Turning Modern

The scientific revolutionary Copernicus lived the simple life of a low-ranking priest and a bishop's personal physician in a northern Polish city. However, his correspondence does suggest he had one scandalous secret: he was likely living with his lover.

Sources

Freely, John. Celestial Revolutionary: Copernicus, The Man, and His Universe (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014).

Repcheck, Jack. Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

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Hundreds of children were taken from their families and sent to a distant, previously uninhabited island. The reasons why this happened are a toxic mixture of deeply rooted intolerance and simple greed.

Sources

ha-Cohen, Joseph. The Vale of Tears (Emek Habacha), trans. Harry S. May (Martinus Nihoff, 1971).

Soyer, François. “King João II of Portugal ‘O Príncipe Perfeito’ and the Jews (1481-1495) Sefarad69.1 (2009): 75-99.

_________. The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal : King Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (1496-7) (Brill, 2007). Usque, Samuel. Samuel Usque’s Consolation for the Tribes of Israel, ed. andtrans. Martin Cohen (Varda Books, 2002).

For transcripts and ways to support the show, check out turningmodern.com.

A rebel leader and future king makes a dramatic escape across the Swedish countryside in the dead of December. This is the story of how this adventure inspired a famous competition centuries later.

Sources Cited

Gustafsson, Harald. “A State That Failed?: On the Union of Kalmar, Especially Its Dissolution.” Scandinavian Journal of History31:3-4 (2006): 205-220.

“Gustav Vasa Couldn’t Ski?” Nordstjernan. nordstjernan.com/news/traditions/2861 Last accessed: 8/22/2026.

Kent, Neil. A Concise History of Sweden (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Nordstrom, Byron J. The History of Sweden (Greenwood Press, 2002).

"Pre-history." Vasaloppet.se.vasaloppet.se/en/about-us/history/pre-history. Last accessed: 8/22/2026.

Sundmark, Björn. “Snowy State: The Children’s History of Sweden” in Nordic Utopias and Dystopias: From Aniara to Allatta!,eds. Maria Ahlbäck, Jouni Teittinen, and Maria Lassén-Seger (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2022).

Swart, Peder. Gustaf Is Krönika(G.E. Klemming, 1870).

For transcripts and ways to support the show, check out turningmodern.com.

Someone sticks up for a university student accused of heresy. This starts the public career of one of the most assertive, formidable voices of the early Protestant Reformation, a voice that would probably be better remembered if not for the fact that they were a woman.

Sources

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation: A History(Viking, 2003).

Mark, Joshua J. "Argula von Grumbach's To the University of Ingolstadt." World History Encyclopedia.23 March 2022. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1971/argula-von-grumbachs-to-the-university-of-ingolsta/

Stjerna, Kirsi. Women and the Reformation(John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

For transcripts and ways to support the show, go toturningmodern.com.

A soldier named György Dózsa helps turn an army of peasant crusaders into a full-on revolution. His war on the nobles who ruined his country's recent reforms is destined to have an impact, just not the one he wanted...

Sources

Albert-László. Barabási. Bursts: The Hidden Patters Behind Everything We Do From Your E-Mail to Bloody Crusades(Plume, 2011).

Makkai, Laszlo. "Neo-serfdom: Its Origin and Nature in East Central Europe." Slavic Review 34.2 (1975): 225-238.

Molnár, Miklós. A Concise History of Hungary(Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Pascu, Ștefan. A History of Transylvania,trans. D. Robert Ladd (Wayne University Press, 1982).

You can find transcripts and ways to support this project on the Turning Modernwebsite here,

Marguerite de Navarre is the sister and wife of kings. While coping with being an agent of her brother and navigating the religious turmoil , she still found the time to become a bestselling author and perhaps the "first modern woman."

Sources:

Cholakian, Patricia F. and Rouben C. Marguerite de Navarre: Mother of the Renaissance(Columbia University Press, 2006).

