Hourly History

In August 1856, mine workers were excavating the Feldhofer Grotto in the western part of Germany. The cave was one of many in a narrow gorge cut by the Düssel River through limestone outcrops. Here, workers discovered what they believed were human bones.

When World War I began in August 1914, the British confidently predicted that it would be "over by Christmas." In Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II told his soldiers that they would be "home before the leaves fall.

The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 in the French colony of Saint Domingue, when a group of slaves rebelled in order to secure their freedom and the end of slavery....

Isaac Newton seemed to be a most unwanted child of the world. Ignored by his mother, scorned by contemporaries, seemingly at war with the world in which he lived, Newton turned his energies to things unseen. His laws of motion and law of universal gravitation would set the stage for a most extraordinary life....

In the 27 years that Kurt Cobain walked this earth, he crafted the songs and the narrative that would become the anthem of a generation. Yet, it was never anything that Cobain set to do deliberately; if anything, he could be called an accidental genius....

Violent confrontation between armed groups over the supply of illegal narcotics is something we commonly associate with criminal gangs in modern cities, but in the mid-nineteenth century Great Britain went to war with Imperial China....

Cyrus II of Persia was one of the greatest leaders that the world had ever known, he was the one in whose footsteps other empire builders would follow. From Alexander the Great to countless Roman emperors and Ottoman sultans - it was the mighty shoes of Cyrus that they all attempted to....

Discover the remarkable history of the fall of Constantinople....

Explore the triumph and terror that existed in France during the French Revolution. Review the causes and the lasting effects brought about during this tumultuous time period when the common people of France struggled to remake their world upon the cornerstone of liberty....

Peaky Blinders is a popular BBC television series about an organized crime family in post-World War I Birmingham, England, but does this series depict the factual history of Birmingham? As it turns out, there were Peaky Blinders in Birmingham....

Richard Pryor was one of the greatest comedic minds of all time, but his stand-up routine was more than just comedy. His deft navigation through the human condition often made it seem like his comic observations were more akin to a cathartic form of group therapy....

In this audiobook, you’ll learn the actual story of King Richard, a king who may not have been exactly "good", but was certainly brave, charismatic, and dashing - a historical character with a story to remember....

King George VI was the spare - the second son of King George V and Mary, and never expected to sit on the throne....

Discover the remarkable history of the Inca Empire...In the space of less than one hundred years, the Inca people expanded from being a small kingdom in the highlands of Peru to becoming one of the largest and most powerful empires in the Americas....

Betty White was more than just an actress and comedienne—she was a force of nature who dazzled audiences for nearly a century. Few in show business could match her energy, charisma, or longevity. While many of her peers slowed down, Betty remained active well into her 90s.

Grigori Rasputin began life as a peasant in Siberia and ended his life as the virtual second-in-command of Tsarist Russia. How did he achieve such a change in fortunes? He managed to convince the royal family that he was the only way that their son, who had hemophilia, would stay alive....

Discover the remarkable life of Haile Selassie....

Discover the dark history of the Holocaust... Jewish communities have existed in the territories of modern-day Germany since Roman times, around the fourth century. By 1925, a census identified over half a million Jewish people living in Germany, accounting for around 1% of the total population.

This is the story of the people, places, and events associated with the dramatic growth and equally rapid decline of the Wild West. It’s also the story of how myth and legend have shaped our understanding of this time to create an idealized perception of the American frontier.

Discover the remarkable history of the Maya Civilization...For more than one thousand years, the Maya people dominated areas of Central America and modern-day Mexico and made important advances in architecture, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine....