Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Mammoths existed on our planet for roughly five million years, and they were perfectly adapted to the ice age world they inhabited. So perfectly adapted that when the last ice age ended, so did they. No woolly mammoths have walked the earth for the last 10,000 years. Or did they?It turns out that the last mammoths didn’t disappear 10,000 years ago. For thousands of years after their extinction in the rest of the world, a small population still lived on a remote island in the Arctic called Wrangel Island. And in their last days? In the end times? Things got weird.This is a story about a natural disaster that happened—to mammoths. Let’s dig in.Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Ten thousand years ago, there was no North Sea. Instead, there was a vast landscape that connected the UK and Ireland to the rest of Europe. Archaeologists call it Doggerland.This was a Mesolithic paradise. A great biodiversity hotspot where we had all the food and raw materials we could ask for within arm’s reach—an immense forest and wetland paradise as big as a second France. It was the beating heart of Mesolithic Europe.But nothing good can ever stay. By some accounts, Doggerland was drowning from the day it was born. But its final end came in a single, cataclysmic day.Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Explore the Ten Plagues of Egypt, a dark biblical tale possibly rooted in a Bronze Age natural disaster. Discuss the moral implications, analyze biblical passages, and question the role of Moses. Uncover theories like volcanic eruptions and climate change as possible explanations for the plagues. Discover the connection between the plagues and the Bronze Age collapse. Dive into the impact of cataclysmic events like the eruption of the Theore volcano on Santorini. Examine the contamination of the Nile and its connection to the plagues. Explore the theory of a plague of flies rather than wild beasts. Delve into apocalyptic events, extreme weather, and the restoration of ancient structures. Connect burial pits to ancient disasters and the biblical plague of firstborn male children. Engage with theories, interpretation, and social media for further exploration.

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In this episode, we return to the beach at Actium with author, historian, and academic Barry Strauss as our tour guide. His new book, The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium, discusses the infamous sea battle Marc Antony and Cleopatra fought against Octavian and Agrippa for love, for supremacy, for their very survival.Join us as we deconstruct this battle, paint a vivid picture of ancient war at sea, and tackle the one question everyone’s asking: why did Cleopatra flee the battlefield?Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com.Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode originally appeared as a Patreon Exclusive episode. Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In the second installment of our Cleopatra x King Herod arc, the slow-motion train wreck continues. Herod makes increasingly ill-advised decisions as schemes and intrigue simmer around him. Meanwhile, Cleopatra influences things from afar, empowering Herod's enemies and relatives (who are frequently one and the same). Find out how it all went down when their feud reached the boiling point. Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com.Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode originally appeared as a Patreon Exclusive episode. Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In our episode Cleopatra x Marc Antony: Lovers in a Dangerous Time (Part 3), we alluded to a story about King Herod (yes, that King Herod) and Cleopatra—and an epic feud between them. We didn’t have time to go into that story in the bigger arc on Cleopatra and Marc Antony, but we thought it was a perfect topic for a minisode. Unlike Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Cleopatra and Herod hated each other. And not in a sexy-belligerent-sexual-tension way. They were intractable enemies—and it ultimately led to Cleopatra’s downfall. This is the first Ancient History Fangirl mini-arc--a two-episode series about two colossal personalities from the ancient world--and what happened when their interests collided.Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com.Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! After the disaster at Actium, Marc Antony's entire army--100,000 strong--surrendered to Octavian. Marc Antony and Cleopatra fled to Alexandria to negotiate the terms of their defeat.Those were dark, foreboding days. Friends and allies fled the palace. Marc Antony fell into a deep depression, while Cleopatra searched desperately for a way out--one that would keep her kingdom intact and her children alive.But the reckoning was coming.Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com.Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! As Marc Antony and Cleopatra lived and loved in Alexandria, Octavian whipped up a toxic garbage fire of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in Rome--and then declared war. Not against Marc Antony, but against Cleopatra.Soon, the lovers would be forced to defend their home, their family, and their life together on the shores of the Ambracian Gulf. Find out how it all went down--at a town called Actium.Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com.Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're re-releasing this episode in honor of Maya Deane's book Wrath Goddess Sing coming out in paperback. Available wherever books are sold!Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Many of us have preconceived notions about what the Illiad was like. Prepare to have those notions blown away.In this episode, debut author Maya Deane methodically strips away the lenses of the Victorian era, Classical Greece, and the modern day to reveal an Illiad that’s older and darker and weirder than any of us could ever have dreamed.This is the Illiad of your darkest and deepest imaginings, an Illiad like you’ve never seen before—but somehow always knew existed. It’s the Illiad of Wrath Goddess Sing—a novel about transgender Achilles and the love of found family in a Bronze Age world as deadly as it is beguiling.Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com.Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! After four years of marriage with Octavia, Marc Antony followed Cleopatra to Alexandria—and settled into life there. He oversaw festivals and athletic contests, cheered Cleopatra on as she ruled Egypt, and showered her and their children with honors and territories.For all intents and purposes, he was the consort of Egypt’s beloved Pharaoh, the father of her children—and he was home.But the propaganda war between Antony and Octavian was building to a fever pitch in Rome, even as the Parthians loomed threateningly in the distance. Soon Antony would be called to war—and face the biggest battlefield test of his career.Sponsors and AdvertisingThis podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com.Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices