History of the Germans
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History of the Germans
A narrative history of the German people from the Middle Ages to Reunification in 1991. Episodes are 25-35 min long and drop on Thursday mornings. "A great many things keep happening, some good, some bad". Gregory of Tours (539-594) So far we have covered: Ottonian Emperors (# 1- 21) - Henry the Fo...
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256 epizod
Ep. 237: How Italy Fell to the Habsburgs - From the Peace of Madrid to the Sack of Rome 1527.
We are coming closer to the end of our series on the Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg. We have seen the reconsolidation of Austria, the acquisit...
Ep. 236: Charles V (1520-1555) - The Battle of Pavia
In 1521 four men dominated Europe. They were all in their twenties: King Henry VIII of England, born 1491, King Francois I of France, born 1494, Sulei...
Ep. 235: The Youth and Election of the Emperor Charles V (1519-1555)
Born during a ball in Ghent on 24 February 1500, Charles of Habsburg would grow up to rule an empire stretching from the Philippines to Prague and fro...
Ep. 234: The Charisma of Emperor Maximilian (1493-1519)
Maximilian I died on January 12th, 1519. But his likeness is everywhere. None of his predecessors left behind as many depictions of their life, from b...
Ep. 233: Maximilian I (1493-1519) - Last Days and Legacy
The last decade of emperor Maximilian’s reign was overshadowed by all three challenges to the emerging Habsburg empire gaining strength. The Ottoman e...
Ep. 232: The Ottomans – From Mehmet the Conqueror to Selim the Grim (1444-1520)
These last dozen or so episodes we have examined the genesis of two of the three major strategic preoccupations of the Habsburg empire, the rivalry wi...
Ep.: 231 – Maximilian I (1493-1519) - Marrying Bohemia and Hungary
You have almost certainly seen the image in today’s episode artwork before. It is a family portrait showing Maximilian, his first wife Marie of Burgun...
Ep.230: Margaret of Austria (1480-1530) - The League of Cambrai
Another Thursday and another episode dealing with another epic fail of our hero, Maximilian I. But despite a military campaign that once again failed...
Ep. 229: Joanna the (not?) Mad (1504-1555) - How the Habsburgs gained Spain
“Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube" – ‘Let others wage war; thou, happy Austria, marry’ is one of the few terms that almost anyone with a curso...
Ep. 228 – Maximilian I (1493-1519) - The Princes and the Emperor.
If there was one group that consistently thwarted Maximilian’s grand plans for world domination, it was the princes of the Holy Roman Empire. He had g...
Ep. 227: Landsknechte vs. Swiss Mercenaries – The Swabian (Swiss) War of 1499
Why are the Swiss called the Swiss? After all, Schwyz in only of 26 cantons, and not one of the largest ones. How did the proud and prosperous citizen...
Ep. 226: Maximilian I (1493-1519) - A Grand Plan for a Great War
Europe's political landscape is shifting fundamentally. No longer are wars fought between kings and their vassals, and emperors against popes - it is...
The Imperial Reform of 1495 with Prof. Duncan Hardy
Prof Duncan Hardy is one of the leading experts in the history of the Holy Roman Empire and one of his main topics is the Imperial reform of 1495, mak...
Ep. 225: Imperial Reform - The Ewige Landfrieden (Public Peace) of 1495
Let me start today’s episode with some outrageous national stereotypes. If an Englishman is disappointed with the way the affairs of state are conduct...
Ep. 224 – The Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire
I am afraid today’s episode is not your usual swordplay and skullduggery. What we are looking at today is the Reichstag as it operated throughout the...
Ep. 223 – A Diet of Worms (1495 edition)
We are now 7 episodes into the action-packed life of emperor Maximilian and he is only 35 years old. We still have another 24 years to go and they wil...
Ep. 222 – Italian Wars and Spanish Marriages
The world is a-changing. Maximilian I may still dream of the medieval universal empire where he will lead Christendom in an epic crusade to expel the...
Ep. 221 – Taking Back Control
After 13 years of fighting in the Low Countries, Maximilian, the newly elected king of the Roman, returns home to a rammed full inbox. There is his co...
Ep. 220 The Burgundian Experience(s)
In this episode the 15-year long war over the Burgundian succession will come to its end. You may have thought it was done last time, but no. The revo...
