A Short Walk through Our Long History

132 - The Birth of Rock 'n Roll

Clayton Mills — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:25:47 -0500

Episode 132 - The Birth of Rock ’n’ Roll

Yes, that intro was the song Subdivisions, by Rush. My normal intro music is an acoustic clip of that same song. One of my all time favorite rock 'n roll songs.

How in the world can I do one podcast episode on the history of rock 'n roll? There’s just no way. So I’ve decided to do split it into two reasonably short episodes, and try to work in some of the actual music that I’m talking about, because where’s the fun in talking about rock 'n roll, if you can’t play some of the music? Also, in this episode, I’m going to talk more about the birth of rock 'n roll, and next episode, talk a bit more about its cultural impact. (Which, just as a bit of foreshadowing, is going to be huge)

131 - The Cold War, Part 2

Clayton Mills — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:57:57 -0600

Ok, yes, I know, I’ve already talked about the Cold War, just a few episodes ago, but I feel like I need to spend another episode talking about all the important things that happen in the late 1950’s and 1960’s as a part of the cold war, that I didn’t get to talk about in the previous episode. A lot of things are about to happen, and they are all important to our modern world, and they are all related to the ongoing cold war between the west and the communists.

In fact, the polarization of the world between the communists and the west is going to be the dominant factor in all that happens in the 1950s, 60s, 70, and 80s. Everything that we’re going to talk about that happens in these 40 years will be happening against the backdrop of this ongoing cold war.

130 - Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian Revolution

Clayton Mills — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 17:46:11 -0600

We talked last episode about the Communist Revolution in China, and apparently there was a two for one special on revolutions, because this episode also has a revolution, but this one is VERY different than what happened in China.

Part of the reason that the revolutions were so different was that what is about to happen in India is not a communist revolution. Communist revolutions are usually destructive, as the old order of things is being aggressively done away with, and so communism is expecting to do away with the old order by using force and violence. The Indian revolution is going to be done exactly the opposite, using peace and non-violence. And that is largely due to the person who is going to lead the revolution in India - Mohandas Gandhi.

129 - The Chinese Communist Revolution and the Korean War

Clayton Mills — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:56:53 -0600

We were talking last episode about how the western allies tried to contain the spread of communism in Europe, but I mentioned that Communism was spreading in Asia as well. This is about to be a problem in China, which, on the face of it, seems an unlikely hotbed for communism.

Back in 1912, before both world wars, the last Chinese dynasty, the Qing dynasty, collapsed. The Qing had ruled China since the 1600’s, but the dynasty had fallen into disarray, and China was really being ruled by a loose system of sort of feudal warlords. When the dynasty collapsed in 1912, it was replaced by the Chinese Republic, but the republic’s hold on power wasn’t very strong, and in many places, the warlords still ruled.

In 1921, the Chinese Communist party was created, and in 1927, a civil war broke out between the communists and the nationalists, who were strongly anti-communists.

128 - The Cold War and the Berlin Wall

Clayton Mills — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:05:27 -0600

As you might remember from episode 124, which was about the Allied victory in Europe, Germany was basically cut in half by the invading Soviets in the East, and the Allies in the West. The Soviets had captured Berlin, and they had also occupied the eastern part of Germany. But they also had occupied all of eastern Europe, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. And they had no intention of giving those countries up.

127 - The Holocaust and the Rebirth of the Nation of Israel

Clayton Mills — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:34:46 -0600

Ok, WWII is over, and so I’m done talking about famous battles and cool fighter planes for a while. But I do feel that I need to go back and talk about a really important and horrific story of WWII, and how that affects our modern world. And that is the story of the Holocaust. It’s not a pleasant thing to talk about, but it’s really important, and has a big impact on the world after WWII, and on our modern world as well.

And just a bit of a warning here, this episode is a bit longer than most, because I feel like I needed to re-cover some history that we’ve already talked about in older episodes.

126 - The World after the World War

Clayton Mills — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 18:36:44 -0500

Well, here we are, finally. The Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan have been defeated. Hitler has committed suicide, at least that’s the official story, Mussolini was captured and hanged, and the Japanese emperor had to go on a nationwide broadcast and admit that he was not a deity.

The Allies were firmly in control of all the Axis lands, and the countries that they had conquered. If you look at a map of the high-tide mark of the Axis control, which was probably mid-1942, they controlled all of Europe, except the UK and the remnant of the European part of the USSR. They controlled much of North Africa. The Axis controlled all of the western Pacific Ocean, and in mid-1942, they had inflicted huge damage on the existing militaries of the Allies.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

125 - The War in the Pacific, and the Atomic Bomb

Clayton Mills — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 18:40:54 -0500

Well, here we are. Humans are about to devise the technology that could realistically end the world. For the first time, humans have the ability to basically eradicate all of life on earth, and it’s only restrained by, well humans. Yikes.

The war in Europe ended in May of 1945, but the war in the Pacific was still going on. We talked about the turning point in the Pacific, the Battle of Midway, a couple of episodes ago, but since then we’ve only talked about the war in Europe. So we need to go back a couple of years and catch up with what was going on in the Pacific.

124 - VE Day

Clayton Mills — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 14:42:37 -0500

Well, VE Day is the sort of nickname that the world press gave to the day when victory in Europe was achieved. So VE stands for victory in Europe, which obviously is where we are going with this episode, but we’ve got a ways to go yet. And the eventually victory over Japan is going to be called VJ Day, but that one doesn’t get all that much traction, for some reasons that we’ll go into next episode. But lots of newspapers and countries around the western world were very excited about VE Day, and the name kind of stuck.

At the end of the last episode, we left about 150,000 Allied troops holding a small but solid beachhead in Normandy. The D-Day invasion was a huge Allied victory, but it was only the start of a long and difficult road to the defeat of Nazi Germany. But it was, indeed, the beginning of the end.

123 - D-Day

Clayton Mills — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 18:10:07 -0500

Well, here we are. This episode is about one of the most massive, high-risk and pivotal events of the last 100 years. Seriously, if you had to pick one day that was the most important or consequential days of the last 100 years, I think you might have to pick June 6th, 1944. It wasn’t quite the same ‘turning of the tide’ event that Midway and Stalingrad were, but in some ways, June 6th 1944 was an even bigger deal than either of them.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

122 - The Air War over Europe

Clayton Mills — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:09:08 -0500

As the Soviets were fighting the Germans all along a 1000 mile long front, they were demanding that the Allies in the west do something to open a second front against the Germans. We’ll get to the Allies eventual response to this in a couple of episodes, but the western allies had the same problem invading Europe that the Germans had had when they were thinking about invading Britain. That problem was the English Channel.

In order to send an invasion fleet across the channel to land in France, the Allies had to have complete control of the air above the channel, to protect the invasion fleet from German planes. So before the sea-borne invasion could take place, the Allies needed to defeat the Luftwaffe, or at least drive them back from their bases in France where they could attack an invasion fleet.

So the Allies started building up their air forces in Great Britain. The Royal Air Force, which had done such a heroic job of defeating the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, had continued to build up its fighter and bomber forces. But early 1942, they were joined by the newly formed American group, the Eighth Air Force. The Americans began to ship men, planes, bombs and ammo, and fuel to Great Britain. By the end of the war, the Americans are going to have over 200 airbases in Great Britain, with over half a million men on those bases, and over 50,000 planes.

121 - The Battle of Stalingrad

Clayton Mills — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 14:44:25 -0500

Every once in a while, there is a great moment or battle that really changes the course of history. Yes, yes, I know I said that exact thing at the beginning of the last episode too, but I need to say it again, because this episode is, once again, a pivotal moment in human history. And instead of it being decided by a few crucial minutes, this battle will take about half of the year of 1942. And unlike the Battle of Midway, where the casualties were measured in the thousands, the casualties in the battle of Stalingrad will be measured in the millions.

Welcome to the deadliest battle in all of human history, the battle of Stalingrad.

120 - The Battle of Midway

Clayton Mills — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 21:07:21 -0500

Every once in a while, there is a great moment or battle that really changes the course of history. The Battle of Salamis, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Charles the Hammer winning the Battle of Tours, The Battle of Hastings in 1066, Luther nailing the 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg, the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the time I defeated my neighborhood HOA by installing a whole pallet of grass sod in my front yard even before they mailed me a nasty letter. I got other nasty HOA letters, but not about the front yard grass. All of those were key moments that changed the direction of history in some way. They turned the tide, so to speak.

And this episode is one of those moments. And, as a quick spoiler, next episode will be one, too.

119 - The World at War

Clayton Mills — Fri, 30 May 2025 16:13:02 -0500

Ok, it’s the beginning of 1942, and for the Allies, things are looking, well, kinda bleak. France, one of the great powers of the world as recently as 1939, is now occupied by the Nazis, who are in total control of the north and west of France, and who have installed a puppet government in the south and east of France. Great Britain is alone in Europe, and it very dependent on imported goods, but Nazis are threatening British shipping in the Atlantic with both surface boats and U-boats. The Soviet Union has lost almost a million square miles of territory to Nazi Germany, and the Germans are at the doors of Moscow and Leningrad, and in the south have captured much of the Ukraine.

The Italians, with German help, have captured Greece and Cyprus, and are also trying to gain territory in North Africa, pushing towards British-held Egypt and the vitally important Suez Canal.

British naval control of the Mediterranean and the North Sea is threatened by German air power and U-boats.

In the Pacific, the United States has lost its entire battleship fleet, though some will be back in action before the end of the year. The Japanese have captured the US territory of the Philippines, and the British holdings of Singapore and Hong Kong, and are threatening Indonesia and Australia. The Japanese navy has also driven the British navy out of the Pacific, and now the only area that the Royal navy is really in control of is the Indian Ocean.

So that’s a quick summary of how things are looking for the Allies. Looks pretty grim, actually. Let’s take a closer look at each area of the world, and just how close the Axis is to completely taking over the world.

118 - Tora, Tora, Tora!

Clayton Mills — Tue, 20 May 2025 15:18:40 -0500

Last episode, we left the German soldiers freezing off ihr Gesäß in the the early, harsh Russian winter of 1941. But there was more going on in the winter of 1941 than just frozen Germans. I mentioned back in episode 113, which was about the rise of Hitler and fascism, that the Germans had made a pact with Italy and with Japan. Both the Germans and the Empire of Japan regarded the Soviet Union as their most dangerous potential enemy, which is why they signed a treaty. This is actually going to work against them here in just a minute.

117 - Hitler, Stalin, and Operation Barbarossa

Clayton Mills — Tue, 06 May 2025 17:15:02 -0500

Last episode, I said Hitler might have done better in the long run if he hadn’t had Germany attack Great Britain. Well, after that mistake, he decides to double down, and make an even bigger mistake. He is about to fall victim to one of the classic blunders - never get involved in a land war in Asia! Well, technically, he doesn’t get all the way to Asia, but he was trying to.

