Monday, Sarah and I walked like Egyptians, Bangles-style, and talked about Cleopatra. Cleopatra VII, to be exact. Did you know there were six others before her?

Cleopatra married her brothers and served as co-rulers with them, although she didn’t really let them rule. She was a woman who knew what she wanted — and usually got it.

The story of Cleo and Caesar is that she appeared rolled up in a rug and popped out to surprise him. (Something to remember for your next blind date.) It worked, because he wanted her, and their child together, Ptolemy Caesar, had the potential to unite the East and West.

An assassination took Caesar from her, and she was summoned to Marc Antony’s side to prove her loyalty. So our queen of the dramatic moment shows up not in a rug but on a barge — as Isis. He falls for her, and they have children together too, although he’s married. They also formed the Society of Inimitable Livers, which is simply too good: debauchery with dancing girls and meals of peacocks on jeweled plates.

But what happened to the woman of legend and her progeny? Download the podcast for free on iTunes and find out.

In Wednesday’s podcast, inspired by the ire-filled health care debates, Sarah and I talked about the caning of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor by Preston Brooks. Sumner was an anti-slavery Republican and Brooks a pro-slavery Democrat. We have to place them in the context of Bleeding Kansas and the violent fights over whether that territory would enter the Union as a slave or free state.

Sumner gave an inflammatory speech called “Crimes Against Kansas” wherein he laid out the case for abolition. Afterward, other senators called him un-American and unpatriotic, and Sumner himself called another senator a “noisome, squat and nameless animal” who was “not a proper model for the American senator.” Things were heated.

Brooks was related to said noisome senator, and he decided to take action — but not with a duel. What exactly did he do — and what was the aftermath? Listen to the (free) podcast and find out.

How the Emancipation Proclamation Worked
How the Underground Railroad Worked
Why did ancient Egyptian men wear cosmetics?