Thank you for listening to Power Corrupts. We make this show because we think it's important not to make money,

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Six hundred years ago, there lived a man named Orban, just the one name, sort of like a 15th century

Beyonce or Oprah. Except Orban wasn't a celebrity. He was a cannonmaker. And not just any cannonmaker, but the best maker of cannons in the

entire world. In the 1450s his artillery was more destructive than any other weapon on the planet.

It could lay waste to city walls, pound through the strongest defenses, and turn outposts

to rubble.

But there's no point in making such powerful cannons if you have nobody to sell them to.

And it's only so much fun to shoot them on your own.

...