“I am beyond Right and Left, just as I am beyond good and evil… I am a man devoted to life, not to formulas.” Gabriele D’Annunzio “We are the only Italians worthy of being called Italians.” Gabriele D’Annunzio This is the tale of one of the cultural-political experiments in modern history. The brutal end of WWI left many Italian soldiers dissatisfied, since the Allies refuse to grant them lands they had conquered at the price of rivers of blood. Feeling cheated by their own government and the Al...
Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 76
“We heard that D’Annunzio was coming, and Italy and freedom were coming with him.” Anonymous Italian citizen of Fiume “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” William Blake “Legionaries adore him. The men from the palace fear him. Little kids think he’s the devil.” Leon Kochnitzky about Guido Keller This is the tale of one of the weirdest cultural-political experiments in modern history. The brutal end of WWI left many Italian soldiers dissatisfied, since the Allies refuse to grant th...
Mar 17, 2025•1 hr 38 min
“What are servants of God good for, if not for moving the hearts of men and elevating them to spiritual joy?” St. Francis “I’ve come to help you all. Where can I find the best beer and the most beautiful women?” Drukpa Kunley “I tried going to hell, but the path there was so packed with hypocritical priests that I had to turn back.” Drukpa Kunley For once, here’s an episode about individuals who didn’t build their reputation by killing. Considering much of recorded history is the history of warf...
Feb 17, 2025•1 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 110
“No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he'll keep comin' back and back until one of you is dead.” From the film Casino “The condition of the people was pitiable to behold. They sickened by the thousands daily and died unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it ...
Feb 03, 2025•2 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 74
“Rise up and do battle.” Homer “Discipline is freedom, and the companion to imagination. Discipline makes it possible for you to become whatever you want to be.” Deng Ming Dao Marcus Aurelius would have loved nothing better than studying philosophy for the rest of his days. Instead, destiny chose him to be the head of the Roman Empire. As a philosopher-emperor, Marcus turned to Stoicism to help him deal with more drama than any human being should have to deal with. Most of his children died befo...
Jan 20, 2025•1 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 73
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” Mario Puzo “Grant me revenge!” from Conan the Barbarian, 1982 “I am immortal” Nezahualcoyotl I originally created this episode years ago, as I was researching the Spaniards’ invasion of the Mexica (aka Aztec) empire, when I run into this little nugget of a story, which predates the arrival of the Spaniards. This is the first time this episode gets to be released to the public outside of any paywalls. This is basically a real historical version of...
Dec 16, 2024•2 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 109
"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind… Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph." Robert E Howard “Becoming a barbarian was often a bid to improve one’s lot.” James C Scott “We are riders; our business is with the bow and the spear, and we know nothing of women’s work. But in your country no woman has anything to do with such things—your women stay at home in their wagons occupied with feminine tasks, and never go out to hunt or f...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 57 min•Season 1Ep. 108
“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” John Brown “If you seek my blood, you can have it at any moment without the mockery of a trial.” John Brown “John Brown, and a thousand John Browns, can invade us, and the Government will not protect us. To secure our rights and protect our honor we will dissever the ties that bind us together, even if it rushes us into a sea of blood." Mississippi congressman Reuben Davis “John Br...
Oct 21, 2024•2 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 72
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Sep 23, 2024•2 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 71
In this first episode of a three-part series, we’ll introduce the early part of John Brown’s life and his crusade against slavery. Among today’s topics, we’ll have the ethics of punching a Nazi, how the beating of an enslaved child set Brown on his path, how both pro and anti- slavery forces used Christianity to justify their stances, racism masquerading as philanthropy, the Nat Turner rebellion, grief & PTSD, the Underground Railroad, the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, and much more. Learn more abou...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 70
“This is how 70,000 horsemen of the Taira died, buried in this one deep valley; the mountain creeks ran red with their blood and the mound of their corpses was like a small hill.” The Tale of the Heike “Tomoe had long black hair and a fair complexion, and her face was very lovely; but she was also a fearless rider, who could not be thrown by neither the fiercest horse nor the roughest ground; and with such skill she handled sword and bow that she was a warrior worth a thousand, ready to battle a...
