Pick the Next Extra History Series! "Give Peace a Chance"

It's time for our Extra History poll! Where you get to vote on what our next Extra History Series is about!

These four topics were selected from our "Give Peace a Chance" Patreon Suggestions and are listed in no particular order below.

Lorenzo the Magnificent: A Life of Art and Assassination

Lorenzo de Medici, perhaps more than any other man, personified renaissance Italy. A member of the powerful Medici banking clan, Lorenzo’s family controlled Florentine Republic in a manner halfway between corporate overlords and mafia dons. As a boy, Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano served as a sort of double-act. Lorenzo—dark, ingenious, and homely (one friend commented that “nature had been a stepmother to him” when crafting his appearance)—was groomed for leadership, taking diplomatic roles even as a teenager. Meanwhile, Giuliano—tall, handsome, and blonde—was a hero of the tournament field, literally used as an artistic model for Greek gods. Despite these differences, they loved each other, and when Lorenzo was thrust into power at age 20, Giuliano (and their mother, a brilliant poet and playwright) kept the ship steady. But a bloody assassination plot–backed by the Papacy—would upend their world, plunging the streets of Florence into chaos and leaving Lorenzo a lonelier figure. Yet Lorenzo would emerge from that conflict stronger than ever, going on to become the key man of the Renaissance. A patron of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Botticelli, Lorenzo patronized some of the greatest artists of the age while also spreading knowledge by hunting down rare texts and copying them at his workshop. However, this splendor had a cost, as high spending and poor investments began to erode the Medici’s financial position—and his tolerance for the apocalyptic zealot Savonarola and his “bonfires of the vanities” nearly brought Florence to its knees. Join us for a life filled with wild characters, artistic geniuses, assassination plots, riots, investments and high-stakes diplomatic negotiations!

A History of Buddhism: The Eightfold Path

The stories say that the night Siddhartha Gautama was conceived, Queen Maya dreamed of a white elephant with six tusks that entered the right side of her torso. Born the prince of a small northern kingdom in what is now India, the man who would become known as the Buddha (“Enlightened One”) grew up wanting for nothing—but found himself still unhappy. Leaving the palace to live the life of an ascetic, he wandered and learned for years before coming to a great epiphany. Existence itself, he realized, was suffering. That suffering stemmed from desire—and the only way to end the suffering of eternal death and rebirth was to live in a way that allowed the soul to exit the cycle and know peace. Gaining followers, the Buddha’s teachings would become the state religion of Ashoka the Great, and sweep across what is now Asia—from the tops of the Himalayas, across the Silk Road, to the warm waters off Indonesia. And that expansion was not always peaceful, leading to religious wars most notably in Japan. Yet as it spread, the Buddha’s teachings also changed so that the religion—and even visual depictions of Buddha—varied wildly in different locations. (Ever noticed that Indian and Southeast Asian Buddha images are thin with long hair, but Chinese ones are often stout and bald? Thank the Silk Road!) This will be a survey of Buddhism’s teachings, its spread, its evolution and how it influenced world history—with perhaps some diversions on hungry ghosts and Buddha’s friend, the serial killer.

Hernando de Soto: Witness to a Vanished World

When Hernando de Soto died, his men wrapped his body in cloth, waited until nightfall, and secretly dumped him in the Mississippi River. To do otherwise might reveal to the local tribes that de Soto was not, in fact, the immortal sun god he’d claimed to be. Let’s get one thing straight: Hernando de Soto was awful, and examining him is not the focus of this series. Instead, we will focus on what de Soto and his men saw, because they were both the first—and last—Europeans to see several Native American civilizations at their height. Landing in what is now Florida in hopes of discovering gold, the de Soto Expedition were the first Europeans to explore the American interior, penetrating as far north as the Appalachians and as far west as modern-day Texas. And in that three-year period they would see things of which we have no other historical record, including the mound-building cities of the Mississippian culture, native fleets hundreds of vessels strong, and a chiefess carried on a cloth-covered litter who led a nation thousands strong. Sights that we have no written record of apart from de Soto’s account, and which helps us interpret the archaeological record of these places. Travel with us to a vanished world, with the expedition serving as a frame for us to examine what once existed in the land called America.

The Radium Girls

Something is wrong with the women who work at the United States Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey. Factory-line workers, they're responsible for the fine detail work of applying luminescent paint to the numbers and hands of watches sold to the US military, so troops in the trenches of WWI can tell time in the dark. They spend their days hunched over, encouraged to lick brushes to get a fine point on them before dipping it in the radium paint. Told the substance is safe, the girls paint it on their faces, lips, and teeth for fun. And why not? Radium water is sold as a health tonic, expensive spas administer it, and radium salts have even been shown to shrink cancer tumors. But now their teeth are falling out, their jaws are collapsing, and they've become weak and sterile. The culprit? The highly radioactive radium paint, which is doing irreversible damage to their bodies. To get justice, several women file lawsuits against the company for unsafe working conditions—a trial that will be one of the earliest, and most spectacular, instances of employees suing their workplace. Coverups, media frenzies, and grisly deaths will ensue—until the "Radium Girls" get their justice, and US labor law changes forever.

Current Schedule:

John Brown: The Army of the Lord 3/4 --> Napoleon in Egypt --> The Crimean War: The First Modern Military Mess --> Your Vote!

***Friendly reminder: The poll will end at 5:00 PM PT on Tuesday the 28th. You can vote for as many choices as you want! This style of voting helps us see what people are most interested in without having to make tough decisions between a couple of close favorites. ***