The History Bit

In this episode, we discuss the tragic story of the Titanic, a ship that many once wrongly believed to be unsinkable. We talk through the timeline of Titanic's first and only voyage from the ship setting sail from England to its untimely end in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. 

When someone says the word viking today, there is probably a specific image that comes to mind: a burly warrior clad in a metal helmet with horns on each side who won't stop until he has laid waste to an unsuspecting village.  In today's episode, we attempt to parse out a realistic picture of the Scandinavian farmer standing behind the mythic Viking warrior. 

In this episode, we explore one of the darker episodes in North American history, the Salem Witch Trials.  We unpack the events immediately preceding the hysteria to understand how it is that a whole town could be caught up in something that now, in retrospect seems so preposterous.  We also detail the trials themselves and the events surrounding them which would eventually lead to them being stopped eleven months after they began.   

This week, we explore the life of famed showman PT Barnum.  With the hugely successful film The Greatest Showman bringing him into the limelight in recent months, we thought it would be interesting to dive into the man behind the musical and learn just who the real PT Barnum was.  Also, we take time to compare Barnum's real life with that which is depicted in the film and see how it holds up.  We hope you enjoy this week's episode of The History Bit.  

We all have some sort of personal connection to past events that have shaped the world into what it is today.  To highlight this, in this episode, we unpack a personal story from Jeremy's family about their experience living in Romania during the rule of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. 

In honor of reaching episode 13, we decided to unpack some of the most well-known superstitions in our society, involving both good luck and bad luck. Tune in to learn the origins of some of our society's prominent and bizarre notions. 

In this episode, we discuss the battle of Iwo Jima, specifically a photograph that was taken during it that was to single-handedly boost American morale in the latter stages of a long war and become one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. 

In this episode, we attempt to shed some light on a war that has been all but forgotten today.  Even though it lasted 172 years, not a single shot was fired, and there were no casualties. Tune in to learn about the surprising story of this obscure conflict that occurred against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Empire.  

In this episode, we discuss the history of arguably one of the most well-known counter culture movements in recent history: punk.  We explore the origins of the movement, both in regards to music and fashion, how it developed on both sides in the pond (the USA and the UK), and what it has evolved into today.  

In this episode, we examine one of the most romanticized and legendary time periods in American history, Prohibition.