James Cook is one of those explorers where upon hearing his name, you gotta take a beat and try to decide if he's a real person or if you're thinking of Captain Hook from Peter Pan or Captain Cook from Breaking Bad. But don't sleep on Jimmy cause the man knew how to quest. Starting out from humble origins cutting his teeth in the coal shipping game, he learned his way around a ship and around the water. Eventually the Royal Navy came calling and he was sent to the new world during the Seven Years War and found he had a talent for cartography. A few years of honing his skills later and James found himself charged with locating the great southern continent that balanced the hemispheres. His voyages would take him around the world several times, seeing places like Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada, both circles (Antarctic and Arctic), and many others. Compared with other explorers of his era he was on the lighter side when it came to the mistreatment of indigenous people so he's got that going for him, which is nice. Join us this week as we set sail on the high seas with Captain James Cook.

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During WW2 a lot of airmen and a lot of sailors found themselves treading water in the ocean instead of flying in their plane or standing on the deck of their ship. Rescuing these men eventually became a well practiced task, but how exactly was it done? Go to Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and subscribe to find out and more.

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What is an archeologist's wet dream? Our guess would be two pre-christian Roman Empire cities preserved almost perfectly under pumice and ash. Something that could be excavated and studied for a lifetime. Each little detail laying out the historical record of what everyday life in a Roman port city/vacation town would look like. Thanks to Mount Vesuvius erupting in 79 CE, that wet dream is a reality. Lava was not involved in the eruption of Vesuvius. It spewed ash and pumice that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. For those unfortunate souls who could not leave, the pyroclastic flows took them in an instant. Today we are going to talk about what happened on that day. The panic, the terror, the normality of the day Vesuvius erupted. Then we get to talk about what the excavation at the two sites has uncovered. Spoiler alert: this episode is a lot of fun. Join us today as we get Historically High on Pompeii!

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