Episodes

  • Counterfactuals: The Three Kingdoms - or not?

    Counterfactuals: The Three Kingdoms - or not?
    Oct 7 2025
    On today’s episode, we venture to Asia to talk about a battle that determined the course of Chinese history, and that has become such an integral part of Chinese historical mythology that it is sometimes difficult to sort fact from fiction. What might have changed if the battle went a different way?
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Counterfactuals: Just How Foundational IS Concrete?

    Counterfactuals: Just How Foundational IS Concrete?
    Sep 24 2025
    On today’s episode we talk about one of the most ubiquitous human creations in the modern world: Concrete. What would the modern world look like without this grey material we all take for granted?
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Counterfactuals: Roosevelt and Churchill at Christmas, 1941

    Counterfactuals: Roosevelt and Churchill at Christmas, 1941
    Sep 9 2025
    On today’s episode, we talk about a little-remembered presidential visit in the wake of Pearl Harbor - Christmas, 1941, when Winston Churchill risked the U-boats of the Atlantic to visit his new allies in the White House.
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    1 hr
  • Counterfacutals: WWI and The Battle of the Gulf of Riga

    Counterfacutals: WWI and The Battle of the Gulf of Riga
    Aug 26 2025
    Today we talk about a little remembered battle that could have been a turning point in the First World War - a battle between the German High Seas fleet and the Russian Baltic fleet in the Gulf of Riga.
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Counterfactuals: Confederate Espionage

    Counterfactuals: Confederate Espionage
    Aug 12 2025
    On today’s episode we talk about the little remembered espionage side of the civil war, particularly the CSA’s more outlandish ideas to take the war to the Union. And of course, we talk about what the world might look like if it all happened differently.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Counterfactuals: The Passenger Pigeon's World

    Counterfactuals: The Passenger Pigeon's World
    Jul 29 2025
    On today’s episode we talk about a bird that was once so numerous that Americans thought it would be impossible to kill them all. Until, suddenly, they did. What might the world look like if the passenger pigeon hadn’t gone extinct?
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Counterfactuals: Did Ketchup Save the World?

    Counterfactuals: Did Ketchup Save the World?
    Jul 15 2025
    On today’s episode we talk about the incredible popularity and influence of an odd product: Ketchup. What would the world be like without it?
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Counterfactuals: 1983, The World's Most Dangerous Year

    Counterfactuals: 1983, The World's Most Dangerous Year
    Jul 1 2025
    On today’s podcast we talk about the year 1983 - called by some “the most dangerous year” in modern history. In the fall of that year, Western and Communist powers may have nearly stumbled into the one thing that neither side wanted - all-out nuclear war. How might the world be different if that close call went another way?
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    1 hr and 6 mins