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Find the link in our show notes. I'm making a robot head with an Amazon box. I've painted it silver and Daddy help me make...

At Amazon, we're actually using paper bags for more of our deliveries. And now I'm making a paper hot air balloon, and I even made a little brown basket

and I'm making a dog that looks just like Monty.

Just one of the ways we've reduced the weight of our packaging by more than 40% since 2015,

which is still good for playtime.

Mom! Where's the scissors?

To learn more, visit aboutamson.com.com.combe.

Sustainability.

In the far southern heel of the boot that is the Italian peninsula, there's a coastal city known as Taranto.

Though it is less well known today, or maybe we all just get easily confused with a large city in Canada,

Taranto is an important commercial and military naval hub in Italy and the Mediterranean and has been since the classical era.

In the Middle Ages, though, beginning in 1095 CE, Taranto took on an even greater significance

as it became the main disembarkation point for crusaders using the southern sea route to get to Constantinople and the Holy Land.

At first, you might think that this was simply due to its approximate location, just south of Rome, the epicenter of the Western European Crusade effort.

And while that was likely a factor here,

there was a much more proximate cause. When we get to Taranto in our narrative, the city and

much of southern Italy are ruled over by a Norman nobleman named Bohemond, the son of the infamous Norman

Lord Robert Guiscard. Wait, what? The Normans ruled in Italy?

Why would a bunch of Frenchified former Vikings who resettled in North and Central France and

reconquered the British Isles also have claims in Italy? Well, that's the thing. The Normans had a fearsome reputation across Europe and the Middle East, and while they did definitely conquer, they were also occasionally invited in by local Christians to eject their despised rulers and take over.

Such was the case when the peoples of southern Italy grew tired of their

...