Anyway, it’s going to be an even bigger mistake than not continuing to bomb the RAF bases in south and east England. And it’s going to lead to the biggest invasion in human history, the deadliest battle in human history, and the biggest tank battle in human history. And, the deadliest overall campaign in human history. So many people are about to die.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

116 - Winston Churchill and the Battle of Britain

Clayton Mills — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 19:28:44 -0500

I’m going to make a quick confession to you here: The Battle of Britain is one of my three favorite parts of all of human history. The other two would be the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus, and then the American Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the Constitution, all of that right as the US was being founded. And then this, the Battle of Britain.

Why is this one one of my favorites periods? Well, it’s got it all: a clear villain, a heroic underdog who fights valiantly, a moment when all seems lost, and then a sudden change of fortunes as the tide begins to turn. The battle of Helm’s Deep, or the Battle of Minas Tirith - this has the same narrative arc.

Plus, it has some of the most amazing airplanes that ever flew, which I will get to in a bit. The American war for Independence was cool, but they didn’t have Spitfires or Messerschmitts. Neither did Minas Tirith. I guess Mordor did have the Nazgul on their flying lizards, but that’s not quite the same.

Anyway, this was one of those crucial turning points in history, where if it had gone differently, even by a small bit, our modern world would not be the same. It really was a pretty close shave.

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

115 - Blitzkrieg! The Germans Invade France

Clayton Mills — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 19:06:11 -0500

You might have noticed that I kind of used the same title twice in a row, which might seem like kind of lazy writing, but I really couldn’t think of a better title to describe what is about to happen. Since Germany had such easy success in the blitzkrieg of Poland, Hitler decide that they could do it to France too.

And basically, that’s exactly what they do. In fact, they were maybe even more successful in France.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

114 - Blitzkrieg! The Germans Invade Poland

Clayton Mills — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 18:38:40 -0500

Ok, here we are, poised right on the edge of World War II. I’m going to try to not bog down as much as I did on the US Civil War, but I still have 9 episodes planned to cover World War II. Is that bogging down? I can’t imagine doing it in less episodes than that. Too much interesting and important stuff is about to happen. Also, what happens during the war, including who wins which battles, who gains and loses territory, and what happens to governments during and after the war will make a big difference in our modern world. So to set the stage for all that happens geopolitically after the war, we have to look pretty closely at what happens during the war.

Plus, World War II was kind of the last time that the world made any sense, and we’ll need to talk about that at some point.

Anyway, at the end of our last episode, we left about 106 German divisions poised along the Polish border. That’s not an ominous sign, is it?

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

113 - Adolf Hitler and the Rise of Nazism

Clayton Mills — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 17:44:02 -0500

Well here we are, about to introduce one of history’s most notorious villains. I’m talking about Adolf Hitler. He really is remembered as one of the worst, most dangerous people of all time. If you took a survey and asked most people ‘Who is the worst person who ever lived?’ I bet Hitler would be the runaway winner. Also, if you asked people, ‘Who had the worst mustache of all time?’ Yeah, Hitler, again.
Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

112 - The Great Depression and FDR

Clayton Mills — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 14:16:32 -0500

This episode, we’re going to talk about the great depression.

Last episode, we talked about the stock market crash of 1929, and mentioned that it was one of the causes of the Great Depression.

The Great Depression left a very strong mark on the people who lived through it. We’re getting to the point in history where a lot of us know people who have lived through the events that we’re talking about. My grandparents, for example, lived through the Great Depression. My parents were born during it. If you know someone who lived through it, they will have very vivid memories of how hard things were for most people during that time. It shaped people’s impressions of life, government, their country, and what mattered in life more than just about any other event of their lives.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

111 - Prohibition, the Bull Market, and Black Thursday

Clayton Mills — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:36:12 -0600

The 1920’s was a very prosperous time for America, and for much of the world. As I mentioned last episode, during the 20’s the American economy became the largest in the world.

Yet postwar prosperity was precarious. Much of the American boom was a speculative affair. Fueled by optimism, and fueled by borrowing. Customers were urged to buy on credit or to borrow from the banks, and thus the banks earned large profits. The stock market was riding high. But at any sign of a credit squeeze or a loss of confidence, everything was likely to collapse. Demand would fall, goods would pile up, and prices would plummet. This was precisely what happened on “Black Thursday,” October 24, 1929, the day of the Wall Street crash. I’ll talk about that in a minute, but first, I need to talk about one of the weirder things about the 1920’s - prohibition.

First of all, it’s a weird word. Prohibition. Obviously, it refers to prohibiting something, but why did it come to be associated only with the prohibiting of making or selling alcohol? And why did America, a freedom-loving place, decide to outlaw AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, this one particular thing? We’ve never had an amendment that outlawed prostitution, or drugs, or corrupt politicians, or driving at night in traffic with your high beams on, though I might support that one.
Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

110 - The Roaring 20's

Clayton Mills — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 13:02:27 -0600

Well, the war to end all wars was over. After a period after several months, the surviving soldiers began to return home. The Treaty of Versailles was signed, and Europe began to try to rebuild and re-organize. The political and social landscape of Europe was very different after the war. The Austro-Hungarian empire was gone, as was the Ottoman Empire. Lots of lands and peoples had seen their geographical boundaries re-drawn, some of which were logical, and some of which ended up causing more trouble down the road.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

109 - The End of World War I

Clayton Mills — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 14:42:22 -0600

We’ve been here on World War I for seven episodes, if you count the 2 on the Russian and Soviet revolutions. See? I’m getting more concise. It took me 10 episodes to get through the American Civil War. This time, I tried to not get quite so bogged down in explaining the battles, even though that is one of the parts that is most interesting to me personally. But now I get to explain a few last battles in World War I, and then some about how WWI shaped our modern world.

And the big battle that is going to really end the war is the German offensive of the spring of 1918.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

108 - America Enters the War

Clayton Mills — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 16:26:23 -0600

Well, last episode, we left the chaos of the eastern front and the founding of the new country of the Soviet Union. In this episode, we’re going back to France and Belgium and we’re going to look at the turning of the tide on the Western Front. And do you know what turned the tide? Yep, several million farm boys from the United States. This isn’t only going to change the war, it’s going to change America’s perception of itself.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

107 - The Soviet Revolution (Part 2 of the Russian Revolution)

Clayton Mills — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:29:18 -0600

здравствуйте, еще раз, товарищи. добро пожаловать в советский союз

For Lenin, transforming a society from near feudalism to communism was a tall order. To do that, you have to change a capitalistic economy into a centrally controlled economy. You have to destroy private ownership of land, homes, and capital. You have to destroy institutions that supported the capitalist system, like schools, universities, and government offices. You have take full control of the media, and suppress any dissenting voices. You have to control the police, the jails, the judicial system, and the armed forces. It’s a lot like what the democrats were trying to do under Joe Biden.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

106 - The Russian Revolution Part 1

Clayton Mills — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 15:05:54 -0500

здравствуйте, товарищи. добро пожаловать в русскую революцию.

One of the weirder and more catastrophic side effects of the First World War was what happened to Imperial Russia. We’re about to see not just one but two Russian Revolutions, and then several years of civil war within Russia, that is going to leave the whole country in shambles for many years to come, and is going to set up some of animosity that will lead to World War II, the Chinese Communist revolution, the Cold War, the Space Race, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. But before we get to all that, things are going to get really bad in Russia itself.

And before I get to what I have to say about the Russian Revolution, I need to say that there’s really no way that you can cover something as complex as the Russian Revolution in one 20 minute podcast, so I’ve broken this up into two revolutions, and two episodes.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

105 - Big Battles of World War I

Clayton Mills — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 18:32:36 -0500

One of the unique aspects of World War I was simply the huge scale of the battles, with numbers of soldiers, sailors, and even airmen that the world had not seen in a long time. Some of the Roman battles back in the day involved over 100,000 men on each side. Way back in episode 8, on the Persian Wars, I mentioned that the Persian army under King Xerxes might have had as many as a million men. But World War I dwarfed even this. There were more than 5 million men on each side over the course of the war, and that was only on the western front, not counting the several million more involved on the eastern front and in other parts of the world.

We’re going to look at several of these big battles today, including the bloodiest one of the war, the Battle of the Somme, which is going to feature the single bloodiest day of the war, and is one of the deadliest battles in human history. In fact, if it wasn’t for a couple of battles between Germany and the Soviet Union in World War II, the Battle of the Somme would be the deadliest, bloodiest battle in all of human history.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

104 - Stalemate in the Trenches

Clayton Mills — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 15:19:05 -0500

World War I was a very different war than all the other wars fought before it. There main reason for this was that military technology had advanced incredibly quickly in the previous 50 years, as had manufacturing technology and capability. Because of the advances of the industrial revolution, factories could now turn out rifles and cannons by the thousands, and bullets and shells by the hundreds of thousands. And the weapons themselves could fire farther and more rapidly, and more accurately than ever before.

Even though the technology of warfare had advanced dramatically, the strategy and tactics had not. We talked a bit about this in the episodes on the American civil war, but World War I took it to a whole new level. The real upshot of the changes in technology meant that an army that was well dug-in to a defensive position had a huge advantage over an army that was trying to attack them. Men in defensive positions were relatively safe, but men advancing over open fields to attack the defensive positions were incredibly vulnerable to artillery, machine guns, and even just plain rifle fire.

The military leaders of WWI knew this, but they didn’t really take it to heart until pretty late in the war. So we’re about to go into about 4 straight years of brutal trench warfare on the western front.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

103 - World War I Begins

Clayton Mills — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 15:51:49 -0500

Last episode, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire, all of Europe began to mobilize their armies, and move them to the borders of the countries around them.

If you are the leader of a country, and your neighbor begins to mobilize an army right at your borders, what do you do? Well, of course you let them in and put them up in nice hotels in your big cities, and give them all free benefits and eventually the right to vote, right? Yes, of course you do. No, when your neighbor sends an army to your borders, you put your army at the border as well, to protect your citizens and your country. And that’s what was happening all over Europe. And when two armies, who are trained to fight, are facing off against each other, it’s pretty likely that they are going to fight. That’s what they are there for.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

102 - The Alliances and the Assassination (and Airplanes)

Clayton Mills — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 14:02:12 -0500

You know, we had an assassination last episode, too, didn’t we? Well, this one is going to cause a lot more difficulty for the world, especially for Europe. Things are about to get really crazy. The first 45 years of the 1900’s were just an amazing, crazy time to be alive. Someone born in 1900 would have been alive for two world wars, the Great Depression, the invention of nuclear weapons, the cold war, and if they had lived to be 70 years old, they would have seen the first moon landing. What an amazing time to be alive. If you survived.

