History Hit
Published 2 Oct 2024Was the Trojan War real? Did the Greeks dig ditches? Why did the Greeks fight the Persians?
Ancient Greek historian Roel Konijnendijk Answers Google’s Most Popular Questions About Ancient Greek Warfare.
00:00 Intro
00:46 Who did the Greeks fight?
01:47 How did the Greeks fight?
02:59 What weapons did the Greeks fight with?
04:25 Did the Greeks fight on chariots?
05:08 Did the Greeks have cavalries?
06:51 Did the Greeks have navies?
08:24 Did the Greeks do sieges?
09:46 Did the Greeks dig ditches?
10:47 Who was the best Greek warrior?
12:05 Was the Trojan War real?
14:04 Who started the trojan war?
15:34 Who was Helen of troy?
16:15 Did the gods fight in the trojan war?
17:02 Which heroes fought in the trojan war?
18:21 What was the trojan horse?
19:16 Who won the trojan war?
20:20 Why was the Trojan war important?
21:28 Why did the Greeks fight the Persians?
23:09 Where was the Persian war?
24:59 Who won the Persian war?
26:50 Why was the Persian war important?
28:26 Did the Spartans fight the Athenians?
28:58 Why was it called the Peloponnesian war?
29:50 Who won the Peloponnesian war?
31:51 What happened after the Peloponnesian war?
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February 6, 2025
Historian Answers Google’s Most Popular Questions About Ancient Greek Warfare
February 5, 2025
The Korean War 033 – A Deadly Game: China & US Both Attack! – February 4, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 4 Feb 2025The fate of the Korean Peninsula stands on a knife edge as Peng Dehuai’s mighty armies gear up to make their move. The US 8th Army continues to push towards Seoul, now backed up by Edward Almond’s 10th Corps to the east. Violent clashes towards the end of the week confirm what both sides already suspect: a great battle is coming, and in this deadly game of thrust and riposte, there can be but one victor.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:47 Recap
01:02 Thunderbolt Continued
06:47 All’s Well That Ends Well
11:38 The Twin Tunnels
15:49 Conclusion
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Beef Tea from a Victorian Hospital
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 27 Sept 2024Beef tea made with beef, onions, and clove
City/Region: England
Time Period: 1851Beef tea, largely unfamiliar to us now, was all the rage in 19th century hospitals. Believed to contain all of the nutrients of solid beef (not true), it was given to convalescents of all afflictions and social statuses. You can even find it in cocktail books, though you’d be hard pressed to find a bar that serves it today.
This beef tea is surprisingly nice. It’s not really like a beef bouillon or beef stock, and is much lighter in flavor and color. There’s a hint of beef flavor, but I noticed more of a delicious savoriness and unctuousness. While I don’t think it could replace a cocktail, I could see this being lovely on a cold evening.
Soyer’s new way of making Beef Tea
Cut a pound of solid beef into very small dice, which put into a stewpan, with a small pat of butter, a clove, two butter onions, and a salt-spoonful of salt, stir the meat round over the fire for a few minutes, until it produces a thin gravy, then add a quart of water, and let it simmer at the corner of the fire for half an hour, skimming off every particle of fat, when done pass through a sieve. I have always had a great objection to passing broth through a cloth, as it frequently quite spoils its flavor.
— The Modern Housewife or, Ménagère by Alexis Soyer, 1851
February 4, 2025
The FN C1A1 – Workhorse of the Cold War Canadian Army
On Target Canada
Published 20 Jan 2020Time to get a closer look at a rifle I have spent a lot of time with in the past. The FN C1A1, used by the Canadian Army from the mid 1950s to the late 1980s.
Enjoy!
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February 3, 2025
A New World Order – War 2 War 01 – Q4 1945
TimeGhost History
Published 1 Feb 2025World War Two is over. The anti-Axis alliance has promised that their victory shall usher in a time of peace, stability, and freedom. They have pledged to uphold new values of humanity, tolerance, solidarity, and the right to self determination. Have they spoken the truth or has it been a string of lies all along?
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Roman Senior Army Officers and their careers
Adrian Goldsworthy. Historian and Novelist
Published 1 Oct 2024Today’s question is about the career paths for senatorial and equestrian officers in the Roman army. This is a big theme, so take this as an introduction. We will return to this topic in the future.
February 2, 2025
HMS Hood – Death in 17 Mins – The Bismarck Part 2
World War Two
Published 1 Feb 2025On May 24, 1941, the Kriegsmarine‘s mighty battleship Bismarck goes head to head with the Royal Navy’s HMS Hood. Seventeen minutes later, just one of the steel titans is left afloat and 1,400 men are dead.
