Showing results by narrator "Bill Hare" in All Categories

Nowadays, the pope is synonymous with unparalleled piety, compassion, and benevolence. To many, the pope is the embodiment of godly love in its purest form. This is a far cry from how things were just a few centuries ago. Back in the day, the most notorious of popes were nothing more than power-hungry dictators and cutthroat political experts. Indeed, by the late 14th century, tensions within the Church reached a breaking point, resulting in the infamous split of the Catholic Church, one that saw multiple popes fighting to knock the others off their thrones.

The Harlot’s Cup is a fast, murderous adventure, a prophetic mystery thrill ride through history with an unfulfilled love that becomes a demonic hate. The Harlot of Revelation 17 is shockingly revealed by modern technology on a 1937 newsreel of the infamous “Panay Incident".

Tom Horn: The Controversial Life and Legacy of One of the Wild West’s Most Famous Gunslingers chronicles Horn’s time as a scout, cowboy, Pinkerton agent, and writer, and how he became one of the most famous folk legends.

For a couple of generations of Americans, along with Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, there was Studebaker, and though it is no longer in existence, the Studebaker Automobile Company is still part of the popular culture. The Studebaker Brothers: The Lives and Legacy of the Family Behind the Famous Automobile Company chronicles how the family built up a manufacturing empire and made some of America’s most famous cars; you will learn about the Studebaker brothers like never before.

The Jim Crow South has been notorious for miscarriages of justice for decades, and cases like the Scottsboro Boys continue to be commemorated for the manner in which institutionalized racism ensured the wrongful convictions of minorities. The attention given to these cases raised nearly every potential issue implicating criminal procedure among the states. While the Bill of Rights had ensured a number of rights for criminal defendants, the states had previously been allowed to interpret those rights, leading to instances where defendants weren't provided adequate legal representation.

Despite a general dearth of African American names rising to musical prominence during the years of Reconstruction, Black talent existed in good measure for both popular and classical genres. And among the most notable musicians celebrated in the present day is composer Scott Joplin, who in his day earned the moniker “King of Ragtime”.

In the early 20th century, Germany's most renowned film directors were pioneering the genre known as "expressionism", and within it, Fritz Lang was known as the "Master of Darkness". Together with his eventual wife Thea von Harbou, Lang wrote a number of acclaimed movies. Some of his well-known films include Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), Metropolis (1927), and Woman in the Moon (1929).

The man known to most of the world as Emperor Hirohito ruled during some of the most tumultuous years in Japanese history. When he came to the throne in 1926, he inherited control of a country which had only recently emerged as a major industrial and world power. Through the aggressive expansion and wars of the 1930s, Hirohito was at the head of one of the world’s foremost powers. Throughout the maelstrom of World War II, he remained in power, a distant and, to most outsiders, inscrutable factor in the rise of the Japanese Empire.

As one of America's oldest and most beloved sports, baseball has long been touted as the national pastime, but of all the millions of people who have played it over the last few centuries, few have influenced Major League Baseball like Ty Cobb, whose career spanned over 20 seasons. The Georgia Peach overcame early hardships to set nearly 100 MLB records in his time as a player and player-manager for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics.

In the 1920s, the burgeoning movie industry was starting to come into its own, and virtually no actor was as famous - or infamous - as John Barrymore. Like many other film stars his age, Barrymore’s career had started in other forms of entertainment, in his case theater. By the time movies were becoming popular, Barrymore was one of the world’s foremost Shakespearean actors.

The Byzantine Empire existed for over a thousand years, with a history spanning from the division of the Roman Empire in 395 until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It was formed from the previous Eastern Roman Empire, and during its long existence, the Byzantine inhabitants were very proud to call themselves Romans. However, many things changed during the long lifespan of the Byzantine Empire, starting with a Hellenization in the sixth century.

Before there was Charles Ponzi, there was Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II. The famed Old West con artist and gangster's criminal career ranged from Texas to Alaska, from Denver to the Klondike. Soapy Smith: The Life and Legacy of the Wild West’s Most Infamous Con Artist looks at the controversial times and crimes of the Western huckster, and the career that led to a notorious end. You will learn about Soapy Smith like never before.

Given the passage of time, people tend to debate how good Ruth would be today, including most recently a current MLB reliver, Adam Ottavino, who claimed he would strike out Ruth every time. That claim became even more controversial when Ottavino joined none other than the Yankees ahead of the 2019 season, which led to the reliever walking back some of the comments. But even as far back as 1929, Bucky Harris may have foreseen debates of this kind by pointing out, “These other home run hitters are neck and neck. When the Babe was doing his stuff, he was miles ahead of his field."

Gilgamesh, Hercules, Aeneas, and Lancelot are instantly recognized as mythological heroes in the West, evoking visions of Persian monsters, ghastly labors, and the founding and glorification of cities, but the name Quetzalcoatl is as mysterious as its spelling. Even those who have come across his name when learning about the history of Mesoamerica - particularly the Aztec and the god’s role in the Spanish conquest of their empire - are often unaware that the Mesoamerican deity has tales that equal any of those in the repertoire of the mythological figures mentioned above.

Given his legacy, many Americans today believe Jackie Robinson was the first black man to play in Major League Baseball, but that answer is wrong. As far back as the late 19th century, there had been professional baseball leagues that were every bit as segregated as any other aspect of society, but before that, there were, for a brief shining moment, there were teams of black and white men playing with and against each other.

The belief in lycanthropy is far older and more complex than most people suspect, dating all the way back to antiquity, and werewolves were once assumed to be very real. Indeed, people were even put on trial and executed because the courts of law were convinced they could change their form and kill innocent people. For thousands of years, werewolves have represented a strange and ancient tradition that still echoes through culture to this day.

To the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli wore a blue-green hummingbird helmet and was draped in pure white heron feathers. He carried a smoking mirror, an obsidian mirror, a shield, darts, and the serpent Xiuhcoatl that carried with it the fury and might of the sun. Everything about him - from his clothes to his weapons - emanated and defined royalty.

Given his legacy, many Americans today believe Jackie Robinson was the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball, but that answer is wrong. As far back as the late 19th century, there had been professional baseball leagues that were every bit as segregated as any other aspect of society, but before that, there were, for a brief shining moment, teams of Black and White men playing with and against each other. One of the first Black men to play on such a team was Moses Fleetwood Walker, and he was the first who openly identified as Black.

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the fourth century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century.

Samuel Colt entered the pool of visionaries in search of the invention that would tip the power balance in favor of those who possessed it. Samuel Colt: The Life and Legacy of the Man Who Invented America’s Most Famous Guns looks at the individual and firearms that helped shape the nation in the 19th century.