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!

Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast, the unscripted show that celebrates unsung heroes,

Mythbust's historical lies, and rediscover the forgotten stories that changed our world.

I'm your host, Scott Rank.

Hi everyone, welcome to an in-between-a-sode where I answer any question that you have about history.

Today's question is this.

How did people call, and I use call in quotes, the police before phones existed?

That's a tough one.

A crime has happened, you need to get a hold of authorities, but you're far away, you don't have any modern communications.

What do you do?

Well, if you are not in a city, the short answer is you could not do very much.

When we talk about highway men, what is a highway man?

A highway man is a type of criminal that lives along the highway and prays upon travelers.

Travelers are between cities and they're outside of the reach of authorities,

so unless you're traveling in a large group of people and you have some armed men with you to ward off these figures,

there's not much you can do.

This is a why-on-place like the Silk Road, people with travel in large groups and caravans,

...