July 31, 1492. In cities, towns and villages across late medieval Spain, whole districts have emptied out. Houses abandoned, stores closed, and synagogues—which until recently had been alive with singing and prayer—now sit quiet. Exactly four months earlier, the King and Queen of Spain issued an edict: by royal decree, all Jewish people in Spain must convert ... Show More
Today
How Biddy Mason Found Her Freedom in Los Angeles
November 8, 1864. Election Day. Abraham Lincoln watches from a White House window, convinced he might lose. Three thousand miles away in Los Angeles, a Confederate hotbed in a so-called free state, Biddy Mason has more riding on the result than almost anyone in the country.Sixtee ... Show More
31m 35s
Oct 30
Salem’s First Witch Trial
Happy Halloween! Today, we're bringing back a particularly spooky episode from the archives...June 10, 1692. Bridget Bishop is loaded into a two-wheeled cart and brought from her Salem jail cell to a pasture on a hill, where a rope is hanging from freshly-installed gallows. A cro ... Show More
28m 48s
Oct 26
1066: The Brother Who Broke England (w/ Greg Jenner)
October 28, 1065. The king’s council meets in Oxford and throws a man out of England. His name is Tostig Godwinson, and the north of England already hates him. His own brother Harold, the most powerful earl in the realm and the likely next king, refuses to save him.Tostig does no ... Show More
29m 22s
Nov 2014
The Expulsion of the Jews From Spain
<p>In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue ... and Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile expelled the Jewish population from Spain.</p><p> </p> Learn more about your ad-choices at <a href="https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com">https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork. ... Show More
29m 55s
Apr 2024
143. Isabella of Castile: The Spanish Inquisition, the Conquest of Granada, and Columbus
For centuries Spain had been an outlier in Europe due to its religious diversity; Christians, Jews, and Muslims all existed reasonably peacefully across the Iberian peninsula. Under Isabelle of Castile that all changed. She began the Spanish Inquisition and brought to the fore a ... Show More
54m 37s
Apr 2025
The Moriscos & the Purging of Muslim Spain (1492-1614) | Matthew Carr
<p>The author of "Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492 to 1614," delves into the complex history of Muslim Spain, starting from the arrival of Muslims in Spain in 711 under a North African general, the formation of al-Andalus, and its eventual decline. Matthew Carr ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2023
Jews & the Inquisition in Italy
<p>Between 1598 and 1785, the Papal or Roman Inquisition in Modena, Northern Italy, put 393 Jews on trial. Regarded as infidels, Jews were accused of, among other things, blasphemy, employing a Christian servant, owning prohibited books, and having sex with Christians. But the tr ... Show More
36m 51s