History’s Drunks & Junkies
Winston Churchill was a big, fat drunk. So were Joseph Stalin and Alexander the Great. Adolf Hitler was a meth head. Napoleon Bonaparte was brain-fucked on opium on the day of the Battle of Waterloo. And swollen-faced John F. Kennedy had so many drugs pumping through his system, he could barely function.
Of course, there’s no way to prove any of this. But it sure does make sense. Dan Carlin’s latest episode of Hardcore History (“History Under the Influence”) takes an Occam’s Razor approach to some of the most bizarre and unexplainable actions by ancient and recent history’s biggest players.
Aside from the short, awkward format (this isn’t Carlin’s best history show), the subject is pretty fascinating, because very few historians have delved into the arena of how alcohol and narcotics might have affected the way world leaders behaved. Check it out.