One of my favourite shows from years ago disappeared off the internet, probably due to wizards. Instead of simply uploading it again, I decided to redo the whole thing from the ground up. Which is possibly why it's two shows now. This is all about the Achaemenid Persian Empire. We look at how advanced they were, how awesome Cyrus was, and somehow once again manage to find a way to disrespect Sparta. It's a talent.

In honour of International Talk Like A Pirate Day we explore why pirates didn't actually sound like that, and also how, technically, every day is Talk Like A Pirate Day

I didn't know why jacks in a deck of cards were jacks. Join me for a tumble down the rabbit hole. The other hour is a bunch of random history stuff you'll probably enjoy, loosely bound by this flimsy conceit.

Random trivia from the modern Olympics. Bizarre sports (poodle grooming, pretending to be a corpse), event disruptions (four person pileup, evil leprechaun), and numerous unfortunate things happening to pigeons. Why is it only every four years?

The Second Intermediate Period of Egypt. Or that time when people who weren't Egyptian took over and they don't really like talking about it.

A Musashi show

As requested by many

Show notes in haiku

Here's a Valentine's gift for everyone. One of the bonus shows is now available for all. This is all about Stuxnet, the most amazing computer virus you may not have heard about. You need to be wearing fingerless gloves to get the most out of this show.

I've been going through some stuff lately, and as part of the healing process I thought I'd do an interstitial bonus show. This is going to be a little bit different, but it should be plenty fun. Here's the unbelievably true story of Fine Cotton.

We finish up the Hannibal series in one go because Damo went mad. Everything from the fallout of Trebia to Cannae to Hannibal inventing snake bombs to Carthage being wiped out. You may have to hit the pause button a couple of times.