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History Shorts

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Latest episodes

  • The House of Medici

    October 25, 2026 · 13 min

    Easter Mass, 1478. Assassins strike inside Florence's cathedral, and their targets are two brothers from a family of bankers. The plot has the backing of the Pope himself. In this episode, we tell the story of the Medici — the moneylenders…

  • Athens vs. Sparta: The Original Superpower Rivalry

    October 24, 2026 · 12 min

    At Thermopylae and Salamis, Sparta and Athens fought side by side and beat the largest empire on earth. Fifty years later, they spent twenty-seven years trying to destroy each other. One was a seafaring democracy that built the Parthenon…

  • Who Was the Real William Howard Taft? w/ Walter Stahr

    October 23, 2026 · 34 min

    William Howard Taft is the only person who has been both president and chief justice, and he is still usually filed under mediocre. He called his own administration humdrum. Theodore Roosevelt made him president, then ran against him and…

  • When FDR Wanted Hoover to be President

    October 22, 2026 · 14 min

    In January 1920, Franklin Roosevelt wrote that Herbert Hoover was "certainly a wonder" — and that he wished "we could make him President." Before the Depression, Hoover was a global hero: the man who fed occupied Belgium and whose name…

  • How Baghdad Saved Ancient Greek Philosophy

    October 21, 2026 · 12 min

    Socrates never wrote a word. Most of Aristotle's polished writing is lost forever. And for six hundred years after Rome fell, Western Europe had barely any Aristotle at all. In this episode, we trace how the Greek philosophers invented the…

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  • The Third Tier: Theaters & Prostitutes

    October 20, 2026 · 13 min

    Look up from the stage of a big-city American theater in the 1830s and you'd see three levels of seats. The pit. The family boxes. And the third tier — with its own staircase, its own street entrance, and its own bar. It was set aside for…

  • The Home Remedies that Killed

    October 19, 2026 · 15 min

    For generations, nobody had to tell you what was in your medicine. Not the morphine in the syrup that quieted your teething baby. Not the arsenic in the wafers that promised a perfect complexion. Not the mercury in the nursery powders, or…

  • The Most Expensive American War is...

    October 18, 2026 · 14 min

    Most people say World War II is the most expensive war in American history — $4.5 trillion in today's money. But that's only direct military spending. Add veterans' care, interest on war debt, and long-term obligations, and the post-9/11…

  • Eight Days that Ended the Gilded Age

    October 17, 2026 · 14 min

    On September 6th, 1901, President McKinley was shot twice at a World's Fair in Buffalo. His first instinct was to protect his attacker and spare his wife the news. He appeared to recover. An X-ray machine was on display at the Exposition…

  • Poland: What Does it Take For a Nation to Survive, w/ Norman Davies

    October 16, 2026 · 42 min

    What does it take for a nation to survive after the state is gone? For 123 years, from 1795 to 1918, Poland did not exist on the map. It had been partitioned three times, divided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and written off as a…

  • The Search for the Last Rebel Yell

    October 15, 2026 · 14 min

    The rebel yell — the Confederate battle cry that terrified Union soldiers across four years of war — was never recorded during the Civil War. The phonograph wasn't invented until 1877. Twelve years too late. By the 1930s, the men who had…

  • From Burnsides to Sideburns

    October 14, 2026 · 13 min

    Every time you use the word sideburns, you're accidentally commemorating one of the worst generals of the Civil War. Ambrose Burnside told Lincoln twice he wasn't the right man for the job. He was right both times. The third time he said…

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About the show

Dive into the past with award-winning historian Peter Zablocki in this captivating daily podcast! Uncover hidden stories you never knew existed. And don't miss Friday Conversations where Peter teams up with top experts for riveting, in-depth discussions that bring history to life.