Author: Trevor Culley

I'm Trevor Culley. My personal experience with both Persian history and podcasts began with a college extra credit assignment to listen to the first Hardcore History history episode on the Achaemenids. I was instantly enthralled with the stories of the Kings of Kings and coming a little late to the party, started listening to podcasts. On one hand, I started heading down the road toward PhD that will let me study ancient Persia for a living. On the other, as I binged my way through both the History of Rome and early episodes of the History of Byzantium I was always excited for the episodes dealing with the Parthians and Sassanids. I'm sure some of you shared my surprise and disappointment to discover that there was not a similarly dedicated podcast dealing with the great empires east of Rome. So that brings us here. I've decided to personally create that dedicated podcast.

022: How Al-Qaeda Invaded Georgia

On By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast Episodes5 Comments
Akhmeta Municipality, home of the Pankisi Gorge, highlighted in Green via Wikimedia

The years immediately after 9/11 were a weird time. Every adult in the world went a little insane. The US and Putin’s Russia were intelligence allies. Al-Qaeda really was inside Georgia – just not that one. Trevor is joined by Roberto of altogether too many projects to discuss the Pankisi Gorge Crisis, and how US training and advisors helped combat both fundamentalist insurgents and anti-corruption protestors. Roberto is the host of The History of Saqartvelo Georgia (@History_Georgia) and co-host of Tsar Power (@TsarPowerPod) and Quest for Power.
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The History of Saqartvelo Georgia https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/historysaqartvelogeorgia
Tsar Power https://tsarpowerpod.weebly.com/
Quest for Power https://quest-for-power.captivate.fm/
Intelligent Speech 2026 https://intelligentspeechonline.com/

Leupp – Georgia and the War on Terrorism

Manning – Folklore and Terror in Georgia’s ‘Notorious’ Pankisi Gorge

The AP – Green Berets Land in Georgia For 2-Year Training Program

Bush – Presidential Letter, September 19, 2003

Bush – Presidential Letter, March 20, 2004

Cecire – How extreme are the Extremists? Pankisi Gorge as a Case Study

Civil.ge – Timeline-2005

Filkins – U.S. Entangled in Mystery of Georgia’s Islamic Fighters

GlobalSecurity.org – Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP)

Grennan – Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge and the Global War Against Terrorism

McGregor – Ricin Fever: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Pankisi Gorge

Menabde – Pankisi Gorge: A Resurgent Flashpoint in Georgia?

Myers – World Briefing\Europe: Georgia: Region Under Control

Quinn-Judge – The Surprise In the Gorge

Traynor – Georgia: US opens new front in war on terror

USDoS – Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: Georgia

Welt – Shaking up the System: Georgia and the War on Terror

151: 2 Syria 2 War

On By Trevor CulleyIn History of Persia, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment
Coin depicting Antiochos II Theos via Wikimedia

Trevor’s WiFi is back, and so is the History of Persia. Although he started in a relatively strong position, the new Seleucid king Antiochus II’s reign was immediately derailed by the Second Syrian War. Rebellions, invasions, and alliances ensue.
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021: The Pig War (Canadian Almost War 5)

On By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment
George Vancouver’s Map of the San Juan Islands, 1798
Charles Wilkes’ Map of the Oregon Country, 1845

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 5, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Pig War and the boundary disputes that gave us Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Unfortunately, production on this series has been a nightmare and the full bibliography was lost in a technical error (not realizing my laptop had disconnected from wifi and stopped auto-saving). Here is an abbreviated version:

Coleman – The Pig War: The Most Perfect War in History
Shewmaker – Daniel Webster and the Oregon Question Available to Purchase
Polk – Inaugural Address
Polk – First Annual Message to Congress
Vancouver – A chart shewing part of the coast of N.W. America
Wilkes – Map of the Oregon Territory
Oregon Treaty, 1846
Treaty of Washington, 1871

149: Theogonies

On By Trevor CulleyIn History of Persia, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment
“Phanes” by Francisco Salviati, 16th Century

The Ancient Greeks had many ideas about the origins of the universe and humanity over the centuries. The best known is probably Hesiod’s Theogony, but the Orphics developed many of their own versions of the story. Today, we explore some of those competing ideas about the dawn of Time.
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20: The Creole Case (Canadian Almost War 4)

On By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment
Joseph Cinquez was the leader of a revolt among African slaves aboard the Spanish ship "Amistad" en route to Cuba in June 1839. The slaves seized control of the ship but were soon recaptured and charged with murder and piracy. This portrait was done while Cinquez (or "Cinque") awaited trial in New Haven, Connecticut. John Quincy Adams represented the Africans before the Supreme Court, and thanks to his eloquence, they were set free and allowed to return to Africa. Sheffield's portrait is sympathetic and informal. The text quotes Cinquez's sober and moving speech to his comrades on board ship after the mutiny. He said, "Brothers, we have done that which we purposed, our hands are now clean for we have Striven to regain the precious heritage we received from our fathers. . . . I am resolved it is better to die than to be a white man's slave . . ." Commissioned by the publisher of the New York "Sun," the print was described and advertised for sale in the account of the capture of the "Amistad," published in that newspaper's August 31, 1839 issue. (The "Sun" account, evidently erroneous in this detail, names the artist as "James" Sheffield.) The Library's impression of the lithograph was deposited for copyright the same day. - from Wikimedia Commons
Print portrait of Sengbeh Pieh (a.k.a. Joseph Cinquez) in The Sun, August 31, 1839. Possibly the same portrait that Madison Washington reportedly saw during his time in Philadelphia.

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 4, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Creole Case, the struggle for emancipation in antebellum America, and how the slaver states wanted to use a war against British Canada to their own advantage.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Douglass – The Heroic Slave

Home – Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation

Jervey and Huber – The Creole Affair

Jones – The Influence of SLavery on the Webster-Ashburton Negotiations

Momodu – The Creole Case

National Archives – The Amistad Case

Rediker – The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom

Sorrell and Berry – This 1841 Rebellion at Sea Freed More Than 100 Enslaved People

US DOS – The Amistad Case, 1839

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

146: Dating in the Family

On By Trevor CulleyIn History of Persia, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment
The Xian Stele, Chinese with a Syriac translation date Year of the Greeks 1092, over 1000 years into the Seleucid Era via Wikimedia

Like any good king, Antiochus I Soter had a royal family, and as his reign comes to an end, it’s time to talk about them, from his brother in Anatolia to troublesome sons and wide ranging in-laws. He’s in his Seleucid Era.
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019: The Patriot War (Canadian Almost War 3)

On By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment
The Battle of Saint-Eustache by Lord Charles Beauclerk, 1840

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 3, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Patriot War, a failed Canadian Revolution where the US somehow managed to fight and lose on both sides.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611


Guillet – The lives and times of the patriots; an account of the Rebellion in Upper Canada

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Bonthius – The Patriot War of 1837-1838: Locofocoism with a Gun?

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Ducharme – Closing the Last Chapter of the Atlantic Revolution

Forcese – Destroying the Caroline: The Frontier Raid that Reshaped the Right to War

Kilbourn – The Firebrand: William Lyon Mackenzie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada

Kinchen – The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters

Read – The Rising in Western Upper Canada 1837-8: The Duncombe Revolt and After

Sewell: Mackenzie: A Political Biography

Waxman – The Caroline Affair in the Evolving International Law of Self-Defense