History Impossible

Alexander von Sternberg
  • 4.3 (23)
  • HISTORY
  • EVERY TWO MONTHS
History Impossible

History Impossible covers some of the less-known, strange, and supposedly impossible events, people, and ideologies throughout history that are all nonetheless true. The settings and time periods range from the Second World War to ancient Japan to medieval Europe, and many more. The show engages with difficult ideas and impossible decisions that were made by human beings like you or me, always to significant effect. It goes out of its way to grant agency to all of its subjects and does its best to present the most nuanced approach one can, all while acknowledging any personal biases that may exist. You will not find a more honest attempt at presenting difficult and controversial historical topics. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-impossible--5634566/support.

  1. A Bug in the Software

    2 DAYS AGO · BONUS

    A Bug in the Software

    Hey everyone, happy to present to all of you fine people with a brief bonus, this time adapting my recent historiographical essay that I had written my first semester in graduate school on the study of infectious disease’s effects throughout history and how it was written about from around the 1970s until the 2010s. This should serve as a nice pairing with the recent “Mother’s Wrath, Mankind’s Cope” and demonstrate the sort of academic origins of my thinking on this particular subject. Please enjoy and stay tuned! … History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon, Substack, and PayPal. Please consider donating today to help keep me free and this show alive: David Adamcik David Alsbach Rajan Athul Robert Babeon Michael Beach Benjamin Greg Bosai Johannes Breitsameter Carol ABC Charles C Curtis Christiansen Clayton Connell Cliffydeuce CR B.Cyr daddygorgon Danny Lynda Davis Paul DeCoster Regina Dick-Endrizzi Neil Dickens Nathan Diehl Bob Downing Dramicas Martin E. Gavin Edwards Howie Feltersnatch Pierre Ghazarian Jayson Griesmeyer Nathan Grote Benjamin Hamilton Peter Hauck Henry Eric Hodges Carey Hurst Mike Jarulic Joe6245 Russell Johnson Lionel Joseph Thomas Justesen Mike Kalnins Bryn Kaufman Leah Kodner Benjamin Lee Constance Loucks Maddy Mounty of Madness Jose Martinez Mike Mayleben Judy McCoid Kyle Mohney Kostas Moros Ryan Mortenson Cameron Needham Skip Pacheco Mel Padden David Page Molly Pan Jeff Parrent Sr. Powell Brian Pritzl AnaR737 PJ Rader Gleb Radutsky Aleksandr Rakitin Reptilycus Matthew M. Rice Phillip Rice Terry Rosen Chris Rowe Dan S Jon Andre Saether Jake Scalia Emily Schmidt Julian Schmidt Andrew Seeber Neil Sheehan Joshua Simpson Cameron Smith Jerry Spangler timetosuccedd1995 Thomas Squeo Athal Krishna Sundarrajan Jared Cole Temple Ward Van Roy Pierre Vorupuni Robert VS Jonny Wilkie Michael Wroblewski F. You Greg Zink Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-impossible--5634566/support.

    56 min
  2. Mother's Wrath, Mankind's Bargain (The Los Angeles Fires of 2025)

    13 FEB

    Mother's Wrath, Mankind's Bargain (The Los Angeles Fires of 2025)

    In this episode of History Impossible inaugurating 2025 and the sixth anniversary of the show, we will be looking at the Los Angeles Fires of 2025 but from an extended, historical, and probably overly philosophical lens. Because as it turns out, natural disasters are a constant of the human experience and create some of the greatest extremes, and reflecting on what afflicts us now alongside what has afflicted us in the past can provide at least some clarity (or, in my case, closure). The destruction faced by Los Angelenos in 2025 is not too dissimilar from many examples of destruction in relatively recent history. From the Krakatoa explosion in 1883, to the Galvestone hurriance in 1900, to the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, there are plenty of examples. We examine these and their after effects in detail in this episode of History Impossible. It was an emotional experience to go through all of this and I hope you all can appreciate why. I wrote the original essay upon which this episode was based over a month ago, but it still has some validity and weight that I didn't expect. So please enjoy as much as one can enjoy such a heavy subject, in this newest episode of History Impossible  ... History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon, Substack, and PayPal. Please consider donating today to help keep me free and this show alive: David Adamcik David Alsbach Rajan Athul Robert Babeon Michael Beach Benjamin Greg Bosai Johannes Breitsameter Daniel Camaj Carol ABC Charles C Curtis Christiansen Clayton Connell Cliffydeuce CR B.Cyr daddygorgon Danny Lynda Davis Paul DeCoster Regina Dick-Endrizzi Neil Dickens Nathan Diehl Bob Downing Dramicas Martin E. Gavin Edwards Howie Feltersnatch Pierre Ghazarian Jayson Griesmeyer Nathan Grote Benjamin Hamilton Peter Hauck Henry Eric Hodges Carey Hurst Mike Jarulic Joe6245 Russell Johnson Lionel Joseph Thomas Justesen Mike Kalnins Bryn Kaufman Leah Kodner Benjamin Lee Constance Loucks Maddy Mounty of Madness Jose Martinez Mike Mayleben Judy McCoid Kyle Mohney Kostas Moros Ryan Mortenson Cameron Needham Skip Pacheco Mel Padden David Page Molly Pan Jeff Parrent Sr. Powell Brian Pritzl AnaR737 PJ Rader Gleb Radutsky Aleksandr Rakitin Reptilycus Matthew M. Rice Phillip Rice Terry Rosen Chris Rowe Dan S Jon Andre Saether Jake Scalia Emily Schmidt Julian Schmidt Andrew Seeber Neil Sheehan Joshua Simpson Cameron Smith Jerry Spangler timetosuccedd1995 Thomas Squeo Athal Krishna Sundarrajan Jared Cole Temple Ward Van Roy Pierre Vorupuni Robert VS Jonny Wilkie Michael Wroblewski F. You Greg Zink Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-impossible--5634566/support.