Where To Go in Germany - Part 2
One of the legacies of the Holy roman empire is that Germany does not have just one place where everything happens, where politicians, entrepreneurs,...
Announcement: The History of the Germans Tour is on!
Hello friends of the History of the Germans. Great news, the tour is on!
We have set up a website where you can sign up. I have put a link in th...
Where To Go in Germany - Part 1
As you are still awaiting your presents, mine has already arrived, which is the chance to make this show. Despite all my occasional moaning and groani...
Ep.219 – The Fall of Ghent, or Why There Are No City States No More.
The words High and Late Middle Ages conjures up images of fog rising up over a field where knights in shining armor are trading blows with double hand...
Ep. 218 – Hedgehogs and Herons, The War that Made the Habsburgs
By 1477 the rules of war that had been enshrined in the laws of chivalry are gone. The contest between the French and the Habsburgs over the inheritan...
Ep, 217 – The Lucky Marriage of Maximilian and Marie
How often have you heard this phrase “Let others wage war; you, happy Austria, marry". It goes back to a whole string of marriages, first Maximilian o...
Ep. 216 - The Youth of Emperor Maximilian I
What is it like to grow up the son of the emperor? For most of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire we have covered so far, no idea. There are scarce r...
Ep. 215 – The Bold in the Cold, the end of Charles of Burgundy.
The rise of the Habsburgs to world domination pivots on one crucial moment, the marriage of Maximilian of Habsburg to Mary of Burgundy, the daughter o...
Ep. 214 - A Trial, a Siege and more than Neuss
The venerable city of Neuss between Cologne and Düsseldorf was founded in 16 BC as a Roman army camp, making it one of the oldest in Germany. Its hist...
Ep. 213 – Duping a Duke and the Awakening of Friedrich III
How long can an emperor not be an emperor. The official record stands at 25 years, that is how long Friedrich III had stayed out of the core areas of...
Ep. 212 – The Library of the Raven King
Today we will talk a lot about Matthias Corvinus, the legendary renaissance king of Hungary whose library outshone that of the Medici in Florence and...
Ep. 211 – Hitting Rock Bottom
It is November 1462 and the emperor Friedrich III and his young family are huddling together in the cellars of the Hofburg. The citizens of Vienna are...
Ep. 210 – Ladislaus Postumus, Lord of all, Ruler of No One
Our journey today will take us away from the emperor Friedrich III who will spend most of the episode holed up in his castle at Wiener Neustadt, frett...
No Mojo in my Dojo - Next episode in a Week
Hello friends of the History of the Germans. I am afraid there will not be an episode this week. I would have preferred to say that I have caught a bu...
Ep. 209 – The First Habsburg Emperor
Today we – and the Habsburgs – stride back on to the grand stage of European politics. Not with a titan of history or monarch whose long and fruitful...
Ep. 208 - Boy Meets Princess, Boy Becomes King (Albrecht II)
Last week we saw the family slowly climbing out of the hole that Friedrich IV of the Tyrol had dug them. But despite all these consolidation efforts,...
Ep.207 Of Land and Lip – How the Habsburgs got their Chin
“The Habsburgs ruled half of Europe with a chin that entered the room five minutes before they did,” is one of those witticisms that made the 19th cen...
Ep. 206 – Division, Destruction and Degradation - Albrecht III&IV, Wilhelm, Leopold IV and Friedrich IV
Success for a princely family in the Late Middle Ages has a lot to do with reproductive luck. Not having any offspring, in particular no male offsprin...
Ep. 205 – Sempach – the Death of a Duke and the Birth of a Nation
On July 9th, 1386 in a field near the Sempach lake., the armies of archduke Leopold of Austria line up against the forces of the city of Lucerne and t...
Ep. 204 – Rudolf IV, Founder and Forger (1339-1365)
Rudolf IV of Habsburg (1339–1365), son of Albrecht “the Wise,” reigned as Duke of Austria for just seven years but left a lasting mark. Born when the...
Ep. 203 – From Rudolf I to Albrecht the Wise 1273-1358
The Habsburg dynasty, originating from Radobot’s castle in 11th-century Switzerland, rose from obscurity to European prominence. In 1273 Rudolf of Hab...