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 120 | The Most Productive People in History, Part 3: Leonardo da Vinci
Few Renaissance figures have as many legends swirling around their life as Leonardo da Vinci. The myths persist because of the unconventional nature of his life. Leonardo was a painter, architect, sculptor, mathematician, engineer, musician, inventor, anatomist, geologist, botanist, cartographer, military strategist, and writer. Leonardo is the ideal of a multi-accomplished humanist figure, of limitless curiosity and feverish imagination. He employed unusual empirical methods of the time to approach his broad scope of interest. He made discoveries in optics, hydrodynamics, engineering, and anatomy. He conceived of flying machines, armored vehicles, calculators, the double hull, and even concentrated solar power. Few of his designs came to fruition – his flying machine would have crashed into the ground if ever built and tested – but some of his designs were manufactured, such as a machine that tested the tensile strength of wire and an automated bobbin winder.
Learn more about his life by getting my new book The Most Productive People in History by clicking here.
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