We're Not So Different WNSD Pod

folks, you've been asking when we're doing a review of Ridley Scott's 2023 film, Napoleon, and it's finally here but with a twist! instead of just doing an entire review episode for a movie that came out a few months ago and isn't even Medieval, we decided to make it a bit more on brand. so we spend the first half talking about Scott's frankly baffling film and then spend the second half talking about what it actually meant in practice for Napoleon to "smash feudalism" and to do away with all those pesky Medieval holdover institutions like serfdom and the Holy Roman Empire. and we brought on Everett Rummage of the amazing Age of Napoleon podcast to discuss it all with us.

folks, we're always thinking about falling civilizations, aren't we? whether it's the old civilizations that fell long ago or fretting over when our current empires will fall, it's often on our minds. and that's why we brought on Dr. Paul M.M. Cooper, host of the Fall of Civilizations podcast and the author of the recently-released book, Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline. we talk with Paul about why ruins are so fascinating, what we can learn from the fall civs of the past, what misconceptions people have about them, and what they mean for the future falls of our own civilizations. it's great, check it out!

folks, we're closing out our series on Weird Medieval shit with a few quick hitters of weirdness that we haven't gotten to yet. so we bounce around to a few of them before ending it where the Middle Ages probably ended: the Fall of Constantinople. we talk about Joan of Arc, our beloved Holy Roman Empire, Angkor Wat, the rise of Islam as a world religion, and, finally, the broken Theodosian Walls and the end of an era.

folks, we're back with part 6 of our series on Weird Medieval shit and we start out in the Americas where the late Medieval Incan Empire was the most land of contrasts empire in all of history in order to survive across three separate biomes: the western slopes of the Andes Mountains, the Atacama Desert, and the Pacific Ocean. then we head back to Europe for two utterly bizarre happenings involving dancing. the first, the Bal des Ardents sees the king of France and five nobles perform a dance number for the court only to have an accidental fire break out and kill the nobles, the king's brother, and nearly the king himself. then we finish up with the dancing mania that occasionally swept Central and Western Europe over a 900-year period where spontaneous groups of people would just dance... like for hours and travel many miles while doing it and one monk danced so hard he died in one incident. you get the idea, it's weird.

folks, we're back with more weird, interesting, neat, and wild shit from the Middle Ages. this time, we explore the numerous Medieval inventions of Imperial China such as the compass, gunpowder, printing, and much more. we discuss why Imperial China was able to foster such innovation and why it fell off in the 15th century. then we briefly discuss the fascinating Ming Treasure Voyages of 1405-1433 and the meteoric rise of the Mongol Empire, which went from disunited steppe horse archers to the rulers of the largest contiguous land empire in world history in just under 100 years. check it out

folks, we're back on our weird Medieval shit with part 4 in our series. this time, we focus on the amazing fact that Medieval Norse and Polynesian peoples crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to reach the Americas hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus was even born and how modern science has confirmed these events that were once thought to be outright fabrications. these are truly some of the greatest accomplishments in human history and they happened in the Middle Ages. then, we talk about the amazing story of Mansa Musa, a Medieval emperor of the Malian Empire and one of the richest men to ever live, who went on Hajj to Mecca, gave away so much gold that he cratered the gold markets on 3 continents, but had his generosity repaid and got home safely despite losing all his money on the trip.