Gristwood, Sarah. “I Wrote a Book About Renaissance Queens. Today’s Stories of Sex Assault Sound Like Something Out of the 16th Century.” History News Network.3 December 2017. ⁠https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/i-wrote-a-book-about-renaissance-queens-todays-sto⁠.Last Accessed: 7/9/2026.

Knecht, Robert J. Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I(Cambridge University Press, 1994).

For more information, transcripts, and ways to support the show, go to ⁠turningmodern.com.

An Oxford grad and private tutor has a dream of making the first English Bible translated directly from Hebrew and Greek. Unfortunately, his ambition becomes a matter of life and death once his scholarly endeavors become just another front in the war to decide Europe's religious future.

SourcesDaniell, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence(Yale University Press, 2003).

 Foxe, John. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: Selected Narratives, ed. John N. King (Oxford University Press, 2009).

 ___________.  William Tyndale: A Biography(Yale University Press, 1994).

 Moynahan, Brian. William Tyndale: If God Spare My Life(Abacus, 2002).For more information, transcripts, and ways to support the show, go to turningmodern.com.

In 1519, Europeans made their first diplomatic contact with an urbanized empire in the Americas—and, within a few years, that empire will no longer exist, in no small part because of a failed law student from Spain.Sources:

Cortés, Hernán. Letters from Mexico, trans. A.R. Pagden  (Orion Books, 1971).

Florentine Codex,vol. 9, trans. Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, rev. ed.  (Santa Fe:  School of American Research, 1973).

Gómara, Francisco López de. Cortés: The Life of theConqueror by His Secretary,trans. Lesley Byrd Simpson (University of California Press, 1964),

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest(Oxford University Press, 2003).

Townsend, Richard F. The Aztecs,rev. ed.  (Thames & Hudson, 2000).For more information, transcripts, and ways to support the show, go to turningmodern.com.

Here is just a short update on the next episode and the state of the "Turning Modern" Patreon.

Martin Luther braves persecution by the Church to come to the city of Worms to have his case heard by Emperor Charles V. In this contest between a reviled monk who is the son of a mine owner and a monarch whose empire spans an ocean, the victor is perhaps not the person one would normally expect...

Sources

Gregory, Brad S. The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society(Harvard University Press, 2012).

Luther, Martin. Works: Letters I,vol. 48,ed. and trans. Gottfried G. Krodel (Fortress Press, 1963).

Parker, Geoffrey. Emperor: A New Life of Charles V(Yale University Press, 2019).

Roper, Lyndal. Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet(Penguin Random House, 2016).

For more information, transcripts, and ways to support the show, go to turningmodern.com.

Writing in the years of 1516 and 1517, an inhabitant of Cairo likely witnessed firsthand a new era as Egypt lost its independence and was forcibly annexed by the Ottoman Empire. However, he not only observed the collapse of the old regime, but also the toll it took on the people.

Sources:

Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: A History of the Ottoman Empire(Basic Books, 2005).

Ibn Iyas. An Account of the Ottoman Conquest of Egypt, trans. W.H. Salmon (Royal Asiatic Society, 1921).

Ibn Iyas. Journal d’un Bourgeois du Caire, ed. and trans. Gaston Wiet (Libraire Armand Colin, 1945).

Lord Kinross. The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire(HarperCollins, 1979).

Petry, Carl F. The Mamluk Sultanate: A History(Cambridge University Press, 2022).

For more information, transcripts, and ways to support the show, go to ⁠turningmodern.com.

The apprentice of a legendary artist, the first publisher in history to be sued over copyright, and a famous satirist team up to create a provocative work of erotica that enraged the Pope himself.

Sources:

Romano, Giulio; Raimondi, Marcantonio; Aretino, Pietro; and Waldeck, Count Jean-Frederic-Maximilien. I Modi: The Sixteen Pleasures, An Erotic Album of the Italian Renaissance, trans. and ed. Lynne Lawner (Northwestern University Press, 1988).

Talvacchia, Bette. Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture(Princeton University Press, 1999).

Vasari, Giorgi. Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, vol. III, trans. Mrs. Jonathan Foster (London: George Bell & Sons, 1894).

