The Battle of Gallipoli (1915) How Ataturk an...

In August 1863, as Lee's army retreated from Gettysburg and Vicksburg fell to Grant, the Union's Anaconda Plan deployed hundreds of ships to strangle 3,500 miles of Confederate coastline, triggering hyperinflation and economic collapse as the South lost its ability to export King ...  Show more

Pompeii's story is usually told through the lens of catastrophe—perfectly preserved bodies frozen in ash, a civilization erased in hours, sort of like a Roman version of the Chicxulub impactor that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago —but the real tragedy isn't just that Mo ...  Show more

By 1913, Talaat Pasha was one third of a military triumvirate and the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire. This episode covers his alliance with Germany during WWI, the Battle of Gallipoli, and the Armenian Genocide. When the Central Powers were defeated, he fled to Germany, wh ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Battle of Lepanto, 1571, the last great sea battle between galleys, in which the Catholic fleet of the Holy League of principally Venice, Spain, the Papal States, Malta, Genoa, and Savoy defeated the Ottoman forces of Selim II. When much of Eur ...  Show more

Eugene Rogan answers listener questions on one of history’s most powerful – and long-lasting – empires   How did the Ottomans dominate swathes of Europe, Asia and Africa for up to seven centuries? How did their sack of Constantinople in 1453 change the course of history? And why ...  Show more

After the Fall of Constantinople, the Ottomans became the most powerful dynasty in existence. But the great empire began to decline, and in the early 20th century, a leader named Talaat and a group of radical nationalists worked to remove the ineffectual sultan and restore the Ot ...  Show more