Imagine if you will that you're a 15 yr old boy, you've never met your father, and your mom died soon enough after your birth you don't remember her. You're raised by an aunt and uncle until one day your dad Niccolo and your Uncle Maffeo roll back into town and he's like "Hey I'm your Dad. Let me tell you about a guy named Kublai and a place called China." Two years later at 17, your dad decides it's time to return to China and the court of the Great Khan and you're coming along. After a dicey first leg of the trip where you may or may not have killed your first man, then almost due of Tuberculosis, you find out your Dad and Uncle have an all access pass for pretty much anything once you're within the Khan's lands, ANYTHING. You meet the Great Khan and he takes a shine to you and for the next 17 years you work for the Khan traveling throughout his empire as a representative under his protection. Marco would travel all over China the return to regale the Khan with stories of his own land in only the way that Marco could. He had a level of access to Kublai's Mongol Empire thats almost impossible to wrap your head around, but we're gonna try. Join us this week as we get Historically High and kinda erotic on Marco Polo.

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Without a doubt the closest the planet has come to nuclear war occurred between October 16th-28th 1962. The Cold War was at its peak. Brought there by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion about 18 months earlier by "Cuban Exiles", with pretty obvious support from the United States. With nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy the U.S. had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union if it ever came to the first strike in an atomic conflict. Cuba and the Soviet Union decided nuclear strike parody was fair and thus began the process of moving nuclear capable missiles into Cuba and within 100 miles of Florida. Constant surveillance of Cuba by the United States discovered nuclear launch sites being constructed putting John F. Kennedy into a situation with razor thin margins for error. For 13 days the world stood on the brink, with JFK and Nikita Khrushchev playing a game of chess with nuclear annihilation as the stakes. So many things should have gone wrong, so what ended up going right? Join us this week as we get Historically High on The Cuban Missile Crisis.

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We're gonna go ahead and apologize in advance for any stumbles through this one. Sir Isaac Newton possessed a kind of brilliance that is very hard for the majority of people to really wrapped their heads around, and that includes us. Known as the Father of Modern Physics he didn't just help shape our understanding of the science of the natural world (not nature but the laws that govern nature, gravity, optics, movement, etc) but he deciphered a lot of the mysteries within it. He developed calculus because the math of his time wouldn't help him solve the questions he had. He discovered that light is made of a spectrum of colors that exist at all times even if we can't see them, and he revolutionized the understanding of gravity and planetary rotation. He was also human, who suffered from human flaws, vindictiveness being a pretty evident one. But as with most genius there can be a mania that lies beneath. Join us as we get Historically High on the smartest man we've covered to date.

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The scariest part of the Dust Bowl is the very small amount we talk about it historically. The need for wheat during WW1 caused the wheat market to double. There was a lot of new agricultural land in the Southern Great Plains. Once the war was over, the government tried to prop up grain prices as best they could. In order to continue making the money they once did, farmers in the Southern Great Plains doubled down purchasing more land, and tearing more of the natural grasses from the earth. Then the Depression happened and prices for wheat bottomed out. Then drought hit the U.S. THEN the winds came. Without the native grasses holding down the top soil, the Great Plains became a literal dust bowl. Some left for California. Some road it out. Some never learned their lesson. Join us as we get Historically High on The Dust Bowl!

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The Stanford Prison Experiment produced groundbreaking results. The main result was proving the need to create Institutional Review Boards for human experiments. Dr. Philip Zimbardo wanted to test the effect of power and powerlessness in a prison setting. He used a bunch of college age boys to play the part of guards and prisoners. Usually a Doctor oversees their experiment. Not only did Zimbardo oversee his experiment, he made himself the Superintendent of his prison. The Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to last 2 weeks. It last 6 days. Zimbardo claimed he proved what he set out to prove. But did he? Was his thumb on the scale? Listen in to find out as we get Historically High on the Stanford Prison Experiment.

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We're heading back to WW2 for the most pivotal battle of the European Theater. Some of you are already scoffing at that statement but let me lay it out like this. After Germany steamrolled mainland Europe, Great Britain was all that was left. Russia and Germany weren't at war yet. The United States was still over two years away from being at war. It was the British holding the line against total Nazi domination of Europe. If Britain fell that means no where to launch an invasion, no D-Day, no liberation of France. Between July 10 and October 30 of 1939, roughly 3000 pilots, most British and Scottish, but many others from all over including countries already occupied by the Nazis, held the skies above Britain and the English Channel preventing an invasion. For almost 4 months, fighter pilots, crews keeping them airborne, radar technicians, and the WAAF dispatchers, fought a fight for the rest of the world. In the words of Winston Churchill "Never was owed by so many, to so few" This is their story, This is the Battle of Britain.

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It's Part 2....so if you haven't already go back and listen to part 1 first. Think you can just raw dog it without having any of Ireland's backstory, think again. We pick back up at a major event in Irish history, The Blight, or as most of us know it The Great Irish Potato Famine. Ireland is hurting and the people in charge, currently the English, aren't doing a whole lot to help. This combined with a whole list of issues with English rule (discussed in part 1) most of the inhabitants of the Emerald Isle have had enough. What follows is the story of Ireland's fight for independence, the individuals who rose as leaders of the movement, and the 'Troubles' experienced while battling for freedom.

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Ireland. A country with a history almost as rich as the country is beautiful. A country that despite its proximity to mainland Europe seemed to avoid little things like invasion by the Roman Empire. Tracing its first people's back 10,000 years ago, they began building stone monuments and elaborate burial tombs around 6500, and around 2500 years ago the Celts began to arrive. The Celtic tribes divided the island into different kingdoms spreading their culture and language. Fast forward to the 5th century and you get St. Patrick and the Catholics came in doing what they do and later came the Vikings. They liked what Ireland had going for it and established quite a few settlements deciding to make the Emerald Isle home, lending their culture to its history as well. There's so much more to The Land of Saints and Scholars, you'll just have to listen to find out, Welcome to Ireland....Part 1.

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