History Unplugged Podcast

This episode is second in our Alternate History Week series, where I look at famous books of alternate history and discuss why I think their alternate timelines aren't plausible. Today's book is Kim Stanley Robinson's 2002 book The Years of Rice and Salt. It explores how world history would have developed if the Black Death had killed 99 percent of Europe's population, with the Islamic world, the Chinese, and American Indians filling in the void. One section discusses China discovering and colonizing the New World. Here's why I think China would have never done so.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is the first of a five-part series in our Alternate History Week—our version of Shark Week, if you will. We are looking at famous books of alternate history, and I'm discussing why I think their alternate timelines aren't plausible. The first book in this series is 1632. Eric Flint's book imagines that a West Virginia town gets sent back to 1632 Germany, during the Thirty Years War, and gradually comes to dominate European politics of the age. I'm going to twist the premise of this book—a small group of technologically advanced soldiers conquers a much larger force—and discuss the question of whether a Marine Corps MEU take out the Roman military.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was an event in history worse than World War I, worse than the Mongol invasions that killed 40 million, worse than the little Ice Age that triggered famines and rebellions across the medieval world. This event was the "Dark Ages before the Dark Ages." It was the Bronze Age Collapse of 1177 BC, and it was so monumental that it inspired Homer’s ‘The Iliad’   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since the 1950s, many classicists and military historians have believed that an ancient Roman bloodline lives on in a Chinese village. The town of Liqian sits on the edge of the Gobi desert, and 4,500 miles from Rome. They have tried to prove that the ruddy-skinned, light-eyed, and fair-haired residents of Liqian are lost relatives of a missing Roman battalion of mercenaries that fought against the Chinese 2,000 years ago. Let's look into this theory and see if a piece of Rome still lives on in China.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thomas Cahill argues in his best-selling book How the Irish Saved Civilization that Ireland played a critical role in Europe's evolution from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Is his narrative correct? Without Ireland, he argues, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost -- they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. Let's discuss how Ireland gave more to the modern world than Guinness and Bono.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rome and China were the two poles of the Silk Road. One sent precious porcelain, spices, and silks, the other sent out glassware and high-quality cloth. As Rome expanded into the Near East and China into Central Asia, did the two empires learn much of each other? Furthermore, did the two empires ever attempt direct contact?   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The United States has accepted immigrants throughout its history, but America has its emigrants as well. Did you know there is a city in Brazil founded by Confederates who wanted to flee the U.S. during Reconstruction? Welcome to Americana, Brazil.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

General Curtis LeMay is perhaps the most misunderstood general of the 20th century, despite the fact that he played a major role in so many important military events of the last century: he turned the air war in Europe from a dismal failure to a great success, he helped defeat Japan without a costly land invasion, he commanded the start of Berlin Air Lift, and he was on the Joint Chiefs during the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, the LeMay legacy that has survived into the 21st century paints LeMay as a crude, trigger-happy, cigar-chomping general who joined political forces with one of the most famous racists in American history, George Wallace. Today's guest Warren Kozak argues that Lemay was an overlooked general who made the difficult but necessary decisions that eventually helped the United States win World War II and the Cold War, as well as strengthen our military forces when we needed them most. LeMay is most often remembered for two minor marks in his life: a statement he did not actually make (about bombing North Vietnam back to the Stone Age) and a brief political affiliation with George Wallace despite their deep disagreements over racial politics. Unfortunately, these parts of Curtis LeMay’s life have overshadowed many more years of military success. According to Kozak, these accomplishments include: LeMay devised the plan to use incendiary bombs over Japan that, while killing hundreds of thousands, saved millions from an impending ground invasion of Japan LeMay turned the air war over Europe around and he was the only general to lead his troops, insisting on flying the lead bomber on every dangerous mission. He championed the creation of an independent Air Force, as well as the improvement of American military planes He turned the Strategic Air Command from a dismal failure into the deadliest fighting force in history RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Curtis LeMay: Strategist and Tactician ABOUT WARREN Warren Kozak is an author and journalist who has written for television’s most respected news anchors. Winner of the prestigious Benton Fellowship at the University of Chicago in 1993, he was an on-air reporter for NPR and his work has appeared on PBS and in the Washington Post, the New York Sun and The Wall Street Journal as well as other newspapers and magazines. Warren Kozak was born and raised in Wisconsin and lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Conspiracy theorists have many "reasons" for why we've never been to the moon: the Van Allen radiation belts are too deadly, the challenges are too difficult, re-entry into the atmosphere is too hot. But Jason Funk, who asked today's question, points out that the cranks have at least one point—if we did go to the moon in 1960s, why haven't we been back after five decades of technological evolution? Good question. Let's dive in.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I had the extraordinary pleasure to talk with Captain Jerry Yellin, a 93-year-old World War Two vet who flew the final combat mission in World War Two's Pacific Theatre. Yellin piloted for the 78th Fighter Squadron and was part of the 1945 bombing campaigns that ultimately triggered Japan's surrender. From April to August of 1945, Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. Yellin joined the war efforts when he was 19 and jumped directly into action. The stench of death, the rain of bullets, and the minute-to-minute fight for survival faced young Captain Jerry Yellin when he landed on Iwo Jima in in 1945. Little did Capt. Yellin know that his life would be turned upside down during a routine flight, which turned out to be the last combat mission of WWII. Flanked by his devoted comrades, Yellin was a flight leader in the final fight for freedom—a mission that will forever leave its mark on the history of the world.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or StitcherSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.