Pilgrimages are a universal phenomenon, from China’s bustling Tai Shan to the ancient Jewish treks to Jerusalem. But why? What is it about a grueling penitent march to an isolated temple that has become a prerequisite for a civilization of any size, whether Chicen Itza in the Mayan Empire or the holy sites of Mecca?

To explore this is today’s guest, Kathryn Hurlock, author of “Holy Places: How Pilgrimages Changed the World.” We also look at whether pilgrimages have become too easy in the 21st century. Has jetting off to Mecca or Rome for a quick indulgence turned them into spiritual tourism, a la Disneyland?

Pilgrimages are a universal phenomenon, from China&rsquo;s bustling Tai Shan to the ancient Jewish treks to Jerusalem. But why? What is it about a grueling penitent march to an isolated temple that has become a prerequisite for a civilization of any size, whether Chicen Itza in the Mayan Empire or the holy sites of Mecca?
To explore this is today&rsquo;s guest, Kathryn Hurlock, author of &ldquo;Holy Places: How Pilgrimages Changed the World.&rdquo; We also look at whether pilgrimages have become too easy in the 21st century. Has jetting off to Mecca or Rome for a quick indulgence turned them into spiritual tourism, a la Disneyland?

For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features long-form interviews with best-selling authors who have written about everything. Topics include gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk.

A show about American history, world history, World Wars 1 & 2, the Civil War, and much more.

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brodén from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.

 

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brod&eacute;n from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.
&nbsp;

History Unplugged

Pilgrimages Involved Penitent Marches, Visiting Holy Places, and Watching Drunken Emperors Go on Chariot Rides

When St. Francis of Assisi was near death in 1226, he joked with companions that his corpse would be practically as valuable as gold. And he was right: In medieval Europe, relics, or the physical remains of saints, weren't just symbols, they were the center of an entire economy. Cities, inns, and travel lodgings were built up around a saint’s remains, because the faithful believed they could heal diseases, end droughts, and protect cities from invasion. The blind and frail Francis was forced to travel an arduous route home to Assisi so rival Perugia couldn't capture and display his dead body for profit, and when his entombment procession finally arrived, a riot erupted as crowds attempted to dismember him for holy souvenirs. To prevent the theft of such a valuable spiritual asset, Assisi authorities buried him in a secret reinforced vault so well-hidden that after 52 nights of grueling excavation through solid rock and iron bars in 1818, workers finally rediscovered his sarcophagus—600 years after his exact location was lost to time.

Today's guest is Kathleen Brady, author of Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi. We discuss what the 1818 excavation uncovered—12 silver coins, 29 beads, a ring, and skeletal evidence of chronic illnesses including signs consistent with leprosy and severe eye infections, plus bone deformities in his feet from constant travel and ascetic lifestyle. Italy just turned Francis's feast day into a national holiday, and Assisi is now summoning the world to an exhibition of his skeletal remains—proving that eight centuries later, the restaurants and hotels still prosper from the saint who wanted to be buried in a place for criminals.

When St. Francis of Assisi was near death in 1226, he joked with companions that his corpse would be practically as valuable as gold. And he was right: In medieval Europe, relics, or the physical remains of saints, weren't just symbols, they were the center of an entire economy. Cities, inns, and travel lodgings were built up around a saint&rsquo;s remains, because the faithful believed they could heal diseases, end droughts, and protect cities from invasion. The blind and frail Francis was forced to travel an arduous route home to Assisi so rival Perugia couldn't capture and display his dead body for profit, and when his entombment procession finally arrived, a riot erupted as crowds attempted to dismember him for holy souvenirs. To prevent the theft of such a valuable spiritual asset, Assisi authorities buried him in a secret reinforced vault so well-hidden that after 52 nights of grueling excavation through solid rock and iron bars in 1818, workers finally rediscovered his sarcophagus&mdash;600 years after his exact location was lost to time.
Today's guest is Kathleen Brady, author of Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi. We discuss what the 1818 excavation uncovered&mdash;12 silver coins, 29 beads, a ring, and skeletal evidence of chronic illnesses including signs consistent with leprosy and severe eye infections, plus bone deformities in his feet from constant travel and ascetic lifestyle. Italy just turned Francis's feast day into a national holiday, and Assisi is now summoning the world to an exhibition of his skeletal remains&mdash;proving that eight centuries later, the restaurants and hotels still prosper from the saint who wanted to be buried in a place for criminals.

The Body Worth Stealing: Why Medieval Cities Fought Over Francis of Assisi’s Corpse

The alphabet you're reading right now is a 3,800-year-old archaeological artifact, preserving ancient decisions in plain sight—from the upside-down ox head that became the letter A to the demotion of zeta from sixth position to last place Z by Roman scribes annoyed with Greek letter order. What began around 1800 BC as Phoenician pictograms using the acrophonic principle (a dog picture representing the sound /d/) evolved through Greek vowel additions and Roman reshaping into the 26-letter system we use today, complete with fossils like the silent K in "know" and the orphaned Q that seemingly violates the whole phonemic principle by always needing U. English spelling isn't graphic anarchy—it's a battlefield where too many competing rules from Viking invasions, Norman conquest, Renaissance classicism, and the Great Vowel Shift all clash simultaneously, making "organize vs organise" and "zee vs zed" disputes echoes of ancient transmission routes across the globe.