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A young German herdsman draws crowds while preaching about the evils of the nobility and the clergy and a new world where goods and land are shared. In hindsight, he is offering the elites of the Holy Roman Empire a warning about the near future, but will they listen?

Sources:

The German Peasants’ War: A History in Documents, eds. Tom Scott and Bob Scribner (Humanities Press International, Inc., 1991).

Peters, Margaret E. "Government Finance and Imposition of Serfdom After the Black Death." European Review of Economic History 27.2 (2023): 149-173.

Roper, Lyndal. Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War(Basic Books, 2025).

Wazer, Caroline. "Medieval Peasants Only Worked 150 Days Due to 'Frequent, Mandatory' Holidays?" Snopes.com(August 31, 2024). Last accessed: 3/28/2026.

Wunderli, Richard. Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen (Indiana University Press, 1992).

Support this project: turningmodern.com/support

The Kingdom of Kongo establishes a rare partnership with an up-and-coming European power, Portugal, to the point that the King of Kongo and his family embrace Christianity and take Portuguese royal names. However, this partnership will also be ground zero for one of the greatest atrocities in human history.

Sources:

Almeida, Marcos Abreu Lelitão de. “Speaking of Slavery: Slaving Strategies and Moral Imaginations in the Lower Congo” (Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, September 2020).

Bosma, Ulbe. The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years (Harvard University Press, 2023).

Etherington, Norman. “Christian Missions in Africa", The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions, ed. Elias Kifon Bongba (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

Garretson, Peter P. "A Note on Relations Between Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Aragon in the Fifteenth Century." Rassegna di studi etiopici 37 (1993): 37-44.

Gondola, Ch. Didier. The History of Congo(Greenwood Press, 2002).

Hanno. “Gorilla Warfare.” Lapham’s Quarterly, Last accessed: 3/12/2026. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/animals/gorilla-warfare 

Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

MacGaffey, Wyatt. “Economic and Social Dimensions of Kongo Slavery (Zaire)", Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives,eds. Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff (University of Wisconsin Press, 1977).

Russell-Wood, A.R. The Portuguese Empire, 1415-1808: A World on the Move(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

Thornton, John. A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820 (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

___________. Afonso I,  Mvemba a Nzinga, King of Kongo: His Life and Correspondence, trans. Luis Madureira (Hackett Publishing Co., 2023). 

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A genius prodigy sets out to change the world by resolving all philosophical and religious disputes with one book, his own 900 Theses, and a debate in Rome between Europe's brightest intellectual lights. And he will leave his mark on history, just not in the way he wants...

Sources Cited:

Hanegraaf, Wouter J. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture(Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Bradatan, Costica. Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of Philosophers (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance(Chatto &Windus, 1965).

Mirandola, Pico della. Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486), ed. andtrans. S.A. Farmer, 2nd edition (Arizona State University, 2003).

____________. “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, trans. Cosma Rohilla Shaizi. Cosma’s Home Page, 21 November 1994. Last accessed 2/23/2025: https://bactra.org/Mirandola/. 

Slattery, Luke. “A Renaissance Murder Mystery.” The New Yorker(20 July 2015).Last accessed 2/25/2025: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-renaissance-murder-mystery.

Stethern, Paul. Death in Florence: The Medici, Savonarola, and the Battle for the Soul of a Renaissance City(Pegasus Books, 2015).

The Turning Moderntheme is Johann Bach, "No. 14 Chorus" Die Auferweckung des Lazarusby Esther Himmler, Ingeborg Russ, Urs Dettwiler, Bruce Aber, and the Trossingen Soloists' Association and Chorus Community (Original composition: 1773; Recording: 1978-1979).

As the sixteenth century begins following plague, turmoil, traumatic defeats, and the discovery of new continents, people from all faiths feel that the end of history and salvation are at hand while others look to the past to find hope for the future.

Reference: Cornell H. Fleischer, "A Mediterranean Apocalypse: Prophecies of Empire in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient61 (2018): 18-90.

Music: Bach, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir(based on a hymn by Martin Luther) (Performer unknown)

What is Turning Modern, and why the "early modern West"?