For the Love of History - world history, women’s history, weird history

The Egyptian Book of the Dead wasn't a book, and it wasn't cursed. It was a cheat sheet for surviving the afterlife exam from hell. Fail, and your heart gets eaten by a monster. This week, we open the real Book of the Dead, find out what The Mummy (1999) got wrong, and learn what Joseph Smith has to do with any of it. Ancient Egyptians believed that after death, you'd face a...

Everyone knows Japan has a complicated relationship with tattoos — but most people blame the wrong group. Long before the Yakuza gave tattoos their modern stigma, Japan's indigenous Ainu people were being punished, shamed, and legally banned from practicing a tattoo tradition thousands of years old.

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As a teenager, she worked on floating brothels. By her 30s, she commanded a pirate fleet larger than the Spanish Armada and forced three national governments to negotiate on her terms. This is the true story of Zheng Yi Sao, also known as Ching Shih, the most successful pirate in history, male or female.

What you'll learn in this episode:...

She led 1,000 cavalry into battle, survived facing down 6,000 enemy warriors, and 800 years later, historians still can't agree on whether she was real. Meet Tomoe Gozen — the legendary female samurai commander at the center of Japan's most famous war.

The British Museum's new Samurai Women exhibition has the internet arguing, some calling it revisioni...