    1h 51m
  3. A Revulsion of Feeling: The Arab Revolt and Collective Identity

    30/12/2024

    A Revulsion of Feeling: The Arab Revolt and Collective Identity

    This is the first installment of something that doesn’t really have a name; the Grad School Files? That sounds a little like a bad Netflix show. I’ll take suggestions, but in the meantime, we can simply define this as it is: the first adaptation of one of my academic papers from graduate school into an honest-to-goodness episode of History Impossible. The first thing I want to say is that it was more difficult than I expected to adapt an academic paper into a podcast than I expected. The material is all there, but speaking in formal academic language manages to put me to sleep, so I did my best to spruce things up with this episode. The second thing I want to say is that a lot of the material in this one will be familiar territory, just more focused on a single event (or grouping of events) in Israel-Palestine history: that is, the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. This was something I hadn’t planned to do until inspiration smacked me upside the head in my second semester, largely propelled by the lack of awareness I was seeing some of my cohort-mates possessed about the conflict in general, to say nothing of the minutiae of its long, long history. As has been covered at length by me and many others, this has very clearly become a political issue with no tether to history, when that history matters more than the politics. In any event, what resulted was this, but in paper form (that has also been published in written form on Substack and Patreon, as some of you may remember): an investigation into the formation of group identity—that is, of the declining British Empire, the Zionist movement, and the Arab nationalist movement—via the conflict that came to be known as the Arab Revolt of the 1930s. Apart from a few folks—like the awesome Oren Kessler, much of whose work I incorporated into this episode—very few scholars have focused their attention on this event, sandwiched as it is between the punctuated chaos of the 1920s and the Second World War. I hope looking at the event this way—as a crucible, to use a word Kessler has used—adds to the conversation.  … History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon, Substack, and PayPal. Please consider donating today to help keep me free and this show alive: David Adamcik David Alsbach Rajan Athul Robert Babeon Michael Beach Benjamin Greg Bosai Johannes Breitsameter Carol ABC Charles C Clayton Connell Cliffydeuce CR B.Cyr daddygorgon Danny Lynda Davis Paul DeCoster Regina Dick-Endrizzi Neil Dickens Nathan Diehl Bob Downing Dramicas Martin E. Gavin Edwards Howie Feltersnatch Pierre Ghazarian Jayson Griesmeyer Nathan Grote Benjamin Hamilton Peter Hauck Henry Eric Hodges Carey Hurst Mike Jarulic Joe6245 Russell Johnson Lionel Joseph Thomas Justesen Mike Kalnins Bryn Kaufman Leah Kodner Benjamin Lee Constance Loucks Maddy Mounty of Madness Jose Martinez Mike Mayleben Judy McCoid Kyle Mohney Kostas Moros Ryan Mortenson Cameron Needham Skip Pacheco Mel Padden David Page Molly Pan Jeff Parrent Sharon Peplinski Sr. Powell Brian Pritzl AnaR737 PJ Rader Gleb Radutsky Aleksandr Rakitin Reptilycus Matthew M. Rice Phillip Rice Terry Rosen Chris Rowe Dan S Jon Andre Saether Jake Scalia Emily Schmidt Julian Schmidt Andrew Seeber Joshua Simpson Cameron Smith Jerry Spangler timetosuccedd1995 Thomas Squeo Pier-Luc St-Pierre Athal Krishna Sundarrajan Jared Cole Temple Ward Van Roy Robert VS Jonny...

