⁠⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen. Vladimir Lenin surprisingly did not say these words about 2014, a year that saw monumental pivots in culture, technology, and world events and arguably never ended at all. Liam and Russian Sam are joined this week by their goo…

⁠⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- The Dune series has gone through a revival of late thanks to the film adaptations of Denis Villeneuve, but what are we to make of it? In this episode we explore Dune through the lens of its author, Frank Herbert. His beliefs defy easy political classification according to today's preconceived notions, makin…

⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Since the 17th century, nearly 10 million Irish people left their homes for an uncertain life abroad. While stories of Irish settlement in the United States and Canada are well-known, the lives of tens of thousands of Irish people who settled in Latin America are much more obscure. In the first Gladio Free Eu…

⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- In 1675, the Puritan colonies in North America were fighting for their lives. A brilliant young commander named Metacomet assembled a Native American coalition that upended a half-century of colonialism, pushed the English back to the coast, and would come very close to obliterating settler life in New England…

⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- In November 1622, the great diplomat Squanto died while leading a trade expedition with his English allies. Only a year had passed since he formed a treaty between the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the indigenous Wampanoag people. While the early years of English-Indian relations were marked by cooperation and accomm…

⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- In 1615, just days before the New Year, famed astronomer Johannes Kepler received the news that would change his life. His mother Katharina had been accused as a witch. Over the next 6 years, the Keplers would battle these charges with every means at their disposal, just as the world around them began to collapse…

⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Each Christmas season, the mountain peoples of Europe are beset by monsters. Fearsome figures like Krampus, Perchta, and the Kuker descend into quaint hilltop villages, sometimes to spread holiday cheer, sometimes to hasten the coming of spring, and sometimes just to sew chaos and discord. These figures are all …

⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- This week, friend of the pod John Bellamy Poster commandeered a gunship and made his way onto Gladio Free Europe to discuss 19th century Japanese history in the backdrop of the unique historical manga Golden Kamuy. Exploring the pivotal moments that reshaped Japan, John takes us through the monumental arrival of C…

⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- We return to the dark foothills of the Carpathians in our continuing history of Transylvania. This episode focuses on Europe's most infamous countess, Elizabeth Bathory, accused of torturing and killing up to 600 hundred young girls gathered from across Central Europe. While it's now agreed that Elizabeth Bathory w…

⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Americans are known for many things. Geographic insight of Eastern Europe is not one of them. Yet every American over age six can tell you which Romanian region is the home of Count Dracula. Thanks to the incredible popularity of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Transylvania has a unique place in the American and British…

⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- In 1869, the Meiji Emperor declared the northern island of Hokkaido to be sovereign territory of Japan. In a process direclty inspired by American colonization, Japanese settlers were brought in to "civilize" the territory, a process which would have terrible consequences for the indigenous inhabitants -- a non-Japa…

⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- In 1936, acclaimed German exile director Fritz Lang made his American debut: Fury. The ripped-from-the-headlines story of a deadly false accusation was acclaimed by critics as the best drama of the year, but audiences and studio executives shunned the film for its dark content and uncomfortable social commentary: part…

⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Put on your rubber boots, we're continuing our exploration of Southeast Asia as we excavate the deep jungle ruins of the Classical Age. From the Khmer Empire to Champa to Srivijaya and beyond, the early medieval period of Southeast Asian history is marked by the emergence of incredible states and empires whose histori…

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠ --- For thousands of years, voyagers from all across the known world have docked their ships in the harbors of Southeast Asia. The diverse countries that make up this region have played an essential role in human history, witnessing the first waves of migration out of Africa, the development of the earliest oceanic trade ne…

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠ --- It's October 1910 and Los Angeles is on fire. The California labor war had reached its highest level of violence with the bombing of the LA Times Building, and now the world wanted to know who was responsible. Some thought radical anarchists planted the bombs while others thought the LA robber barons had lit the fuse th…

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠ --- On September 30, 1910, the L.A. Times declared that anarchism has been defeated in California. The city of Los Angeles would be rid of trade unionists. Less than 12 hours later, these same anarchists and trade unionists would strike back in the grandest act of terror thus committed in the United States. This deadly bomb…

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠ --- By now much of our audience may have heard of PMC Wagner, the mercenary group that marched on Moscow earlier this week in what appeared to be an abortive coup against the Russian government. Wagner infamous for its many alleged atrocities, and has been proven to be the most effective force in Russia's invasion of Ukrain…

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠ --- On Easter 1918, Georgian painter Nikolo Pirosmani passed away in a hospital bed before he could be examined by a physician. This enigmatic naive artist whose works graced the walls of half the taverns of Tbilisi was only mildly famous in the avant-garde world when he drew his last breath. But after this corporal death, …

