The power of Ancient Rome seems absolute today, but that wasn’t always the case. Over 150 years before the great drama of Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic faced its greatest existential threat. Carthage, the great North African merchant empire, battled Rome for supremacy of the Mediterrenean. And at the vanguard of Carthage’s forces was one of the most brilliant tacticians the world has ever seen: Hannibal. 

In 1298, a manuscript was published that took Western Europe by storm. Known today as the Travels of Marco Polo, it detailed the Venetian’s adventures in Asia - from India, to Japan, to Sri Lanka. Impressive as those tales were, though, it was the figure at the heart of Book Two who really set Europe alight. The wise, ancient emperor who ruled a China so wealthy, so enlightened, that it seemed like Heaven on Earth. That great emperor’s name was Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan Dynasty and grandson of Genghis Khan. He would go down as one of the greatest rulers in Asian history.

There are many tales of people achieving all sorts of fortune and fame by selling their souls to the devil. Blues guitarist Robert Johnson is probably the most famous subject of that tall tale. The legend goes that he offered his soul at a Mississippi Delta crossroads, and in return he would receive musical success and talents beyond his wildest dreams. And, yes, to this day he is considered a pioneer of American blues guitar and songwriting. But the devil is in the details. And with a life so shrouded in mystery, it’s hard to separate fact from his very appealing fiction.

Horatio Nelson was born at Burnham Thorpe on Sept. 29, 1758. He entered the Royal Navy at the age of 12, and by 20 he had risen from midshipman to commander. In 1780 Nelson took a convoy to America and the West Indies, but the Admiralty placed him on half pay the next year after the American Revolution ended. Nelson then went to France to learn the language.

John Rackham (26 December 1682 – 18 November 1720), commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and in Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the calico clothing that he wore, while Jack is a nickname for "John".

In the 125 years since Alfred Nobel’s estate first established the Nobel Prize, Cambridge University has had a remarkable group of laureates honored for their work. Their names are synonymous with excellence and innovation: Bertrand Russell. Francis Crick. Neils Bohr. Milton Friedman. There are literally a hundred more.

All good things must come to an end. And so did the Pax Romana, a 200-year-long period of time which represented the Roman Empire at its most glorious and most powerful. It started with the formation of the empire under Augustus and ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the so-called Five Good Emperors.

1066 CE. The English Throne sits vacant after the King dies without an heir. Three claimants to the title quickly rise, and prepare to do battle over who would wear the crown. At the end of this turbulent year, invasions would be mounted, battles would be fought, and only one man would be left standing with the prize grasped in his bloody fist.

It is a tale that reads easier as fiction than fact, and in fact has been the inspiration for many famous fictional dynastic struggles, including Game of Thrones. This is the story of the victor of this struggle, who conquered a kingdom and changed the fate of a country and a continent. This is the story of William the Conqueror.

In 1922, Harry Truman sat in his mother-in-law’s house in small town Missouri, contemplating the failure that had been his life. He was nearly 40; behind him lay a string of failed businesses and unfulfilling odd-jobs. He was close to bankrupt, deeply in debt, and looked down upon by his wife’s elitist family. Aside from one brief stint in the Army, he had never lived outside his one horse town. He was, in short, a loser. A man who had failed at life so thoroughly even Jon Arbuckle would appear an overachieving Hercules next to him.

The “Spanish” flu pandemic was the single worst disease episode in modern world history. In the space of eighteen months in 1918-1919, its four epidemic waves killed tens of millions of people around the globe, ravaging a population that had already been exhausted by the mass killing tactics of the War to End All Wars.

In today’s video we will look at the Spanish flu from three perspectives: first, how did it spread across the world and what was its impact on the every day lives of ordinary individuals; then, we will profile this invisible killer, seeking to understand its origins and murderous methods; finally, we will assess the death toll it inflicted on the human species and see what can we learn from the experience.