But before we can get to all that, we have to talk about a couple of other things first, including the tensions that are about to cause several huge wars. We need to talk about the crazy web of alliances that crisscrossed Europe that are going to lead to the first world war. But even before that, we have to talk about one of the most important inventions in all of human history. No, I’m not talking about the invention of podcasting, not yet anyway. I’m talking about - the Wright Brothers, human flight, and the invention of the airplane.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

101 - Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement

Clayton Mills — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 12:10:48 -0500

Well, welcome to the 20th Century! I’m sure a fair number of those of you who are listening to this were born in the 20th Century, as I was, and the rest of you were born in the 21st century. I know I’ve usually tried to refer to the centuries by their actual numbers, like the ‘1900’s,’ but now that we are entering the century that we’ve all lived in, I think it also makes sense to use the common designations that we often hear in the media today. So right now, we are in the 21st century, but many of us also have lived in the 20th century.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

100 - The History of the World so Far

Clayton Mills — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 15:30:18 -0500

And here we are! Episode 100!!! It’s only taken us 100 episodes to cover the first 12,000 or so years of human history. I have a tentative plan to get us all the way to, well, today. It’s going to take about 40 or so more episodes.

Since this is our 100th episode, I thought I’d make this a sort of special episode, and instead of covering new ground, we could take a quick look back at everything that has happened so far. Well, not really everything, but kind of the big highlights. And maybe a quick peek at what we’re going to cover from here.

99 - The World in 1899

Clayton Mills — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 14:42:38 -0500

Wow, episode 99. I like the symmetry of having episode 99 be a summary of the world in 1899. Last episode, we looked at the changes in technology, science, and worldview that occurred in the 1800’s, and like I said, there was an enormous amount of change from 1800 to 1899. This episode, I want to summarize all the big stuff that happened in the 1800’s, and give us a kind of starting point for the world as it goes into the 20th century. Or, as I prefer to call it, the 1900’s. I want to sort of set the stage for all the things that are about to happen in the early 1900’s.

But first, let’s do some summarizing of what happened in the 1800’s. I’m going to go kind of regionally, by continent, starting with North America.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

98 - Science, Technology, and the Birth of Modernism

Clayton Mills — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 17:46:37 -0500

Well, look at that. We’re finally coming to the end of the 1800’s! Only two more episodes, then we’ll be in the 1900’s. It only took us 30 episodes to cover that 100 year period. I honestly have no idea how long it will take to cover the 1900’s, as I haven’t mapped that out yet. Guess I ought to get started on that, huh.

Next episode, I’ll review some of the history of the 1800’s, and take an overall look at how the events of the 1800’s shaped our modern world, but I felt like I needed to have a special episode just on the massive change in worldview that happened, particularly over the last half of the 1800’s. That change in worldview was the result of the western world moving from what could be called a mostly Christian worldview to the world embracing what we now call Modernism.

I’ll get into a bit of a definition of that in a minute, but first, I want to make the point that this change of worldview is huge. It’s a seismic shift of worldviews, perhaps the biggest shift in all of human history. The only other comparable shifts were the shift of the Roman Empire from paganism to Christianity, or maybe also the Middle Eastern and African shift from paganism to Islam. Those were big shifts, though they both took longer, and the process was perhaps a bit slower than the shift to modernism. And part of the story of modernism is exactly that - the pace of change. Things change over time, but in the modern era, things change much more quickly. It’s harder for any individual person to adapt, because things are changing so much faster.

97 - The Spanish - American War

Clayton Mills — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 18:30:20 -0500

Last episode we talked about the robber barons, and the changes in technology and manufacturing that they exploited to become phenomenally rich.

Part of that growth of riches was due to the expansion of the US as an exporter of stuff to the world. And as part of that expansion, the United States began to see itself as a legitimate world power, and began to seek to enforce its will on other countries.

This had started back in Episode 73, with the Monroe Doctrine, as President James Monroe, the 5th President of the United States, said, in 1816, that the US would protect South and Central America from the interference of European powers. Now, in the late 1800’s, the United States had begun to build its own battleships and other steam-powered naval vessels, and for the first time, the United States really began to project force upon other countries in the western hemisphere.

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90 - Sherman's March to the Sea

Clayton Mills — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:54:08 -0500

Last episode, we looked at the very last chance the south had to win the war outright. After Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the south’s only chance was the election of 1864, and the hope that maybe the north would elect a new, anti-war government that would just let the confederate states go.

But the federal government in Washington knew that risk too, and they needed to make sure that it looked like the north was clearly close to winning the war, so that Lincoln and the republicans would be re-elected.

Vicksburg and Gettysburg had ended in early July of 1863. In November of 1863, Grant and Sherman won an important battle in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which gave the Union control of almost all of Tennessee, and opened up a pathway into Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama.

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96 - Capitalism and the Robber Barons

Clayton Mills — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:19:16 -0500

The dystopian surveillance state we live in today has been called by some people ‘Late-stage capitalism,’ and is perhaps the inevitable result of the capitalist system. When the very rich gain so much money that they can control all the media, all the politicians, and have zero accountability for their actions, everyone else in the world suffers the loss of liberty, privacy, and the loss of their voice in the political arena of their cities, states, and country. We’re in that stage now, but guess what? This isn’t the first time capitalism has gone down this path.

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95 - World-Wide Imperialism

Clayton Mills — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:08:24 -0500

Well, we talked last episode about the expansion of the British Empire during the 1800’s, but there were a lot of other countries that were trying to build their empires as well. No one is going to be as good at it as the British, but a lot of other countries did try to get in on the imperialism action.

So I should maybe take a moment to explain what imperialism is, first. Most countries have something like natural borders. Or there are sort of geographic limits to where people from one language or ethnic group live. For example, most of the Germans live in Germany. If you go west a bit from where the Germans live, you get to a whole other group of people, the Dutch. Or southwest, you get the French. Different languages, different tribal backgrounds, different cultures.

Imperialism is the idea that the people in one ethnic or language group should basically attack and conquer some other group in another area, and take over that area and make it their own, part of their empire. So when you think about Napoleon, who called himself an emperor - it was his goal to take over most of Europe and make it all kind of French. Or at least, controlled by the French. That would mean that the German people would be controlled by the French, and the Polish people would be controlled by the French, and the Russian people, - well, we know how that turned out. It didn’t end well for Napoleon.

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94 - The British Empire in the Late 1800's

Clayton Mills — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 16:33:46 -0500

When we last looked at the British Empire, 15 !! Episodes ago, Queen Victoria was on the throne. And she still is. I mean, not today, today it’s King Charles and his weird red official portrait, but I mean Victoria is still queen at this point in our timeline. We did kind of spend a lot of episodes focusing on the American Civil War, but we really didn’t cover much time. I mean, it’s only 1877 or so. This brings up an important topic - who did the British support during the Civil War? Well, technically, neither side. They had their own Empire to look out for.

93 - Reconstruction

Clayton Mills — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 16:30:56 -0500

When Lincoln died, Andrew Johnson became the President. Johnson was from the south, having been born in North Carolina. When he was 17, his family moved to Tennessee, which is where he grew up. He joined the Democratic Party, being a believer in states’ rights, and served as a US Congressman, then the Governor of Tennessee, then a US Senator. He was the US Senator from Tennessee when Tennessee seceded from the Union, but he opposed secession, and he alone of all the southern senators stayed at his post in the US Senate.

Once Tennessee was completely under Union control, Lincoln appointed him the military governor of the state. So as a sort of southern democrat, he was an odd choice for VP, in some ways, but Lincoln thought that it would help carry the northern democrats who were in favor of continuing the war. Luckily for Lincoln and Johnson, Sherman had captured Atlanta in September, just before the November elections, and so public support for Lincoln and the pro-war Republicans was strong. Adding Johnson ended up being helpful as well, as he took away votes from McClellan who had run as a Democrat.

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92 - The Assassination of President Lincoln

Clayton Mills — Tue, 28 May 2024 18:11:35 -0500

Well, the Civil War is over. Mostly. The big battles are over, and though there are going to be a few more battles, everyone knows that the south has lost. The question on everyone’s mind is, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ Is this going to be a smooth transition, or a rough one. Turns out, it’s going to be kind of rough.

And one of the reasons that it’s going to be rough is what we are covering in this episode - Lincoln’s assassination. What’s also going to be rough is keeping this episode short, because besides history, my other favorite topic is conspiracy theories, and Lincoln’s assassination is full of them. In fact, if I ever finish this podcast - this short walk - my next podcast will be on conspiracy theories, and I’ll probably start right here, with the assassination of Lincoln. For the sake of brevity here, I’ll stay to stick to the generally accepted story, which, oddly enough, includes a conspiracy as part of the story.

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91 - Grant vs. Lee and the Surrender at Appomattox

Clayton Mills — Mon, 20 May 2024 17:43:18 -0500

At the same time that Sherman was burning his way through Georgia, but avoiding major battles, Grant was up in Virginia, trying to provoke major battles. In March of 1864, Lincoln had put Grant in charge of all the Union armies. General Meade was still the commander of the Army of the Potomac, so Grant took Meade and together they headed into Virginia to try to defeat Robert E Lee. Grant’s goal was to draw Lee into a huge battle, and destroy the Army of Northern Virginia.

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89 - The Battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg

Clayton Mills — Tue, 14 May 2024 11:46:27 -0500

The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, well, the draw at Antietam that forced the South to stop their invasion of the north, was seen as a huge victory in the north, even though the actual battle that day was a draw. Both armies basically left the field shattered, but since McClellan didn’t follow up and crush what was left of Lee’s army, the Confederates were able to get back to Virginia, and reorganize. And guess what? They will be back. Lee’s going to invade, again, soon, and that’s going to take us to a battle that was even bigger and bloodier than Antietam.

But first we need to head west, to the Mississippi, and back to our one Union general with a winning record, Ulysses S Grant.

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88 - The Battle of Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation

Clayton Mills — Thu, 09 May 2024 16:00:11 -0500

The war has been going pretty well for the south at the mid point of 1862, but the south has less men, less guns, less cannons, less of almost everything. Less manufacturing capacity, for sure. But time is sort of on the South’s side. The longer that the Confederacy exists as its own country, the more people are likely to just accept it that way. And the longer the war drags on, especially if the North keeps losing, the more likely the Northern public is to stop supporting the war. Again, kind of like it was in the Revolutionary war, the South doesn’t have to win, necessarily, it just needs to not lose, or at least not lose catastrophically, and it will keep existing. The North, on the other hand, needs to win decisively.

And they haven’t done that yet, they haven’t really beaten and destroyed a Southern army, even though they won a few battles. The South is still fielding competent armies, and still continuing to exist. The North really needs a big win, to change the momentum of the war, and to change public opinion.

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87 - Ulysses S Grant and the Battle of Shiloh

Clayton Mills — Thu, 09 May 2024 15:55:07 -0500

At this point, in late 1861, the war is not going well for the Union. The early battles of the Civil War were mostly Union defeats, or at least draws where the Rebel army got away. There were not any definitive victories, that’s for sure. And because of that, the Confederacy still existed. It was sort of like the American strategy during the Revolutionary war - as long as General Washington and the Continental Army still existed, the British hadn’t won. Similarly, as long as the Confederacy still existed, the Union had not won. And this gave hope to the Confederates, and frustrated the people of the Union.

