History on Fire
Daniele Bolelli
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Top 10 History on Fire Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best History on Fire episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to History on Fire for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite History on Fire episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
EPISODE 103: The Lone Samurai, Miyamoto Musashi (Part 2)
History on Fire
11/06/23 • 131 min
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.” Miyamoto Musashi
Ever since I started History on Fire, one topic has been the most consistently requested by listeners. Over the years, I received hundreds of messages asking me to cover the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That time has come. Here we go.
Musashi has been the subject of one of the greatest bestsellers ever written, a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa that sold over 120 million copies. And yet, the story of his life is mixed with so many myths and legends that it’s rather difficult to separate fact from fiction. He lived across the late 1500s and early 1600s, during the waning phases of the Warring States period. By that point, after over 100 years of on and off civil war, Japan was a country suffering with PTSD. Soldiers and civilians alike had all been exposed to insane amounts of bloodshed and brutality during the Sengoku Jidai. Musashi was born in the midst of that, so it’s little surprised that his is a tale filled with intensity and violence.
In this second and final chapter of this series, I’ll explore some of the key events in the latter parts of Musashi’s life: from the siege of Osaka to the Shimabara Rebellion, from his adopting sons to his grief over the death of his daughter, from his exploration of Zen Buddhism to his writing of the Book of Five Rings, and much more!
If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content.
All the links to History on Fire social media can be found at https://linktr.ee/danielebolelli
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1 Listener
EPISODE 101: The History Behind Killers of the Flower Moon
History on Fire
09/11/23 • 79 min
“But the years of peace and plenty was not to last. Slowly the days turned sour and the watchful nights closed in. Thrór's love of gold grown too fierce and sickness had begun to grow within him. It was a sickness of the mind. And where sickness thrives, bad things will follow...” JRR Tolkien
“The more White investigated the flow of oil money from Osage headrights, the more he found layer upon layer of corruption. Although some white guardians and administrators tried to act in the best interests of the tribe, countless others used the system to swindle the very people they were ostensibly protecting. Many guardians would purchase, for their wards, goods from their own stores or inventories at inflated prices.” David Grann
You may have heard of Killers of the Flower Moon, a new movie by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. Or, maybe you have heard of the best-selling book by David Grann, on which the movie is based. In this episode, I do a deep dive into the murders at the root of the story. Back in the late 1800s, the Osage tribe was kicked out of their homes and pushed onto a plot of poor land where few people wanted to live. But the Universe has a sense of humor. Fast-forward a few years, and in a surprising twist of events it is discovered their land is not so poor after all, since it sits on some of the largest oil deposits in United States. Overnight, the Osage go from the deepest poverty to extreme wealth. A happy, feel-good story then, right? Not so fast. By the early 1920s, many Osage die in the prime of their lives—some are mysterious deaths. Others are clearly murders by poison, shooting and explosives. In this tale, I’ll tell you about oil, greed, murder mysteries, the birth of the FBI, and much more!
If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content.
All the links to History on Fire social media can be found at https://linktr.ee/danielebolelli
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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EPISODE 102: The Lone Samurai, Miyamoto Musashi (Part 1)
History on Fire
10/09/23 • 99 min
“All warfare is based on deception.” Sun Tzu
Ever since I started History on Fire, one topic has been the most consistently requested by listeners. Over the years, I received hundreds of messages asking me to cover the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That time has come. Here we go.
Musashi has been the subject of one of the greatest bestsellers ever written, a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa that sold over 120 million copies. And yet, the story of his life is mixed with so many myths and legends that it’s rather difficult to separate fact from fiction. He lived across the late 1500s and early 1600s, during the waning phases of the Warring States period. By that point, after over 100 years of on and off civil war, Japan was a country suffering with PTSD. Soldiers and civilians alike had all been exposed to insane amounts of bloodshed and brutality during the Sengoku Jidai. Musashi was born in the midst of that, so it’s little surprised that his is a tale filled with intensity and violence.
In this first of two episodes, I’ll dive in to make sense of the contradictory evidence available: from his childhood marred by a terrible relationship with his father to his possible participation in the uber-famous battle of Sekigahara, from his first duel to the death at the age of 13 to his conflicts with the Yoshioka family and with Sasaki Kojiro, and much more!
If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content.
All the links to History on Fire social media can be found at https://linktr.ee/danielebolelli
Including the HOF YouTube Channel:
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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EPISODE 67 Ripples of History
History on Fire
09/12/20 • 174 min
“If I knew the way, I would take you home.” From the song Ripple by the Grateful Dead
“The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.” Bertrand Russell
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Michael Jordan
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Tao Te Ching
In most fields, we are taught that people in your same profession are your competitors, and you need to do whatever you can to prevent them from rising above you. In podcasting I found the opposite attitude—people helping each other out and doing whatever possible to facilitate things for other podcasters in the same field. In this spirit, today we’ll do something unique: six history podcasters cooperating, with each one tackling a segment, to create a super-episode together. As the host, yours truly will get the ball rolling setting the theme and offering some examples of ‘historical ripples’—events that end up having unforeseen consequences years, or decades, or centuries after they take place. Alexander Rader Von Sternberg (History Impossible) will chat about how a man who died feeling like he had failed to make his mark in history ended up—possibly more than any other—shaping the culture of several Asian civilizations. CJ Killmer (Dangerous History) will tackle the Bacon’s Rebellion and its ramifications. Sebastian Major (Our Fake History) will play with the myth and lasting impact of Homer’s telling of the Trojan War. Sam Davis (Inward Empire) will be discussing the impact of Henry David Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience on the Civil Rights Movement about a century later. And Darryl Cooper (Martyrmade) will make a case for the Japanese origin for suicide bombings in the Middle East.
1 Listener
EPISODE 77 Bruce Lee (Part 1)
History on Fire
06/05/21 • 136 min
“Energy is eternal delight.” William Blake
“Hong Kong in the 1950s was a depressed place. Post–World War II Hong Kong had suffered from unemployment, a poor economy, over-crowding, homelessness, and people taking advantage of each other. Gangs roamed the street, and juvenile delinquents ran rampant.” Hawkins Cheung
“Teachers should never impose their favorite patterns on their students—he said—They should be finding out what works for them, and what does not work for them. The individual is more important than the style.” Bruce Lee
“I feel I have this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all of these combined…” Bruce Lee
Ask anyone for one name they associate with martial arts, and odds are they will mention Bruce Lee. Because of his career, millions of people were introduced to martial arts. Thanks to his movies, Lee achieved enduring, worldwide fame, broke plenty of box office records, and forever changed the aesthetics of action films. Not bad for a skinny kid from Hong Kong who arrived in United States with the proverbial shirt on his back. The image of his hyper-muscular body in combat pose has become iconic. But there was a lot more to Bruce Lee than meets the eye. He could have been a rock star or a spiritual leader or anything else he had wished… Martial arts was just a channel for his energy. Had he put that same energy anywhere else, he’d have probably had similar success. Despite Hollywood turning him down time and time again due to racial prejudices, Lee refused to take no for an answer and more or less single-handedly changed the way in which Asian people were perceived in the West. His philosophical insights also changed the face of martial arts training, and introduced masses of people to Taoism and Zen Buddhism. His creative & anti-authoritarian approach to life captured the best of the essence of the 1960s. Get ready for a ride because this is an incredible story I have wanted to tell since I first started podcasting.
This episode covers Bruce Lee’s life from birth to his famous fight with Wong Jack Man in 1964.
1 Listener
BONUS: Dan Carlin’s “The End Is Always Near”
History on Fire
11/20/19 • 71 min
“That is the nicest guilt trip anybody has ever given me in my entire life.” Dan Carlin
Dan Carlin is one of my all time favorite human beings, and on top of that an incredible podcaster. He’s now a published author as well. In this episode we chat about his new book, The End is Always Near. The conversation covers more than should theoretically be possible to cover in little over an hour—from Dan’s understanding for Thanos’ plight to the collapse of civilizations, the concept of Gross National Happiness, the delusion of infinite growth in a finite system, Jared Diamond, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, meteors, nuclear weapons, James Burke, the need for nuance, the future of Common Sense, what to do when people can’t agree on basic evidence, social media, incredibly fast historical changes, and the nicest guilt trip in Dan’s life.
1 Listener
EPISODE 85: The Siege That Changed All of History
History on Fire
12/18/21 • 150 min
“I cut off their heads. I burned them with fire. With their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool. Men I impaled on stakes. The city I destroyed, devastated… the young men and maidens I burned in the fire.” Ashurnairpal II
“I filled the wide plain with the corpses of his warriors…. These [rebels] I impaled on stakes. …A pyramid of heads I erected in front of the city.” Salmaneser III
“Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us!’ Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim? Did any god rescue Samaria from my power? What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? So what makes you think that the Lord can rescue Jerusalem from me?” Isaiah 36:18-20
History is a fickle beast. Some events may not seem like much at the time when they happen, but they end up radically shaping all events afterwards. For example, had just one event turned out different—an event largely forgotten today, such as the siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE—and all of history would have changed. If the siege had ended in the way everyone expected it to end, Judaism would have disappeared from the pages of history, and Christianity and Islam would have never been born. Can you imagine how different the world would be if you were to remove the entire history of the three main monotheistic religions?
