28m 53s
Apr 2020
Lessons from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic
The influenza outbreak of 1918 was the deadliest pandemic in recent history, killing an estimated 50 million to 100 million people aroundthe world. And it bears some striking similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, Laura Spinney, science journalist and author of Pale Rider: ... Show More
24 m
May 2018
Laura Spinney, “Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World” (PublicAffairs, 2017)
The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth–from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll of between 50 a ... Show More
43m 48s