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83 - The House Begins to Divide

Clayton Mills — Thu, 09 May 2024 15:29:46 -0500

Last episode, we talked about the revolutions in Europe in 1848. The United States is about to have a revolution, I mean, another one, at least from a certain point of view. From another point of view, it’s a rebellion. But we aren’t quite there yet.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is accused by the Pharisees of driving out demons using the power of Satan. And Jesus, in a masterful double entendre, replies, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.’ A house that is internally divided, he’s saying, will not stand, it will collapse. Jesus’ point was that if he was driving out demons by the power of Satan, well, that satanic house would be divided, and it would collapse. But he’s also making the point that the house of Judaism, the house of the Pharisees, is also divided, as many people in Judea had begun to follow Jesus, but the Pharisees had not. The house was divided.

And much later, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln, running for the US Senate, said, quoting Jesus, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

86 - Stonewall Jackson and the First Battle of Bull Run

Clayton Mills — Fri, 03 May 2024 12:03:14 -0500

Well, here we are, at war. Sort of. Shots were fired at Fort Sumter, but no one was actually killed in the battle. But now the battle lines are being drawn. Lincoln has asked for more volunteers, and the border states of Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and most importantly, Virginia, have chosen to leave the Union, rather than provide troops that would be used to attack the south.

So both sides begin putting together armies. A lot of men volunteered initially, in part because they thought that this wasn’t going to take long. Lincoln’s request for new volunteers, for example, was only for a 90 day enlistment. People in both the North and the South felt like this war would be over in only a few months. Both sides overestimated their own battle prowess, and felt like they would be able to ‘whip’ the other side pretty easily. But even more than that, both sides seriously underestimated the other side’s resolve to fight.

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85 - Fort Sumter - The American Civil War Begins

Clayton Mills — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 16:11:23 -0500

Well, here we are, right at the brink of disaster. Things are about to get really busy. The United States is about to begin a unique, and very bloody, war. It’s unique in that it was kind of the transitional war from old colonial warfare weapons and strategies, to new modern weapons and strategies. It’s a bit of both, but it will start off, much more in the old colonial style. But it’s going to end with ironclad ships, machine guns, revolvers, aerial reconnaissance, and total war. We’ll get to all that as we go.

Last episode, I mentioned that even before Lincoln was inaugurated as President, there were places in the South where there were forts that were controlled by troops that were federal, or Union troops. The US army had forts in several key places in the south. In some of those places, the commanders and troops were actually northerners, so their allegiance was to the federal government, rather than to the locals. We are going to get to the really well-known example of this, Fort Sumter, in a moment, but there were others as well.

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84 - Lincoln and the Secession of the South

Clayton Mills — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 20:43:02 -0500

Well, here we are, about to watch a house divide against itself. It’s not going to be pretty.

I have to say, as I start this episode, that I really feel like we’re getting somewhere in this podcast. We’re at the brink of war! I mean, we’ve been building up to the Civil War for a while now, and here we are, about to see the United States fall apart. The actual fighting is going to begin next episode, and I then think we are going to linger on the Civil War topic for a few episodes. I mean, we lingered on Rome for like 12 episodes, so there is a precedent. But don’t worry, it won’t be that long.

Last episode, I talked about Kansas, John Brown, and the Dred Scott case, and now we are going to get to the events that really ended up dividing the country. And so we get to talk about John Brown. Again.

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82 - The Revolutions of 1848

Clayton Mills — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 16:38:34 -0500

Last episode, we looked at the massive flow of people that moved west along the Oregon Trail in the US, and I mentioned that it was part of one of the biggest migrations in history. Well, part of the reason that there were a lot of people migrating to the west was that there were a lot of people fleeing Europe during 1848. Why? Because there were revolutions happening all over Europe, and people were fleeing the tensions and fighting there.

I’m going to let you in on a bit of a spoiler here: all the European revolutions of 1848 are going to fail. In fact, it’s kind of a depressing story.

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81 - The Oregon Trail, the Mormons, and the California Gold Rush

Clayton Mills — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 17:00:46 -0500

This past February, the San Francisco 49ers lost the super bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs, and that brings up the inevitable question, ‘What the heck is a 49er?’ Why are they named that? I will explain shortly.

You may also have wondered ‘why the heck do so many Mormons live in Salt Lake City, Utah?’ Again, I will explain shortly.

Before we get to San Francisco, we sort of have to go to Oregon, because, well, it’s just a lot easier to get to than California, especially if you’re in Missouri and planning on going there by foot.

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80 - The Mexican American War

Clayton Mills — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:24:12 -0500

Ok, just to be clear here, I’m talking about the Mexican-American war that happened from 1846 to 1848, not the current battle that is taking place on the US Mexico border. The US is evidently losing that current battle, which I guess is kind of payback for how easily the US won the war back in the 1840’s. Evidently the cartels currently have a better strategy than the Republic of Mexico had back in the day.

The Mexican American war, though it was short, does have a big impact on the world, in part because of the huge chunk of territory that America acquires, and in part because it was the beginning of the idea of civil disobedience.

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79 - Manifest Destiny and the Wild West

Clayton Mills — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:59:30 -0500

Well, we’re back in the United States after talking about Queen Victoria and the British Empire, and honestly, I think I’m going to have to spend more time talking about the British Empire and how it grew during the 63 years of her reign, because the British really did a lot of conquering and colonizing in that era. But that’s going to have to wait for a bit, because for the next several episodes, I’m going to be looking closely at things going on in the United States.

We have to take a look at the wild west, and the Oregon Trail, the California Gold Rush, and then we’re going to bog down just a bit on the American Civil War and its aftermath, and I don’t think we’ll come back to jolly old England until after that. Because in the middle of the 1800’s, until the late 1860’s, there’s just a whole lot of stuff happening in America that does, truly, shape our modern world.

One of the biggest impacts that America had in the mid 1800’s was on immigration. People from all over Europe took the giant risk of emigrating to America, lured by the offers of cheap or even free land in the open spaces of the American west. Between 1800 and 1850, more than 5 million people from Europe emigrated to America. Granted, that’s only 2 years of immigration under the Biden administration, but back in the 1800’s, it was a huge movement of humanity, something the world hadn’t seen since maybe the massive migrations at the end of the Roman Empire. It was a lot of people moving to a new place in a short time.

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78 - Queen Victoria and the British Empire

Clayton Mills — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:22:51 -0600

Last year, in 2023, the longest reigning monarch in British history passed away. That monarch was Queen Elizabeth II, and she reigned for over 70 years. That, by the way, is the second longest of all the monarchs we have record of, that is, if you don’t count the Sumerian List of Kings, which we mentioned back in Episode 2, which was about the Creation narratives of the ancient world. The longest reign was of Em-Men-Lu-Ana, who reigned for 43,200 years, according to the Sumerian list. According to modern history, the longest reign was Louis XIV of France, who reigned 72 years. But we digress.

Elizabeth II was the longest reigning queen of Great Britain, but the second longest reign belonged to Alexandrina Victoria, who is better known as Queen Victoria. She reigned for 63 ½ years, from May 1, 1837 - January 22, 1901.

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77 - The Republic of Texas!

Clayton Mills — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 17:29:41 -0600

Sort of ironic that here we are talking about the time that Texas became an independent from Mexico, and became a republic, right at the same time that there’s a big conflict right on the Texas - Mexico border, and Texas is apparently resisting the US federal government’s efforts to open the border to whatever drug-smuggling and human trafficking invaders want to walk in. I’ll have to come back to that in a bit.

Anyway, this episode is about the Republic of Texas. Texas is not the only state to have been a Republic before it became a state. Vermont was also a republic, from 1777 to 1791, when it became the 14th state admitted to the Union. But no other country recognized Vermont as an independent country, however. Hawaii was also an independent country before it was annexed by the US government in 1898. Hawaii, by the way, did not want to be annexed.

But we are talking about Texas. Texas has a bit of a unique history, and as you may have noticed, Texans are quite proud of it. So Texas gets its own episode, the only state that gets its own episode. Well, I guess you could count Athens, which was a city state, which got its own episode back in episode 9, but none of the other US states get their own episode. Sorry, Oklahoma.

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76 - Andrew Jackson and the Indians

Clayton Mills — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:48:23 -0600

In this episode, we are going to talk about Andrew Jackson, who is one of the most interesting men to have ever been the President of the US. In fact, if it wasn’t for his harsh treatment of the Indians, I mean, if he hadn’t done that, he would be in the running for the most popular president ever. And by that, I don’t just mean popular - there’s a lot of things that he did as president that strongly agreed with the original principles that the US was founded on, principles that the Constitution tried to institutionalize, but that were often ignored by the growing federal bureaucracy in Washington. Which Jackson strongly opposed, which is why I guess I kind of like him.

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75 - The Congress of Vienna

Clayton Mills — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 18:22:59 -0600

So I have to start this episode by saying the Congress of Vienna, well, it isn’t a very dramatic moment. There’s no battles, no great drama, no moment of someone standing on the Mons Sacre declaring that they will not rest until Europe has this treaty finished. It’s not that kind of moment. But it a very important topic, and the agreements that will come out of the Congress of Vienna will shape Europe for the next 100 years or so.

It was also responsible for temporarily shoring up the monarchies of Europe, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
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72 - Simón Bolívar and South American Independence

Clayton Mills — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 19:16:21 -0600

In this episode, we are heading to South America, to take a look at the independence movement that started to happen there in the early 1800’s. And the key person we need to talk about is Simón Bolívar. He is kind of the South American version of George Washington, although in a way that kind of sells Bolivar short a bit, because while Washington was one of the founding fathers of the US, Bolivar was THE founding father of south American independence. There are some other differences, too. Bolivar had a tendency to want to execute his enemies, that we don’t really see with Washington. South American politics are different though, so Bolivar lived and worked in a much different environment. Most scholars still think the comparison is valid, and I agree.

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73 - The Monroe Doctrine and the Missouri Compromise

Clayton Mills — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 11:26:46 -0600

The new President, James Monroe, who was elected in 1816, did not want the European powers meddling in the New World, now that they were no longer distracted by Napoleon. So in Monroe’s Inaugural Address, he said this:

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense.…

With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

He’s basically making the point that the US had not, and would not, intrude on any of the European disputes between the European powers. He’s also making the point that the US hasn’t interfered with existing new world colonies, which, OK, that’s not exactly true, but the US really hadn’t yet done anything in central America or South America. We had interfered, a lot, with other colonies in North America, and some in the Caribbean, too.

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72 - The War 1812

Clayton Mills — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 17:15:31 -0600

So by the beginnings of the 1800’s, the United States was starting to solidify itself as an actual nation, and beginning to spread westward. But it was also beginning to spread eastward, in a way, because as an independent nation, it was developing a healthy trans-Atlantic trade network with the countries of western Europe and in the Mediterranean as well.

This meant of course, ships sailing across the Atlantic ocean, carrying American cargo and American sailors. Our first problem with all this international commerce was the Barbary Pirates that I mentioned in episode 69, talking about Thomas Jefferson’s first term as president. But scaring off the pirates wasn’t the only problem for our shipping industry.

Great Britain and France were fighting each other in the Napoleonic wars, and the US was trying to remain neutral. Part of the reason for being neutral was that the US wanted to try to keep trading with both Great Britain and also France, but neither of those countries wanted the US trading with the other. In other words, Great Britain didn’t want the US trading with France, it only wanted the US to trade with themselves.

