From Here to History
The history podcast where Chris Swanson and Jason Weidert discuss events and people of the past with as much openness, understanding, and fairness as we can muster. Our only agenda is to inform in an entertaining and engaging way.
We teach high school, after all, and that's a tough audience. Our hope is that if we can keep teenagers interested we may be able to pull off a worthwhile podcast, too.
We try to release one episode every month. But we're teachers with busy young families so if we go a little longer than that between episodes, bear with us!
From Here to History
The Ancient Assyrians
Massive statues of winged bulls with human heads, stone reliefs depicting gruesome lion hunts and mass executions of captured soldiers, ancient history's most impressive library, kings with complex names, the famous Lost Tribes of Israel. All of these elements and more come together in Ancient Assyria. Some historians credit them as being the world's first true empire. But today, outside of specialists in the field or anyone with a deep familiarity with the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient Assyrians are largely forgotten.
In the first of 2 episodes devoted to this incredible society, Chris and Jason discuss how a minor city-state on the Tigris first appeared in history and became a wealthy trading hub. How a few visionary kings forged the city of Ashur's place in the world of ancient Mesopotamia and laid the foundations for the empire that was to come.