History Hit
Dan Snow interviews historians; claims come with sources
50:55WWI air combat wasn't romantic — it was a meat grinder with a two-week life expectancy
When the war began, aircraft were still a joke to the officer class. In four years the sky became a meat grinder of reconnaissance, bombing and dogfighting, and by 1917 a new pilot's average life expectancy was roughly two weeks.
1:07:02bin Laden Was Not Born Extreme: Three Turns Pushed Him Onto the Jihadist Road
bin Laden was not an extremist as a child but a marginal figure in a wealthy Saudi family; three turning points — the 1979 Mecca siege, the Afghan battlefield and the Gulf War — put him on the road to global jihad, and he always wanted to bring down the Saudi royal family more than he wanted to fight the United States alone.
36:58Rammed by Her Own Fleet: The 1%-Cost Torpedo Boat That Created the Destroyer
In 1908 a 380-ton destroyer was rammed and sunk by a 10,000-ton cruiser during an exercise, killing 35 men. Behind the tragedy sits the torpedo boat, which overturned naval warfare at about 1% of a battleship's cost and forced the destroyer into existence.