Special thanks goes to the HMS Hood Association, to learn more about HMS hood visit hmshood.org.uk
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Hierapolis: a city encased in stone
Scenic Routes to the Past
Published 18 Oct 2024Hierapolis — modern Pamukkale, Turkey — was built over hot springs. During the Middle Ages, these encased much of the city in gleaming travertine.
See my upcoming trips to Turkey and other historical destinations: https://trovatrip.com/host/profiles/g…
February 1, 2025
A century of war: The cartridge that remains deadly on today’s battleground
BFBS Forces News
Published 19 Oct 2024Say “7.62mm” when talking about rifle and machine gun rounds, and most people will think of the Nato cartridge that was introduced in 1954, but there’s a far older one that’s still in use – the 7.62x54mmR.
While the 7.62x51mm Nato cartridge was brought into service in 1954, the 7.62x54mmR dates back to 1891 in Imperial Russia.
Although this cartridge was developed in Russia, the “R” actually stands for “Rimmed” and this is what makes these two 7.62mm cartridges so different.
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QotD: In a centrally planned economy, all that matters is meeting or exceeding the Gross Output Target
The mobbed-up oligarchs currently running Russia, for instance, were almost all members of an informal class whose name I forget, which translates as “brokers” or “wheeler-dealers” or something. They learned how best to manipulate the Soviet system of “gross output targets”. Back when he was funny, P.J. O’Rourke had a great bit about this in Eat the Rich, a book I still recommend.
When told to produce 10,000 shoes, the shoe factory manager made 10,000 baby shoes, all left feet, because that was easiest to do with the material on hand — he didn’t have to retool, or go through nearly as many procurement processes, and whatever was left over could be forwarded to the “broker”, who’d make deals with other factory managers for useful stuff. When Comrade Commissar came around and saw that the proles still didn’t have any shoes, he ordered the factory manager to make 10,000 pairs of shoes … so the factory manager cranked out 20,000 baby shoes, all left feet, tied them together, and boom. When Comrade Commissar switched it up and ordered him to make 10,000 pounds of shoes, the factory manager cranked out one enormous pair of concrete sneakers …
So long as Comrade Commissar doesn’t rat him out to the NKVD — and why would he? he’s been cut in for 10% — nobody will ever be the wiser, because on the spreadsheet, the factory manager not just hit, but wildly exceeded, the Gross Output Target. That nobody in Krasnoyarsk Prefecture actually has any shoes is irrelevant.
Severian, “The Finger is Not the Moon”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-09-14.
January 31, 2025
Canada – sovereign nation or “post-national state” with “no core identity”?
In The Line, Andrew Potter retraces Canada’s history from British colony to self-governing Dominion to proud mover-and-shaker in the postwar world to whatever the heck it is today:
There is a map that shows up on social media from time to time, and it looks like this.
Sometimes it is followed by this one:
And then maybe this one:
What’s the point of these maps? Apart from noting the obvious, which is that Canada is sparsely populated, and much of the population is gathered in cities very close to the border with the United States, they raise important questions about the exercise of political power and its legitimacy, forms of governance, and, ultimately, sovereignty. By what methods did Canada come to be, and by what right does a small and relatively concentrated group of people, most of whom live down by the Great Lakes or along the St. Lawrence River, lay claim to almost ten million square kilometres of the Earth’s landmass?
It is easy to draw lines on maps. Anyone can do it. If you want those lines to represent some sort of generally accepted reality, two things must be true. First, the people inside the lines need to see those lines as legitimate, and be willing to take the necessary steps, up to and including the use of force, to assert them against outsiders. And second, enough outsiders of sufficient global importance also need to recognize those lines.
Any student of Canadian history knows that the borders of Canada are highly contingent. Rewind the tape of the past, and there are any number of moments where things could have turned out differently. In some scenarios, Canada ends up smaller than it currently is; in others, Canada ends up larger, perhaps substantially so. And in some alternative histories, Canada does not exist at all — or if it does, we’re all speaking French.
There’s nothing that is either sinister or celebratory in pointing this out. History is a bunch of stuff that happened, and in some cases, things might have turned out differently. But again, if you know your Canadian history, you know that the process by which Canada went from a French fur trading outpost to a collection of British mercantile colonies to a continent-spanning multinational federation and parliamentary democracy was made possible only through a rough admixture of ambition, cunning, scheming, coercion, violence, strong foreign support, and, between 1812 and 1814, war.
To get to the point: Canada’s sovereignty wasn’t something we just stumbled upon, nor is it something we were happily given. It was a thing we did. We did not do it alone, though; for most of the 19th century, the main ongoing threat to Canada’s sovereignty was the United States, while the ultimate guarantor of that sovereignty was Great Britain.
