A Twist of History

Marie Antoinette’s world renowned extravagance made her an icon and then an example as the Queen of France, but her beheading, and the French Revolution, may never have come to pass if not for a lavish piece of jewelry at the center of a salacious con.

While The United States and The Soviet Union flirted with existential disaster on a global stage during the Cuban Missile Crisis, an unknown conflict was unfolding under the ocean on a Russian submarine equipped to trigger an all-out nuclear war.

Money and politics have always been intertwined in America, but before the days of Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg, there was Rockerfeller, Carnegie and Morgan, titans of industry whose political power may have become absolute if they hadn’t underestimated an upstart politician by the name of Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt.

During the War of 1812, Washington DC was in the process of being destroyed by the British Army, until they came up against an even more powerful force: Mother Nature.

Before the Mongol Empire dominated the Asian Continent, there was no empire to speak of, only nomadic tribes in perpetual battle. That is, until a precocious teenager with a knack for strategy forged a dynasty that reshaped the entire world in his own image.

Peeling a banana uncovers much more than a tasty fruit, it reveals a fraught history riddled with violent coups, espionage, political assassinations and international wars.

A goal of helping to fight against the Nazis during World War II leads a Hollywood star, known as the "most beautiful woman in the world," to invent the technology which changes the world.

The assassination of Julius Caesar left an enormous power vacuum in Rome, thrusting his successors into an epic, intercontinental battle for control of the empire that reshaped the future of the modern world.

How did modern medicine become modern? It was thanks, in part, to a renegade doctor who pushed the boundaries of experimentation - and ethics. And it all began with a bang, from the barrel of a shotgun.

World War I was known as the War to End All Wars due to its scale and loss of life. At the height of the fighting, when American soldiers on the front lines longed for home, an unlikely beacon of hope arrived.

In 1605, a plot to kill the King of England was underway, and the man who attempted it, along with his name, would go down in infamy.

What if a seemingly unremarkable choice could have prevented one of the most infamous disasters of all time?

Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the devastation that followed in his wake was hardly inevitable. In fact, if not for a single split-second decision by a woman you've probably never heard of, we might not know the name Hitler at all.

Mobsters, shootouts, and petal-to-the-metal police chases. This is prohibition-era America – a time when a group of adrenaline-fueled outlaws and their need for speed paved the way for a modern American pastime.

During the Gilded Age in New York City, the horrors of mental health care are exposed in explosive fashion, forever changing the way stories are uncovered.

Why do Americans measure things in inches and pounds while the rest of the world uses centimeters and kilograms? The answer becomes clear when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson’s vision for the future clashes with a band of marauding pirates.

New York City in the mid 1800s was run by violent gangs, corrupt politicians, and grifting opportunists who operated with no fear of punishment. It was like a powder keg ready to blow, and all it took to light the fuse, and change the future of law enforcement, was a performance of Shakespeare.

If not for inventor Thomas Edison's iron grip over the nascent film industry, and a few defiant trailblazers, movies as we know them might have never come to be.

The Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War remains the bloodiest day in American history. That day, and the future of the United States, could have turned out very differently, if not for a single note and three cigars.

In 1910, a brutal murder in London sparks a transatlantic manhunt and the rise of a cultural obsession.

The course of history never follows a straight line. These are the epic stories that have shaped the world we now live in. From Ballen Studios, join us - for the most heart pounding podcast in history. New episodes every Wednesday.