Giles Milton
speaker
1,435 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 6d ago
Giles Milton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 3.
Appearances
They took, you know, several years to get to the Spice Islands.
Worth reminding listeners of the hazards they faced, storms, the doldrums in the Atlantic where the winds calmed and the ships couldn't move at all.
This is the original word that gives us doldrums.
Exactly.
Yes.
Where there was no wind and your ship just hung around in the heat as you used up your precious foodstuffs on board and your water.
Scurvy was a perennial problem, a hideous disease caused, of course, by lack of citrus fruit, lack of vitamin C. Your teeth fell out.
Your skin got purple blotches.
You got incredibly weak and then you died.
The other thing was amoebic dysentery or, as I said, the bloody flux I mentioned earlier.
This was caused often by contaminated water.
There's accounts of them drinking water on the ships.
They'd have to clench their teeth to sieve out all the flora and fauna that was sprouting in the water barrels.
You know, quite disgusting.
And then, of course, there were storms.
There was attacks by the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.
And in the early voyages, only one in three ships made it home again.
And about 80% of the men on board would die.
So you're taking a massive risk when you travel on one of these voyages.
And it gives some idea of the value of the spices and the money they hope to make, you know, when they got home again, that they were prepared to take the risk.
Showing 1161–1180 of 1,435 · page 59 of 72
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