Too Fun Media / The Wars Of History · 11 episodes
One war at a time: what started it, the battles that decided it, and the world it left behind.
The Wars Of History takes one war at a time: what started it, the battles that decided it, and the world it left behind. It begins with legend and archaeology in the Trojan War, with Homer's Iliad, Achilles, Hector and Helen of Troy, then crosses to the American Revolutionary War, from Lexington and Concord to the Declaration of Independence, and the Napoleonic Wars of Napoleon Bonaparte, Austerlitz, Trafalgar and the Peninsular War.
The podcast follows Abraham Lincoln, Fort Sumter, Gettysburg and emancipation in the American Civil War; Sarajevo, Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli in World War I; Churchill, Stalingrad, Pearl Harbor and D-Day in World War II; the 38th Parallel, Inchon and Chosin in the Korean War; and Ho Chi Minh, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Tet Offensive and the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam War.
Then come the Iron Curtain, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Space Race of the Cold War, Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Gulf War, and the 2003 invasion and insurgency of the Iraq War. Each story is told clearly and carefully, with the human cost kept in view. More at thewarsofhistory.com.
Legendary siege of Troy, traditionally dated c. 1200 BC
Inside: Legend vs History, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Achilles, Hector, Helen of Troy
Was the Trojan War real? For nearly three thousand years it has shaped how people think about courage, pride, grief and the cost of war, and it gave us the phrases "Trojan horse" and "Achilles' heel."
1775-1783
Inside: Lexington and Concord, the Declaration of Independence
How did thirteen quarrelling colonies defeat the strongest empire of the eighteenth century?
1803-1815
Inside: Napoleon Bonaparte, Austerlitz, Trafalgar, the Peninsular War
How did an unknown artillery officer from Corsica end up crowning himself Emperor of the French and ruling most of Europe, and how did it all fall apart?
1861-1865
Inside: Lincoln, Slavery, Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Emancipation
Could a nation founded on liberty survive while four million people were held in slavery? In this hour-long episode of The Wars Of History Podcast, Mike tells the full story of the American Civil War, from 1861 to 1865: the war that ended slavery in the United States, saved the Union and rewrote the Constitution.
1914-1918
Inside: Sarajevo, the Trenches, Verdun, the Somme, Gallipoli
Between 1914 and 1918, a quarrel in the Balkans grew into the first truly global industrial war. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty-two million people died, four empires fell, and the modern world was born.
1939-1945
Inside: Hitler, Churchill, Stalingrad, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, D-Day
It was the largest and deadliest conflict in human history, and it still shapes the world we live in. In this hour-long episode of The Wars Of History Podcast, Mike tells the full story of the Second World War, from 1939 to 1945 and from Europe to Asia.
1950-1953
Inside: The 38th Parallel, Inchon, Chosin
The guns stopped in July 1953, but no peace treaty was ever signed, and the line where the fighting froze still splits one people into two countries.
1955-1975
Inside: Ho Chi Minh, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Tet Offensive and the Fall of Saigon
It lasted twenty years, split a country in Southeast Asia in two, and turned American living rooms into a nightly window on war. In this hour-long episode of The Wars Of History Podcast, Mike tells the full story of the Vietnam War, from French colonial rule to the last helicopters over Saigon.
c. 1947-1991
Inside: Iron Curtain, Cuban Missile Crisis, Space Race
For more than forty years, the United States and the Soviet Union prepared for a war that would have ended civilization, and that war never came.
1990-1991
Inside: Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait, Desert Shield, Desert Storm
In August 1990, Saddam Hussein's army overran Kuwait in a matter of hours. Six months later, a coalition of around thirty-five nations drove it out in one of the most watched wars in history, the first broadcast live around the world.
2003-2011
Inside: Saddam Hussein, WMD Intelligence, the 2003 Invasion, Insurgency
In March 2003, an American-led coalition invaded Iraq, and within three weeks Saddam Hussein's government was gone. What followed was nearly nine years of war that divided nations, transformed the Middle East and is still argued about today.
