No One's Tougher Than the Biscuit Eaters (Sidekicks week) - That Was Genius Episode 60

It's not high kicks, it's not karate kicks, oh no, it's sidekick week.

A bit of a tricky one this week, if we're being honest. Tom's been looking at the odd triangle of sidekickery between the Byzantine emperor Justinian, his wife Theodora (known for her very public and quite voracious sexual appetites), general Belesarius and two-faced, bet hedging historian Precopius, whose unfortunate job it was to write about all three.

Meanwhile, Sam's been looking into duelling. Specifically women duelling, and extra specifically the bizarre (alleged) duel between Princess Pauline Matternich and Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg, who took up swords in a disagreement over flower arrangements. They also happened to be fighting topless for... erm, medical reasons.

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Welcome to That Was Genius: Two blokes. 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 and used to live in New Zealand but is now in the UK as well), 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.