History in Five Minutes Podcast
Summary: Historian and veteran Middle East journalist Michael Rank looks into the most exciting events and personalities of history in this podcast and explains them in five-minute episodes so that you can absorb the facts in the fastest way possible. Learn about the lives of Genghis Khan, Vlad Dracul, and Richard the Lionheart, and such events as the Crusades and the Black Death in these highly entertaining and informative episodes. Michael has sold thousands of books with his unique take on the past with such best-selling titles as "History's Most Insane Rulers: Lunatics, Eccentrics, and Megalomaniacs From Emperor Caligula to Kim Jon Il," and he brings the same energy to this podcast. He focuses on world history, Roman history, military history, the history of the United States, the most famous rulers in history, biographies, biography of famous people, the most famous people in history, the most powerful rulers, medieval history, violent history, world history, United States history, and how to put all these pieces together. This is a great podcast if you know nothing about a topic and need a good launching point into a deeper study.
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- Artist: Michael Rank: Historian, Writer, and Podcaster
- Copyright: Copyright © History in Five Minutes -- Learn About the Past in Minutes 2013
Podcasts:
Welcome to the end, my friends! I am powering down History in Five Minutes because I have launched a new and better show called History Unplugged. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or Android Here’s an overview of History Unplugged: Every Tuesday through Friday I release a short episode of 5-10 minutes in length. It’s basically the […]
The sinking of the Titantic was one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. Over 1,000 passengers lost their lives on the supposedly unsinkable ship. But the chief baker didn’t. He managed to survive in the frigid waters for four hours while most died of hypothermia after 15 minutes. How? By downing two bottles […]
Our guest today is Giles Milton, the host of the Unknown History Podcast. Winston Churchill was not afraid to get his hands dirty. He was perfectly happy to consider chemical warfare against the Axis powers. One plan involved turning an entire island into vegetarians. What did this plot mean, and how would he enact it? […]
Our guest today is Giles Milton, the host of the Unknown History Podcast. We all have an embarrassing relative. Maybe that embarrassing relative is us. But Winston Churchill’s cousin took it to a new level. She had love affairs, one of which threatened to create an international incident. Giles gets into all sorts of interesting […]
Our guest today is Giles Milton, the host of the Unknown History Podcast. Giles is going to talk all about Churchill’s affinity for chemical weapons, something I didn’t even know was a thing. He answers all sorts of questions in this interview. Questions like: Did Churchill ever actually go forward with the use of chemical […]
You’ve seen the look in historical dramas. You laughed at the foppish dandies that appear on Masterpiece Theater. In grade school you sneered at pictures of King George with his powdered wig, adjusting it ever so slightly while drinking a cup of tea with his pinky finger extended, wondering how he further extort colonists […]
Did you know that over 400,000 German POWs were settled in the United States during World War II? Did you know that they may have built some of the stone buildings that make up your town square? Or that they were responsible for bringing in America’s harvest in the fall of 1945 when most […]
Teddy Roosevelt was not afraid to tempt death. He hiked the Matterhorn during his honeymoon. He arrested outlaws on the Dakota Frontier. He hunted rhinos in Africa. But his most dangerous journey came after his failure in 1912 to retake the presidency as a third-party candidate on the Bull Moose ticket. He choose to […]
Theodore Roosevelt was hell bent on becoming president in 1912. He ran as a third-party candidate for the Progressive Party, a splinter group of Republicans dissatisfied with William Howard Taft. He was so committed to winning that he gave a 90-minute speech…immediately after being shot in the chest by a would-be assassin. How did […]
Perhaps no president has as many unbelievable stories about his life than Teddy Roosevelt. He was an amateur boxer. He was the first American politician to learn judo. He summited the Matterhorn during his honeymoon. He joined an expedition to log data about an unchartered river in the Amazon. But perhaps no story matches his pursuit […]
Gather around the campfire, children, and learn about the most ghoulish story from America’s pioneer days. What really happened to the party led by George Donner and his brother Jacob when they set out for California in 1846? When the party was trapped in feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, how long did […]
References to acts of cannibalism are sprinkled throughout many religious and historical documents, such as the reports that cooked human flesh was being sold in 11th-century English markets. But the world’s first cannibal incident reported by multiple, independent, first-hand accounts took place during the Crusades by European soldiers. These first-hand stories agree that in 1098, […]
It is the most gruesome activity that a human can do. It is the most ancient of taboos. Stories of the Donner Party, Jamestown, and the Franklin Expedition make for ghost stories today. But the real question is not why cannibalism occurs in humans. It is why it doesn’t occur. Eating dead humans has […]
If you’ve seen the 1960 Spencer Tracy movie Inherit the Wind, you know about the Scopes Monkey Trial. In this real-life 1925 case, John Scopes was accused of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The case became an enormous media sensation. It was reported on like […]
According to legends of the Middle Ages, knights used the chastity belt on their wives as an anti-temptation device before embarking on the Crusades. When the knight left for the Holy Lands on the Crusades, his Lady would wear a chastity belt to preserve her faithfulness to him. However, there is no reliable evidence that chastity belts existed before the 15th century. […]
