In the year 1899, George Climonce had just returned to Paris from a visit to Greece.

At a social gathering, he was invited by his hostess to offer his impressions.

Clemenceau replied,

Well, madame, I am not going to talk about the grandeur of the Acropolis,

nor do I intend to torment you with a lecture on archaeology.

I have been to see strange and picturesque lands, among them Crete.

You will never guess, though, my most interesting discovery in the island, one more interesting by far than the splendors of the excavations,

I will tell you, a young advocate, a monsieur, Venezuela, Venezuelos, Venezuelos,

frankly, I cannot quite recall his name, but the whole of Europe will be speaking of him in a few years.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Thank you. The

The Episode 155, A Lake of Blood

I intend to cover two topics today.

One is the developments in the Balkans and Greece in 1917, but before I get to that, I want to say a few words about the nation of Iran. Iran has come

up before in the podcast, mostly in the context of competing Russian and British

interests there. I talked a little about the political situation in Iran in episode 41, and I told

you the story of the death of Prince Bahram, who was killed in the English Channel and route to his

homeland when the German submarine U-29 sank the French Ferry Sussex.

I've been promising you more on the topic of Iran, and I hope today I can offer at least a down

payment on what I owe you.

You probably already know that Iran represents one of the oldest nations and oldest civilizations on the planet.

Human beings have lived in the region for hundreds of thousands of years.

The first city in what is now Iran, Sousa, was established over 6,000 years ago,

...