    1h 31m
  4. The Question of Genocide

    06/12/2024 · BONUS

    The Question of Genocide

    This episode of History Impossible is an adaptation of the historical polemic I wrote on the one-year anniversary of October 7th, 2023, examining the interpretation of genocide, as applied to the current war between Hamas and Israel, and to the devastation wrought against the Bosnian Muslims by their Serb counterparts in the early 1990s. This episode touches on some extremely upsetting and dark material, including descriptions of child death, mass killing, and rape, so please consider yourself warned if that sort of thing is something you might want to avoid. This episode will serve as a polemical counterpart to the first installment of the graduate school trilogy I have in the works. The other adaptations will have their own thematic counterparts, and I hope to release those in the coming weeks and months, which will hopefully sate everyone’s interest until the next and penultimate episode of “The Muslim Nazis” is released. … History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon, Substack, and PayPal. Please consider donating today to help keep me free and this show alive: David Adamcik David Alsbach Rajan Athul Robert Babeon Michael Beach Benjamin Greg Bosai Johannes Breitsameter Carol ABC Charles C Clayton Connell Cliffydeuce CR B.Cyr daddygorgon Danny Lynda Davis Paul DeCoster Regina Dick-Endrizzi Neil Dickens Nathan Diehl Bob Downing Dramicas Gavin Edwards Howie Feltersnatch Pierre Ghazarian Jayson Griesmeyer Nathan Grote Benjamin Hamilton Peter Hauck Henry Eric Hodges Carey Hurst Mike Jarulic Joe6245 Russell Johnson Lionel Joseph Thomas Justesen Mike Kalnins Bryn Kaufman Leah Kodner Benjamin Lee Constance Loucks Maddy Mounty of Madness Jose Martinez Mike Mayleben Judy McCoid Kyle Mohney Kostas Moros Ryan Mortenson Cameron Needham Skip Pacheco Mel Padden David Page Molly Pan Jeff Parrent Sharon Peplinski Sr. Powell Brian Pritzl AnaR737 PJ Rader Gleb Radutsky Aleksandr Rakitin Reptilycus Matthew M. Rice Phillip Rice Terry Rosen Chris Rowe Dan S Jon Andre Saether Jake Scalia Emily Schmidt Julian Schmidt David Schwedinger Andrew Seeber Joshua Simpson Cameron Smith Jerry Spangler Thomas Squeo Pier-Luc St-Pierre Athal Krishna Sundarrajan Jared Cole Temple Ward Van Roy Robert VS Jonny Wilkie Michael Wroblewski F. You Greg Zink Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-impossible--5634566/support.

    1h 5m
  5. The Original Donald Trump (Throwback Thursday!)

    21/11/2024

    The Original Donald Trump (Throwback Thursday!)

    Hello all, hope you are doing well. For a long time, I was skeptical of doing “re-runs” of History Impossible’s earlier episodes. I didn’t think that I had the “right” to do so, or something along those lines. Obviously, that’s a silly way of looking at things and, to be honest, it’s counterproductive. Many of you reading or hearing this have been with me since Day One (or near Day One) and many of you have likely gone through the entire show archive, and I love you all to pieces for it. But then I look at the calendar and I remember that it’s been nearly SIX YEARS since I started this little show. Six years is wild to think about. I was just breaking into the time period known as “real adulthood” in my early 30s. It’s certainly wild to think about where the time has gone and all the crazy things that have happened since then, both in my life and in the world around me. That includes a historic presidential election this year, in which for only the second time in American history, a man has been elected for a non-consecutive term. It’s also historic because of his convicted criminal status (putting aside how one might feel about the validity of those convictions or the trials that produced them; this is historically significant no matter how you slice it or how much your mileage may vary). I have had several people ask me for my take on everything that has happened, and I have given it in small doses, but I’ve also had people ask me how I feel about the man—that is, Donald Trump—himself. I don’t have an answer that has pleased many people, but only a fair few likely know it has not changed since 2019, when I started History Impossible. When I started this show, I came very close to beginning it with the “Muslim Nazis” series. But thanks to the advice of my good friend and guru Daniele Bolelli, I came to realize that I would be essentially imposing myself on the historical podcasting audience by asking them to commit to a series that, at the time, I assumed would take a few years (and boy was I right on that estimate, more than I knew). So I went with one-off’s for a while, occasionally foraying into thematic trilogies and two-parters. Some of these were my favorite stories to delve into, even until this very day. But my very first episode was one where I tried to unpack my feelings on Donald Trump from a historically comparative perspective, and looking back on that first episode, I think most of my feelings have remained consistent. I have never liked the “fascism” comparison, much less the “Nazi” comparisons (I think that should just be obvious by now). But historian Niall Ferguson, many years ago now, helped break down just what kind of historical figure Donald Trump is. It inspired me, and, after a couple months of frantic research into the period of time Ferguson discussed in his above-linked talk, I was able to pull together a story about a next-to-unknown man from American history; the “Original Donald Trump,” if you will. And the first episode of History Impossible was born. Because that was so long ago, and because I realized the idea of re-releasing episodes is really no big deal, I figured I would re-release that episode. Also, to be honest, because it has been a while since I released an audio episode for the podcast. Being trapped by a looming thesis prospectus in graduate school and the ongoing writing and research I am doing for my proper class has eaten up large amounts of my time, as has other projects to which I have committed. We still have some episodes coming before the end of the year and—god willing—an interview or two (though those are less certain), but I wanted to give something to those of you who have only recently found my work and just have not found the time to work your way back through six years of content. Now like I said, I...

