The History of North America podcast is a sweeping historical saga of the United States,

Canada, and Mexico from their deep origins to our present epoch.

Join me, Mark Vinet, on this exciting, fascinating epic journey through time, focusing on the compelling,

wonderful, and tragic stories of North America's inhabitants, heroes, villains, leaders,

environment, and geography.

I invite you to come along for the ride.

History is in just a bunch of names and dates and facts.

It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explained how and why we got here.

Welcome to the History and Plug podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,

and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.

I'm your host, Scott Rank.

On this podcast, I've talked more about the Ottoman Empire than probably should be on a history

podcast.

That's because that was my research field, and I can't help it.

But for people who like early modern history, the period from the 16th to 18th centuries,

no doubt the Ottoman Empire was very important in world history.

It controlled much of North Africa, the entire Arabian peninsula, Anatolia, up to the Caucasus

mountains, what is modern day Ukraine, North of the Black Sea, Eastern Europe, and Central

Europe, including Hungary, up to the gates of Vienna.

The 16th century Ottomans had extraordinary military power and monopolies on trade routes

and controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power.

They forced Europeans out of the Mediterranean and into the new world kicking out the age

...