Parting the Desert Between Two Seas

Parting the Desert Between Two Seas

Author: The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios April 27, 2026 Duration: 33:10
HISTORY This Week
HistoryCultureEducationSocietySociety & Culture
April 25, 1859. About 150 people have gathered on the shores of Lake Manzala in Egypt. And one of them, a mustachioed, retired French diplomat, steps forward. He raises his pickaxe and strikes a ceremonial blow. The audacious goal is to cut through the desert to connect the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, creating a new trade route between the East and the West. Changing global trade and geopolitics forever. Today: the Suez Canal. Why did the tremendous efforts of a Frenchman end up enriching the British Empire? And how, decades later, did the canal play an unexpected role in the birth of modern Egypt? ​​Thank you to our guests, Ibrahim El-Houdaiby and Professor Aaron Jakes, for speaking with us for this episode. Thank you also to Dr. Bella Galil for talking with us. If you want to read more about the Suez Canal, Zachary Karabell's Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal is a great resource.  ** This episode originally aired April 25, 2022. Get in touch: historythisweek@history.com  Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠ To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

This week, something big happened. You might have never heard of it, but this moment changed the course of history. A HISTORY Channel original podcast, HISTORY This Week gives you insight into the people—both famous and unknown—whose decisions reshaped the world we live in today. Through interviews with experts and eyewitnesses, each episode will give you a new perspective on how history is written. Stay up-to-date at historythisweekpodcast.com and to get in touch, email us at historythisweek@history.com.HISTORY This Week is a production of Back Pocket Studios in partnership with the History Channel.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Official website RSS
HISTORY This Week
Podcast Episodes
Trailer: HTW Season Premiere This Monday! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03
HISTORY This Week will return with new episodes this Monday, February 16th, with a story about the most vital train tunnels in the United States. The North River Tunnels—their formal name—connect New Jersey to Penn Stati…
Shut Out of the Majors, They Created Their Own [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:25
Feb 13, 1920. For over thirty years, Black baseball players have been locked out of the major leagues. So on this day in Kansas City, Rube Foster, a former pitcher and now a team owner, is trying to make his own league j…
The Great Comic Book Scare [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:13
February 4, 1955. In a New York courtroom, the Comics Czar takes the stand. He’s in charge of enforcing a new code, meant to keep comic books from corrupting America’s youth, and he’s here to prove that his work has clea…
The Dogs Who Saved Nome, Alaska [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:21
On January 5, 2026, Jirdes Winther Baxter passed away at 101 years old — the last known survivor of the 1925 diphtheria epidemic in Nome, Alaska. A few years ago, we told the story of the Serum Run: the desperate relay o…
Houdini Defies Death [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:54
January 25, 1908. Harry Houdini is the most famous magician in America. He’s known for his escapes – from handcuffs, boxes, jail cells, even a giant football. But the escape act is getting old, and ticket sales aren’t wh…
The Great Boston Molasses Flood [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:57
January 15, 1919. Boston PD receives a call: “Send all available rescue personnel...there's a wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street." The bizarre flood decimated Boston's North End. How did it happen? And why do…
Tuskegee Top Gun [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:40
Editor’s note: This episode originally aired January 9, 2023. Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr. passed away in February 2025 at the age of 100. Lt. Col. James Harvey III still resides in New Jersey, now 102 years old. -- Januar…
King Tut’s Tomb and the Battle for Egypt’s Past [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:38
January 3, 1924. Archeologists crowd into an ancient Egyptian tomb to uncover what awaits them in the unopened burial chamber. The world is waiting to find out. That’s because two years before, the discovery of the tomb…

«1234567...10»