Info

Wonders of the World

Wonders of the World: the podcast that visits the great places on Earth to tell the story of our people, our civilization, and our planet.
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
Wonders of the World
2024
March


2023
September
August
February


2022
December
August
July
June
April
March
January


2021
December
November
September
August
July
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
April
March
February
January


2019
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November


Categories

All Episodes
Archives
Categories
Now displaying: January, 2022

Please visit the show's official page at wonderspodcast.com

Jan 20, 2022

The best example of Sahelian mud-brick architecture, the great mosque seems like a sandcastle rising from the Niger Inland Delta in Mali.

Originally built in the early days of the Mali Empire, the mosque also connects with the Songhai, Africa's largest and strongest empire, whose collapse came at key moment in world history.

We'll follow the fates of two great kings and see how choices made in the early 1500s echo today. And we'll eat tiguedegana, a peanut tomato stew that is just so freaking delicious.

Sources:

Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sa’di. Tarikh al-sudan

Davidson, Basil, et al. A History of West Africa to the Nineteenth Century

Dorsey, James Michael. “Mud and infidels: Djenné, Mali” in the San Diego Reader

Dubois, Félix. Notre beau Niger…

French, Howard W. Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.

Ibn Mukhtar.  Tarikh al-fattash

Lonely Planet West Africa

Meredith, Martin. The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavour

Reader, John. Africa: A Biography of the Continent

Wilson, Joe. “In search of Askia Mohammed: The epic of Askia Mohammed as cultural history and Songhay foundational myth”

 

Photograph by Francesco Bandarin CC 3.0

Jan 6, 2022

Officially, this episode is on the amazing glowing algae living in the waters of three of Puerto Rico's bays, most notably Puerto Mosquito on Vieques, one of Puerto Rico's smaller islands. Listener and boriqueño native Roberto Cancel describes swimming in the bay on a dark night, surrounded by glowing blue waters.

But most of the episode is devoted to perhaps the most important event in world history: 1493. Not 1492, but 1493. That's the year when Christopher Columbus returned to the Americas, not as an explorer, but as a conqueror.

We discuss (and really only scratch the surface of) the impact of this second voyage. It's only the beginning, because every episode to come will exist in the new world (pun intended) created by this event.

And we have shrimp mofongo, a boriqueño specialty that blends European, African, and American in a way that exemplifies the new global world.

Sources:
Bergreen, Laurence. Columbus: the Four Voyages
Diamond, Jared. Germs, Guns, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Fodor’s Puerto Rico
Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus 
Mann, Charles C. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Photograph by Edgar Torres CC 3.0

1