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71 - The Industrial Revolution

Clayton Mills — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 20:43:36 -0600

Ok, we are coming to the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. But it’s not a clear transition this time. The Middle Ages basically ended with the beginning of the Enlightenment, though of course those two periods overlap as well. The new era we're moving into is known as the Industrial Age, which will last until our current era, the Digital age, which is also known as the age of idiots on Instagram. But throughout the Industrial age, Enlightenment values and ideas continued to dominate the worldview of most western societies.

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70 - Benjamin Franklin

Clayton Mills — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:09:39 -0600

Ok, I have to acknowledge at the start here that I should have probably put this episode about Franklin before Adams or Jefferson, surely before Napoleon, but I was trying to follow the general flow of history, and Franklin kind of transcends the flow, you know? He’s undeniably one of the most important founding fathers, but at the same time, he doesn’t ever become the lead actor on the stage in the same way that Washington, Adams, or Jefferson did. But Franklin played a role in all the big moments. As I mentioned in episode 64, there’s only 6 people who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution, and the only one that really matters is - Benjamin Franklin. I mean, just to say that you signed both these docs makes you a kind of a big deal, but Benjamin Franklin, on top of that, is arguably one of the most famous and influential Americans, ever.

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69 - Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase

Clayton Mills — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 17:51:11 -0600

I mentioned last episode that the only other Founding Father who could really rival John Adam’s resume was Thomas Jefferson. And you could kind of say that everything Adams did, Jefferson did too, and did it, well, better.

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68 - John Adams

Clayton Mills — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:29:15 -0600

Ok, we are back to the new world, after lingering in France for more than 50 years, so we’ve gone from France to America, and we’ve gone back in time just a bit, so we can catch up on what’s been happening in America while France was enjoying a quick Reign of Terror. When we last left America, the United States had adopted its Constitution, and Washington was the President.

John Adams is one of my favorite historical characters, in part because he just happened to have an absolutely awesome life at an absolutely awesome time to be alive, but also in part because he’s kind of an anti-hero. He was brash, abrasive, deeply principled, a fantastic writer, very loyal to his friends, and extremely committed to duty.

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67 - Napoleon

Clayton Mills — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 14:15:12 -0600

Well, we’re still in France. In this episode, we’re going to talk about one of the most famous Frenchmen ever, Napoleon Bonaparte. But I should start by pointing out that Napoleon, who eventually will become the Emperor of France, was not actually, well, French. He was Corsican. He was born on the Island of Corsica, which is an island in the Mediterranean, between France and Italy. It’s just north of the larger island of Sardinia. Ethnically, the Corsicans were mostly of Italian descent, rather than French. In fact, Napoleon’s parents were descended from Italian nobility.

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66- The Reign of Terror and the Rise of Napoleon - The French Revolution, part 2

Clayton Mills — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:20:07 -0600

Well, last episode I tried to summarize the French Revolution, and I realized that there is no way to cover it in just one podcast episode, so here we are in part 2. So in this episode, we’re going to look at the part of the French Revolution that is known as the Reign of Terror, and how that will eventually lead to rise of a new emperor.

Now, this is kind of obvious, but the American revolution didn’t have a period known as the reign of terror. Like I said last episode, the two revolutions happened in very different environments, and they had very different enemies. The enemy of the American revolution was the British government, and the British army and navy. But the enemy of the French Revolution was, well, whichever Frenchman was against you, whether in policy or class or the type of pants you wore. So one of the reasons that the French Revolution has a reign of terror, is that different groups who held power were pretty ruthless about eliminating their enemies.

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65 - Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - The French Revolution, part 1

Clayton Mills — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 22:09:46 -0600

So in the New World, there’s a new country, with a new Constitution and a new central government. This had never happened before, it was an astounding thing in world history, and that fact was not lost on the people of the Old World. People all over Europe were watching what happened in America with great interest. And when the United States was able to actually throw off the British government, and then were also able to come together and successfully create a new form of government, the people of Europe were impressed, and also inspired to begin to think about creating new forms of government for themselves.

And one of the countries that was the most eager to think about new forms of government was France. But France was a very, very different place than the United States, and its process of altering and abolishing the old form of government and instituting new government was also very different.

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64 - We the People

Clayton Mills — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 11:18:03 -0500

Well, you probably guessed from the title of the episode what this one is about. It’s about the US constitution, which starts with the amazing line, ‘we, the people.’ And though the US constitution is being ignored and circumvented at many levels in our world today, it is still the very best design of a government that was ever created.

Before I get into the constitution itself and how it came to be, and the amazing minds behind it, I want to point out that in a way, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are two pieces of the same idea. You can kind of see them as one document, in two parts. The Declaration of Independence declares the ideals of a group of people who are about to leave a tyrannical government and start a new one for themselves, and the Constitution is the working out of those ideals.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

63 - George Washington and the Revolutionary War

Clayton Mills — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 15:24:05 -0500

Well, the colonists have gone and done it. They have declared themselves independent of Great Britain, who has basically laughed off the Declaration of Independence, and is now ramping up their military to go whip those darn colonists back into line.

And like I said a couple of episodes ago, Great Britain was the world super-power in 1776. The colonies had only a few small militias, made up of mostly farmers.

But the colonists had home-field advantage, and that is going to mean a lot for them as they begin to go to battle with the British army. And the colonists had one other trump card - their commander in chief, General George Washington. We’ll talk about him more in a moment, but I’ll just say here that there probably wasn’t any other person, in all the colonies, who could have won the revolutionary war for the colonists.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

62 - When in the Course of Human Events

Clayton Mills — Sun, 27 Aug 2023 11:43:34 -0500

Ok, last episode, I talked about how the Declaration of Independence came to be drafted, and I decided that it was really such an important document that I needed to take an extra episode to explain some of the important ideas within the document, and how they shaped our modern world.

I should start by warning you that this episode is a good bit longer than most in this podcast. The Declaration itself is just 1300 words, but there are so many good and important ideas in it, that it’s going to take a while to unpack it. I suggest, also, that if you can, while you listen, have a copy of the Declaration of Independence open to read as we go.

So far in this podcast, it’s been pretty rare that I devoted an entire episode to one person - that’s happened 8 times so, but this will be a first for me. I’m devoting 2 episodes to one document. But like I said, I think you can make a case that the Declaration of Independence is the most important document that humans have ever written. It’s certainly in the running.

But why is it so important? What is it about this document that makes it worthy of considering as one of the most important collections of ideas in all of history?

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

61 - The Second Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence

Clayton Mills — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 05:54:18 -0500

Well, it’s 1776. Things are about to happen. We just had the Boston tea party, Patrick Henry’s speech, and the battles of Lexington and Concord, and the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British have shelled and burned several colonial towns, including Falmouth, Massachusetts and Norfolk, Virginia. These are their own colonies, and they have burned the towns.

The colonies are in open revolt against the British government.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

60 - Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death

Clayton Mills — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 13:39:22 -0500

At the end of the last episode, we left colonial Boston chafing under British military rule. Now Boston was a big port, a very important commercial center of New England, but it wasn’t all of New England, and it wasn’t even a very big city. In fact, Boston, at the time, was entirely on one small peninsula of land, in the middle of Boston Harbor. It was connected to the mainland by one small isthmus of land to the south. Nowadays, a lot of the harbor space around Boston has been backfilled, and so the old part of Boston isn’t quite as isolated as it was back in the colonial days.

But back in 1774, it was pretty easy for the British to cut off Boston harbor and cut off the city of Boston from the rest of Massachusetts. And after the Tea Party, the redcoats fully imposed martial law. There was a strict curfew, and restrictions on gatherings and crowds. But there was still an underground network of patriots, meeting secretly, and making plans. And they had spies amongst the British loyalists.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

59 - The Boston Tea Party

Clayton Mills — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 15:55:10 -0500

Things in Boston are about to get really dicey. In this episode, we’re going to look at several events that happened in Boston starting in about 1770 that all are part of the buildup of tension that leads to the beginning of the American Revolution.

Last episode we talked about the French and Indian war, and how that was part of the larger 7 Years’ War that Great Britain fought with the French and Spanish. Though Great Britain was the clear winner of that war, the British government did end up in a great deal of debt, and so, they did what governments always do - they raised taxes. If you’re a government, that’s just what you do. And of course, no one likes it.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

58 - The French and Indian War

Clayton Mills — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:15:15 -0500

In this episode, we’re going to look at a world-changing war, that was started by an small Indian and colonial raid on a French patrol. That Indian raid included a few members of the Virginia Militia, including a 22 year old Lieutenant colonel named George Washington. This little raid was later described as “the volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America that set the world on fire.”

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

57 - The American Enlightenment and the Great Awakening

Clayton Mills — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 15:31:08 -0500

Well, last episode we surveyed the 13 original colonies, as they were at the start of the 1700’s. And as I mentioned, a lot happens in the 1700’s. And as I mentioned 2 episodes ago, one of the things that was happening at this time in Europe was the Enlightenment, which was in full swing by the 1700’s.

Anyway, the Enlightenment had a unique expression in America. The Enlightenment had a big effect in Europe, but its expression in the colonies was different. Like I said last episode, the group of people who had migrated to the American colonies was a fairly well-educated group to begin with - the first generation was usually someone who had been educated in England, and had been strongly influenced by both Reformation and Enlightenment thinking. The ideas of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, especially the idea of liberty of conscience, were part of reasons why people emigrated to the Americas in the first place.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

56 - The 13 Original Colonies

Clayton Mills — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 12:27:12 -0500

Well, buckle your podcast seatbelts, because we are getting to a point where a lot of stuff happens in a really short time. Welcome to the 1700’s! If you ask the question, which century ‘shaped our modern world’ the most, I think I might pick the 1700’s. A lot of influential stuff happened in the 1700’s.

So as we start this crucial century, I thought I should set the stage by talking about each of the 13 English Colonies in the New World. But before I get to them, I should mention what else is going on in the New World, besides the English colonies. The English colonies were all on the Atlantic coast, from what is now Maine down to the Florida Georgia line.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

55 - The English Civil War, the Restoration, and a Bit about the 30 Years' War

Clayton Mills — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:10:19 -0500

When we last left the British Monarchy, back in episode 53, King James had come to the throne, and finish writing his famous King James Bible. No, no, of course he didn’t write it, but he did commission it, and for its day, the scholarship and translation was very good. It be meant to be a replacement for English translations of the Geneva Bible, which was what was used by the Puritans. The King James Version was written and authorized to be used in Anglican churches, so the Puritans didn’t like it. James' preference for the Anglican Church is about to set off a civil war.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

54 - The Enlightenment

Clayton Mills — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 06:53:37 -0500

Ok, I need to step back for an episode, and step away from the narrative of the English colonies in North America, which I really want to talk about, and instead spend a bit of time talking about one of the most important intellectual parts of the early modern era, because this whole intellectual trend really influences everything that happens in the next few episodes. It’s really the ideas of the Enlightenment that drive the whole Modern era, actually. The Enlightenment is every bit as important as the Renaissance or Reformation, historically, and it’s more important in terms of shaping the ideas, values, and society of the Modern Era.

