Rediscovery Channel

This is our first viewer requested video on the Anglo-Zanzibar war that lasted a whole 38 minutes and is known as the shortest war in recorded history. Thanks again Jonathan for your request and we look forward to receiving future requests.

Diogenes was one of the founders of Cynicism. A philosophy that would later turn into stoicism by people like Marcus Aurelius, Zeno and Epictetus. Rather than writing abstract papers or engaging in lofty discussions, he tried to live out his philosophy and use his wits to point out the stupidity of his fellow-men. Diogenes was a bit of a comic, might have been an manly version of MGTOW, and by all accounts was definitely based.

Prester John is a medieval European myth about India. It arose at a time when there was little to no contact with India, so the legend bears very little resemblance to reality. According to the myth, Prester John was the Emperor of most of India, and the bulk of his subjects were Christians. There was a great deal of hope that Prester John would come with his great army and help European Christians in their struggle against Islam. Sources: Church of India: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Church_of_India The Book of Marvels and Travels (By Sir John Mandeville) The Search for Prester John: https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/search-prester-john

Harald Hardrada lived from 1015 to 1066 A.D. He was a poet, an adventurer, the head of the Byzantium Elite guard and a warrior king. Harald's life is written down in the Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson,. Snorri is also the authoer of the poetic Edda, a major source of knowledge for the Nordic Sagas and Skaldic tradition. Harald's life was filled with adventure and lends itself well to describe the life of the Varangians, Vikings traveling East all the way down to Constantinople and the second caliphate, establishing Kievan Rus' on the way down the Wolga river. Harald may also have had a big impact on England becoming a European rather than a Nordic country.

Yazdegerd III was the last Shah of Persia before the Islamic conquest of the Persian empire. With his empire weakened by war with the East-Roman empire, internal conflicts and the plague, he was unable to defend the strong Persian legacy against the military might of the Arabs. This is despite a vast cultural, philosophical and technological superiority. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/place/Persia https://about-history.com/arab-conquest-of-persia-sassanian-empire/ Letter from Yazdegerd III - https://www.persepolis.nu/timeline-letters.htm https://dragonsarmory.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-prince-of-persia-last-sassanids-in.html https://www.geni.com/people/Yazdgerd-III-Shah-of-Persia/6000000007715599496 https://www.britannica.com/place/Ctesiphon-ancient-city-Iraq

The first Emperor of China, commonly referred to as "Emperor Chin," unified the ancient Chinese states via brutality. Though he did some good things for China, such as giving a single common written text, and system of weights and measurements, force was the main tool he used to achieve it all. His political philosophy came largely from Lord Shang Yang, who outlined a system of power which was very similar to Marxism, but which appeared thousands of years prior to that. In this video we discuss the philosophy and fate of Lord Shang Yang.

"The Voyage of Saint Brendan" is a medieval Irish story about a monk who sets out west in search of an Earthly Earthly paradise. It differs from other medieval myths, in that it posits there is a paradise to the west, whereas normally it was more common to place the Paradise in the far east beyond India. This story was a source of inspiration to JRR Tolkien, and was worked into some of the older versions of his lore.

Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain—“al-Andalus”—as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: it is a complete myth. In this episode we review a book called The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise by Darío Fernández-Morera. You can purchase the book online at the following two online retailers: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-Medieval/dp/1610170954 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-myth-of-the-andalusian-paradise?changeLanguage=True

In this first episode we discuss Pandora's box, a story often referenced in modern culture which is actually part of a larger creation story with some surprising analogies.

The War in the Vendée (1793; French: Guerre de Vendée) was a counter-revolution in the Vendée region of France during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately south of the Loire River in western France. During the gruesome conflict hundreds of thousands of people died, many more than by the Guillotine. Some historians call it a genocide, which happened in the name of an ideology that proclaimed liberty and equality. The great author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn places the root of so many terrors to come in the 20th century at the royalist uprising: https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/re... Books mentioned during this video: The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy free on Gutenberg.org: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60 A Tale of two Cities by Dickens on Gutenberg.org: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/98 The biographies of Marie Antoinette and Joseph Fouché mentioned were written by Austrian author Stefan Zweig and can be found on Amazon (and other places), both are highly recommended.

In this episode Ivor talks about the Guanches, the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands. We talk about when they were rediscovered by the Spanish, what their culture looked like and what their likely origins are. In 2017, the first genome-wide data from the Guanches confirmed a North African origin and that they were genetically most similar to ancient North African Berber peoples of the nearby North African mainland. It is believed that they arrived on the archipelago some time in the first millennium BC.

Ashur-nasir-pal II (transliteration: Aššur-nāṣir-apli, meaning "Ashur is guardian of the heir"[1]) was king of Assyria from 883 to 859 BC. Ashurnasirpal II succeeded his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II, in 883 BC. During his reign he embarked on a vast program of expansion, first conquering the peoples to the north in Asia Minor as far as Nairi and exacting tribute from Phrygia, then invading Aram (modern Syria) conquering the Aramaeans and Neo-Hittites between the Khabur and the Euphrates Rivers. His harshness prompted a revolt that he crushed decisively in a pitched, two-day battle. According to his monument inscription, while recalling this massacre he says:[2] Their men young and old I took prisoners. Of some I cut off their feet and hands; of others I cut off the ears noses and lips; of the young men's ears I made a heap; of the old men's heads I made a minaret. I exposed their heads as a trophy in front of their city. The male children and the female children I burned in flames; the city I destroyed, and consumed with fire. Following this victory, he advanced without opposition as far as the Mediterranean and exacted tribute from Phoenicia. On his return home, he moved his capital to the city of Kalhu (Nimrud).

In this episode we have a discussion on Charlemagne's Renaissance, also known as the Carolingian Renaissance. We also discuss the myth of the dark ages, the scholar and cleric Alcuin from Northumbria who saved countless of ancient texts from the Vikings, and the crucial role the church as a whole played in preserving ancient Greek and Roman knowledge. The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, taking inspiration from the Christian Roman Empire of the fourth century. During this period, there was an increase of literature, writing, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical reforms, and scriptural studies. The Carolingian Renaissance occurred mostly during the reigns of Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. It was supported by the scholars of the Carolingian court, notably Alcuin of York. Charlemagne's Admonitio generalis (789) and Epistola de litteris colendis served as manifestos.

The Barbary pirates, sometimes called Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, in reference to the Berbers. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands, and Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was slaves for the Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Arab slavery market in North Africa and the Middle East.

The Battle of Shimonoseki Straits (Japanese:下関海戦, Shimonoseki Kaisen) was a naval engagement fought on July 16, 1863, by the United States Navy warship USS Wyoming against the powerful daimyō (feudal lord) Mōri Takachika of the Chōshū clan based in Shimonoseki. Interestingly it took place in the middle of the American Civil war.