The story of how Joan of Arc, an unassuming peasant girl, became the leader of French armies is one of the most dramatic in all of European history. In many ways Joan's biography can read like a fairytale, or like the classic hero's...
There are few expeditions from the so-called "age of discovery" as harrowing as Ferdinand Magellan's attempted circumnavigation of the globe. The journey was plagued by storms, scurvy, starvation, and mutiny. By the time the...
Famous historical "firsts" tend to be controversial as a rule, and the world's first circumnavigation is no exception. Ferdinand Magellan is often celebrated as the first person to sail around the world, but is that actually...
The story that a woman disguised as man was once elected Pope has been floating around since the 1200's. In fact it was widely believed for hundreds of years that there had once been a real female Pope. But during the tumult of the...
We have explored the myth of Trojan War and we have sung the Ballad of Heinrich Schliemann. All that's left is to answer the question that has inspired this entire trilogy of episodes. To determine whether or not the Trojan War was...
In our quest to discover if the Trojan War was a verifiable historical event we have to grapple with the amateur archaeologist who first tried to solve that mystery. Heinrich Schliemann believed that he had found real proof that the city...
The story of the Trojan War is one of humanity's oldest tales of armed conflict. For the Ancient Greeks the war represented the bloody end of an historical epoch. The fall of the city marked the end of the so-called "Age of Heroes",...
The Pacific Ocean is the most expansive body of water on planet earth. Despite this fact ancient people managed to venture forth into its immensity and create a civilization of incredible sophistication. The question of how the ancients...
The Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace is so deeply enveloped in mythology that finding the real man can seem almost impossible. His life story has doubled as both entertainment and propaganda since it was first recounted by the minstrel...
William Wallace is not only one of Scotland's best loved national heroes, he's also one of the most internationally well-known. His role as a leader in Scotland's medieval wars of independence against the English made him famous,...
The spear that pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross has been one of the most fabled holy relics in history. The so-called "Spear of Destiny" is said to possess incredible supernatural powers that can make its carrier...
The story of the war between the Aztec (Mexica) empire and the Spanish conquistadors is one of the most dramatic in world history. The accounts of the conquest are diverse and, at times, contradictory. Some sources claim King Montezuma...
Before the Spanish arrived in the early 1500's, the Aztec, or Mexica, people had built an impressive civilization. Their empire was composed of bustling cities that were larger, cleaner, and more architecturally sophisticated than most...
When Marco Polo returned from his travels in Asia he brought back with him tales of lands previously unimagined by Europeans. One of his strangest stories was that of the so-called "old man of the mountain" and his band of devoted...
After seizing power in 1799 Napoleon's legend would only continue grow. In the years after the coup d'etat that brought him to power Napoleon would redraw the map of Europe and refashion himself as an emperor. Myths lurk around...
Napoleon is simultaneously one of the most well-known and most misunderstood figures in Western history. He has been portrayed as both the ultimate romantic hero and the most despicable war-mongering dictator. Napoleon's life is riddled...
William Shakespeare is easily the most well-known playwright in the English language. His works are praised as some of the greatest feats of writing and are still required reading throughout the English speaking world. But what if the man...
Ninjas, Japan's shadow warriors, have been a pop-culture staple for generations. The legend of the ninjas has become so overblown, that some have gone so far to suggest that they never truly existed. But that is just what the ninjas...
Is the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur just a bedtime story for morbid children or does it contain the kernels of real history? This week we dive into this classic myth and discover how it might hold clues about a real conflict between...
The "Great Fire" of 64 AD was the 9/11 of the ancient world, complete with it's own "truther" conspiracy. Could Emperor Nero actually have been behind the great fire? Did he play the fiddle as Rome burned? Listen and...