Showing results by narrator "Daniel Houle" in All Categories

As Sicily fell and the Allies prepared to press on, Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, was actually arrested to prevent him from doing further damage. Il Duce still held considerable power in the eyes of many ground-level activists, and if left unchecked, the possibility of violence in the streets was genuine. He was jailed in Campo Imperatore on August 28, 1943, on one of the largest mountains in Central Italy, but when the new Italian government surrendered to the Allies, most of the Italian mainland was still controlled by the Germans.

Over the last 2,000 years, ambitious men have dreamed of forging vast empires and attaining eternal glory in battle, but of all the conquerors who took steps toward such dreams, none were ever as successful as antiquity’s first great conqueror. The Battle of the Persian Gate: The History of the Achaemenid Persian Empire’s Last Stand against Alexander the Great looks at one of antiquity’s most important battles. 

The story of early Asian immigration to the United States is also one about race legislation and discrimination at a time when global populations were moving with more frequency and merging ahead of their ability to practically assimilate. The greatest involuntary migration in history took place as some 12.5 million Black African crossed the Atlantic as slaves.

The fighting between the Romans and Jews in the first century CE, brought about some of the most important events in Jewish history. The Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, a disaster that would eventually prove both permanent and catastrophic since it was never rebuilt.

One of the most important and memorable events of the United States’ westward push across the frontier came with the discovery of gold in the lands that became California in January 1848. Located thousands of miles away from the country’s power centers on the East Coast at the time, the announcement came a month before the Mexican-American War had ended.

Of all the steppe peoples in the medieval period, perhaps none were more important to European history than the Magyars. Like the Huns and Avars before them and the Cumans and Mongols after them, the Magyars burst into Europe as a destructive, unstoppable horde, taking whatever they wanted and leaving a steady stream of misery in their wake.

The Korean War is often labeled “the forgotten war”, and though it has received renewed attention in recent years, it still pales compared to others in recent history like the Vietnam War or even the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s mostly overlooked is that the Korean War was one of the most intense conflicts the United States fought, and the soldiers who served in it were arguably in greater peril than in any other war over the last 75 years.

Author Orlando "Ori" Spado honestly recounts his humble beginnings from the small town of Rome in Upstate New York to becoming known as "The Mob Boss of Hollywood". This candid account documents his fall from the life of a well-known Hollywood fixer who mixed with A-list celebrities to serving 62 months in a federal prison and ultimately making a determined comeback.  

The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren’t so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam.

The early history of Earth covers such vast stretches of time that years, centuries, and even millennia become virtually meaningless. Instead, paleontologists and scientists who study geochronology divide time into periods and eras. The current view of science is that Earth is around 4.6 billion years old, but despite all of the scientific advances made in the past few centuries, including an enhanced understanding of Earth’s geological past, relatively little is known about the planet’s early history.

The pyramids of Egypt are such recognizable symbols of antiquity that for millennia, people have made assumptions about what they are and why they exist, without full consideration of the various meanings these ancient symbolic structures have had over the centuries. Generations have viewed them as symbols of a lost past, which in turn is often portrayed as a world full of romance and mystery.

The year 1815 marked the beginning of a time of repression in Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated at Waterloo and sent to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, the torrent of blood unleashed by the French Revolution had finally run dry, and the dispossessed princes were returning to their thrones. Bourbon King Louis XVIII returned to Paris, King Ferdinand VII was restored in Madrid, and the numerous petty princes of Germany and Italy took back power in their localities.

Although the League of Nations was short-lived and clearly failed in its primary mission, it did essentially spawn the United Nations at the end of World War II, and many of the UN’s structures and organizations came straight from its predecessor, with the concepts of an International Court and a General Assembly coming straight from the League.

Along the sandy shores and ancient forests of crystal blue Lake Erie, a proud, brave, and confident people lived long ago, building homes, raising crops, hunting game, rearing children, and surviving through harsh winters and hot summers. None of their tribe remains today to tell their story, but their name lives on in the waters of a Great Lake. The Erie Tribe would have been completely lost to history if not for the archeological evidence and archival records that have been uncovered to prove that they existed.

Before the Second World War, military conflicts were fought under orthodox conditions, usually termed “conventional warfare”, but several innovations had significantly changed combat, leading inextricably to the race for a nuclear weapon in the 1930s and 1940s. Conflicts had been fought by armies on horseback with guns of varying sophistication since the 16th century, but mechanized warfare and machine guns changed this calculus and set the stage for future combat by the end of World War I.

After the last shots of World War II were fired and the process of rebuilding Germany and Europe began, the Western Allies and the Soviet Union each tried to obtain the services of the Third Reich's leading scientists, especially those involved in rocketry, missile technology, and aerospace research. Naturally, this was a delicate affair due to the fact many of the German scientists were not only active Nazis, but had helped the Nazi war machine terrorize the world.

The Lombards originated in Scandinavia before migrating slowly through central Europe, and as the Western Roman Empire collapsed and the Byzantine successor state in Constantinople attempted to reestablish order, the Lombards took advantage of the chaos and planted themselves firmly on Italian soil.

The Cristero War in Mexico is the last great armed movement in a country that for a hundred years suffered revolution after revolution, in an apparently endless cycle. Ignored for decades, the war was long seen simply as an unwanted corollary of the Mexican Revolution, a kind of anomaly in the official narrative.

Modern Aswan is a gorgeous vacation spot, with a view worthy of its long and rich history, and near modern Aswan is the ancient site of Elephantine, a city that calls a small island on the Nile home. Elephantine was once a thriving, independent city and one of the oldest urban settings in Egypt, and the settlement there was always connected to the surrounding geographic area due to the importance of its location.

San Francisco, Chinatown, September 4, 1977, 2:00 a.m. Despite it being the middle of the night, Chinatown was still a hive of activity. Fresh produce glistening with dew was being delivered by vegetable vendors at grocery stores. Chinese barbeque chefs at neighborhood restaurants were preparing juicy roast duck and sticky sweet red barbeque pork for both the late-night crowd and tomorrow’s lunch rush.