So that brings up the obvious question of, ‘What is the Enlightenment, anyway?’ And why is it called that? What lights came on? Another term that is used to describe this era is ‘The Age of Reason,’ which seems a little cocky to me, like the people before this era had not been reasonable, or not using their brains or something. The Greeks and the Romans had themselves made a big deal of Reason, and using Reason to explore truth and how things worked. But something did change in the 1700’s. Well, several things. And we’ll look at some of them this episode.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

53 - The Puritans, The Mayflower, and Plymouth Colony

Clayton Mills — Fri, 12 May 2023 10:27:39 -0500

After a little while in Holland, the Puritans from Yorkshire felt like they were being over-influenced by the permissive culture of Holland, and that they were also losing their Englishness. So in 1620, the puritans hired two ships, the Speedwell and the Mayflower, to take the entire congregation to the New World, and found a colony there. They were led by John Carver, William Brewster, and William Bradford. They set sail on August 15th, 1620, but the Speedwell was taking on water, so it stopped at Plymouth. About 100 people set sail on the Mayflower, on September 16th.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

52 - The First English Colonies in the New World

Clayton Mills — Tue, 02 May 2023 15:02:27 -0500

This episode is kind of a cross-over. We’re looking at the early English explorations of the New world, and their first colonies, which started during Elizabeth’s reign, so they are kind of part of the Middle Ages.

But they are kind of part of the modern era, too, because these first colonies set the stage for the founding of Plymouth Colony, which set the stage for Boston, and Massachusetts, and eventually for a group of united colonies, which are definitely part of the modern era.

So I’m including this episode in the Modern world, but you could argue with me on that, if you wanted.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email: shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com

Episode 51 - Middle Ages Retrospective

Clayton Mills — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 13:40:59 -0500

Wow, our 51st episode. We’ll be talking about the modern world any day now. But before we get to the New World, the Enlightenment, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the chaos of the 1800’s, the further chaos of the 1900’s, and the soul-crushing angst of the new millennium, let’s take a look back at the chaos of the 400’s, the chaos of the Vikings, the soul-crushing angst of feudalism, the awe-inspiring majesty of the Renaissance, and the paradigm-shifting insights of the Reformation.

So just to summarize the timeframe, the Middle Ages began with the fall of Rome in AD 476, and they kind of end sometime in the 1600’s. Some scholars will say that the 1700’s are the beginning of the modern era. But unlike the fall of Rome, there’s no clear defining event that says, well, that era is over and a new era is beginning. The Middle Ages kind of Peter out, and the modern age kind of Peters in. Shakespeare is really part of the end of Middle Ages, as is the King James Bible, but Rene Descartes and his book Discourse on the Method, which was published in 1637, just 25 years after the KJB, is part of the modern era. Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620, and well, that’s much more a part of the modern era than the Middle Ages.

Episode 50 - William Shakespeare

Clayton Mills — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 12:34:52 -0500

Well guys, we’re right at the end of the Middle Ages. [much rejoicing clip ] It’s been a longer process than I thought it would be back when I decided to call this podcast a ‘short’ walk through our long history. It’s taken us 50 episodes to get through all of human history up to AD 1600. We covered the ancient world in episodes 1 through 26, and then covered the Middle Ages from episode 27 though this episode, episode 50. And it feels fitting that we end the Middle Ages on a high note, as we talk about one of the most important, interesting, and mysterious figures in the history of literature.

If you ask, who are the most influential authors in human history, there are two who are in a category all by themselves. Everyone else is a step down from these two. The first, who we talked about way, way back in episode 6, was Homer. And the other person in that category is William Shakespeare.

Episode 49 - Elizabethan England

Clayton Mills — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 13:51:02 -0500

Last episode, I spent a bit of time on Henry VIII, who was a very important monarch - but I didn’t give him a full episode, he was just shoehorned into the episode on the Reformation spreading to England. But this time, I’m giving the whole episode to one ruler - Queen Elizabeth the first. I might need to eventually give Elizabeth the second her own episode too, but I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

Why am I giving Elizabeth the first her own episode? I haven’t given that many people their own episode, actually. 8 so far, in fact, before Elizabeth. Whom, you may ask? Alexander, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Jesus, Constantine, Charlemagne, Gutenberg, and Luther. A few other episodes have kind of been about one person, including Homer, Mohammad, and Columbus. I mean, that’s quite the list, isn’t it? When you’re asking about who the 10 most important people in western history are, all of these people would be in the discussion. And so would Queen Elizabeth. She’s that important.

Episode 48 - The Counter-Reformation

Clayton Mills — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 02:12:18 -0500

Last episode, we looked at the Reformation spreading out of Germany, and into other parts of Northern Europe, particularly looking at how England was affected. One of the side effects of the north part of Europe leaving the Catholic Church was that Catholic Church itself was also forced to change. The Catholic Church needed to take a hard look at itself, and decide how to go forward. That process was called the Counter Reformation. At least, that’s what the Protestants called it. The Catholic Church usually calls it the Catholic Reformation. I’m going to call it the Counter Reformation, because that feels accurate to me, because it does really seem that the Catholic Church was reacting to the challenges of the Reformation.

Episode 47 - The Reformation Spreads across Northern Europe

Clayton Mills — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 23:52:21 -0500

Well, did you enjoy our brief excursion into hell last episode? I did. Since the world didn’t end, and we didn’t get to experience the afterlife first-hand, I guess we’re stuck here for a while. So let’s keep looking at history, and see if there’s anything we can learn from it.

Before everything went to hell, we were talking about Martin Luther and the beginning of the Reformation. Again, the Reformation was kind of exclusive to northern Europe. Part of the reason for this is that the south of Europe had almost 1500 years of history of being dominated by Rome, and everything, society, politics, economy, religion, even language - they were just more connected with Rome than the northern part of Europe was. So people felt more freedom to complain about Rome, in the north, and more freedom to separate themselves from Rome’s influence.

Episode 46 - The History of Hell

Clayton Mills — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 13:56:35 -0600

Fair warning here up front, this episode is a bit long. The history of hell is, appropriately, long and convoluted, so the episode has run on a bit despite my best editing efforts.

I should also give fair warning here at the beginning, that some of what I’m going to say is not exactly in line with the conventional teachings of some churches today. So, if you’re a church-goer, I’m just giving you fair warning that I may some things in this episode that you might disagree with. I will also say, to you church goers, that I firmly agree with Luther’s principle of Sola Scriptura, so I’m trying to be guided by that, rather than what the church tends to believe. The modern church, in many cases, likes to try to make things clear and simple, when in reality, the Bible is much more vague, and if you try to hold closely to the principle of Sola Scriptura, you have to admit to vagueness in some places where you really wish there was clarity. Hell is one of those places.

So what do you think of when you think of the idea of hell? You’ve probably got an image of a floor made of boiling lava, and horned demons gleefully poking poor burning sinners with pitchforks. I’ll just start off by saying, that image is not from the Bible. It’s much more an image that comes from Dante’s Inferno, and medieval paintings, but we’ll get to that here in a bit.

Episode 45 - Martin Luther and the Reformation

Clayton Mills — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 06:32:14 -0600

There are occasionally, in the history of the world, those singular moments, an instant in time, when everything changes. One single action, one quick moment, and then everything after that is altered. The course of history is changed. Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the guy in crow’s nest of the Santa Maria shouting ‘Tierra!!’ (Land). The first gunshot at the battle of Lexington, the arch-duke of Austria-Hungary being assassinated, John and Paul meeting for the first time in Liverpool. Those kind of moments, that happen all the time, and in the moment, they seemed like a small, normal, everyday things, but then later, everyone looks back and realizes, ‘wow, that was really significant.’

This episode, we’re looking at one of those moments. A small act of rebellion, a simple statement of things that needed to be talked about, that led to a long chain of really significant changes, that literally changed the world.

Obviously, I’m talking about Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg.

Episode 44 - The Inquisition

Clayton Mills — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 18:16:20 -0600

It wasn’t in my long-term plan for the podcast to do an episode on the Inquisition, but I thought of it while I was working on the episode about Galileo, and thought, that’s a pretty good topic, so I made a snap decision to add this episode about it. It makes sense to put it here, because Wycliffe, Hus, and Galileo, all of whom I mentioned last episode, were tried by some type of church Inquisition, and Hus even lost his life to it.

Episode 43 - The Northern Renaissance and the First Reformers

Clayton Mills — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 12:08:26 -0600

A few episodes ago, we talked about the Renaissance, and we were focused on what happened in Italy, where the Renaissance started. The Renaissance spread out of Italy into the rest of Europe, but as it spread into new places, other things besides amazing art began to be added to the rebirth. Specifically, as the Renaissance spread north, in addition to new art, there were a lot of advances in science, theology, politics, and philosophy. While the southern renaissance was mainly an artistic rebirth, the Northern Renaissance was mainly an academic rebirth

Episode 42 - The Portuguese and Spanish Colonies in the New World

Clayton Mills — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 17:02:08 -0600

OK, in the last episode, we had Columbus finding the New World, but thinking it was India. Meanwhile, Vasco de Gama found the actual India for Portugal. Then John Cabot found Newfoundland, only 500 years after Lief Ericson had found Newfoundland. Maybe they should call it re-found land. Anyway, by about 1510, the seafaring powers of Europe had a pretty good map of the east coast of the Americas, from the north part of Canada, down to the south part of Brazil. They also had a map of Africa, all the way around to the Middle East and then on around to China and beyond. The world map was coming together.

Episode 41- The Golden Age of Exploration

Clayton Mills — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 19:21:36 -0600

One of the things you might have noticed in the past few episodes, besides the fact that we were jumping around in time a bit, was that we actually got a bit into the 1500’s. For example, the High Renaissance ended in 1520, with the death of Raphael. An anyone with any sense of history at all knows that by getting into the 1500’s, we have missed one of the most historic dates of all time, 1492. Famous and infamous, but no doubt, one of the most important dates in history. But before we get to Columbus sailing the ocean blue, there were some other, previous explorations by people from other countries. First of all, we have to acknowledge that the Viking explorers, like Lief Ericson, had actually sailed to the New World around 500 years earlier, right around 1000 AD, but that information had just never reached the overall consciousness of Europe, and after the Vikings, no one explored that way.

Episode 40 - The Hundred Years' War

Clayton Mills — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 16:24:31 -0600

OK, so in my original plan for the flow of the podcast, I wasn’t going to talk about the Hundred Years War, but the more I looked at what was going on in European History, the more I felt like it was worth talking about. Why? Well, the hundred years war happened at a crucial time, it was kind of the last thing that happened before the Renaissance spread to England and France and really set the stage for those two countries to have their own Renaissances, and it set the stage for the Reformation to spread to England (though not France), it kind of marked the end of feudalism (kind of) in England and France, and it basically established the boundaries and monarchies of modern England and France. Plus it had Joan of Arc, the Battle of Agincourt, and the first use of modern artillery in a battle! Spoiler - the side with the artillery won.

