Historically High

Why did ancient civilizations, on every inhabited continent at different points in history independently decide the world was run by a giant scaled lizard? This week we break down humanity’s ultimate shared mythological trip—from our primate brains mashing big cats, raptors, and venomous snakes into an evolutionary super-predator, to the massive cultural clash between European knights stabbing subterranean gold-hoarders and Chinese emperors deifying benevolent, rain-summoning weather lords. Along the way, we explore ancient apothecaries grinding up dinosaur "dragon bones," Chinese magistrates roasting wooden water gods in the sun to end droughts, and the war between fantasy authors and modern Hollywood over how many legs a dragon is actually allowed to have.

So strap yourself onto Falcor and prepare to get Historically High on Dragons.

Patreon: patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh (bonus content, trivia, and perks)

Instagram: @historicallyhighpod

X / Twitter: @Historicallyhi

Listen & Watch: Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

The Phoenicians conquered the ancient world, not with sword or spear, but with ink, rotting mollusks, and the finest of Lebanese Cedar. In this episode, we take a wild ride through history's ultimate glue guys, starting with a cluster of competitive city-states that never even called themselves Phoenicians. We break down the secrets behind their maritime supremacy, uncovering how their agriculturally inferior homeland led to unmatched shipwrighting and open-sea navigation.

Skills allowing them to pioneer an aquatic Silk Road of sorts and sail all the way to Spain for massive hauls of silver. Along the way, we explore their rich pantheon of gods, their legendary 22-letter alphabet that revolutionized communication, and the explosive rise of their most famous daughter-city, Carthage. Finally, we track their journey through the meat grinder of history. Surviving Persian vassalage, Alexander the Great throwing a literal land-bridge at Tyre, before ultimately disappearing into the Greek and Roman machine—proving how these master traders left behind a blueprint that still shapes the modern world.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

Strap in, because this week on Historically High, we’re heading back pre-Chernobyl, to 1979 to unpack the absolute disaster that was the Three Mile Island meltdown. When a routine cooling malfunction collided with a stuck valve, a blizzard of confusing control-room alarms, and operators making fatal guesswork, roughly half of Unit 2's uranium core melted down into radioactive sludge right in the middle of Pennsylvania.

While the reactor was actively cooking itself from the inside out, Metropolitan Edison’s PR team kicked into full corporate gaslighting mode, frantically downplaying radiation leaks and insisting everything was fine while local residents ran for their lives. To top it all off, when the NRC finally touched down to survey the smoking atomic wreckage, the utility company immediately tried to push through shady safety shortcuts just to get the surviving reactor back online.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

In August 1969, four twenty-somethings—two trust-fund heirs and two music hustlers—tried to fund a recording studio by throwing a music festival in Woodstock, only to trigger one of the most glorious logistical trainwrecks in American history. After getting evicted from two different towns, they convinced conservative dairy farmer Max Yasgur to lease his alfalfa pasture, but only had enough time to build the stage or the gates and fences. The Stage won. When 400K kids, instead of the estimated max of 200K, descended on Bethel, turning the New York State Thruway into a 20-mile parking lot, the gates became irrelevant, the tickets became meaningless, and the promoters decided to go with the flow and declare it a free concert.

Mainstream America braced for an apocalyptic riot of sex, drugs, and violence, but what actually happened shocked the nation. When the food ran out quickly, an eccentric New Mexico commune called the Hog Farm stepped up, dishing hot oats and vegetables from galvanized trash cans, policing the crowd with seltzer bottles, and talking 1,000 terrified kids down from bad brown acid with citrus and gentle street psychology. Through biblical downpours, ankle-deep cow manure, overflowing latrines, and widespread practical nudity, the drenched masses shared socks instead of starting fights—culminating in Jimi Hendrix playing a napalm-scorched national anthem to the then remaining 30K fans at 9:00 AM on a Monday, and cementing an unmitigated disaster as the defining cultural moment of a generation. Welcome to Woodstock.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

This episode is a long strange trip into the mind of John Hinckley Jr. John attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Firing five shots, Hinckley would strike the President once. He was arrested immediately following the shooting. That's when the Hinckley case takes a turn. John Hinckley Jr had quite an obsession with Taxi Driver, and Jodie Foster. In John's mind, he was a Travis Bickle type character. In his mind, he needed to do something to make Jodie realize she loved him. That thing turned out to be trying to assassinate a president. That brings us to the most interesting subject of the episode. The insanity plea. John's lawyers tried it. In the end they succeeded. But was he really insane? Decide for yourself as you join us while we all get Historically High on John Hinckley Jr, and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

In the conclusion of our two-part September 11 deep dive, we step straight into the chaos of the morning itself—and the global fallout that followed.

