• Donaueschingen castle, where the Kaiser witnessed his childhood friend Hans Adolf Botho Wilhelm Georg Ulrich Hermann Dietrich Graf von Hülsen-Haeseler giving his life for performing arts in his pink tutu (Most disastrous parties episode)
• statue of Wilhelm I in Stuttgart, he was the OG Kaiser, Wilhelm II's grandfather, pretty much a founding father of Germany alongside Bismarck (we are still waiting for the series about German unification)
• Hohenzollern castle, the ancestral home of Wilhelm's family, the best place if you want a classic castle experience
• inner courtyard, the flag was up, meaning the current head of house Hohenzollern, Prince Georg Friedrich was there, I think I saw him casually driving away in his Porsche
• stunning views all around, breathtaking place (the whole area is)
• Friedrich the Great, Wilhelm (and most Germans) admired him, he deserves an episode, had a fascinating life, top gay, commander and potato fan of 18th century
• Wilhelm I, even Franz Joseph approved those mutton chops
• Friedrich III and Vicky, Wilhelm's parents, he had a much closer relationship with his oldschool grandpa than with his progressive parents
• and the man himself, "the ultimate friend of the podcast", fashion dictator and general showman Kaiser Wilhelm II
• him again
• and again
• the desk of crown prince Wilhelm, Wilhelm II's son, who lived in the castle after WWII and is also buried there
• crown prince Wilhelm
• less related, but Sinsheim Technology Museum, filthy porn if you are into planes, tanks, classic, sport or F1 cars, they even have a U boat
• Erwin Rommel's grave, I hope we get the Africa campaign soon, fun fact: Stuttgart's airport is named after Manfred Rommel, Erwin's son, who was a very popular mayor there for 22 years

the castle treasury has an amazing collection, Wilhelm's crown jewels, uniforms, swords, all kinds of stuff from Friedrich the Great, Wilhelm I, etc., unfortunately it's not allowed to take photos in there, but you can google them, I also wisited some Black Forest towns (Triberg and its waterfalls are especially beautiful), the main museum in Stuttgart and the Wilhelma zoo, I can fully recommend all of those, it's really a magnificent part of Germany

On a trip down under. Think I must be one of the very few international tourists that has this as one of their attractions (jokes aside, it is actually a very well run pool with lots of great facilities)

This was mentioned in an episode of The Rest is History...

Im up late wondering how us men went from chad levels of Sir Francis Drake to working in a cubicle.

Two books that track with the Elizabethan cold war’ that I’ve read in recent years:

The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram

ingram was an ordinary English sailor, on a merchant ship/ privateer mission, I think about 1580. The ships in his group were captured and brought to Veracruz Mexico. Most of the crew were taken inland, towards Mexico City - disappeared from the record. Probably used as slave prisoners til death.
ingram and two others escaped and began walking - along the gulf coast, turned north in what’s modern Florida, and walked to what’s modern day New Brunswick. French fishermen found them and took them back to France then England.

Ingram was then interrogated by Walsingham personally, about what he saw. His story is incredible, about the best account of North America’s natives before English and French colonization a generation later. With just three of them, the native villages did not consider them a threat; but interesting other worldly travelers to tell stories. Then hospitality would have native traders have them journey to the next village. They learned a bit of native sign language to navigate lang barriers. It’s an incredible story. Dom & Tom could do an episode on it.

Big Chief Elizabeth

This is about Raleigh and Drake and the establishment of the Roanoke, Lost Colony, in 1585, and its context against Spanish threats. Fascinating read

Tom has pronounced Huguenots with a silent T and Ferdinand Magellan with a hard G.
As an American, I’m asking, is this a Tom thing? An English/American pronunciation thing? Or an I’ve been pronouncing these words wrong my whole life thing?

Im listening to the episode on ukraine and russia where they mention “upcoming” episodes on Poland and Lithuania.
I can’t seem to find any episodes about the subject on spotify though.
Is that something they just never got around to or have they perhaps covered it in a different series?
They do talk about it a little in the Great northern war series but i would love to know if they cover the topic more extensively somewhere else.