Aug 26, 2024•1 hr 39 min•Season 1Ep. 107
“The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.” The Tale of the Heike “When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting.” Kill Bill "Let those in the distance hear me! Let those close at hand see me with their own eyes! I am Matataro Tadatsuna, son ...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 106
“He must be handed over to a tribunal of the people so it can judge him quickly. We want this, even though we think an execution platoon is too much of an honor for this man. He would deserve to be killed like a mangy dog.” Future Italian President Sandro Pertini about Benito Mussolini “The world unfortunately continues to be a battlefield where different egos clash, repeating the mistakes of the past.” Federigo Giordano “Death to the Nazi-Fascists.” The closing quote of most letters written by ...
Jun 17, 2024•2 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 69
“Women must obey… My opinion of women’s role within the state is against any kind of feminism. In our state, women must not count.” Benito Mussolini “Yes, I participated in the actions. I usually had the task of carrying the weapons and would hand them to our shooters. As soon as they had used them, I’d get them back from them—still hot.” Liana Germani “I was mostly afraid of torture had they captured me, of the terrible suffering on the way to the concentration camps. Death seemed simple, somet...
May 20, 2024•1 hr 55 min•Season 1Ep. 68
“From an author’s perspective, writing about sex is risky, because if you write well enough, evocatively enough, vividly enough, you make the reader want to put the book aside and go get laid.” Tom Robbins “Let's live and love, Caring less than nothing for The moralizing of stern old men. The sun sets and rises back again, But an eternal night of sleep awaits us When our brief light turns to darkness. Give me a thousand kisses, and a hundred more. Then a thousand, and another hundred. And then m...
Apr 22, 2024•2 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 66
“I didn’t know what to do. They were killing my children. I knew that If I went back there to help my children I would be cut to pieces. But I couldn’t stand to hear it, I couldn’t bear it. I was afraid that I would cry out, that I would scream, that I would be crazy. I couldn’t stand it, and I prayed God to help me.” Rufina Amaya “In El Salvador the rich and powerful have systematically defrauded the poor and denied 80 percent of the people any voice in the affairs of their country.” Ambassador...
Mar 25, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 105
“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter he kingdom of God.” Matthew 19: 24 "And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that soun...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr 43 min•Season 1Ep. 104
“Everywhere in southern Anhui they are eating people.” Zeng Guofan “Infants but recently born were torn from their mother’s breasts, and disemboweled before their faces. Young strong men were disemboweled, mutilated, and the parts cut off thrust into their own mouths…” A British testimony on the Qing treatment of POWs If I were to ask you which is the deadliest conflict in history, you’d probably answer WW II. But if I were to ask you, which is the second deadliest conflict ever—at least accordi...
Jan 15, 2024•2 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 65
“Is not this insurgent movement truly wonderful? These rebels keep Sabbath as we do, they pray to God daily, they read the Scriptures, they break the idols, and they long for the time when, instead of those heathen temples, they shall have Christian chapels, and worship together with us… is it not a remarkable era in China?” A Christian missionary wife about the Taiping Rebellion “Jesus our Elder Brother showed us the treacherous heart of this demon follower.” Sign hanging around the neck of a m...
Dec 04, 2023•2 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 64
“The entire story of the Taiping Rebellion might be told, from one perspective, as the rage of a failed exam candidate writ large.” Stephen Platt “They may not intend to harm others on purpose, but the fact remains that they are so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” Lin Zexu about British opium traders “Heaven is furious with anger, and all the gods are moaning with pain!... A murderer of one person is subject to the death sente...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 63
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.” Miyamoto Musashi Ever since I started History on Fire, one topic has been the most consistently requested by listeners. Over the years, I received hundreds of messages asking me to cover the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That time has come. Here we go. Musashi has been the subject of one of the greatest bestsellers ever written, a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa that sold over 120 million copies. And yet, the story of his life is mixed with so man...