Today's guest is Danny Bate, author of Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them. We discuss how the alphabet's simplicity—expressing phonemes rather than symbolic meanings like Egyptian hieroglyphs' 700 characters—allowed it to outlast more complex writing systems, why the rounded lips of /w/ gradually changed "was" from rhyming with "glass" in Shakespeare's time to "woz" today, and how English doesn't allow /ks/ at the start of syllables, forcing "xylophone" to sound like /z/. Bate also reveals advanced Scrabble wisdom: words like QI, QADI, and FAQIR let you deploy that high-point Q without U, exploiting the Arabic and Chinese loanwords that snuck into English spelling's surplus of competing regularities.

The alphabet you're reading right now is a 3,800-year-old archaeological artifact, preserving ancient decisions in plain sight&mdash;from the upside-down ox head that became the letter A to the demotion of zeta from sixth position to last place Z by Roman scribes annoyed with Greek letter order. What began around 1800 BC as Phoenician pictograms using the acrophonic principle (a dog picture representing the sound /d/) evolved through Greek vowel additions and Roman reshaping into the 26-letter system we use today, complete with fossils like the silent K in "know" and the orphaned Q that seemingly violates the whole phonemic principle by always needing U. English spelling isn't graphic anarchy&mdash;it's a battlefield where too many competing rules from Viking invasions, Norman conquest, Renaissance classicism, and the Great Vowel Shift all clash simultaneously, making "organize vs organise" and "zee vs zed" disputes echoes of ancient transmission routes across the globe.
Today's guest is Danny Bate, author of Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them. We discuss how the alphabet's simplicity&mdash;expressing phonemes rather than symbolic meanings like Egyptian hieroglyphs' 700 characters&mdash;allowed it to outlast more complex writing systems, why the rounded lips of /w/ gradually changed "was" from rhyming with "glass" in Shakespeare's time to "woz" today, and how English doesn't allow /ks/ at the start of syllables, forcing "xylophone" to sound like /z/. Bate also reveals advanced Scrabble wisdom: words like QI, QADI, and FAQIR let you deploy that high-point Q without U, exploiting the Arabic and Chinese loanwords that snuck into English spelling's surplus of competing regularities.

The Alphabet as Artifact: How Egyptian Pictograms Became Your ABCs

America’s desire to expand its borders has existed since its first colonies – from attempts to settle beyond the Appalachian Mountains in the 18th century to Manifest Destiny in the 19th century down to talks today to purchase Greenland.  But the United States spent two centuries eyeing acquisitions far stranger than California or Oregon—from Canada to the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia and even Syria after World War I. These weren't fever dreams of fringe politicians; they were serious diplomatic efforts involving presidents, congressional debates, and appeals from foreign leaders themselves who saw American annexation as preferable to rule by Mexico, France, or Britain. The difference between success and failure often came down to whether Washington offered full statehood and constitutional protections (like Alaska and Hawaii) or imposed colonial supervision without citizenship (like Cuba and the Philippines), creating either assimilation or nationalist resentment that echoes today.

Today's guest is Mark Kawar, author of America, but Bigger: Near-Annexations from Greenland to the Galápagos. We discuss how Woodrow Wilson was the last president to successfully buy land from Denmark (the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1917), why El Salvadoran leaders and Polynesian chiefs actively lobbied for American annexation to escape worse colonial masters, and how the 1919 King-Crane Commission discovered that Syria overwhelmingly requested U.S. oversight because Wilson promised self-determination while European powers reeked of imperial exploitation. Kawar also explains the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which let America claim dozens of Pacific islands for fertilizer deposits, and why American Samoans today are U.S. nationals but not automatically citizens—a legacy of the "unincorporated territory" loophole that still defines places like Guam.

America&rsquo;s desire to expand its borders has existed since its first colonies &ndash; from attempts to settle beyond the Appalachian Mountains in the 18th century to Manifest Destiny in the 19th century down to talks today to purchase Greenland.&nbsp; But the United States spent two centuries eyeing acquisitions far stranger than California or Oregon&mdash;from Canada to the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia and even Syria after World War I. These weren't fever dreams of fringe politicians; they were serious diplomatic efforts involving presidents, congressional debates, and appeals from foreign leaders themselves who saw American annexation as preferable to rule by Mexico, France, or Britain. The difference between success and failure often came down to whether Washington offered full statehood and constitutional protections (like Alaska and Hawaii) or imposed colonial supervision without citizenship (like Cuba and the Philippines), creating either assimilation or nationalist resentment that echoes today.
Today's guest is Mark Kawar, author of America, but Bigger: Near-Annexations from Greenland to the Gal&aacute;pagos. We discuss how Woodrow Wilson was the last president to successfully buy land from Denmark (the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1917), why El Salvadoran leaders and Polynesian chiefs actively lobbied for American annexation to escape worse colonial masters, and how the 1919 King-Crane Commission discovered that Syria overwhelmingly requested U.S. oversight because Wilson promised self-determination while European powers reeked of imperial exploitation. Kawar also explains the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which let America claim dozens of Pacific islands for fertilizer deposits, and why American Samoans today are U.S. nationals but not automatically citizens&mdash;a legacy of the "unincorporated territory" loophole that still defines places like Guam.

Pilgrimages Involved Penitent Marches, Visiting Holy Places, and Watching Drunken Emperors Go on Chariot Rides

In 1 playlist(s)

History Unplugged

Social links

Follow podcast

Recent clips