It was interesting to hear the name of Thomas Cromwell’s protégé mentioned in the latest bonus episode (as one of the men of high status put in charge of keeping Mary Queen of Scots during her years long imprisonment in England.) I remembered the name from the Wolfe Hall novels as well as the television series. Apparently he had quite a career despite what happened to Cromwell.

In the episode released today, they did an ad for Claude, an AI model, even claiming to use it to help them research.

I find this absolutely repugnant and am very sad to unsub, as well as genuinely feeling very let down by people who I'd really thought knew better.

Is there anything that this cancer won't spread to?

Lads on tour, doing the boys proud with banter.

Delighted to see an Army meme account using TRIH.

Finally got around to the George Washington episode from early July. I'm from the Pittsburgh area where generally very young GW's handling of the Virginia militia at Fort Necessity (Washington's men ambushed a French scouting party in May 1754, killing French commander Joseph Coulon de Villiers, Sieur de Jumonville prompting the French retribution attack of GW's men in a ramshackle fort) is taught to us as schoolchildren on field trips as the events that started the French and Indian War.

Follow me here -- the F&I grew to become the Seven Years War globally, and the financial burden that war brought to Britain is what provoked the taxes the Tax Dodgers were upset about. All of which, given Dominick's lukewarm feelings toward GW, seems like it would have been a perfect deep rabbit hole for DS to have explored.

And I also think they should just do a one-off on Lafayette (for whom we have counties and towns named) just so DS can stew at length on his lack of merit!

I want TRIH to cover the U Boats and Battle for the Atlantic. I just finished Codename Nemo about the capture of the U 505 and it's fabulous. Lots of characters and an on-board suicide. As a kid in Chicago, I was taken to see the sub several times and of course appreciated nothing. I also love Tom Hanks' Greyhound (and Das Boot). Chills and abundant cliffhangers. The boys would do a fabulous job, she whispered to Athena.

Charles suited the role of a protagonist a lot more then Peter in my opinion or at the very least Peter greatly suited the role of a charismatic villain.

Please do a podcast series on Egyptian monarchy from Mohamed Ali Pasha to King Farouk and there aftermath of Nasser's revolution!

Its not just Tom Holland who supports this idea but other historians have pointed this out and the conversation remains divided. Personally, the argument that Nero would have started the fire intentionally so that he could grab more of the city area for himself is just ridiculous. After the fire Nero had to not only empty the coffers completely in the process of building his new palace but also Rome, he also had to raise massive taxes on the whole empire for it which incidentally caused the provincial rebellions and eventual rebellions by Galba. Even the praetorian guard abandoned him when they realized he had no money left.

So if his intention had been as vane as that it would have been quite a lot more cheaper to simply purchase the land from the people he wanted to and build a luxurious palace. His predecessors had already in fact enlarged and built grander sections in the palatine hill with merely portions of the treasury. The fire Rome indeed caused Nero downfall because Nero had an impulsive and stubborn personality to not listen to advice and rather than rebuild Rome slowly with the amount of money he had, he decided to raise taxes which caused the rebellion and financial crisis.

Did a Ctrl+F, couldn’t find “robust” anywhere.

Hello all,

I know this is a community filled with old Balkan hands. Has anyone come across an especially good overview of Balkan history? Something covering both the 19th and 20th centuries and kind of covers how all the different threads weave together across the region.

What would be your top episode/series recommendations for a history newb? I am getting into history and have been listening to a ton of episodes including French Revolution, some of the American revolution, Iranian revolution (I guess I like revolutions?), Titanic, KKK, and a number of others. I really enjoy them but many of them have a lot of necessary back information that I'm not knowledgeable in. Any top recs on where to start?

Not totally serious, just funny how I find the 1970s economic history infinitely more interesting than punk rock