Episodios

  • Counterfactuals: Sticky History of Duct Tape

    Counterfactuals: Sticky History of Duct Tape
    Apr 7 2026
    On today’s episode, we talk about something that has held together history, literally. Even though there’s probably a roll in just about every household in America, we often overlook the utility and ubiquity of duct tape. But what would we do without it?
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    1 h y 4 m
  • Counterfactuals: Japan's Turning Point at Shimonoseki Straits

    Counterfactuals: Japan's Turning Point at Shimonoseki Straits
    Mar 24 2026
    On today’s episode, we talk about the USS Wyoming and the 1863 battle of the Shiminoseki Straits - a seemingly minor event overshadowed by the American Civil War. But this battle might have altered the course of history.
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    1 h y 1 m
  • Counterfactuals: The Plastic Revolution

    Counterfactuals: The Plastic Revolution
    Mar 10 2026
    On today’s episode we talk about the first commercially successful ‘plastic’, the beginning of the plastic revolution that has so altered human society. But what if it happened differently?
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    1 h
  • Counterfactuals: Nuclear Disaster Aboard K-219

    Counterfactuals: Nuclear Disaster Aboard K-219
    Feb 24 2026
    On today’s episode, we talk about a soviet submarine disaster in the Atlantic, which averted potentially disastrous outcomes only by the heroism of its crew. But what might have happened if it went differently?
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    1 h y 2 m
  • Counterfactuals: Samoan Crisis of 1889

    Counterfactuals: Samoan Crisis of 1889
    Feb 10 2026
    On today’s episode, we talk about the beautiful islands of Samoa, which were the background to a clash between the relatively nascent empires of the United States and Germany in the 1880s. As the crisis came to a head, however, nature put a dramatic end to human ambition. But what if it had gone differently?
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    56 m
  • Counterfactuals: Wine Extinction

    Counterfactuals: Wine Extinction
    Jan 27 2026
    On today's episode, we discuss the Blight that nearly wiped out wine, and how wine and indeed the world might be different if it had unfolded differently.
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    1 h
  • Counterfactuals: The Sensational 1876 Election

    Counterfactuals: The Sensational 1876 Election
    Jan 13 2026
    On today’s episode we talk about one of the most fraught elections in American history, where violence, initmidation and outright fraud precipitated a constitutional crisis - the 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden.
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    1 h y 1 m
  • Counterfactuals: The Mutiny That Almost Lost the Revolution

    Counterfactuals: The Mutiny That Almost Lost the Revolution
    Dec 30 2025
    On today’s episode, we talk about the mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line on New Years Day, 1781, and how it might have altered the trajectory of the American Revolution, and everything after.
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    1 h y 5 m