Today I’ll take you back to the Old World.

Before Alexander. Before Caesar. There was Cyrus.

The man who forged Persia into the world’s first superpower.

A ruler so great, they named him the "King of Kings", and his story forced me to reconsider the very idea of destiny.🧵 The year is 600 BC.

In the rugged lands of Persis, a child is born who will reshape the world.

His name is Cyrus.

No one knows it yet, but this boy will build the first true empire in history.

Most men I know dream of honor in one form or another.

Leonidas found it in sacrifice.

At the Hot Gates, he and his Spartans made their famous last stand.

When ordered to surrender their arms, he gave history his immortal reply: “Come and take them.”

This is how it went down. The year is 480 BC and the Persian Empire returns to Greece.

King Xerxes marches with a colossal army, Herodotus (a Greek historian and friend of the show) claims millions, but modern estimates put it at 100,000–250,000.

Still, it was overwhelming.

Julius Caesar met his match in Gaul, a brilliant strategist who pushed Rome to the brink.

He united warring tribes and came closer than anyone to breaking the Roman war machine.

This is the story of Vercingetorix, the last great king of the Gauls and his famous last stand. The year is 52 BC.

The Roman Republic stands at the height of its power, stretching from Spain to the eastern edges of the Mediterranean.

Yet, in the dense forests and rolling hills of Gaul, a storm is brewing, one that threatens to shatter Julius Caesar’s ambitions.

The 1970’s: hijackings, kidnappings, and terror swept across Europe.

From the shadows of the Cold War rose a counter-terrorist brotherhood, men forged by fire, bound by duty to their homeland.

A thread on the French Warrior Elite. 🧵👇 It all started In 1972, when the world watched in horror.

At the Munich Olympics, terrorists slaughtered Israeli athletes on live TV.

Europe realized: it was defenseless against a new enemy.

She ruled American imagination for over a century.

A Roman goddess reborn for the New World.

Her name was Columbia, but America forgot about her.

This is the tale of her rise and fall, and why we need her back.

🧵👇 Before there was “Uncle Sam.”
Before the Statue of Liberty.
Before America saw herself as a businessman, a cowboy, or a soldier...

She saw herself as a goddess.

The word "Mamluk" means “owned” in Arabic.

As young boys they were taken from their homes, brought to Egypt and forged into the warrior elite.

However, they would not remain servants forever. Eventually, they seized control.

This is the story of the slaves who ruled an empire. It is the 12th century AD and the Ayyubids Sultunate is ruling Egypt and Syria.

They starts importing young boys from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Turkic steppe.

Why? Because they needed a loyal, highly trained military force separate from local tribal factions.

The Eternal City stood unconquerable for 800 years until the King of the Visigoths showed up.

Alaric would go rogue and bring Rome to its knees by sacking it with a vengeance.

A violent tale of betrayal, defiance and what happens when an Empire turns on one of its own...

🧵 If we want to understand why Alaric put Rome to the torch we first have to look at the society and context he grew up in.

The Visigoths were a group of people that lived north of the Danube river, in present day Romania & Bulgaria.

The Medici ruled Florence, a rivaling family, the Pazzi wanted them dead.

So they plotted the perfect assassination…

But they forgot one thing: Lorenzo de’ Medici doesn’t die easily.

He would raise hell in Florence in his quest for vengeance.

🧵👇 The year is 1478 in Florence.
The Renaissance is in full swing.

Art, money, and power flow through the city.
And at the heart of it all?

The Medici.

A goldsmith walks into a room filled with Italy’s greatest architects.

He tells them he can build a dome without scaffolding.

They all laugh, he walks out...

Three years later, he gets the contract.

A 🧵 on the greatest engineering marvel of the Renaissance. The year is 1418. Florence needs a miracle.

For over a century, the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral has been waiting for its dome.

The problem?

No one knows how to build one big enough to cover its 150-foot-wide base.

A contest is announced.

To travel is to be transformed.

Marco Polo didn’t set out to make history.

Across scorching deserts & foreign empires, he followed curiosity like a compass until travel became a way of life.

A young man from Venice mastered the art of travel, and now you can do to.🧵👇 Born in 1254, Marco Polo grew up in a Venice alive with trade.
But his father and uncle were already gone, on a trading mission deep into Asia.

When they returned 15 years later, they brought tales no one believed…

Tales of a Mongol emperor named Kublai Khan.

No name. No past. Just a rifle, a uniform, and a promise:

Bleed for France 🇫🇷, and earn a chance to become citizen.

