June Mailbag: Aurora Borealis

folks, the World Cup is once again upon us in all of its glory and terror. so we take a look back at sports in the Middle Ages. we talk Medieval football, crossbow competitions, jousts and melees, chariot racing, the Mesoamerican ballgame, and more. we also talk about how sports has always been at the intersection of politics, culture, religion, and communal life for both the regular folks and the elites. also, we've always loved gamblingcover image: drawing made by Christoph Weiditz in 1528 showing Aztec Ullamalitzil players performing for Charles V of Spain

folks, we're back and diving into the patron mailbag once again. this time, we answer questions about a host of topics, including: height differences, Aurora Borealis, best Medieval turlet, Traditional Chinese Medicine, battlefield name changes, othering, and spectacular Medieval wizard battles! check it out!cover image is of Aurora Borealis, taken from space.com

folks, back in January, we brought on Logan Weimer to talk about the unfolding situation in Minneapolis but she was originally supposed to come on the show to talk about her deep interest in the life, death, and afterlife of Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford, lady in waiting to four of Henry VIII's wives and sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn. we cover a whole range of topics, including coerced testimony, the use of "madness" as a tool for silencing unwanted voices, executions for "madness", and the poor treatment Jane has suffered in both scholarly and popular history until very recently.

folks, this is a long one. Luke talks about his Roman Empire: the Chicxulub Asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. it's a scripted episode (don't get used to it) chronicling 3 separate stories: the asteroid impact and its aftermath that killed the dinosaurs, the lives of some of those dinosaurs 66 million years ago, and the modern story of how the asteroid impact hypothesis became scientific consensus.a list of sources appears at the end of the episode, go get mad at them if you don't like the way the narrative is presented

folks, we finish up our series on Premodern Iran by looking at Greater Iran from the arrival of the Mongols in 1219 until the fall of the Timurid Empire and the Rise of the Safavids in 1501. we talk internal Mongol civil wars, the Ilkhanate, the Timurid Renaissance, the strains of apocalyptic thought amongst the peasantry, the Iranian Golden Age, and the final vindication of a nearly 900 year old ideological project with the rise of a new ethnic Iranian empire. we hope you enjoyed the series!cover image: the Ulugh Beg Astronomical Observatory and madrasa in Samarkand, Uzbekistan (built in the time of Timur)

folks, we are back with part 3 of our series on Premodern Iran. this time, we get into the long, dark years for Iran and its peoples between the Muslim conquest and the Mongol invasions (651-1221 CE). we talk about how the idea of Iran survived even when the Persian language and Zoroastrianism were both suppressed, how the concept of Iranian identity formed into a real ideological project, why we lack sources, national epics and histories, the language of dissent, and the final grim fate of Zoroastrianism.cover image is recent photo of the Yazd Tower of Silence, which is no longer in use and now serves as a museum.

Welcome to the Crusades: The Second Crusade coming Summer 2026this is just a special bonus episode we recorded with Danny and Derek from American Prestige. there will be a regular weekly episode out, the third part of our series on Premodern Iran, the week of May 11. in order to celebrate Mother's Day and the announcement that Welcome to the Crusade is coming back to do the Second Crusade this summer, we got together with American Prestige to talk about Eleanor of Aquitaine. we cover her eventful life, her time on crusade, her awful husbands and sons, her wonderful daughters, her legacy, and more.

folks, we continue the series on Premodern Iran by picking up with the Sasanid Empire, which swept the Arsacid dynasty away in the 3rd century. we discuss the waxing and waning fortunes of the Sasanids, their wars with Rome, the great heights of Khosrow I, and the long legacy they would leave in their wake after being destroyed by the Arab-Muslim conquest of Iran. we then talk about exactly how and why the Arabs were able to take one of the world's great empires down so quickly, why no formal response was ever mustered, and how the national consciousness of Iran developed under the Sasanids was preserved under the early rule of the Caliphates.cover image is of an extant Zoroastrian Fire Temple in Yazd (taken from Wikimedia commons)

folks, given recent events and the region's general importance throughout history, we decided to do a short series on Premodern Iran. we start way back during the Ancient era, all the way back in the Bronze Age with the Elamites, then follow the progression of civilizations on the Iranian Plateau. we talk the Achaemenid foundations, Cyrus and Darius, Alexander the Great, Central Asian horse nomads, Zoroastrianism, and more!cover photo: engraved wall relief of a winged bull dating to the Achaemenid period, found in excavated ruins of Susa

folks, we are back with another mailbag episode to try and cutdown on the backlog of patron questions. this time, we discuss hamster-style situations, Medieval skyscrapers in Bologna, hangover cures, the Gregorian chant, the Medieval birds and the bees, state monopolies of violence, and more!cover image: conception of what Medieval Bologna may have looked like with numerous towers shooting into the sky, engraving by Tony Pecoraro, 1958. (taken from Wikimedia Commons)