That dynamic shifted over the first half of the 20th century, when the British Empire went into decline, and the United States became the dominant world power. There was a short period after 1931, while British influence was ebbing and that of the Americans was flowing, in which Canada stood more or less independent and autonomous. This largely ended in 1940; Britain was on the ropes against Nazi Germany, Canada was in Hitler’s sights, and an increasingly anxious Franklin Roosevelt invited Mackenzie King down to Ogdensburg, New York, for a friendly chat about continental security.
January 30, 2025
Hitler Testifies, Brüning Battles On – Rise of Hitler 10, October 1930
World War Two
Published 28 Jan 2025October 1930 brings more unrest to Weimar Germany. Chancellor Brüning survives no-confidence votes, while Nazi and Communist clashes escalate into chaos. Berlin sees mass protests, Jewish businesses attacked, and rumors of a Nazi-Soviet conspiracy swirl.
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January 29, 2025
Canadians – “polite lunatics”
In The Line, Mitch Heimpel talks about a Canadian culture from a time before a Canadian PM could get away with maligning the country as having “no core identity”:
In recent days, The Line has spoken of the need for Canada to go “full psycho”. To “Make ‘Canada’s back’ a threat”. And, specifically, to recapture a Canadian identity that was, not long ago, widely shared — Canadians as scary and even dangerous. My own mind had been on similar topics of late, and I’d been thinking, specifically, about how those representations used to show up not just in our pop culture, but in American pop culture.
And in at least one place, you can find it still: Shoresy, a hilarious comedy show about Canadian hockey hosers that has found success on both sides of the border.
Shoresy is interesting not because it’s new, but almost because it’s retro. Once upon a time, the kind of Canadian identity shown in Shoresy was just … Canadian identity. Here’s a great example of what I mean that I suspect many readers will have seen: 1968’s The Devil’s Brigade, a film about the First Special Service Force, a joint Canadian-American unit that would become the forerunner to the American Green Berets. The film is a remarkable reflection of the attitudes that the two cultures had about each other. In one particular scene, after the Americans (predominantly tough guy actors Claude Akins and James Coburn) have spent days making sport of the Canadians, a new Canadian sergeant — played by Jeremy Slate — is introduced in a mess hall scene. Mild-mannered, lithe, and even bespectacled, the Sergeant sits down next to Akins and begins to insult him. He starts by literally elbowing the American bully for room at the table in the Mess and proceeds to call him a fat tub of lard.
Sgt. Patrick O’Neill (Jeremy Slate) in the mess hall scene in The Devil’s Brigade (1968).
Once Akins has had enough, he attacks the Canadian sergeant, who reveals himself to be the unit’s new hand-to-hand combat instructor, and proceeds to pummel Akins while barely smudging his glasses. After having bruised the American’s body, as well as his ego, he returns to dinner and punctuates it by asking Akins for the salt. Akins hands it over.
This was not a remarkable representation. The Americans used to view us as polite lunatics. This showed up not just in American media, but also our stories about ourselves. Characters like Slate’s sergeant Patrick O’Neill showed up in the songs of Stompin’ Tom, Ian Tyson, and even Gordon Lightfoot. They’re memorialized in the works of Robert Service and Al Purdy. Purdy, in particular, describes this archetype well, both in At the Quinte Hotel and in The Country North of Belleville:
backbreaking days
in the sun and rain
when realization seeps slow in the mind
without grandeur or self-deception in
noble struggle
of being a fool –A country of quiescence and still distance
a lean land
not like the fat south.In those few lines, Purdy captures Canadiana so easily. A people shaped by distance and the harshness of the land. Capable of the toughness needed to endure. With just a little foolishness mixed in for good measure.
Polite lunatics.
The Korean War 032 – Thunderbolt! US Troops Go On the Offensive – January 28, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 28 Jan 2025Peng Dehuai’s armies rest and recuperate on the banks of the Han River, nursing their supply issues, and the initiative has firmly swung in favor of the UN side. The North Koreans in the east are fleeing, and Matt Ridgway’s latest offensive in the west gets underway without a hitch. Are we about to see yet another reversal of fortune and pursuit up the Korean Peninsula?
Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:11 Recap
01:33 An Aggressor Nation?
07:38 Chinese Sit-Rep
10:59 Operation Thunderbolt
14:56 Summary
15:14 Conclusion
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Gewehr 98: The German WWI Standard Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 11 Jun 2016The Gewehr 1898 was the product of a decade of bolt action repeating rifle improvements by the Mauser company, and would be the standard German infantry rifle through both World Wars. Today we are looking at a pre-WWI example (1905 production) that shows all the features of what a German soldier would have taken to war in 1914.
