Counterfactuals: Just How Foundational IS Concrete?

On today’s episode, we venture to Asia to talk about a battle that determined the course of Chinese history, and that has become such an integral part of Chinese historical mythology that it is sometimes difficult to sort fact from fiction. What might have changed if the battle went a different way?

On today’s episode we talk about one of the most ubiquitous human creations in the modern world: Concrete. What would the modern world look like without this grey material we all take for granted?

On today’s episode, we talk about a little-remembered presidential visit in the wake of Pearl Harbor - Christmas, 1941, when Winston Churchill risked the U-boats of the Atlantic to visit his new allies in the White House.

Today we talk about a little remembered battle that could have been a turning point in the First World War - a battle between the German High Seas fleet and the Russian Baltic fleet in the Gulf of Riga.

On today’s episode we talk about the little remembered espionage side of the civil war, particularly the CSA’s more outlandish ideas to take the war to the Union. And of course, we talk about what the world might look like if it all happened differently.

On today’s episode we talk about a bird that was once so numerous that Americans thought it would be impossible to kill them all. Until, suddenly, they did. What might the world look like if the passenger pigeon hadn’t gone extinct?

On today’s episode we talk about the incredible popularity and influence of an odd product: Ketchup. What would the world be like without it?

On today’s podcast we talk about the year 1983 - called by some “the most dangerous year” in modern history. In the fall of that year, Western and Communist powers may have nearly stumbled into the one thing that neither side wanted - all-out nuclear war. How might the world be different if that close call went another way?

On today’s episode, we talk about one of the most famous battle in Roman history, when 50,000 Romans were killed in a single day. How would the world be different if that battle went differently?

On today’s episode, we talk about one of the largest naval battles in history, Leyte Gulf, and the task group that was never created: Task Force 34. A series of decisions often called mistakes led to one of the most famous underdog fights when the small force called Taffy 3 faced down Japanese battleships in the Battle off Samar. If any of those decisions had gone differently, the world might have taken a different path.