022: How Al-Qaeda Invaded Georgia

On August 5, 2025August 7, 2025 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

147: Orpheus

On April 14, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn History of Persia, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

Roman statuette depicting Orpheus via Wikimedia

We’re taking a break from the historical narrative to focus on a mythological one: the life and times of Orpheus the Bard, from his many origin stories to the travels of the Argonauts to his eventual journey to the underworld.
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140: Meet the Neighbors Who Resisted

On January 14, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn History of Persia, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

Map of the Diadochoi states c. 270 BC via Ian Mladjov’s resources

By the time Seleucus Nicator was murdered, he had reunited much of Alexander the Great’s Empire, but the northern and southwestern edges of the imperial map were rapidly filling in with new, smaller kingdoms and confederations. From Chorasmia to the Cimmerian Bosporus, and from Bithynia to the Nabataean Arabs, this episode gives a brief overview of the smaller successors to Alexander and Darius.
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History of Saqartvelo-Georgia
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125.2: Ask Me Anything Again… Again

On May 3, 2024 By Trevor CulleyIn History of Persia, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

You, the listeners of this very podcast, are phenomenal, thoughtful, inquisitive people. So I have done my very best to answer your many, many questions about the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, and myself.
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History of the Celts
r/AskHistorians post about supply lines
Patreon RSS feed instructions
Persian Music by ItShowTimeMusic
The Complete Fragments of Ctesias of Cnidus by Andrew Nichols
Ctesias’ History of Persia: Tales of the Orient by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and James Robson

125.1: Ask Me Anything Again

On April 30, 2024May 3, 2024 By Trevor CulleyIn History of Persia, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

02: America’s Very First War, Part 2

On March 7, 2024 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast Episodes2 Comments

Map of the Oconee River Basin. Created by Anna Baynes (UGA River Basin Center)

For part 2, Trevor is joined by Asha (@Herbo_Anarchist) of the “Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism” podcast (@SwordsNSocPod) to explain Secret Wars and discuss the first ever war fought by the United States’ armed forces after gaining independence: a border dispute between Georgia and the Muskogee (Creek) Confederacy from 1785-1790.
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Saunt – A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816
Scurry – The Oconee War Parts 1-3
Smith – History of the Georgia Militia, 1783-1861
Chappell – Georgia History Stories
Coulter – Elijah Clarke’s Foreign Intrigues and the “Trans-Oconee Republic”
Haynes – Patrolling the Border: Theft and Violence on the Creek-Georgia Frontier, 1770-1796
Kokomoor – Let Us Try to Make Each Other Happy, and Not Wretched”: the Creek-Georgian Frontier
Kokomoor – Creeks, Federalists, and the Idea of Coexistence in the Early Republic
Scurry – A Considerable Tract of Country

001: America’s Very First War, Part 1

On February 29, 2024March 7, 2024 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast Episodes1 Comment

Map of Georgia, its rivers, and its major cities with the Oconee River Basin highlighted (L)

Map of the Oconee Basin with greater detail to show local creeks (R). — Map of the Oconee River Basin. Created by Anna Baynes (UGA River Basin Center)

For the very first episode, Trevor is joined by Asha (@Herbo_Anarchist) of the “Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism” podcast (@SwordsNSocPod) to explain Secret Wars and discuss the first ever war fought by the United States’ armed forces after gaining independence: a border dispute between Georgia and the Muskogee (Creek) Confederacy from 1785-1790.
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