Courtly Love Myths vs. Lived Medieval Marriage (Valentine’s Debrief)

Valentine’s Day sells us a medieval love story: longing, poetry, destiny… and maybe a tasteful lute in the background.

But medieval marriage? That was often a household institution—built for property, kin networks, labor, inheritance, and survival—with romance as a sometimes-guest, not the foundation.

In this Debrief, we rip the fig leaf off the most persistent Valentine myth: that “courtly love” equals medieval reality. We break down how courtly love worked as an elite genre (coded devotion, distance, performance), why that genre stuck to February like cultural glue, and how modern Valentine’s Day mass-markets a romance script that was never meant to fit most people’s lives in the first place.

Music Credits:

• "Our Story Begins" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ⁠http://⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

Valentine’s Day isn’t one origin story—it’s a stack of stories.

It starts in martyrdom: early Christian executions and a name—Valentine—that becomes attached to a date. Then the legend engine kicks in, turning a blurry saint into a romantic character. Then medieval courtly love rebrands romance as a performance: longing, coded devotion, poetic suffering. And finally, modern industry does what it does best—mass-produces intimacy and sells it back to us with glitter.

In this episode, Dyllan rips the fig leaf off February 14th and asks the real question:
How did “executed for faith” become “two-for-one roses”?

Listener prompt: What’s the weirdest romantic obligation you’ve ever felt pressured into… and what tradition would you actually keep if it wasn’t marketed to death?

Music Credit:

• "In The West" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License⁠⁠⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

The main episode told the myth and the mechanics. This Debrief goes where the headlines don’t.

We’re talking about what came after Laika’s launch: the later admissions and regrets from inside the Soviet space program, the global public reaction that propaganda couldn’t fully control, and the later space-dog survival flights that complicate the idea that Laika’s death was “inevitable.”

Because this story isn’t only about space. It’s about narrative control, how a “first” becomes a victory, how discomfort gets sanded down, and how remembrance can turn into a fig leaf if we’re not careful.

What’s a historical achievement you see differently now?
Honoring the past doesn’t mean protecting its lies.

Music Credits:

• "Our Story Begins" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

LAIKA: Watchdog of the Cosmos 🐾🚀
In 1957, the world heard a beep from orbit… and the Space Age officially began.

But behind the triumphal headlines of Sputnik 2 is a truth history loves to soften: Laika wasn’t a hero on a grand mission, she was a one-way passenger in a political sprint. No return plan. No reentry system. Just a stray dog turned into a symbol, launched at the speed of propaganda.

In this episode of Naked History, Dyllan pulls the fig leaf off one of the most famous stories in space exploration—breaking down what actually happened inside Sputnik 2, why it mattered so much in the Space Race, and how Laika’s legend evolved into something strangely mythic… a kind of cosmic guardian watching the dark beyond our atmosphere.

And I love this story. I love it so much I cried at least once researching and writing it—because it’s not just a tale about progress. It’s a reminder that progress always comes with a cost… and history decides who pays it.

Music Credit:

• "In The West" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License⁠⁠⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

Welcome to the Debrief — the quieter room after the lights come up.

In this companion episode to Secret Societies, we step back from the big names and dig into the emotional mechanics behind conspiracy thinking. Why secrecy sometimes meant survival, not manipulation. Why fraternities, unions, churches, and political parties don’t scare us the way “secret societies” do. And why fear spreads faster than facts — especially when systems feel unfair or impossible to understand.

We’ll also ground things in This Week in History, unpack a few Naked Footnotes that didn’t fit the main episode, and ask listeners to reflect on the conspiracy theories that once made sense — even if they don’t anymore.

No judgment. No dunking.
Just curiosity, context, and a reminder that belief doesn’t make you foolish — it makes you human.

Music Credits:

• "Our Story Begins" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Music by Trygve Larsen from Pixabay

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

The Illuminati. The Freemasons. Shadowy groups pulling strings behind the scenes — or so we’re told.

In this episode of Naked History, we strip away the myths and ask a harder question: what if secret societies weren’t running the world… but fear of hidden power was?

From the short-lived Bavarian Illuminati to the very real panic surrounding Freemasonry, this episode explores why secrecy triggers suspicion, how exclusion feels like conspiracy, and why societies keep inventing invisible enemies when systems get complicated. Along the way, we uncover how fear moves from rumor to politics, why familiar organizations get a pass, and how modern conspiracy thinking works even without lodges, robes, or candles.

This isn’t a defense of secret societies — and it’s not a debunking dunk-fest either. It’s a look at how humans respond to uncertainty, why “they” is such a powerful idea, and how bad historical math keeps repeating itself.

Because history is rarely controlled by a hidden group — but it’s often shaped by what people believe about one.

Music Credit:

• "In The West" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License⁠⁠⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

On this week’s Naked History: Debrief, we chase two New Year’s traditions to their logical conclusion: the Times Square Ball Drop and Y2K.

First, we pull the glittery curtain back on the Ball Drop—how a falling orb became the world’s loudest “NOW,” and how it traces its DNA to old-school public time signals used to synchronize clocks (and keep ships from getting lost). Then we pivot into the late-90s panic we all remember: Y2K, the two-digit shortcut that turned into a planet-wide debugging marathon and why it was a real risk, how it got fixed, and why “nothing happened” is sometimes the sound of a crisis being successfully prevented.

Plus This Week in History (Jan 5–11): Golden Gate Bridge groundbreaking, Galileo’s Jupiter moons, New Mexico statehood, the Battle of New Orleans, the League of Nations, the first insulin injection, and more.

Hit play, grab your party hat, and let’s rip the fig leaf off time.

Music Credits:

• "Our Story Begins" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Music by Trygve Larsen from Pixabay

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)

What if a government could delete a week… and your life just had to keep going? In this episode of Naked History, we follow the world’s messiest “calendar patch notes”, from Rome’s bonus months and Julius Caesar’s brutal reboot, to the Gregorian fix that made entire dates vanish and left historians doing footnote gymnastics for centuries. Along the way, we untangle why New Year’s Day didn’t always land on January 1, how “Old Style / New Style” created double birthdays, and why the modern world still fights about time at the level of seconds, time zones, and the International Date Line.
Losing Days is a fast, funny tour through the uncomfortable truth: the calendar isn’t nature—it’s a negotiation.

Music Credit:

• "In The West" Kevin MacLeod (⁠⁠⁠incompetech.com⁠⁠⁠)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License⁠⁠⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠

• Music track: lavender by massobeats Source: ⁠⁠⁠https://freetouse.com/music ⁠⁠⁠Royalty Free Music for Video (Safe)