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠ --- At the close of 18th century, the Mississippi River ran dark with blood and whiskey. This great artery of North America was a lawless frontier contested by Spain, France, Britain, the United States, as well as indigenous governments like the Choctaw and Chickasaw that had no intention of vacating land that had been thei…

⁠⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- What do pocket watches, Korean prisoners, and samurai armor have in common? All of them help explain the close relationship between Portuguese merchants and Japanese warlords in the late 1500s. In this episode of Gladio Free Europe, we see how Portuguese Catholics entered the inner circles of Japan's most powerf…

⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- In 1549, a Portuguese priest and a Japanese pirate disembarked on the port of Kagoshima with one purpose: to bring Christianity to the islands of Japan. They would be remarkably successful. Within 50 years, hundreds of thousands of Japanese people had been baptized, from lowly fishermen and merchants to powerful n…

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- England has a new king, and the realm has come down with a terrible case of coronation fever. You may have seen the ridiculous merchandise, the extravagant robes, or the swords and other odd utensils used in the ceremony, but you asking yourself — what does this all mean? Well, Liam and Russian Sam sat through th…

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- After a couple weeks of adventuring across Japan and the Caucasus, the hosts of Gladio Free Europe are back in the States. Liam shares his experiences seeing the traces of the violent Sengoku period all across Japan's main island Honshu, and explains how this trip finally brought him to his "white guy into Buddhis…

In 2011, the US National Archives released 12,000 pages of documents relating to the activities of the Public Health Service in 1940s Guatemala. This report conclusively proved that a team of doctors led by John Charles Cutler, previously involved in the notorious Tuskegee Experiment, knowingly infected patients in Guatemala with syphilis and other…

⁠⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠ --- This week, we talk about centaurs, demons, and self-filling pots of food. That's right, we're talking about saints and their hagiographies! This unusual genre stands at the crossroads between the Late Antique and Medieval worlds, and despite their often strange contents, they have a lot to tell us about the world in…

⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠ --- With Argentina, 1985 having been in the running for Best Foreign Language Film, we are joined by our good friend Kevin as we delve into the history of the Argentinian Junta and its genocidal campaign of disappearances, extrajudicial murder, torture, and the kidnapping of children. The latter crime is the subject of Th…

Gladio Free Europe received a frosty transmission this week from the icy waters of the Bering Sea. Writer, prophet, and friend of the pod Jon called in to talk about life in Alaska. We run through the past 300 years of the 49th state, beginning with initial bloody encounters between indigenous Yupik and Inuit peoples and the Russian Empire and the …

Support us on Patreon --- More and more people are talking about bog bodies! Due to great feedback on our most recent episode we're following up our bog talk with an overview of recent developments in wetland archaeology and an overview of some of the most interesting bog sites in Europe. We dive into our favorite finds that we didn't have time to …

Support us on Patreon --- We get knee-deep in the peat this week to examine the bog body phenomenon. Due to their unusually anaerobic nature, bogs across the world have a remarkable ability to preserve any animal matter that falls into them. The cold and wet climate of Northern Europe has proven especially fruitful for the preservation of human cor…

We are now on Patreon! We are not setting up a paywall, but if you would like to support Gladio Free Europe, we'll be thankful for your contribution. --- The Golden Age of Hollywood was a rough time to be an actor. Overdoses, suicides, and secret abortions were routine, but always escaped the papers thanks to the hard work of the studio fixers. In …

Support us on Patreon --- In 1768, hundreds of Greek peasants were brought to Florida by an ambitious British businessman in hopes of creating a classical paradise in America. Within just three months, New Smyrna would be the site of a full-on worker's revolution and this utopian dream would go in flames. Liam and Russian Sam go back to Florida thi…

Support us on Patreon --- This week, we are joined by archaeologist Anton Larsson to discuss the other English-language movie about the Thirty Years War: Queen Christina, a historical romance starring the famous Greta Garbo. We discuss the multifaceted legacy of Sweden's famous philosopher-queen who oversaw the end of the long war waged by her fath…

Support us on Patreon --- The one and only Matt Christman of Chapo Trap House stopped by in our little valley to bring us the latest updates on the Thirty Years' War. We ventured into an overview of the history of the war, when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse roamed the Earth, the 1971 James Clavell flick The Last Valley starring Omar Sharif an…

Support us on Patreon --- Bring out your cudgels, the midwestern barbarians are afoot! This week we delve into the massively underrated 1942 Christmas film The Man Who Came to Dinner starring Bette Davis and Monty Woolley, the story of the cranky proto-podcaster Sheridan Whiteside who seemingly breaks his hip on a speaking tour and is forced to rec…

