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A woman is kidnapped by terrorists. The official rescue effort stalls. And the person who knows the territory is a former Green Beret who thought his missions were behind him. When Abu Sayyaf abducted Evelyn Chang during a deadly raid on an island resort, Gene Yu had a personal reason to act: Evelyn was a friend of his mother’s. The West Point graduate and former Special Forces officer put his own money on the line, called on trusted comrades, and headed back toward the jungles of the southern Philippines without orders or military backup. Gene joins Badass of the Week to tell the story of the rescue, the decisions that could have gone disastrously wrong, and how the mission gave him a second shot at finding his place after the Army. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quanah Parker was born between worlds—and became a master of both. As the last great war chief of the Quahadi Comanche, he led one of the final armed resistances on the Southern Plains, charging into the gunfire at Adobe Walls and fighting an industrial war machine with speed, terrain, and sheer nerve. When military victory became impossible, Quanah launched an equally audacious second act: statesman, cattle baron, political power broker, defender of religious freedom, and tireless advocate for his people. Ben Thompson is joined by Pushcart Prize–winning writer and professor Daniel Peña, author of How to Look Away: On American Cruelty and the Refusal to Disappear, to explore Quanah’s extraordinary life, the tragedy of his mother Cynthia Ann Parker, and the complicated legacy of a warrior who refused to let his people disappear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before the Green Berets or Navy SEALs, there were Rogers’ Rangers. During the French and Indian War, Major Robert Rogers forged an unconventional fighting force that could snowshoe through blizzards, operate deep behind enemy lines, and turn wilderness survival into a weapon. Then bestselling author Scott Sigler joins the show to discuss Beasts Beyond the River, his historical-horror novel that throws hardened colonial Rangers into a supernatural nightmare of mud, blood, gunpowder, and monsters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the Battle of Changban, Zhao Yun turned his horse around and rode back into the teeth of Cao Cao’s advancing army to rescue Liu Bei’s infant son. It was the defining act of a warrior celebrated not merely for his skill with a spear, but for his courage, loyalty, and unbreakable code of honor. This week, longtime producer Ian Jacobs steps out from behind the soundboard to explore the history and legend of Zhao Yun—the White Dragon of the Three Kingdoms and perhaps the closest ancient China ever came to the perfect soldier. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Five-foot-four, barely a hundred pounds, and armed with enough intellectual firepower to reshape a nation, James Madison brought a pen to a political knife fight... and made it everybody else’s problem. For Constitution Day, Ben welcomes back Dr. Greg Jackson of History That Doesn’t Suck to meet the unlikely heavyweight who helped write America’s rulebook, and then fought like hell over how to use it. From the pressure cooker of the Constitutional Convention to vicious newspaper wars, a spectacular falling-out with Alexander Hamilton, and a presidency that included the British setting his damn house on fire, Madison’s career was anything but a quiet life behind a desk. Madison helped design the Constitution, fought to get it ratified, championed the Bill of Rights, and plunged into the partisan battles that would test the government he helped create. Drawing on Greg’s book, Been There, Done That: How Our History Shows What We Can Overcome, Ben and Greg explore the political grudges, constitutional showdowns, and sheer stubbornness behind the American experiment. Turns out, arguing over the Constitution is a tradition as old as the Constitution itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six surgeries. Nearly eighty pounds lost. And a touchdown that deserves its own damn movie. Britt Redman was a high school wide receiver in the middle of a playoff run when advanced testicular cancer turned his world upside down. Football gave way to chemotherapy, operating rooms, and the brutal work of getting through another day. After everything his body endured, returning to the field would have been remarkable. Britt made it all the way back to the end zone. This week, Ben sits down with Britt and his father, former NFL quarterback and Super Bowl champion Chris Redman, for a comeback story with considerably more at stake than a scoreboard. They explore the terror of the diagnosis, the faith and family that helped carry them through treatment, and what happens when a dad who has faced NFL defenses encounters something he can’t beat with a better play call. Along the way, Ben connects Britt’s story to medieval warrior king Baldwin IV, and the Redmans discuss Grit Like Britt, the foundation bringing gaming consoles—and some much-needed escape—to kids facing cancer. Bring your game face. Possibly also tissues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

History remembers Catherine de’ Medici as the black-clad poison queen of Renaissance France—an Italian schemer who kept a vial in one hand and a dagger in the other. The truth is messier, bloodier, and way more interesting. Orphaned as a baby, married off at fourteen, and dropped into a French royal court that treated her like a foreign spare part, Catherine survived humiliation, dynastic disaster, and one spectacularly fatal jousting accident. Then she did what every sidelined queen mother dreams of doing: she took control. With three of her sons wearing the crown in succession, France exploding into religious war, nobles plotting coups, and assassins lurking around every palace corner, Catherine fought to keep her family on the throne and the kingdom from tearing itself apart. Ben and Pat wade into the legends of poison, prophecy, political murder, and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre to ask the real question: Was Catherine de’ Medici a murderous monster, a master political survivor—or simply the only person in the royal family who knew what the hell she was doing? