Is the Trojan War a historical fact, or just the world's most successful piece of ancient fanfiction? We all know the pop-culture version containing a thousand ships, an invincible heel, petty gods sabotaging boats, and a giant wooden horse that somehow fooled an entire city. But for historians, turning Homer's Iliad into actual history is a total nightmare.

In this episode, we treat the Trojan War like an ancient cold case. We look at why the Iliad isn't the military logbook people think it is and explore the real-life mound of Hisarlık in Turkey, a place with nine different layers of stacked cities. We revisit Heinrich Schliemann, the millionaire amateur who "found" Troy by accidentally bulldozing through the very historical layers he was trying to prove, and dive into Hittite clay tablets that suggest there really was a Bronze Age power struggle over a city called Wilusa.

As always, this episode combines comedy commentary, offbeat learning, and quirky insights into one of those seemingly random topics that turns out to be alarmingly relevant today. It's a lighthearted dive into ancient propaganda, messy archaeology, and why the line between history and myth is a lot blurrier than Hollywood wants you to think.

Important links:

1. UNESCO — Archaeological Site of Troy

2. British Museum — The Search for the Lost City of Troy

3. British Museum — The Myth of the Trojan War

4. Archaeology Magazine — "Was There a Trojan War?" by Manfred Korfmann

5. Penn Museum — "Was There a Trojan War? Recent Excavations at Troy"

6. Smithsonian — In Search of Troy

7. Smithsonian — The Man Who Discovered—and Nearly Destroyed—Troy

8. Cambridge University Press — Hittite Literary Evidence

9. Society of Biblical Literature — The Ahhiyawa Texts

10. LAMAN Hittite Text Database — The Tawagalawa Letter

11. Perseus Digital Library — Homer's Iliad

12. Oxford University Press — The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction

13. Universal Pictures — The Odyssey

Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all.

Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week.

Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

We like to imagine that the media is at its best when democracy is at its worst. That journalists become fearless, newspapers hold power accountable, and propaganda is easily spotted for what it is. History suggests that's not quite the case.

In the first episode of a two-part series, we look at how the global media covered Benito Mussolini's rise to power, and it's far stranger than most people realise. Long before he became synonymous with fascism, dictatorship, and World War II, Mussolini was being described by major newspapers as a moderniser, a visionary, and the man who had restored "order" to Italy. Why were journalists so willing to overlook political violence? Why did so many newspapers celebrate fascism as a practical solution to socialism? And why did business interests seem to matter more than democratic values?

Along the way, we explore how Mussolini's background as a journalist helped him understand, and eventually control, the press, creating an environment where censorship often wasn't even necessary because self-censorship did the job just fine. As always, this episode blends comedy commentary, offbeat learning, and quirky insights into one of those seemingly random topics that turns out to have unsettling parallels with the present. It's lighthearted education only because we occasionally make jokes to cope with the fact that history has a worrying habit of repeating itself. Because dictators don't usually rise despite good press. Sometimes, they rise with it.

Important links:

1. How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/

2. MUSSOLINI, HOPE OF YOUTH, ITALY'S 'MAN OF TOMORROW - https://www.nytimes.com/1922/11/05/archives/mussolini-hope-of-youth-italys-man-of-tomorrow-hard-work-his-creed.html

3. MUSSOLINI AT WORK - https://www.nytimes.com/1922/11/12/archives/mussolini-at-work.html

4. Mussolini's fascists praised in 220 British newspaper reports - https://roguenation.org/mussolini-fascism-british-press/

5. The marketing of Mussolini : American magazines and Mussolini, 1922-1935 - https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2231&context=masters-theses

6. Italo-Ethiopian War - https://www.britannica.com/event/Italo-Ethiopian-War-1935-1936

7. Marzia Casolari-Hindutva Tie-up with Fascism in 1930s-Economic & Political Weekly - https://www.academia.edu/29191228/Marzia_Casolari_Hindutva_Tie_up_with_Fascism_in_1930s_Economic_and_Political_Weekly

8. RSS's militant structure is modelled on Mussolini's Blackshirts: Italian scholar of Hindutva - https://ullekhnp.com/2023/09/11/rsss-militant-structure-is-modelled-on-mussolinis-blackshirts-marzia-casolari/

Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all.

Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week.

Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!