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.

In 1648, at the end of the 30 years war, the Swedish army looted Prague.

One of the most valuable things that they stole and took home with them to Sweden was a book called the Codex Giggas.

Codex Giggas means giant book and Latin, and that's a very accurate description.

It's the largest medieval book in the world.

It's a yard tall, 19 inches across, nine inches thick, and weighs 165 pounds and took two men to carry.

In its day, it was believed that this book contained all human knowledge.

Originally created in the 13th century and stored in a Czech Benedictine monastery,

the book includes the old and new testaments and also a number of shorter texts addressing matters of importance of the time.

Grammar, a calendar, medical works, and how to perform an exorcism.

But it has another name because of what's inside the book.

It's also known as the Devil's Bible.

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