Episode 39 - Gutenberg and the Printing Press

Clayton Mills — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 18:35:04 -0600

Well, I was going to try to squeeze Gutenberg into the last episode, since he actually lived before the High Renaissance, and his invention kind of fit into the ethos of talking about the high points of the Renaissance. But there was just too much to cover in one episode, plus Gutenberg really does deserve his own episode. The TV channel A&E did a countdown, back in 1999, just before the new millennium began, and it counted down the most important people of the last 1000 years - so the period from AD 1000 to AD 1999. They surveyed a bunch of history experts and professors to come up with the list. It’s kind of an interesting list, and is still out there on the internet. Coming in at the number 2 most important person of that millennium is Martin Luther, who we will get to in a couple of episodes. But coming in at number one was Johannes Gutenberg.

Episode 38 - The High Renaissance

Clayton Mills — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 12:16:43 -0600

Ok, here we are. The High Renaissance. Lots of great stuff happened during the Renaissance, but there was one particular period, about 35 years, where some of the greatest art in all of human history was made. And I’m just going to say up front, that for this episode, you really do have to go to the podcast website and look at the art yourself. I mean, I can describe Michelangelo’s David statue, or you can look at a picture of. It’s far too visual an episode for just a podcast. The website is ‘shortwalkthroughhistory.com,’ and all the images I’m going to talk about are in the post for this episode. Also, I mentioned at the end of the last episode that I was going to talk about Gutenberg in this episode, but this episode was already getting kind of long, even without him, so I’m going to have to move him to a separate episode, after this one.

Episode 37 - The Renaissance Begins

Clayton Mills — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 13:03:24 -0500

It’s hard to overstate how important the Renaissance was. It’s kind of one of the highest high points of all of human history. I mean, there are Renaissance faires all over the US, including one in Texas that starts next week. Fortuitous timing, that. But there’s not really faires for other stuff - there’s no ‘Reformation faire,’ nor an ‘Enlightenment Faire.’ There’s definitely not any ‘Dark Ages Faires.’ It’s because the Renaissance was a good time. It was a time when Europe began to rediscover some of the good things that had been lost since the Roman Empire.

Episode 36 - The Beginning of the Age of Exploration

Clayton Mills — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 20:30:22 -0500

Polo! Yes, in this episode, I’m starting with Marco Polo. There’s not a lot of people who I have looked at over the course of this podcast where I say, ‘Man, I would have liked to have had his life,’ but Marco Polo is someone whose life sounds pretty awesome. Not free of hardship, but whose life is? Anyway, his life was pretty epic. Also, he seems like a pretty good guy, despite being hard to find in a pool.

Episode 35 - The Far East and the Mongols

Clayton Mills — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 14:57:21 -0500

We’ve already talked about a lot of galloping hordes in this podcast, including the Goths, the Huns, and the Vikings. But there is one tribe that outstrips them all, and even outstrips the Roman Empire in terms of sheer territory conquered. In fact, this tribe conquered and ruled the largest territory in the entire history of the world. Yes, I’m talking about Genghis Khan and the Mongols.

Episode 34 - Medieval Literature

Clayton Mills — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 17:39:38 -0500

Ok, I know, there’s nothing more eye-rollingly boring than medieval literature, right? Wrong! It’s super interesting, in the stories that are told, and in the development of English as a language, and in the development of the novel as a literary genre. Did you read Harry Potter? Those were good novels, right? Both the concept of a novel, and also some of the cool things in Harry Potter, like wizards, hippogriffs, magic wands, magic potions - a lot of these ideas come from medieval literature. Before I get into talking about medieval literature, I need to take a side trip into very modern literature: the internet. More specifically, the brand-new Short Walk through our Long History WEBSITE! Yep, go to Shortwalkthroughhistory.com, and you will find our new website. www.shortwalkthroughhistory.com

Episode 33 - The Crusades - Part II

Clayton Mills — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 21:21:26 -0500

Episode 32 - The Crusades - Part I

Clayton Mills — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:20:04 -0500

Episode 31 - Feudalism

Clayton Mills — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:47:07 -0500

You probably have heard of Prince William and his wife Kate. You might have heard of their official titles, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Or William’s dad, Prince Charles. He’s the Prince of Wales. Have you ever wondered where these titles come from? I mean, William and Kate don’t own the city of Cambridge or anything, do they? Is Prince Charles in charge of Wales in some way? I mean, the British territory of Wales, not the sea-dwelling mammal. He’s definitely not in charge of those. Where do these titles, and other titles like Duke, Viscount, Baron, Marquis, Earl, Lord, and Count, actually come from? They come from Feudalism, that’s where they come from. But where does feudalism come from, you may well ask. It’s a good question, and definitely important in the Medieval period, because feudalism basically describes the entire economic, political, religious, and social fabric of most of Europe during the Middle Ages, and into the modern world.

Episode 30 - The Vikings!

Clayton Mills — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 14:17:49 -0500

Last episode, we talked about the Charles the Hammer and his son Charlemagne, and the Carolingian renaissance in France and western Europe. After Charley and Charley were gone, though, Europe settled back into a period of relative darkness, without much central control. There wasn’t really one dominant power in any part of Europe, and partly because of this, the Dark Ages was a time when a lot of different groups were moving to new places in Europe, conquering and being conquered. Some of these tribes, the sea-borne ones, were known as Vikings.

Episode 29 - Charles Martel and Charlemagne

Clayton Mills — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 19:54:35 -0500

Last episode, we talked about the rise of Islam, and how it swept over the Middle East, Central Asia, and across North Africa. And I mentioned that the Islamic Caliphate, which was controlled by the Umayyad dynasty at that time, conquered Spain, and pushed their way up into France. In 732, however, in France, the Caliphate ran into a Frankish king with one of the greatest nicknames of all time: Charles the Hammer.

Episode 28 - The Rise of Islam

Clayton Mills — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 17:47:15 -0500

Ok, so Europe was reeling from the volcanic winter of 536, and then the subsequent Plague of Justinian in 541, and it was beginning to descend into the Dark Ages. But nearby, in the Arabian Peninsula, things were just about to get really busy. In AD 570, in the small desert town of Mecca, a boy was born into the Arab tribe of Quraysh, the tribe that controlled Mecca. This boy was named Muhammad ibn Abdullah, which means, Muhammad, the son of Abdullah. But his father, Abdullah, died very shortly after Muhammad was born, and his mother, Amina, died when he was 6. So he was raised by his uncle, his father’s brother, Abu Talib.

Episode 27 - What Has Been Going on in the Rest of the World while We Were Talking about Rome for 12 Episodes

Clayton Mills — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 14:15:04 -0500

Before we get fully into the Middle Ages, and all the cool barbarian stuff that happens there, like Vikings, let’s take stock of the rest of how the rest of the world was doing in AD 476. Because while we were focused on Rome, there was actually stuff going on in the rest of the world

Episode 26 - Rome Falls, and the Dark Ages Begin

Clayton Mills — Tue, 17 May 2022 10:55:49 -0500

I’m going to begin this episode with a famous quote from Edward Gibbon, from his massive work, the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness...... The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. It is kind of remarkable that despite all its corruption and all the turmoil, the Roman Empire lasted as long as it did. There are lots of factors in its demise, but Gibbon is right when he points out that it is more surprising that it lasted so long, than it is that it fell. Like I said in an earlier episode, Rome was strong as long as it had a good emperor, but Rome didn’t always produce the kind of people who made good emperors.

Episode 25 - Constantine, the Church, and the Creeds

Clayton Mills — Thu, 05 May 2022 09:31:08 -0500

In the late 200’s while the Roman Empire was struggling with a long series of bad emperors and empire-wide troubles with barbarians, Christianity was spreading all throughout the empire. However, not everyone was happy about this.

Episode 24 - The Height of the Roman Empire

Clayton Mills — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 13:10:28 -0500

From the time that Caesar Augustus took control and turned Rome into an Empire, until about 200 years later, Rome enjoyed a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity. This became know as the Pax Romana - the Roman Peace.

Episode 23 - The Early Church and the Bible

Clayton Mills — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 10:59:35 -0500

Remember how, a few episodes ago, we left Julius Caesar on the floor of the Senate, in a pool of blood? Well, that’s NOT how we left Jesus at the end of the last episode. It’s a very distinctive claim by his followers - that he did die, but that he rose from the dead.

Episode 22 - The Life of Jesus the Messiah

Clayton Mills — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 16:37:38 -0500

There’s really no debate that Jesus was one of the most important people in all of history, but there are two ways to look at that. On the one hand, his life, death, and resurrection definitely started one of the world’s largest and most influential religions. Even those who do not claim to be Jesus’ followers are aware of that. But the other way to look at his life makes him even more significant. Because what he claimed, and what his earliest followers claimed, was that his life, death and especially his resurrection meant that he was the Son of God, and that he had somehow opened the doors of heaven for all of us, not just the Jews, but also all of the nations, so that we could be free from both sin and death. If what they claimed is true, then yes, that’s incredibly significant, much more so than just starting a big religious institution.

Episode 21 - The Fullness of Time

Clayton Mills — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 12:40:15 -0500

In two places in the the New Testament, the Apostle Paul uses the phrase, ‘in the fullness of time,’ to indicate that in some way, the time was ripe for the Messiah to arrive. Paul doesn’t explain what he meant, but I think we can come up with some ideas. We’ll come back to that thought, the idea that the time when Jesus lived was not accidental.

Episode 20 - Caesar Augustus and the Rise of the Empire

Clayton Mills — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 12:48:25 -0500

So last episode we left Julius Caesar lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Some in the Senate were very happy about this, but generally speaking, most of Rome liked Caesar, and were not happy about it. The Senators who assassinated him had a clear picture of what they didn’t want: a tyrant ruling over them. But they did not have a clear picture of what they did want, and they didn’t have anyone ready to step into the vacuum of power that existed after the center of their government - Caesar - was removed. And now much of the city of Rome was mad at the Senate. After a welcome period of peace during the reign of Caesar, everyone knew that now there was going to be more trouble.

Episode 19 - Julius Caesar and the End of the Roman Republic

Clayton Mills — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 11:11:15 -0600

We’re about to look at one of the most interesting, most famous people in all of history - Julius Caesar. If you had to choose the 5 most famous people of all time, Caesar might make the list. He’s that famous. Why is he interesting? Look at his resume: conquered gaul, became part of the triumvirate that ruled Rome, wrote books and poems, won lots of amazing battles, invaded Britain, conquered Egypt, had an affair and a child with Cleopatra, took over the Roman republic, adopted his nephew who later became the first emperor, was named dictator for life, then was killed on the Senate floor by his own friends. Then later he had a play written about him by a guy named Shakespeare. He was an amazing general, and he also basically destroyed the Roman Republic, and set the stage for the Roman Empire, but he was a very good dictator, as dictators go. What have you done today? I went to Kroger and bought dog food, so there’s that.