    2h 48m
  6. Revisionism and Misplaced Empathy: The Darryl Cooper - Tucker Carlson Situation

    02/10/2024

    Revisionism and Misplaced Empathy: The Darryl Cooper - Tucker Carlson Situation

    I have, for many years, recommended Darryl Cooper’s hit podcast Martyr Made to the relative handful of people kind enough to listen to my own show and read my thoughts on various publications, including my own Substack. And not to fully bury the lede, I still do, though admittedly with a little more reservation than I might otherwise have only a month earlier. This comes from the piece I wrote for the good folks at Merion West which takes a close look at the claims made last month by my podcasting comrade Darryl Cooper while he was being interviewed on Tucker Carlson’s X show. This is the podcast version, with some tweaks and expansions, but I highly recommend you go read the polished piece over on Merion West. Thank you all for reading and listening. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-impossible--5634566/support.

    1h 25m
  7. The Elites Who Would Play God (w/ CJ Killmer of Dangerous History)

    09/09/2024 · BONUS

    The Elites Who Would Play God (w/ CJ Killmer of Dangerous History)

    In this newest special episode of History Impossible, I sat down to discuss a super-light topic, one not fraught with intense controversy and tragedy, with my long time friend and podcasting comrade, CJ Killmer, of the Dangerous History Podcast: that is, the topic of eugenics! More accurately, we discussed a particular man in that noteworthy field who CJ discussed on his second-most recent episode (as of this writing; the 12th and newest epic installment of the Woodrow Wilson series he’s been working hard on just released), Dr. Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogen. This man’s storied career included being a pioneer in promoting the pseudo-scientific field that gripped the hearts and minds of American and European elites in the early 20th century, as well as having the worst luck in escaping the Nazis as their reach expanded across Europe while placing Jews like him in the crosshairs. This ultimately worked out for him, in a sick sense, because shortly after being captured and tossed into a camp, he began working with them on some of their notorious human experiments. It has been alleged that he personally murdered at least 1,000 human test subjects by lethal injection. Unlike many of the other Nazis’ collaborators, he was purely in it for himself, and, based on his activities before the war, likely agreed with many of their conclusions. CJ and I spoke not just about this man, and not just about eugenics, but how they—especially eugenics—fit into the broader schema that is the philosophy of progress, that is, Progressivism. It’s at once obvious and shocking. And to help hammer the point home, we close by discussing an underrated piece of 1990s cinema that not only remains great nearly 30 years later, but eerily prescient. So please sit back and enjoy this conversation with CJ Killmer. … History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon, Substack, and PayPal. Please consider donating today to help keep me free and this show alive: David Adamcik Rajan Athul Robert Babeon Michael Beach Benjamin Johannes Breitsameter Carol ABC Charles C Clayton Connell Cliffydeuce CR daddygorgon Danny Lynda Davis Paul DeCoster Neil Dickens Nathan Diehl Bob Downing Dramicas Rob Duval Gavin Edwards Howie Feltersnatch Pierre Ghazarian Jayson Griesmeyer Nathan Grote Benjamin Hamilton Peter Hauck Eric Hodges Carey Hurst Mike Jarulic Joe6245 Russell Johnson Lionel Joseph Thomas Justesen Mike Kalnins Bryn Kaufman Leah Kodner Benjamin Lee Constance Loucks Maddy Mounty of Madness Jose Martinez Mike Mayleben Judy McCoid Kyle Mohney Kostas Moros Ryan Mortenson Cameron Needham Skip Pacheco David Page Molly Pan Jeff Parrent Jean Peters Sr. Powell Brian Pritzl AnaR737 PJ Rader Gleb Radutsky Aleksandr Rakitin Reptilycus Phillip Rice Terry Rosen Chris Rowe Dan S Jon Andre Saether Alison Salo Jake Scalia Emily Schmidt Julian Schmidt Andrew Seeber Joshua Simpson Cameron Smith Jerry Spangler Thomas Squeo Brian Steggeman Pier-Luc St-Pierre Athal Krishna Sundarrajan Jared Cole Temple ChrisTX Ward Van Roy Robert VS Jonny Wilkie Ricky Worthey Michael Wroblewski F. You Greg Zink Become a supporter of this podcast: a...

