The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city fell on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April. The city's collapse marked the end of the Middle Ages. The attacking Ottoman Army, which significantly outnumbered Constantinople's defenders, was commanded by the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II, while the Byzantine army was led by Emperor Constant...
Dec 08, 2022•18 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Special Thanks to Dan Buck of DarkTyme for appearing as a guest in today's episode! Make sure to check out DarkTyme: Stories from the Future! http://darktyme.com/ Prohibition in the United States focused on the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages; exceptions were made for medicinal and religious uses. Alcohol consumption was never illegal under federal law. Nationwide Prohibition did not begin in the United States until January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the ...
Oct 27, 2022•26 min•Season 5Ep. 8
We wanted to thank Kathy Joseph once again for appearing as a guest on this week's episode. We had a great time discussing with her about Michael Faraday, otherwise known to Kathy as the father of Electricity. Make sure to check out her latest book, The Lightning Tamers: True Stories of the Dreamers and Schemers Who Harnessed Electricity and Transformed Our World , amazon now! https://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Tamers-Harnessed-Electricity-Transformed/dp/B0B4KMYGP8 Short description of the book: Y...
Oct 13, 2022•34 min•Season 5Ep. 7
First of all, we wanted to thank Peter Shea for guest staring with us today! Author of In the Arena: A History of American Presidential Hopefuls, Shea and photographer Tom Maday go into the legacies and histories of the many presidential candidates that were nominated by their parties, but unable to reach the oval office. Peter Shea tells of the rise, early career, campaign and later achievements of historical giants like Aaron Burr and Henry Clay, up through modern candidates Mitt Romney and Hi...
Sep 29, 2022•33 min•Season 5Ep. 6
Queen Elizabeth died recently on the 8th of September, 2022. She was the longest living and longest reining British monarch in history. She died at the age of 96. King Charles III, her eldest son, is the new reigning monarch. He's unpopular with the British people. With the current economic struggles in Britain, it's curious to see how King Charles the III will deal with those issues. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want to discus...
Sep 19, 2022•18 min•Season 5Ep. 5
The automobile was invited at the end of the 19th century by Karl Benz. Henry Ford would make it affordable to the masses with his Model T, which was made affordable by the invention of a new manufacturing method called the assembly line. Following the Great War, the way travel occurred would change forever. Cars could be seen all over. Instead of the horse buggy, this new horseless gas carriage would be moving people and products through cities and across the country. And although the world wou...
Sep 08, 2022•21 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Recently, on 30 August 2022, Gorbachev died at a hospital in Moscow. Gorbachev was the leader of the soviet union at the time during the 80's and 90's into the fall of the Soviet Union. His policies were game changing with his allowance of a more open and freer society, and economic freedoms unseen in any communist nation of the time period. His influence is essential in the game of the 80s that would end the Cold War. In this episode, we talk about the end of the Cold War, from significant even...
Sep 01, 2022•19 min•Season 5Ep. 3
After the Second World War, the United States would never stay at home again. All around the world, the US would protect democracies, big and small, all over. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cuba, and Latin America are just some regions in the world that the US did or attempted to get involved. Twenty years of US foreign policy before the Second World War was completely changed. US interventionism was an integral part of global history after the second world war. Imagine a world where the United St...
Aug 25, 2022•32 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Disclaimer: This episode was supposed to come out a few months ago, but unfortunately delays occurred. The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression between 1929 and 1939 that began after the major fall in the US stock market. It resulted in essentially somewhat of a domino effect that collapsed Europe's economies and caused US banks to go bankrupt as they did not receive their debt payments from European governments. FDR took the reins in 1932 and started many programs in an a...
Aug 11, 2022•27 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority Leader, and was a leader of the conservative coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who prevented expansion of the New Deal. Often referred to as "Mr. Republican", he cosponsored the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which banned closed shops, created the concept ...
Feb 22, 2022•18 min•Season 4Ep. 18
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. In the final year of World War II , the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland . This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign that devastated 67 Japanese cities...
