Curated playlist
History of the Mediterranean
- Fatimid CaliphateThe Fatimid Caliphate began as a secret movement, not a kingdom. Hidden missionaries spread its doctrine.
- Abbasid CaliphateThe last Abbasid ruler of Baghdad was wrapped in a carpet and trampled by horses.
- HittitesAround 1330 BC, the Hittite king Mursili II sent infected rams across enemy lines.
- Republic of GenoaIn 1284, Genoa's fleet beat Pisa's at the Battle of Meloria. Pisa never fully recovered as a sea power.
- Ancient EgyptIn ancient Egypt, a dead person's heart was weighed against a feather. If it failed, Ammit the Devourer ate it.
- Ancient CarthageWhen Rome destroyed Carthage in 146 BC, it burned nearly every Carthaginian text.
- PhoeniciaThe Phoenicians never called themselves Phoenicians. The name came from the Greeks.
- Classical antiquityRomans kept calling their state a republic long after it stopped being one.
- Early Muslim conquestsWithin a century, Arab armies pushed from India to the Pyrenees. The early Muslim conquests began in Medina in 622.
- Maritime republicsIn 849, four Italian coastal cities sailed to Ostia and shattered a Saracen invasion fleet.
- Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War IIAn RAF base with no operational aircraft was besieged in Iraq in 1941. Its crews converted trainers to carry weapons.
- Fertile CrescentThe Fertile Crescent, known in Arabic as al-hilāl al-ḵaṣīb, struck one archaeologist as a military formation. James Henry Breasted wrote that the region "lies like an army facing south, with one wing stretching along the eastern shore of…
- Greco-Roman worldRome's most cultivated readers collected books in a language that was not their own.
- Republic of VeniceThe Republic of Venice fell without a battle in 1797. Napoleon's ultimatum ended a state that lasted over 1,100 years.
- Cilician piratesPirates once seized young Julius Caesar, and he insisted they raise his ransom.
- Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire began as a republic run by elected officials. It still lasted, in one form or another, until 1453.
- Mare NostrumMare Nostrum, Latin for "Our Sea," first meant only the waters off western Italy.