Nov 06, 2023•2 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 103
“All warfare is based on deception.” Sun Tzu Ever since I started History on Fire, one topic has been the most consistently requested by listeners. Over the years, I received hundreds of messages asking me to cover the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That time has come. Here we go. Musashi has been the subject of one of the greatest bestsellers ever written, a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa that sold over 120 million copies. And yet, the story of his life is mixed with so many myths and legends that it’s rat...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 48 min•Season 1Ep. 102
“But the years of peace and plenty was not to last. Slowly the days turned sour and the watchful nights closed in. Thrór's love of gold grown too fierce and sickness had begun to grow within him. It was a sickness of the mind. And where sickness thrives, bad things will follow...” JRR Tolkien “The more White investigated the flow of oil money from Osage headrights, the more he found layer upon layer of corruption. Although some white guardians and administrators tried to act in the best interest...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 101
“The universities do not teach all things, so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. A doctor must be a traveler… Knowledge is experience.” Paracelsus “They indulged in disgraceful immodesty, for many women, during this shameless dance and mock-bridal singing, bared their bosoms, while others of their own accord offered their virtue.” C. Browerus describing the 1374 Dancing Plague Weird seems like the most...
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr 55 min•Season 1Ep. 62
“Never in history had the United States Army been called on to rescue such a large number of POWs from so deep in enemy territory.” William Breuer “We were in the best shape of our lives, and with this mission we understood why he had driven us so hard.” Alvie Robbins speaking about Henry Mucci’s physical training “As far as we were concerned, they were gods.” Bob Body about the Rangers who rescued him and his fellow POWs. “Nothing in this entire campaign has given me so much personal satisfacti...
Jul 03, 2023•2 hr 22 min•Season 1Ep. 61
“Brother, this is the greatest sorrow and the greatest trial that could happen to me in the whole course of my life. But don’t despair; before you lose sight of him who did the mischief, you shall see yourself revenged by my hand.” Benvenuto Cellini “Folk too gathered round us, for it had become clear that our words meant swords and daggers.” Benvenuto Cellini Italian artists from the Renaissance often lived lives that would make Biggie or Tupac blush. Born at a time and place when colorful indi...
Jun 19, 2023•2 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 100
“If one of you comes out of the shop, let the other run for a priest, because there’ll be no need for a doctor.” Benvenuto Cellini “The whole world was now in warfare.” Benvenuto Cellini “And then falling on my knees, I begged him to absolve me of that homicide, and of the others I had committed while serving the Church in the castle. At this the Pope raised his hand, carefully made a great sign of the cross above my head, and said that he gave me his blessing and that he forgave me all the murd...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 59 min•Season 1Ep. 99
“On these hills, where everywhere were rolling skulls, skeletons, and decaying body parts, Baron Ungern used to like to go to rest.” One of Ungern-Sternberg’s officers “Look at [Europe's] past full of fire and blood and the vicious, savage struggle of man against God. The West has given man science, wisdom, and power, yet it has also brought godlessness, immorality, treason, the abnegation of truth and goodness. There, in the West, the destruction of entire empires has begun. Whole nations are b...
May 22, 2023•1 hr 55 min•Season 1Ep. 60
“My name is surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is the truth and what is false, what is history, and what is myth.” Roman von Ungern-Sternberg “Ungern had fused with the war, and equally, the war, in turn, had fused with him.” Willard Sunderland A recurring thread in History on Fire episodes is my soft spot for individuals who are mildly mentally deranged, but have something lovable about them. Today, that thread doesn’t quite apply. The subject of our story gets an A+ ...
May 08, 2023•2 hr•Season 1Ep. 59
“Most people go through life thinking they’re totally safe. People like us, we know the truth. Life is hard and dangerous, and sometimes you just got to chop off somebody’s head to survive.” Ash vs. Evil Dead “No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” Lucius Cornelius Sulla “Around four o’clock on that Monday afternoon of the thirteenth, with a light rain falling, the bandits attacked. To the sound of a trumpet—for Lampiao did things in style—and th...
Apr 24, 2023•1 hr 46 min•Season 1Ep. 98