France was built by sacrifice, why should entry be without it today? 🧵 The year is 1831. King Louis-Philippe signs a decree.

A force of foreign volunteers, bound not by birthplace but by loyalty, will fight France’s colonial wars.

The French Foreign Legion is born.

Versailles was more than a palace, it was a trap.

"The Sun King" lured France’s most dangerous nobles into his glittering cage.

Once they entered, they never truly escaped. 🧵 The year is 1682.

Louis XIV has just moved his court into the most extravagant palace Europe has ever seen, Versailles.

To the outside world, it is a marvel of gold, fountains & endless gardens.

But to France’s nobility it became a gilded cage.

The Mongol campaigns claimed the lives of an estimated 60 million people.

They mastered the art of mass depopulation and systematic culling.

Their inflicted death toll was so high that the world's carbon footprint was forever altered.

Here is how they did it.🧵 Their campaigns were defined by speed, strategy, and an unparalleled ability to instill fear.

But what set them apart wasn’t just their mobility and battlefield brilliance—it was their calculated approach to depopulation and control.

Born to rule, but cursed from the start.
His body was fragile, marked by a merciless disease.

Yet beneath the fading flesh,
a divine fire burned fierce and unyielding.

This is the tale of the "Leper King" and his fight against impossible odds. The year is 1174 AD.

Baldwin IV inherits a kingdom in chaos, and a disease that should have killed him before he wore the crown.

Jerusalem is fragile, torn by rival nobles and threatened by the rise of the great Muslim leader, Saladin.

Jesus Christ, God, or man?

In 325 AD, the answer to that question nearly broke the Roman Empire apart.

Here's how Constantine tried to save it and have the council answer the following question:

Is Christ of the same substance as the Father?🧵 The Roman Empire had just barely survived centuries of civil war, plagues, and persecution.

In 312, Constantine became emperor, and everything changed.

Jesus told us to love our enemies.
Michael tells us what to do when they refuse peace.

Michael doesn’t contradict Christ.
He completes the picture.

They're not opposites, they are two aspects of divine will.

Here is why 🧵👇 First of all: Who is Michael?

Michael is known as the chief warrior angel in Christianity.

He is not gentle. He is not poetic.
He is Heaven’s sword.

The name “Michael” means:

“Who is like God?”

In the 8th century, the fate of Europe teetered on a knife’s edge.

A vast caliphate swept westward, unstoppable, unchallenged.

But in the heart of Gaul a man rose to stop the Muslim invasion in a final battle that saved Western Civilization. 🧵👇 The year is 732.

In the heart of Europe, the world holds its breath.

A storm approaches from the south, an empire on horseback, forged in the deserts of Arabia, now sweeping westward with the force of destiny itself.

When Augustus emerged from the chaos of civil war he hand-picked an elite group of soldiers as personal bodyguards.

No longer would emperors be assassinated.

But what began as a safeguard for Rome’s first emperor…
Became a dagger at the throat for those that followed. Following the assassination of Caesar, Rome had bled itself dry in civil war.

Augustus ended it with military victor and with a vision.

He built peace on foundations of strength.
And standing behind him, was the newly formed Praetorian Guard.

When three legions entered the Teutoburg Forest they were wiped off the face of the earth.

The Varian Disaster marked one of the most catastrophic defeats in Roman imperial history.

A thread🧵 on the ambush that shook the ancient world.

“Varus! Bring me back my legions!” The year is 9 AD. Augustus was the first Emperor, and the Romans were expanding their empire (no surprise there).

Rome had established control over various Germanic tribes and aimed to integrate additional territories into its domain.

His crown was heavy. Sweat slid beneath the armor.
His breath, slow and tight beneath the visor.

Across the field, banners snapped,
and there he emerged.

The Black Prince. His rival. His reckoning.

“So be it,” the king whispered.
It will end here... France was on its knees.

A decade of plague had hollowed its cities. The English burned the countryside. Civil war stirred in the shadows.

And now, the heir of England, Edward the Black Prince, had carved a path of fire through the heart of Aquitaine.

He was the kind of man legends are written about.

Praised by Kings. Feared by Enemies. Respected by friend and foe alike.

His manual is one of the most authentic insights into how knights saw themselves.

And this is what any self-respecting man should learn from him. 🧵 In the 14th century, France was bleeding.

The Hundred Years’ War raged across its fields.
Armies clashed, kings fell, and the code of chivalry was tested by fire.

And in the middle of it all stood a man who would become legend: Geoffroi de Charny.