Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

Attacking the largest empire the world had ever seen is a huge endeavor at any age, but try doing it at 21. Alexander, fusing the qualities of a Napoleon with a gladiator, aims for immortality. The Persians are just in his way.

Alexander's invasion of the Persian Empire. The battles of Granicus, Issus, and the siege of Tyre. Carlin examines Alexander's military genius, his growing megalomania, and the collision between Greek and Persian civilizations.

Is it safe to hand control of the deadliest army in the world to a 20-year old? If you are Thracian, Triballian, Illyrian or Theban, the answer is definitely no. Alexander becomes king and fights off threats to his rule in all directions.

Alexander becomes king and immediately faces threats from all directions. Carlin covers Alexander's early campaigns — securing Macedonia, crushing Greek revolts, and preparing for the invasion of Persia.

What's the recipe for making a historically world-class apex predator? In the case of Alexander the Great, it might be the three Ns: Nature, Nurture, and Nepotism.

The world of Philip II of Macedon — the father who built the military machine that his son Alexander would use to conquer the known world. Carlin examines how Philip transformed a weak kingdom into the dominant power in Greece.

Pagan Viking Sea Kings spend the 10th and 11th centuries morphing into Christian monarchs. But with rulers like Harald Bluetooth and Svein Forkbeard it's debatable whether things will be any less horrific for Scandinavia's neighbors

This show picks up where Dan's Thor's Angels show left off. In the early Middle Ages Pagan Germanic-language speakers like the Vikings are a dying breed. Many of their contemporaries wish they'd die faster.

The Viking Age. Carlin explores the Norse world from raids to settlement to conversion — how a pagan warrior culture collided with Christian Europe and was ultimately transformed by what it conquered.

The Atlantic Slave Trade mixes centuries of human bondage with violence, economics, commerce, geo-political competition, liberty, morality, injustice, revolution, tragedy and bloody reckonings. That sounds like a lot, yet this show merely scratches the surface of this enormous subject.

Carlin examines the Atlantic slave trade, covering centuries of human bondage, the economics of slavery, resistance and revolution, and the moral reckonings that followed abolition.

When do spirit, tenacity, resilience and bravery cross into madness? When cities are incinerated? When suicide attacks become the norm? When atomic weapons are used? Japan's leaders test the limits of national endurance in the war's last year.

The final installment covers the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan's surrender. Carlin grapples with the moral questions: was the bombing justified? Could the war have ended otherwise? What does it mean that this technology now exists?

Can suicidal bravery and fanatical determination make up for material, industrial and numerical insufficiency? As the Asia-Pacific conflict turns against the Japanese these questions are put to the test. The results are nightmarish.

Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal are three of the most famous battles of the Second World War. Together they will shift the momentum in the Pacific theater and usher in the era of modern naval and amphibious warfare.

Japan's rising sun goes supernova and engulfs a huge area of Asia and the Pacific. A war without mercy begins to develop infusing the whole conflict with a savage vibe.

Deep themes run through this show, with allegations of Japanese war crimes and atrocities in China at the start leading to eerily familiar, almost modern questions over how the world should respond. And then Dec 7, 1941 arrives...

The rise of Imperial Japan. Carlin traces how Japan transformed from a feudal society to a modern military power in a single generation, and how bushido ideology created a warrior culture that shocked the world in WWII.

The Asia-Pacific War of 1937-1945 has deep roots. It also involves a Japanese society that's been called one of the most distinctive on Earth. If there were a Japanese version of Captain America, this would be his origin story.

Carlin explores the history of public torture and execution as entertainment, from Roman gladiatorial games to medieval public executions. Examines why humans are drawn to spectacles of suffering and what it reveals about human nature.

Carlin chronicles Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, examining the genocide of Celtic peoples through Caesar's own account in The Gallic Wars. Explores the tension between Caesar's literary genius and the horror of what he describes.

The early Nuclear Age: how humanity came terrifyingly close to self-destruction multiple times. Carlin examines the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear brinksmanship, and the psychological burden on the people who held the fate of civilization in their hands.

The rise of the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great. Carlin explores how the Persians built the ancient world's largest empire through a combination of military genius and radical tolerance — allowing conquered peoples to keep their customs, languages, and religions.

The final episode covers the end of WWI, the armistice, and its aftermath. Carlin traces how the war's resolution planted the seeds for WWII, the Russian Revolution, and the modern Middle East.

Trench warfare solidifies on the Western Front. Carlin describes the industrialization of killing — machine guns, poison gas, artillery barrages — and the psychological toll on soldiers trapped in conditions that no previous generation had experienced.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the chain of events that dragged Europe into World War I. Carlin examines how a single bullet in Sarajevo activated a web of alliances, mobilization timetables, and miscalculations that no one could stop.

The 1534 Munster Rebellion: Anabaptist radicals seize a German city, establish a theocratic commune, and descend into tyranny and madness. Carlin uses the story to explore what happens when utopian ideology meets absolute power.

The final installment covers the later Mongol conquests and the empire's fragmentation. Carlin explores the paradox of an empire built on destruction that ultimately enabled unprecedented cultural exchange across Eurasia — the Pax Mongolica.

The Mongol Empire begins. Temujin rises from obscurity on the Mongolian steppe to unify the nomadic tribes under a single banner. Dan Carlin examines the brutal childhood, political genius, and terrifying military innovations of the man who would become Genghis Khan.