Brent Antonson

Who the Hell Was... Xerxes?

Xerxes I, king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire from 486 to 465 BCE, was a man of grandeur, ambition, and serious grudge-holding. You might know him as the gold-draped villain from 300, but the real Xerxes was less body oil, more world domination. Let’s break it down. Son of...

What the Hell Was... Tiananmen?

Snapshot Date: June 4, 1989 Place: Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China What Happened: A pro-democracy movement led mostly by students was violently crushed by the Chinese government in what became one of the most infamous crackdowns of the 20th century. The Setup In spring 1989, China was changing. Economic reforms were...