Historically High

The world created by George R.R. Martin for A Song of Ice and Fire has a pretty rich history. The world familiar to most through Game of Thrones covers only a few years worth of events from Westeros and Esso. House of the Dragon does the same only giving us a snap shot of a years known as the Dance of Dragons. We're here to open up the history books and discuss the history of the world of ice and fire that hasn't gotten t...

The Fountain of Youth, The Philosopher's Stone, The Apples of Hesperides, The Peaches of Immortality, The Elixir of Life, The Holy Grail. The quest for everlasting life has been told in one way or another throughout recorded history. Every religion has its version, every culture has its myths, but the search of immortality is literally a tale as old as time. From religious doctrine, to the science of alchemy, and finally genet...

Dubbed the Heist of the Century, the Antwerp Diamond Heist is straight out of a movie, seriously, I'm pretty sure the plot to the Ocean's 11 remake pulled a lotta inspiration from the events that actually took place. Antwerp is known as the diamond capital of the world. 85% of the rough diamonds in the world make their way to Antwerp. The Diamond District is where the cutting, polishing, wheeling, dealing takes place. Whe...

Imagine if you will, it's the 1940's and Europe is being overrun by the Nazi war machine. Scientists that would take part in the success of the Manhattan Project have fled their now occupied nations bringing their knowledge of harnessing atomic power to the Allies. That didn't deter the Nazi's from forming a program of their own, starting the "Uranium Club" in 1939. No one knew where the other stood in...

The Battle of the Alamo is taught in a way that makes you believe it is U.S. History. In truth, the Texas Revolution took place on Mexican land with mostly Mexican citizens. The Texas Revolution was won off of the loss at The Alamo. This battle had it all. Famous names, sneak attacks, answering questions via cannon. There wasn't ever really a question who was going to win the clash at the Alamo. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and...

WW1's end saw the signing of the Treaty of Versailles which went hard at the country of Germany. So much so it allowed Adolf Hitler to ascend to power using the treaties punishment as a tool to turn a large portion of the country to him for the fix. The Allies were determined to make sure that mistake was not repeated after WW2. The proposed solutions included mass killings and show trials, summary executions of leadership, to...

In May of 1588 150 ships of the Spanish Armada would begin sailing for England on a mission of conquest. What occurred during that attempt would come to be known as....The Spanish Armada. Yes I know it's confusing, it refers to both the armada of the Spanish and the naval campaign against the English Navy. Ok we good now? Basically Spain was pissed because the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth I of England told the recently widowe...

If you have ever been bested by the safety features of over the counter medicine, you are dealing with a direct result of the Tylenol Murders. In the fall of 1982, Chicago had 7 confirmed deaths from Tylenol consumption. The initial concern was a manufacturing issue. Once they found out the tainted pills came from different facilities, the theory got darker. A potential mass poisoning caused by a single person or group of people wa...

Imagine if you will that you're a 15 yr old boy, you've never met your father, and your mom died soon enough after your birth you don't remember her. You're raised by an aunt and uncle until one day your dad Niccolo and your Uncle Maffeo roll back into town and he's like "Hey I'm your Dad. Let me tell you about a guy named Kublai and a place called China." Two years later at 17, your dad deci...

Without a doubt the closest the planet has come to nuclear war occurred between October 16th-28th 1962. The Cold War was at its peak. Brought there by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion about 18 months earlier by "Cuban Exiles", with pretty obvious support from the United States. With nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy the U.S. had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union if it ever came to the first strike in an a...

We're gonna go ahead and apologize in advance for any stumbles through this one. Sir Isaac Newton possessed a kind of brilliance that is very hard for the majority of people to really wrapped their heads around, and that includes us. Known as the Father of Modern Physics he didn't just help shape our understanding of the science of the natural world (not nature but the laws that govern nature, gravity, optics, movement, e...

The scariest part of the Dust Bowl is the very small amount we talk about it historically. The need for wheat during WW1 caused the wheat market to double. There was a lot of new agricultural land in the Southern Great Plains. Once the war was over, the government tried to prop up grain prices as best they could. In order to continue making the money they once did, farmers in the Southern Great Plains doubled down purchasing more l...

The Stanford Prison Experiment produced groundbreaking results. The main result was proving the need to create Institutional Review Boards for human experiments. Dr. Philip Zimbardo wanted to test the effect of power and powerlessness in a prison setting. He used a bunch of college age boys to play the part of guards and prisoners. Usually a Doctor oversees their experiment. Not only did Zimbardo oversee his experiment, he made him...

We're heading back to WW2 for the most pivotal battle of the European Theater. Some of you are already scoffing at that statement but let me lay it out like this. After Germany steamrolled mainland Europe, Great Britain was all that was left. Russia and Germany weren't at war yet. The United States was still over two years away from being at war. It was the British holding the line against total Nazi domination of Europe....

It's Part 2....so if you haven't already go back and listen to part 1 first. Think you can just raw dog it without having any of Ireland's backstory, think again. We pick back up at a major event in Irish history, The Blight, or as most of us know it The Great Irish Potato Famine. Ireland is hurting and the people in charge, currently the English, aren't doing a whole lot to help. This combined with a whole list...

Ireland. A country with a history almost as rich as the country is beautiful. A country that despite its proximity to mainland Europe seemed to avoid little things like invasion by the Roman Empire. Tracing its first people's back 10,000 years ago,  they began building stone monuments and elaborate burial tombs around 6500, and around 2500 years ago the Celts began to arrive. The Celtic tribes divided the island into different...

Apollo 13 was slated to be NASA's third manned spaceflight to land on the moon. Apollo 11 won us the space race and Apollo 12 proved it wasn't just a fluke that we put a man on the lunar surface. Apollo 13 was going to up the ante by putting men on a different part of the moon to explore. Now all of these missions took place within a period of 12 months so by Apollo 13 the public had lost interest. NASA had made it too ea...

Prof Chris here. I'm gonna shoot everyone straight, I got carried away with this one, I couldn't see it while it was happening, and I had the blinders on, sooo what you get now is 3 hours and 45 plus minutes of comprehensive and probably mostly entertaining discussion on the history of the Wizarding World introduced in the Harry Potter books/movie. I've got my nerd on full display here but Prof Adam enabled it so he&...

Henry Hudson. We don't know too much about his life prior to becoming a captain for the Muscovy Company of England. In his life he would tale 4 voyages looking to reach the east coast of Asia. 3 of those 4 voyages would start out going east only to run into ice. 2 of those voyages would discover some very cool things in the western world that would take his name (Hudson River, Hudson River Valley, Hudson Strait, Hudson Bay). I...