Podbit · Empire: World History
Algiers was built on the enslavement of over a million Europeans captured across the Mediterranean. A third of the city's population were slaves — but the Ottoman system allowed some to rise to the highest positions in the state.
Where this was said
At 4:24 · chapter starts 3:03
William Dalrymple launches into an enthusiastic preview of the series, confessing he knew almost nothing about Algeria until he sat in his garden with a pile of books three weeks earlier. He sketches the arc of the story: a pirate republic built on European slavery, the French conquest, the settlement of a million colonists, the revolutionary chic of 1960s Algiers — home to the Black Panthers, Tim Leary and Nina Simone — and finally the pieds-noirs repatriation to France. Crucially, he links this directly to the present, noting that Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led the pieds-noirs political party and was implicated in anti-resistance torture, is the father of Marine Le Pen, who may yet seize power in France.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, described as one of the torturers involved in French anti-resistance activities in Algeria, later led the political party formed by repatriated pieds-noirs settlers in France.
In the era of the Barbary corsairs, roughly a third of Algiers' population consisted of enslaved Europeans captured from across the Mediterranean and beyond.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: Privacy Policy.
Install Vuci on your phone
Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience.
Install Vuci on your phone
Tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
A new version is available
Reload to get the latest Vuci.