In this episode we’ll tackle this greatest of ‘what ifs.’ In the process of doing so, we’ll discuss the origins of Western monotheism, Assyrian culture, Hebrew legends, the Assyrian protection racket, the clash between monotheistic Hebrews and polytheistic Hebrews, how the Assyrians turned 10 of the tribes of Israel into the “lost tribes”, committing ‘suicide by Assyrian’, the destruction of Lachish, what may have happened in Jerusalem in 701 BCE, and much more.
11/07/22 • 104 min
“It was a period of stupendous change and immense challenge; the entire social, political, and economic landscape of Japan would be transformed within a few decades. Just as this new era was dawning in Japan, Jigoro Kano was born, on October 28, 1860.” John Stevens
“In my childhood, I had heard that there was a thing called jujutsu thanks to which even a weak person could defeat a strong person. I definitely thought about learning it.” Jigoro Kano
“Some people believe that Judo means simply practicing at the dojo. This is applying the principle of judo at the dojo when practicing defense against attack, and through it is certainly one aspect of judo, it is only a small part of it.” Jigoro Kano
In the second half of the 1800s, after the United States made Japan an offer it couldn’t refuse, Japan experienced a period of crisis and extremely fast modernization. Swept by efforts to copy everything that made the West powerful, Japan turned its back on much of its traditional culture. Martial arts were considered anachronistic and irrelevant, and looked well on their way to disappear into the dustbin of history much in the same way as they had done in other parts of the world. In 1882, a small, nerdy man named Jigoro Kano made his stand to reverse this process. Kano was only 22 years old, and had only little over 5 years of martial arts practice. But what 22-year old Kano started in some spare rooms in a Buddhist temple was going to affect the lives of millions of people.
This story is about martial arts, but is also about much more. This story is about the dramatic transformations in Japanese history in the 1800s (and without understanding them, it’s pretty much impossible to understand the role played by Japan in WWII.) It is a story about how one individual can radically impact millions. It’s about how cultural traditions that are seemingly anachronistic can be reinvented to provide value in a modern context. It’s a story about Taoist philosophy, Olympic Games and U.S. presidents, pro-wrestling and helping society, the tension between globalization and nationalism, the role that physical education can play in shaping a person’s character, and a bunch of other things that have only marginally to do with martial arts per se. So, with this in mind, let’s get rolling.
If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
EPISODE 52 The Lady and Her Gun
History on Fire
10/12/19 • 106 min
“It's just incredible that this little hand has killed Nazis, has scythed them down by the hundreds, without missing…” Charlie Chaplin
“Miss Pavlichenko's well known to fame,
Russia's your country, fighting is your game,
Your smile shines as bright as any new morning sun,
But more than three hundred Nazi dogs fell by your gun.” Woody Guthrie
“Charging together, we would dash into battle and forget about everything else in the world.” Lyudmila Pavlichenko
“Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have already managed to kill 309 of the fascist invaders. Do you not think, gentlemen, that you have now been hiding behind my back for rather too long?” Lyudmila Pavlichenko
During WW II, women in the Soviet Union had many reasons to fear German soldiers. But in some cases it was the German soldiers’ turn to be the targets of Soviet ladies. Among the many women who would fight tooth and nail and send quite a few Axis soldiers to a premature death, one stood out among the rest. Germans would know her by name, and would grow to fear her. And they had good reasons to fear her since it was by killing 309 of them that she would become the most deadly female sniper in history. Legends about her would grow both among her own comrades and among the terrified Nazi soldiers who heard rumors about this vengeful female demon who seemed to have made it her personal mission to make them pay for any outrage committed by anyone wearing their same uniform had ever. Some told stories about how a witch in some village near Odessa had cast a spell deflecting enemy bullets away from her. Others swore that she was followed by the lord of the forest himself—a wood sprite with a huge tree-like body who protected her, made her invisible and gave her the supernatural ability to move through the forest without making a sound, to know what was happening a mile away, and to see in complete darkness as well as normal people see in daylight. She was Lyudmila Pavlichenko aka Lady Death.
Among other things, in this episode: Operation Barbarossa, caught between vicious dictators, Stalin (even better than Nazis at killing his own people), Nazi guns in front of you and Soviet guns pointed at your back, a song by Woody Guthrie, Charlie Chaplin kissing her hand, Lyudmila disappoints Yoda, bringing Belgian chocolates as a gift for your girlfriend (after looting them from a corpse), love found & love lost, bloody revenge, hanging out with the American First Lady.
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FAQ
How many episodes does History on Fire have?
History on Fire currently has 126 episodes available.
What topics does History on Fire cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture and Podcasts.
What is the most popular episode on History on Fire?
The episode title 'EPISODE 103: The Lone Samurai, Miyamoto Musashi (Part 2)' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on History on Fire?
The average episode length on History on Fire is 110 minutes.
How often are episodes of History on Fire released?
Episodes of History on Fire are typically released every 26 days, 15 hours.
When was the first episode of History on Fire?
The first episode of History on Fire was released on Sep 10, 2015.
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