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami turned the Japanese city of Ishinomaki into a freezing, debris-choked nightmare. Most people would take one look at that and head for the hills. Hideaki Akaiwa grabbed a wetsuit and diving gear and went straight in. He fought his way through flooded streets to rescue his trapped wife, went back out to find his missing mother, and then kept searching for neighbors and survivors. This week, Ben and Andrew tell the incredible true story of a regular guy who responded to an apocalyptic natural disaster with courage, stubbornness, and the kind of action-movie heroics that would make Hollywood say, “Okay, maybe dial it back a little.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode, Ben is joined by special guest Paul Jacobs to tell the story of Karl von Müller and the SMS Emden, the German warship that unleashed absolute chaos across the Indian Ocean during World War I. Outnumbered, outgunned, and thousands of miles from home, Müller used speed, deception, and sheer audacity to capture or destroy dozens of Allied ships, cripple vital shipping routes, and send warships from five nations scrambling to hunt him down. From sneaking into enemy harbors in disguise to the Emden’s explosive final showdown with HMAS Sydney, this is the story of one captain, one cruiser, and one of the most legendary rampages in naval history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, First Lieutenant Brian Chontosh and his Marines were caught in a coordinated ambush on Route 1. With the road blocked and fire closing in around them, Chontosh ordered his Humvee toward the attack, broke through the enemy’s defenses, and led a fight through the trench line -- an extraordinary action that earned him the Navy Cross. But an award citation can’t tell the whole story. In a candid conversation with Ben Thompson, Chontosh discusses the training and Marines who carried him through that day, the danger of believing his own “badass” mythology, and the battles that followed him home. He also shares how learning to accept help led him to create the Big Fish Foundation, which works to support veterans before they reach a crisis. It’s a powerful conversation about courage, leadership, vulnerability, and the long road home from war. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Semiramis did not come to the ancient world to sit quietly on a throne and wave at peasants. She came to rule. With an army at her back, a crown on her head, and the kind of ambition that makes neighboring kingdoms extremely nervous, this legendary queen became a towering symbol of military power, conquest, and royal authority. In today's episode Ben and Pat are joined by Dr. Amy Pistone to charge headfirst into the larger-than-life legend of Semiramis: warrior queen, empire-sized personality, and an all-around nightmare for anyone hoping to remain unconquered. Grab your crown, tighten your armor, and prepare for armies, ambition, ancient-world intrigue, and one spectacularly intimidating monarch—the queen who looked out at the horizon and decided it needed to be under new management. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

in part two of our crossover with Ridiculous History, Ben and Pat join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown to follow Louis-Antoine de Bougainville—a mathematician, soldier, explorer, and the first Frenchman to sail around the world—into the biggest naval battle of the American Revolution. Commanding the 80-gun Auguste at the front of the French fleet, Bougainville charges out of Chesapeake Bay to face the Royal Navy in a cannon-smoked brawl for control of the coast. When the British finally turn away, Cornwallis loses his supplies, reinforcements, and only escape route from Yorktown. The explorer who circled the globe has just helped put an entire British army in a box—and helped turn a colonial rebellion into an independent nation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In part one of our crossover with Ridiculous History, Ben and Pat join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown for one of the most insane military road trips of the American Revolution. With roughly 170 exhausted frontiersmen, no reliable supply line, and miles of freezing floodwater between him and British-held Fort Sackville, George Rogers Clark decides to attack immediately. What follows is an 18-day death march through the drowned Illinois wilderness, an enormous bluff, and a surprise siege that helps decide who will control the entire Northwest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Winning the Trojan War was the easy part. Odysseus helped destroy the most powerful city in the ancient world with a giant wooden horse—and then spent the next ten years getting absolutely wrecked on the commute home. This week, Ben and Pat are joined by Jon Bucher to dive into the legend of the king of Ithaca: warrior, con man, professional liar, and perhaps the most dangerously clever hero in Greek mythology. Along the way, Odysseus blinds a Cyclops, sails past the Sirens, tangles with witches and sea monsters, loses every ship and every man under his command, and personally pisses off the god of the ocean. It’s a story of brains, brutality, ego, endurance, and one man’s heroic refusal to ever take the easy way home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Getting ready to watch The Odyssey? Well here's the prequel... When Paris steals Helen and brings the armies of Greece crashing down on Troy, it falls to his older brother Hector to clean up the mess. Hector is Troy’s greatest warrior, its future king, and its last line of defense—a devoted husband and father who knows the gods have already written his ending. This week, Ben is joined by Dr. Pat Larash to enter the Iliad and follow Hector through his duels with Ajax, his devastating assault on the Greek camp, the death of Patroclus, and his final confrontation with Achilles. It’s the story of a man who fought not for glory or bloodlust, but because his family, his people, and his doomed city needed him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices