Was the Holy Roman Empire, Holy, Roman, or an...

Sometime around 66 million years ago, a meteor smashed into what is today the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The impact of that event changed life on Earth in ways that are still evident today. Evidence for this impact wasn’t obvious. There was strong skepticism when the theory was ...  Show more

For thousands of years, a narrow body of water between Arabia and Persia has shaped the fate of empires, economies, and the modern world. The Persian Gulf has been a crossroads of trade, a cradle of ancient civilizations, and today, the center of global energy and geopolitical te ...  Show more

Voltaire famously wrote that the "The Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” But Dr. Eleanor Janega believes that literally everything about Voltaire’s statement is wrong - in the medieval context.

In this explainer episo ...

Rome has attracted aspiring conquerors and leaders for millennia, not just as a great metropolis, but as an idea. It has long been a symbol of military might and universal power, defined by political and religious authority as well as great feats of engineering that would leav ...

16 January 27 BC is a date sometimes associated with the beginning of the Roman Empire. It was on that day that Octavian received the name Augustus, effectively becoming the first emperor of Rome. Augustus ordered the gates of Janus to be closed, marking an end to the period o ...

The Persian Empire followed in the footsteps of the Assyrians and Babylonians, but it was a much different entity than its predecessors, and its founder - Cyrus the Great - deserves to be mentioned among history's most accomplished conquerors. Professor Matt Waters joins me to ...