Feb 15, 2022•23 min•Season 4Ep. 17
In this week's episode, Nick and Rohan continue their discussion about 2010s. In part two, they discuss about the future impacts world events that happened in this decade will have. In addition, politics from Europe, Asia, and North America are discussed and the impact that they will have in the upcoming years. Although it is different from the standard content released on this podcast, let us know what you think! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
Feb 08, 2022•20 min•Season 4Ep. 16
The Taft–Hartley Act , is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions . It was enacted by the 80th United States Congress over the veto of President Harry S. Truman , becoming law on June 23, 1947. Taft-Hartley was introduced in the aftermath of a major strike wave in 1945 and 1946. Though it was enacted by the Republican -controlled 80th Congress, the law received significant support from congressional Democrats . The Taft–Hartley Act amended the 1935 Nat...
Feb 01, 2022•14 min•Season 4Ep. 15
Imperialism is a policy or ideology of extending rule over peoples and other countries, [2] for extending political and economic access, power and control, often through employing hard power , especially military force, but also soft power . While related to the concepts of colonialism and empire , imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government. Looking at the empires, profitability was mixed. At first, planners expected that colonies wo...
Jan 25, 2022•23 min•Season 4Ep. 14
In this week's episode, Nick and Rohan discuss about the 2010s. And specifically, how will it be remembered in the eyes of future historians. How will historians 50 years, 100 years from now look back at the 2010s and think, similar to how we look at the 1920s today. Join Nick and Rohan as they look back at a decade of significant change, significant importance to history. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want to discuss this furt...
Jan 21, 2022•23 min•Season 4Ep. 13
Tea Time Thoughts Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tea-time-thoughts/id1513992448 Leon Trotsky [c] ( /ˈtrɒtski/ ), [2] was a Ukrainian-Russian Marxist revolutionary. He was a Marxist but created a form of Marxism refereed to as Trotskyism. Once in government, Trotsky initially held the post of Commissar for Foreign Affairs and became directly involved in the 1917–1918 Brest-Litovsk negotiations with Germany as Russia pulled out of the First World War . From March 1918 to January 19...
Jan 11, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Kennedy scored major victories when he won both the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his supporters shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in a ballroom at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles . Leaving the ballroom, he went through the hotel kitchen after being told it was a shortcut to a press room. He did this despite being advised by his bodyguard—former FBI agent Bill Barry—to avoid the kitchen. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Kennedy turned to his left and sho...
Dec 22, 2021•26 min•Season 4Ep. 11
This episode is going to be a little different. Instead of a standard alternate history scenario, today Nick and Rohan talk about their top 5 senators of all time and why they were on the top 5. In addition, they also go into who they would have liked to see become an American president throughout the history of the United States. We hope you enjoyed this different type of episode and please let us know what you think about it by leaving a review, or a comment on our socials! -------------------...
Dec 14, 2021•33 min•Season 4Ep. 10
The Holodomor was a famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It was a large part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933. The term Holodomor emphasises the famine's man-made and intentional aspects such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs and restriction of population movement. It was one of the deadliest genocides in recent history, and one that fundamentally would alter Ukraine-Russian relations. However, what if Stalin di...
Dec 14, 2021•15 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Born in Illinois, William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) became a Nebraska congressman in 1890. He starred at the 1896 Democratic convention with his Cross of Gold speech that favored free silver, but was defeated in his bid to become U.S. president by William McKinley. Bryan lost his subsequent bids for the presidency in 1900 and 1908, using the years between to run a newspaper and tour as a public speaker. After helping Woodrow Wilson secure the Democratic presidential nomination for 1912, he serv...
Nov 09, 2021•27 min•Season 4Ep. 8
The Second Bill of Rights was proposed by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944. In his address, Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognize and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt argued that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness". His remedy was to declare an "economic bill...
