In the late summer of 480 BCE, a Greek force of 1,000 hoplites from Thebes, Thespiae, and, most famously, Sparta, under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas, was surrounded and wiped out in the pass of Thermopylae by the invading Persian army of Great King Xerxes. The Battle of Thermopylae is the most well-known battle of the ancient wars between the Greeks and the Persians. It is also the most famous last stand in history. This episode examines the Greeks and the Persians, how they came into conflict, the events that led to their clash at Thermopylae, the three days of fighting in the pas ..read more

Trailer for Episode Six, the Battle of Nagashio, coming soon ..read more

On October 7, 1571, the fleets of the Christian Holy League and the Ottoman Empire clashed near Lepanto off the west coast of Greece. Lepanto was the largest battle on land or sea in Europe in the sixteenth century. During it, over 130,000 combatants had crewed some 500 oared warships. At the battle’s end, at least 35,000 Ottomans and 8,000 Christians had lost their lives. Lepanto was also the climax of a ferocious fifty-year-long struggle waged by the greatest naval powers of the day for domination of the Mediterranean Sea. On one side were Spain, the first global empire in history, and Venic ..read more

After the death of the Leper King Baldwin IV in 1185, the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem fell into turmoil. Two years later, Saladin invaded with a massive army.  To face him, Guy de Lusignan, newly crowned king of Jerusalem, mustered every man who could bear arms.  On July 4, 1187, the two armies met beneath the Horns of Hattin. At the end of the day, the host of Jerusalem had been wiped out ..read more

Around 431 BCE, Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote up his Inquiry—in Greek, Historia—in which he sought to explain the origins and course of the conflicts between the Persians and the Greeks. This work inaugurated the western historical tradition and earned for its author the title Father of History. We’ll examine who Herodotus was, how he came to write his History, and why it is the indispensable source for the Persian Wars and the Battle of Thermopylae.   ..read more

During the second half of the sixth century BCE, Persian expansion encroached on the Greek world. In 499 BCE, Athens sent military aid to Greeks rebelling against the Great King. In retaliation, Great King Darius mounted the first Persian invasion of Greece. In 490 BCE, the Athenians defeated this invasion at the Battle of Marathon. Darius’s son Xerxes then planned to conquer all of Greece with a massive army and a huge fleet. Just thirty Greek states, led by Athens and Sparta, banded together to resist the invaders ..read more

An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub—better known in the West as Saladin—would emerge as the greatest of all the Muslim warlords of the Crusades. He began his career as a Kurdish officer in the service of Nur al-Din. In 1169, he seized power in Egypt and overthrew the Fatimid Caliphate. Then, following the fortuitous death of Nur al-Din in 1174, he began the conquest of Syria. In time, he would construct an empire that extended from North Africa to Mesopotamia. He would also become the champion of the jihad against the Crusader States and engage in fierce wars against the forces of the Kingdo ..read more

In 1095, Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade. Four years later, the crusaders conquered Jerusalem. In this part of the episode, we will examine why Europeans took up the cross and how they succeeded in accomplishing their goal of capturing Jerusalem. We will also look at the states the Crusaders established in the lands they conquered ..read more

Originally just a minor tribe from the southern mountains of Iran, the Persians embarked on a spectacular career of conquest that led to the creation of the superpower of the ancient world. The Great Kings of Persia were masters of grand strategy, logistics, and espionage. At their command was a vast army of dazzling ethnic diversity and imposing fighting power. Yet this army had a fatal weakness: it could not withstand a hoplite charge.   ..read more

On August 2, 216 BCE, at Cannae in southern Italy, the Carthaginian warlord Hannibal Barca and his army of veteran African, Spanish, and Gallic mercenaries destroyed the largest force ever fielded by the Roman Republic. Since then, Cannae has been studied by scholars and soldiers as a tactical masterpiece—a perfect battle. It remains a byword for slaughter, for the total annihilation of an army. For Hannibal, Cannae confirmed that he was one of the greatest captains in military history. It also brought him to the brink of final triumph over Rome. For the Roman Republic, Cannae was its darkest ..read more