Historian and veteran Middle East journalist Michael Rank looks into the most exciting events and personalities of history in this podcast and explains them in five-minute episodes so that you can absorb the facts in the fastest way possible. Learn about the lives of Genghis Khan, Vlad Dracul, and Richard the Lionheart, and such events as the Crusades and the Black Death in these highly entertaining and informative episodes. Michael has sold thousands of books with his unique take on the past with such best-selling titles as "History's Most Insane Rulers: Lunatics, Eccentrics, and Megalomaniacs From Emperor Caligula to Kim Jon Il," and he brings the same energy to this podcast. He focuses on world history, Roman history, military history, the history of the United States, the most famous rulers in history, biographies, biography of famous people, the most famous people in history, the most powerful rulers, medieval history, violent history, world history, United States history, and how to put all these pieces together. This is a great podcast if you know nothing about a topic and need a good launching point into a deeper study.
http://www.michaelrank.net
HFM 010 | The Fall of Constantinople in 1453
In this episode of the History in Five Minutes Podcast, we look at the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks. Most people only know about the event thanks to the immortal song “Istanbul, not Constantinople” by They Might Be Giants, but they don’t know who the fighters were on each side or why it is a historically significant event. The first question is easy to answer – the Byzantine Greeks fought the Ottoman Turks. The second question is more difficult, but suffice it to say that some historians have good reasons for arguing that May 29, 1453 marks the day that the Middle Ages ended. We will cover all of this…. in 6 minutes!
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TRANSCRIPT
Click here for the transcript to Episode 10 (PDF)