Nov 02, 2021•17 min•Season 4Ep. 7
In today's episode, we talk about one of the Founding Fathers, and the first president of the United States: George Washington. Washington was one of the most influential presidents of the United States. He set the precedence which other American presidents would follow. Now, if we decided to take Washington out of the political picture, what would happen? Would the Union remain? Or would his replacement be able to hold onto the Union? And who would his replacement even be? There are multiple po...
Oct 26, 2021•14 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Make sure to check out politics and war on their website, or the google play or apple app store! https://politicsandwar.com/ In this collaboration with politics and war, we discuss a scenario based on the game itself. The game has a very lively history and community, so there was plenty for us to use in this episode. But essentially, we take a look at the 168 Days War and wonder, what if, Mensa HQ won the war instead of it ending up in a white peace. This was a really fun scenario to talk about,...
Oct 26, 2021•11 min•Season 4Ep. 5
This episode is sponsored by Politics and War, the free online history game! Make sure to check it out at https://politicsandwar.com/ or check it out on the Google Play and Apple App Store. Thank you to Daniel Benson for coming onto the show with us and guesting! Make sure to check him out. http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/ Horses have had a tremendous impact on human history, from moving armies across Europe, to spreading disease, they have connected us with each other across distances. Some mi...
Oct 19, 2021•25 min•Season 4Ep. 4
The Great Purge or the Great Terror ( Russian : Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (37-ой год, Tridtsat sedmoi god ) and the Yezhovschina ('period of Yezhov '), [7] was Joseph Stalin's campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union that occurred from 1936 to 1938. [8] It involved large-scale repression of the peasantry; ethnic cleansing ; purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , government officials, and the Red Army ; widespread police surveillance, suspicion of sab...
Oct 13, 2021•17 min•Season 4Ep. 3
The Christmas truce ( German : Weihnachtsfrieden ; French : Trêve de Noël ) was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914. The truce occurred five months after hostilities had begun. Lulls occurred in the fighting as armies ran out of men and munitions and commanders reconsidered their strategies following the stalemate of the Race to the Sea and the indecisive result of the First Battle of Ypres . In the week leading up to ...
Oct 05, 2021•20 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Russia had established a presence in North America during the first half of the 18th century, but few Russians ever settled in Alaska. In the aftermath of the Crimean War , Russian Tsar Alexander II began exploring the possibility of selling Alaska, which would be difficult to defend in any future war from being conquered by Russia's archrival, the United Kingdom. Following the end of the American Civil War , U.S. Secretary of State William Seward entered into negotiations with Russian minister ...
Sep 29, 2021•21 min•Season 4Ep. 1
This is now the third iteration of Flash Alternate History! In this iteration, we discuss topics from What if Lincoln Survived his assassination attempt to what if Operation Downfall (the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands in the Secord World War) occurred. So what is Flash Alternate History? Essentially, it is the analysis and explanation of a potential Alternate History scenario in a few minutes without any preliminary research or anything. It's on the spot. Twitter: @BackToThePastP1 https:...
Aug 10, 2021•17 min•Season 3Ep. 13
The election of 1968 was a big one. Richard Nixon (R), Hubert Humphrey (D), and George Wallace who ran for a 3rd party. Nixon and Humphrey wanted to reach that 270 electoral votes. However, Wallace had a different plan. He wanted to make sure that none of the candidates reached 270 in order to create a stalemate. Using this stalemate, he could push for his radical ideology: the end of desegregation. This, of course didn't really make him very popular in much of the country except for in the Sout...
Aug 03, 2021•20 min•Season 3Ep. 12
The Chinese Civil War (1945-1949) was a military conflict between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communists. Although the Nationalists had the numbers advantage and the resource advantage, the communists were able to defeat them due to the widespread corruption of the Nationalists. Military funds and equipment were inadequately used and the people mistrusted them. Mao Zedong and the communist faction were able to defat the Nationalists resulting in them fleeing to Taiwan. ...
Jul 27, 2021•23 min•Season 3Ep. 11