We walk through the timeline as it unfolded in real time: how the planes were taken, the shock of the strikes, the collapse of the towers, the hit on the Pentagon, and the fierce resistance aboard Flight 93, where ordinary passengers mounted a revolt in the skies over Shanksville. Alongside the devastation, we highlight the staggering, improbable survival stories and the acts of raw courage from first responders and everyday civilians navigating zero visibility.

Then, we unpack the immediate aftermath: how breadcrumb trails of intelligence pointed straight to bin Laden’s Afghan hideouts, kickstarting the Global War on Terror. We break down the domestic shift that followed almost overnight—from the creation of Homeland Security to the passage of the PATRIOT Act and the era of mass surveillance. Finally, we track how the national trauma was swiftly recalibrated, laying the rhetorical and geopolitical groundwork that turned America’s sights toward Baghdad.

Thanks for listening and don't forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating, and write a review! You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh for bonus content and exclusive perks. Follow us on social media: @Historicallyhi on X/Twitter and @historicallyhighpod on Instagram. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

This week on Historically High, we begin our two-part deep dive into September 11 by pulling back the curtain on everything that led to that fateful Tuesday morning.

To understand how four commercial airliners were turned into guided missiles, you have to rewind decades. We start in the brutal, scorched valleys of the Soviet-Afghan War, tracking how the mujahideen resistance gave birth to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. From there, we trace the rise of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bloody trial runs that the world largely brushed off—from the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa to the suicide strike on the USS Cole—and the tactical evolution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s deadly "planes operation."

We break down how al-Qaeda slipped hijackers into American flight schools right under the nose of U.S. intelligence, the bureaucratic blind spots that let them train in plain sight, and the chilling final logistics locked in place on September 10, 2001.

Light up, settle in, and join us as we connect the geopolitical fuse that was lit years before the towers fell.

Thanks for listening and don't forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating, and write a review! You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh for bonus content and exclusive perks. Follow us on social media: @Historicallyhi on X/Twitter and @historicallyhighpod on Instagram. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

The Japanese incorrectly thought they sink her three times earning her the moniker, The Grey Ghost.

This week on Historically High, we chart the legendary run of the USS Enterprise (CV-6)—the carrier that carried the Pacific War on her back when it was literally Enterprise vs. Japan, and served as the godmother of modern naval aviation by pioneering 24-hour night combat and revolutionizing damage control. From her near miss at Pearl, to her critical role at Midway, to holding off suicide swarms at Okinawa, to her controversial absence at the Tokyo Bay surrender, we break down how the ultimate ghost ship became the most decorated warship in U.S. history...Tune in, spark up, and let’s talk The Big E.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

This week, we’re diving into the absolute circus of the late '90s: the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. We trace Bill’s slippery journey from slick Arkansas Governor dodging the Paula Jones lawsuit straight into the Oval Office, where a federal government shutdown, a strategic flash of a whaletail, and an unpaid intern collided to change American politics forever. Add in Linda Tripp armed with illegal cassette tapes, Kenneth Starr treating Whitewater like a personal soap opera, and the wildest semantics battle in legal history over what "is" actually is, and you’ve got a presidential impeachment born entirely out of chaotic horniness. Light up, tune in, and watch the highest office in the land get taken to its knees.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.

This week on Historically High, we journey into the heart of ancient—and present-day—Cambodia to chart the epic rise and fall of the Khmer Empire.

While Europe was just beginning to stumble into the Renaissance, Angkor had already perfected the largest pre-industrial city on the planet. From the uncomfortably massive Tonlé Sap lake to the awe-inspiring stone skyline, wonder at the jaw-dropping architecture of complexes like Angkor Wat and the Bayon. Plus, we unravel the empire’s true engine of power: an unparalleled network of reservoirs (barays), canals, and hydrological engineering that tamed the monsoon and fed millions.

So how did a mega-city built to control the elements suddenly vanish back into the jungle? Let’s get into it.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com

for information about our collection and use of personal data for

advertising.