    1h 34m
  8. The Yasuke Conspiracy (w/ Sebastian Major of Our Fake History)

    27/08/2024 · BONUS

    The Yasuke Conspiracy (w/ Sebastian Major of Our Fake History)

    To say historians can be pedantic is like saying water is wet. To say gamers and gaming commentators can be pedantic is yet somehow even more of an obvious understatement. So what happens when these two communities clash and/or blend? You get what we could charitably call the Yasuke Conspiracy. As many gamers likely know by now, the insanely popular and long-running Assassin’s Creed series of games has explored multitudes of time periods, aesthetics, and characters from across history, ranging from Renaissance Italy, to Revolutionary America, to Victorian London, to Roman Empire-era Egypt, to, most recently, Viking England. The newest, upcoming game in the series, Assassins Creed Shadows, promises more of this trend, this time taking us to medieval Japan during the Sengoku Jidai, or Warring States period. Sounds all well and good, right? There was one problem, at least in the eyes of many gamers: that one of the two playable characters was not, in fact, Japanese, but African. And not only was he African, he was a purportedly real person from history (a first for the series, whose protagonists have always been fictional). This person was the so-called “African samurai,” Yasuke. And what followed was a firestorm of controversy, bad corporate crisis management, and a historian’s credibility being thrown in the direction of a woodchipper. Being a gamer, and one who enjoys the Assassin’s Creed series, I was aware of the Yasuke controversy, and I was also aware of Yasuke, having come very close several years ago to covering him, but opting instead to cover the far less vague and mythological-seeming story of William Adams, the supposed British samurai. Part of the reason for this choice was due to the fact that there was indeed only one secondary source on Yasuke, and it didn’t seem completely reliable. And sure enough, it was that source that, four years later, became the source of the controversy at hand. To help me make sense of this story, I needed to reach out to someone far more familiar with the material and, more importantly, someone who understood the power of historical myth. I could not find anyone better than my comrade-in-historical-podcasting-arms, Sebastian Major, the host of the phenomenal Our Fake History podcast. Sebastian had indeed covered Yasuke before, so I picked his brain and we discussed the true story of Yasuke and the controversy itself as well as the writer at its center, the now-unfortunately-controversial Thomas Lockley. So please enjoy, as we are joined by Sebastian Major, and attempt to plumb the depths of our fake (impossible) history. … History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon, Substack, and PayPal. Please consider donating today to help keep me free and this show alive: David Adamcik Rajan Athul Robert Babeon Michael Beach Benjamin Johannes Breitsameter Charles C Clayton Connell Cliffydeuce CR daddygorgon Danny Paul DeCoster Neil Dickens Nathan Diehl Bob Downing Dramicas Rob Duval Gavin Edwards Howie Feltersnatch Pierre Ghazarian Jayson Griesmeyer Nathan Grote Benjamin Hamilton Peter Hauck Eric Hodges Carey Hurst Mike Jarulic Joe6245 Russell Johnson Thomas Justesen Mike Kalnins Bryn Kaufman Leah Kodner Benjamin Lee Constance Loucks Maddy Mounty of Madness Jose...

    1h 54m
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4.3
out of 5
23 Ratings

About

History Impossible covers some of the less-known, strange, and supposedly impossible events, people, and ideologies throughout history that are all nonetheless true. The settings and time periods range from the Second World War to ancient Japan to medieval Europe, and many more. The show engages with difficult ideas and impossible decisions that were made by human beings like you or me, always to significant effect. It goes out of its way to grant agency to all of its subjects and does its best to present the most nuanced approach one can, all while acknowledging any personal biases that may exist. You will not find a more honest attempt at presenting difficult and controversial historical topics. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-impossible--5634566/support.

Information

  • Creator
    Alexander von Sternberg
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2025
  • Episodes
    79
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Alexander von Sternberg
  • Show Website
    History Impossible

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