History, Give or Take
by Ember Ventures
History, Give or Take is a narrative history podcast: true stories from the past, told plainly and well, one event at a time. Battles, discoveries, disasters, mysteries and the ordinary people caught up in them. New true stories, regularly. Every episode is checked against the historical record. AI disclosure: Scripts are written with AI assistance and narrated by an AI-generated clone of the host's voice.
Episodes
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Wonderful Things: Finding Tutankhamun
Everyone said the Valley of the Kings was finished. One stubborn archaeologist asked for one more season. The story of how Howard Carter found Tutankhamun's tomb, and what he really said when he looked inside. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI-generated voice, and checked against the...
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The Man Who Dug Up Troy, More or Less
A grocer's boy turned millionaire went looking for a city most scholars thought was a legend, and came back with gold. The story of Heinrich Schliemann, the search for Troy, and the treasure that belonged to the wrong king. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI-generated voice, and…
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Who Burned the Library of Alexandria?
The greatest library of the ancient world is supposed to have vanished in one terrible fire. But which fire, and whose? A detective story about the Library of Alexandria, four suspects, and a king who'd pay a fortune to keep a book. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI-generated voice,...
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The Ship with Nobody Aboard
In December 1872, sailors found a ship drifting in the Atlantic with her sails set and nobody on board. The true story of the Mary Celeste, the law officer who wanted a murder, and the young doctor who made the mystery famous. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI-generated voice, and...
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A Ton of Gold and a Ton of Flour
In 1897, two ships docked on the west coast carrying gold from the Yukon, and a hundred thousand people dropped everything to go and get some. The true story of the Klondike gold rush, the Golden Stairs, and the numbers nobody wanted to hear. This episode was created with the assistance of AI,...
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Apollo 13: The Mailbox Made of Tape
In April 1970, an oxygen tank exploded on the way to the Moon, and three astronauts moved into a lifeboat built for two. The story of Apollo 13, a box made of duct tape, and a switch that was the wrong size. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI model of the host's voice, and checked...
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The Rosetta Stone: I've Got It
For about fourteen hundred years, nobody could read a word of the writing on Egypt's walls, until French soldiers knocked down an old wall in the Nile Delta. The story of the Rosetta Stone, and the young man who ran into his brother's office shouting that he'd got it. Created with the assistance…
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The Franklin Expedition: All Well, Said the Note
In 1845, two of the best-equipped ships of their age sailed into the Arctic to find the Northwest Passage, and never came back. The story of the Franklin expedition, the note that said all well, and the people who knew where the ships were all along. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI...
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The Tunguska Event: The Morning the Sky Caught Fire
In 1908, something exploded over the Siberian forest with enough force to knock a man off his porch sixty kilometres away, and nineteen years later a scientist went looking for the crater. The true story of the Tunguska event. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI model of the host's...
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The Last Spike: The Plainest Spike in Canada
A country made a promise it couldn't keep, a railway nearly went broke, and on a wet morning in the mountains a rich man bent the last spike. The story of the Canadian Pacific Railway's last spike, and the people who weren't in the picture. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI model of...
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The Antikythera Mechanism: The Computer at the Bottom of the Sea
In 1900, Greek sponge divers sheltering from a storm off the small island of Antikythera found the wreck of an ancient ship. Among the statues and treasures they brought up was a lump of corroded bronze that nobody paid much attention to. Inside it were gears. More than two thousand years old…
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The Discovery of Insulin: The Boy Who Lived
In January 1922, at Toronto General Hospital, a 14-year-old boy named Leonard Thompson was dying of diabetes. At the time, a diagnosis meant a starvation diet and, usually, death within months. Then doctors gave him an injection of a new extract made in a University of Toronto laboratory. This...
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Laura Secord: The Long Walk to Beaver Dams
In June 1813, during the War of 1812, Laura Secord learned that American troops were planning a surprise attack on a British outpost in the Niagara region. Her husband was still recovering from wounds, so she went herself, walking some 30 kilometres through woods, swamps and enemy territory to…
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The Wright Brothers' First Flight: Twelve Seconds on a Windy Beach
On a cold, windy morning in December 1903, on the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright lay flat on the wing of a homemade machine and flew for twelve seconds. It was the first powered, controlled flight of an aeroplane, and only a handful of people saw it. Wilbur and Orville...
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The Great Stink: The Summer London Couldn't Breathe
In the hot summer of 1858, the River Thames was an open sewer, and London could no longer ignore the smell. Inside the new Houses of Parliament, members tried to keep working behind curtains soaked in chemicals, and some fled the building altogether. Most people believed bad air itself spread...
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The Mona Lisa Theft: The Handyman Who Took It
On a Monday morning in August 1911, the Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. Nobody noticed for more than a day. The museum closed, the police questioned hundreds of people, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested, and even Pablo Picasso was brought in for questioning. The thief was Vincenzo...
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Shackleton's Endurance: Every Man Came Home
In 1914, Ernest Shackleton sailed south to cross Antarctica on foot. He never set foot on the continent. His ship, Endurance, was trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea, crushed, and sank, leaving 28 men stranded on drifting ice with three small boats. This episode follows what came next: months...
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The Great Molasses Flood: The Day Boston Drowned in Syrup
On January 15, 1919, a giant storage tank in Boston's North End split open and released more than two million gallons of molasses into the streets. A wave of syrup swept through the neighbourhood, flattening buildings, overturning wagons and trapping people and horses. Twenty-one people were…
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The Dancing Plague of 1518: The Summer Strasbourg Couldn't Stop Dancing
In July 1518, a woman began dancing in the street in Strasbourg and couldn't stop. Within weeks, dozens and then hundreds had joined her, and the city council's cure only made it worse. The strange true story of the dancing plague: what the records actually say, what grew in the retelling, and…
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The Great Emu War: The War Australia Lost to Birds
In 1932, the Australian army sent two soldiers, two machine guns and ten thousand rounds of ammunition against twenty thousand emus in the wheat fields of Western Australia. It did not go to plan. The true story of the Great Emu War, the struggling veteran farmers who asked for help, and the…
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The Halifax Explosion: Twenty Minutes in the Narrows
Two ships in a hurry, one narrow channel, and a fire an entire city stopped to watch. On December 6, 1917, a burning munitions ship drifted into Halifax Harbour, and a train dispatcher named Vince Coleman made a choice that saved lives. The true story of the Halifax Explosion, from the collision…
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Welcome to History, Give or Take
One true story at a time: discoveries and disasters, heists and rescues, inventions, mysteries and the occasional piece of pure nonsense. When it's on the record, we tell you. When it grew in the retelling, we say so. Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI model of the host's voice, and...
About this show
History, Give or Take is a narrative history podcast: true stories from the past, told plainly and well, one event at a time. Battles, discoveries, disasters, mysteries and the ordinary people caught up in them. New true stories, regularly. Every episode is checked against the historical record.
AI disclosure: Scripts are written with AI assistance and narrated by an AI-generated clone of the host's voice.
Hosted by
Ember Ventures
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