A Noble and Historic Parking Lot Brawl (Revenge week) - That Was Genius Episode 38

I mean honestly, it's amazing it's taken us this long to tackle revenge. That's basically what history is all about.

And we've no shortage of things to talk about. Tom kicks us off with the bizarre and brutal true story behind Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo - as well as a look at the incredible history of the Dumas family themselves (did you know the three musketeers was based on the real-life adventures of his Dad?)

Next, Sam takes us to Soviet Russia, Mariya Oktyabrskaya and 'The Fighting Girlfriend'. It's a classic love story: Woman meets man, man dies on WW2 Eastern Front, woman sells worldly possessions, buys tank, and gets permission from Stalin to use it to kill Nazis. A tale as old as time.

Incidentally, Sam talks about Olga of Kiev today: she features in Episode 15, which you can find here. The link goes to our website. Now that's a properly brutal story of revenge.

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Welcome to That Was Genius: Two blokes. A 12-hour time difference. An immature sense of humour. And 10,000 years of human civilisation. A weekly podcast looking at the weirder side of history.

Join Sam Datta-Paulin (he likes history and lives in Britain) and Tom Berry (he also likes history but lives in New Zealand), for a weekly reflection on the bold, the brilliant... And the downright strange.

From bizarre events and stories to equally odd inventions, barely a day goes by without something incredible (or incredibly stupid) happening around the world.

We upload new episodes every Wednesday night/Thursday morning (UK time).

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That Was Genius is produced by Glorious Republic Broadcasting.