Support us on Patreon --- Was your grandmother a Neanderthal? Did the English language originate in ancient Iran? What's a haplogroup anyway? These questions and more will be answered in our Q&A with returning guest Natasha, a molecular biologist with great insight into what recent breakthroughs in ancient DNA can and can't teach us about our past.…

Support us on Patreon --- Thousands of years ago, the Egyptian princess Scota gave birth to a child who invented the Gaelic language and led his family on a journey through the desert for 440 years. Their descendants would move to Greece and then Spain, before becoming the first humans to finally conquer Ireland from a race of elves called the Tuat…

Support us on Patreon --- Every kid in America grows up hearing about "The First Thanksgiving" featuring Squanto, the Mayflower, and the surprising nutritional value of dead-fish fertilizer. But this patriotic narrative offers only a tiny glimpse at the astonishing and agonizing history of contact between Europeans and indigenous peoples of New Eng…

Support us on Patreon --- At the turn of the century, thousands of Americans believed they had met the messiah: Cyrus Teed, an unassuming doctor from upstate New York. In this episode, Liam and Russian Sam explore the dead religion of Koreshanity, a short-lived but influential cult that sought to establish a celibate utopia before the end of days. …

Support us on Patreon --- In the heart of Old Prague, in the attic of the Altneuschul Synagogue, lies the inanimate body of a golem, or so the legend goes! We watched the 1920 classic of German cinema The Golem: How He Came Into The World to explore the strange history of this iconic creature, its ancient connection to the mythology of the Ancient …

From Godzilla to Game of Thrones, dragons dominate today's pop culture landscape and play a monstrous role in the modern imagination. But how did this obsession with fire-breathing reptiles begin? For this week's episode, Liam and Russian Sam follow the cultural history of dragons across Europe and Asia. We explore why so many cultures imagined the…

The Magnet is almost here! The GFE team will be republishing Ramón Sender's legendary book Imán in English for the first time in almost 90 years, and all of you get a front row seat! In this special sneak preview, we present a brief analysis of the Rif War as a catalyst for Spanish fascism and the proto-existentialist bent of the novel, followed by…

We're back in Morocco! We pick up with the reign of Mawlay Muhammad III, often called the "architect of modern Morocco." In addition to building up several new cities, Muhammad reformed the state through a sweeping decentralization of power. Although effective at dealing with the challenges of his own time, Muhammad's reforms would have negative ra…

We return to North Africa this week to explore some of the most infamous and intriguing characters of early modern history: the Corsairs of the Barbary Coast. What compelled Dutch sailors and English knights to "turn Turk" and sail under the Ottoman flag? What does Miguel de Cervantes have to do with a famous mosque in Istanbul? And were pirate att…

Hey everyone, Russian Sam came down with a stomach virus so we were unable to record an episode for this week. We didn't want to leave you guys without any content for the week. In lieu of an episode, here is a brief historical introduction to Uzbekistan and the first few chapters of the Uzbek comedic autobiographical novel Shum Bola, or Mischievou…

CIA agent Everette Howard Hunt, Jr is notorious for involvement in the 1954 Guatemalan coup, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the break-in at the Watergate hotel. But not many people know about most heinous crime: his decades-long side hustle as a hack writer. In this episode, we try to stomach his paranoid 1972 thriller "The Coven," in which a straig…

We’re finally launching our exploration of Moroccan history, the most important country that Americans have hardly heard of. This episode will be a crash course on Moroccan history up until the early modern period. We follow rise of the 'Alawi dynasty that still holds power today, exploring how they came to power, kicked out the conquistadors, and …

We continue our journey into medieval Sicily by following the rag-tag band of Normans who carved out a tiny foothold on the Italian peninsula. In less than 50 years, these French-speaking adventurers and grandchildren of the Vikings would unite Southern Italy and established themselves as the overlords on the advanced and prosperous island of Sicil…

And we’re back! Liam and Russian Sam return to the early middle ages to explore the unique and unbelievably fascinating history of Medieval Sicily. A true crossroads of civilization, this sun-soaked island has been influenced by cultures from every corner of the Mediterranean and beyond and is an amazing microcosm for the entire history of Europe a…

1100 years ago, the power of the Normans stretched from the British Isles to the Mediterranean. They had become one of the most powerful clans in Europe. Yet their recent ancestors were lowly pagan Vikings. In this episode, we go over the swashbuckling history of the Normans to figure how a group of barbarian pirates were able to fight for their se…

As the Zodiac Killer was tormenting San Francisco and captivating the rest of the country, Dirty Harry, a movie about a hard nosed cop who takes down a serial killer called Scorpio, was released. We talk about it, why people may have convinced themselves there were more similarities than there were, and the general topic of escalating violence with…