Counterfactuals - War, Mosquitoes, and Human History

On today’s episode, we talk about an incredibly deadly creature, which has determined the course of nearly all human history just by existing: The Mosquito. How has the mosquito determined the course of war, and what wars might have gone differently if it didn’t exist?

On today’s episode, we talk about something that has held together history, literally. Even though there’s probably a roll in just about every household in America, we often overlook the utility and ubiquity of duct tape. But what would we do without it?

On today’s episode, we talk about the USS Wyoming and the 1863 battle of the Shiminoseki Straits - a seemingly minor event overshadowed by the American Civil War. But this battle might have altered the course of history. 

On today’s episode we talk about the first commercially successful ‘plastic’, the beginning of the plastic revolution that has so altered human society. But what if it happened differently?

On today’s episode, we talk about a soviet submarine disaster in the Atlantic, which averted potentially disastrous outcomes only by the heroism of its crew. But what might have happened if it went differently?

On today’s episode, we talk about the beautiful islands of Samoa, which were the background to a clash between the relatively nascent empires of the United States and Germany in the 1880s. As the crisis came to a head, however, nature put a dramatic end to human ambition. But what if it had gone differently?

On today's episode, we discuss the Blight that nearly wiped out wine, and how wine and indeed the world might be different if it had unfolded differently.

On today’s episode we talk about one of the most fraught elections in American history, where violence, initmidation and outright fraud precipitated a constitutional crisis - the 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden.

On today’s episode, we talk about the mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line on New Years Day, 1781, and how it might have altered the trajectory of the American Revolution, and everything after.

On today's episode, we talk about a forgotten part of the Battle of the Bulge - Elsenborn Ridge, where outnumbered allied units held against veteran German divisions, and what the chances were that the Reich could have turned the tide in 1944.