Episode 18 - The Decline of the Roman Republic

Clayton Mills — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 14:43:44 -0600

In order to cover Caesar well, I think I’m going to spend this episode not on Caesar, but on the events that lead up to Caesar. Also, the stuff leading up to Caesar is really interesting in itself, and it’s relevant to us today, for a couple of reasons.

Episode 17 - The Punic Wars

Clayton Mills — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 10:21:06 -0600

Throughout Roman history, from the early days of the republic to the last days of the empire, Rome was threatened by barbarian tribes. They came marching down from northern Europe every couple of hundred years, and occasionally captured and burned Rome. But Rome’s biggest threat was not the barbarians, at least, not until the very end. At the height of the strength of the Roman Republic, Rome faced their most dangerous threat, and also suffered their very worst, and most embarrassing, military defeats. That threat was the city of Carthage, and especially their great general, Hannibal.

Episode 15 - The Early Roman Republic

Clayton Mills — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 10:26:18 -0600

When Rome got rid of her last king, an aftereffect was that Rome had a long-lasting hatred of tyrants, and so the government they set up was designed to prevent any one man from taking power. Not to say that their original government was completely fair and just - at first the government of the Republic was completely run by the patricians. The plebeians were left out. When they got rid of Tarquin the Proud, the Senate just took over running Rome. To be in the Senate, you had to be a patrician. So the Senate was biased towards the patricians, and the plebeians felt left out. That will become a problem in a bit.

Episode 14 - The Founding of Rome

Clayton Mills — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 16:08:25 -0600

OK, I’ve been building up to Rome for basically this whole podcast so far, and now it’s time to finally start talking about it. In this episode, I want to answer the question, ‘Why is Rome so important?’

Episode 13 - The Buddha

Clayton Mills — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 19:02:47 -0600

So we’re back in the mid-500’s BC, and we are back in India, slowly working our way around to talking about the Buddha. Before I talk about his life though, I think I need to give just a bit of background on the religion and culture of India at the time. So we’re going to talk a little about Hinduism, before we talk about Buddhism. Boy, talk about a couple of topics that are hard to explain. Hinduism and Buddhism? Yeah, clearly not going to really do them justice in a single podcast episode. But Buddhism was a kind of reaction to Hinduism, so it makes sense to explain what the Buddha was reacting to.

Episode 12 - Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, and the Spread of Greek Culture

Clayton Mills — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 14:14:03 -0600

The really golden part of the Golden Age of Greece took place in a pretty small area, actually. It took place mostly on the Attic peninsula, and mostly in the city of Athens. But most scholars include the years after Athens was destroyed as part of the Golden Age, the years when Greece was conquered and ruled by the Macedonians, and then Greek culture was spread all over the eastern Mediterranean. The generally accepted end of the Golden Age is the death of Alexander, in 323 BC. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here, we haven’t even really introduced our friend Alexander.

Episode 11 - Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle

Clayton Mills — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 23:23:19 -0600

As the battles between Athens and Sparta were going on, oddly enough, some very important philosophical questions were being asked; questions that philosophers and theologians are still talking about to this day. The enigmatic man asking these questions was named Socrates, and though he himself wrote nothing of his own words, it’s quite possible that the only single person who wasn’t a writer himself who was more influential in western history than Socrates was Jesus.

Episode 10 - The Peloponnesian Wars

Clayton Mills — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 12:53:11 -0600

Episode 10 - The Peloponnesian Wars

Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world.

This is Episode 10 - The Peloponnesian Wars.

The Golden Age of Greece, which we focused on last episode, lasted from around 528 BC to 323 BC, and it was a time of great prosperity in Greece. And that very prosperity brought about some inter-city rivalries, as the city-states of Greece competed for their share, or more than their share, of the riches.

When I say rivalry, what I actually mean is some fairly long brutal, bloody, battles. This wasn’t just a political or economic rivalry, it was armies in the field, destroying each other’s cities and territory.

The two main cities in this war, were of course Athens and Sparta. But the other cities of Greece were basically forced to choose sides. Fighting took place all over Greece, hence the name of the war: The Peloponnesian Wars.

Episode 9 - Athenian Democracy and the Golden Age of Greece

Clayton Mills — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 22:28:43 -0600

So what made it golden? What made it a classic? Well, there were two ascendent cities during this time, Athens and Sparta. They both were incredibly prosperous, and both laid claim to be the leading city in Greece. They fought several times during this period, and we’ll talk about those battles in the next episode. But what really made this time period unique was all of the stuff going on in Athens during this time. So the Golden Age of Greece is really a mostly Athenian thing, even though Sparta was doing very well during this time also. But all the ‘golden’ stuff came from Athens.

Episode 8.1 - Ancient Greek Military Strategy

Clayton Mills — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 17:14:19 -0600

Episode 8.1 - Ancient Greek Military Strategy

Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world.

Welcome to Episode 8.1 - A side trip to look at ancient Greek military strategy and weapons. Specifically hoplites and triremes. I’ve mentioned that ancient Greece wasn’t that large of a place, and they weren’t as populous as some of the other larger empires that they fought against, but they were still somehow able to defeat many of their enemies. Eventually, under Alexander the Great, they will conquer the largest area of land, and create the largest empire, that the world had ever seen, to that point, but we’re not there yet.

Episode 8 - The Persian Wars

Clayton Mills — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 23:26:35 -0600

Episode 8 - The Persian Wars

Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world.

Welcome to Episode 8 - The Persian Wars. We’re talking today about the ancient wars between Greece and Persia. I’ve mentioned that Greece has had an important impact on the western world, but did you know that ancient Greece was almost wiped out? A couple of times? Greece was a small country, but they tangled with the biggest empire of their time: The Persians. The battles between these two countries will become legendary, and will give us a couple of the best quotes of all time. Also, Pheidippides! And his famous last words. Lots of good quotes in this episode.

Episode 7 - The Kingdom of Israel

Clayton Mills — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 16:17:15 -0500

Episode 7 - The Kingdom of Israel

Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world.

Welcome to Episode 7 - The Kingdom of Israel. Back in Episode 5, I mentioned that Israel had an outsized influence on the history of the Western world, considering its size and significance in Ancient history. If you were able to go back in time to the ancient world, and gone to visit someone in some other part of the Mediterranean, like Greece, and asked them about Israel, they would have said, ‘Who?’

Israel was really pretty insignificant in the ancient world, to be honest. It only really matters to the affairs of the great nations because it’s occasionally in the way, kind of like my small dog Chipper is often in the way when I’m trying to go to the kitchen. Assyria wants to attack Egypt, and on their way to the kitchen, I mean to Egypt, they have to go through Israel.

Episode 6 - The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Trojan War

Clayton Mills — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 17:44:44 -0500

Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world.

Welcome to Episode 6 - The Iliad and the Trojan War.

One of the most famous events of the ancient world is war between the Greeks and the Trojans, which is told in the epic novel the Iliad, and then finished in the Odyssey. Funny thing is, we don’t know for sure if this war really happened!

Regardless of whether the battle really happened, the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the most important and famous written works in all of human history. So today we’re going to look at the stories, their author, their historical background, and the impact they had on Greek society, and on history.

Episode 5.1 - The Development of Written Language and Literacy

Clayton Mills — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 14:46:15 -0500

Episode 5.1 - The development of written language and literacy

[intro music]

Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world.

Welcome to Episode 5.1 - The development of written language and literacy.

Next time, we’re going to be taking a look at one of the great stories of the ancient world - the Iliad. But before we get dive into that, I wanted to step aside for an episode, and discuss the something that’s crucial to our understanding of history: written languages. As I’ve said before, it’s really hard to nail down the dates of ancient events before about 1000 BC. Part of that is because there really isn’t that much written documentation of the events before that; at least not a lot of documentation that has survived.

Once written languages became more common, a lot more stuff got recorded, and so our study of history gets more accurate, and much easier to cross-reference between cultures.

So today, I thought we’d take a side journey into something that I find really fascinating: the development of written languages. And we’re also going to do something else a bit different - this episode will be an interview, with someone with much more experience in ancient languages than I have.

Episode 5 - Early Greece and the first City-states

Clayton Mills — Sat, 23 Oct 2021 12:56:32 -0500

Welcome to Episode 5 - Early Greece and the first City-States. Last time, we looked at one of the great civilizations of the ancient world - Egypt. Our modern culture was not all that directly influenced by Egypt, though you could say our modern culture was very influenced by the Israelites that came out from Egypt. It’s interesting to me that a small, relatively powerless, backwater nation as Israel was for most of its existence, had such a profound effect on the western world. One could argue that it was one of the 3 most influential ancient cultures, at least as far as influencing the modern world. One of the others, not surprisingly, was Rome. We will get to Rome in due time. The other major influence on the western world was Ancient Greece.

It’s hard to overstate how important ancient Greece was in terms of influencing the western world. Art, government and politics, literature, philosophy, athletics, math, architecture, and worldview - all of these were hugely influenced by ancient Greece. Who is the most influential philosopher of all time? Well, it’s either Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle. They were all Greek. Where did democracy originate? Greece. You could maybe argue that Rome was more influential for a longer period, but you could also argue that Rome was simply spreading Greek learning and values. Rome had its own valuable contributions, as we will see, but Greece was incredibly influential to the western world.

Episode 4 - The Gods of Egypt and the Law of Moses

Clayton Mills — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 16:17:50 -0500

Welcome to Episode 4 - The Gods of Egypt, and the Law of Moses. Today we are going to look at one of the more important, and durable, civilizations of the ancient world - Egypt…

While most of the world was living in tents and small towns, scraping out a meager existence, Egypt started building huge cities of brick and stone, with massive monuments and even pyramids. Did you know that the Great Pyramid at Giza was the tallest building in the world for over 3800 years? It shows their abilities as builders. When the pyramids were being built, most of the rest of the world was living in small villages barely surviving on subsistence farming and livestock.

Episode 3 - The Biblical Creation Narrative

Clayton Mills — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 12:16:17 -0500

Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world. Welcome to Episode 3 - The Biblical creation narrative. Today we’re going to take a closer look at the creation story that’s found in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The story in Genesis is very different from the other creation narratives of the ancient world, in tone, content, and scope.

Every ancient culture had creation narratives, but not all of them survived. Some of them we have good chunks of, and others mere fragments.

Episode 2 - The Creation Narratives

Clayton Mills — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 15:04:37 -0500

The creation narratives of the ancient world, including the biblical book of Genesis, were written in part to answer both of these questions: Why are we here? And also, ‘Why is life so hard?’ People in the ancient world had to wake up too, and they probably asked that same question, especially on school days. Many ancient cultures had creation stories that sought to answer why the world is the way it is. Why does the world exist? And, Why is life so hard?

We’re going to look at some of the creation narratives, and a couple of elements that they have in common. We’re also going to talk about just how hard it is to piece together the earliest bits of human history.

Episode 1 - Understanding the Present by Understanding the Past

Clayton Mills — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 17:33:08 -0500

An introduction to the ideas of this podcast, and an overview of where it's going. Also, I talk a bit about tyranny. Which is a bad thing, generally.