Camp Gagnon - Marco Polo’s DANGEROUS Journey to The Mongolian Empire

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Who was the real Marco Polo, and did his journey along the Silk Road actually happen? Today, we follow the life of the Venetian traveler Marco Polo from his early days through his epic adventure to the court of Kublai Khan. We’ll talk about how his father first met the Great Khan, his long journey to China, what it was like working in the advanced Mongolian court, the origins of The Travels of Marco Polo, and even the surprising origins of the Marco Polo pool game...Welcome to History Camp! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsor: Morgan & Morgan👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.com Timestamps:1:20 Marco’s Dad Meets Kublai Khan 4:33 Marco’s Journey to China6:38 Working For Kublai Khan8:40 Advanced Mongolian Life10:55 The Hashashin + Assassins Creed12:37 Surviving Storm at Sea + Final Mission14:24 Marco The Millionaire15:41 The Travels of Marco Polo18:41 Death of Marco Polo21:11 Marco Polo Pool Game Origins#history #podcast #war #battle #historyfacts #camping #film #mystery #education #educational #educationalvideo

The most famous explorer in history, never planned to be an explorer. He was a 17-year-old kid who got dragged on the ultimate family business trip and ended up spending 20 years in places that Europeans thought were fairy tales. He walked to China when most people never left. He became the favorite foreigner to the grandson of Genghis Khan and came home to Venice so rich and unrecognizable that his own family didn't believe who he was. This is the story of Marco Polo, the teenager who walked to China and accidentally changed history. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp.

What's up, people, and welcome to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating and controversial stories from all history from all time forever. Yes, we're doing it. This is my attempt to try to understand everything that's ever happened. And there's been, oh boy, a whole whole lot of stuff going on. I mean, every day that goes by, there's more history getting made, so I'm just trying to keep up. Now, of course, this episode, and this show is not possible without you watching at home.

Thank you so much for tuning in. It's also not possible without my dear pal, Christos, being in the corner in his sweet little tent, curled up in a tree, making this whole thing possible. Christos, can I get a Marco? Polo. That's so corny and dumb. I can't even believe you convince me to do that. No, that was quite cute. And I think actually very, very apt for this episode.

Guys, it's late at night. We're here in the tent talking about Marco Polo. But it's probably something you've heard about, right? You play the game as a kid. You're like Marco Polo? Like, you've all, everyone knows who Markopolo. Can we get a picture of Markopolo up on the screen? Because I'll be honest, I don't even really know what this dude look like until today.

Like, if you had a gun to your head, what does Markopolo look like? Would you even have a guess? I bet you most people don't even really know. I didn't know until I actually did this episode. I was like, who is Marco Polo? I mean, look at this guy. Regal, handsome, nice beard. I mean, not the best hairdo in that one.

But generally speaking, you see why it keeps the hat on. Marco Polo is a fascinating guy. In order to understand Marco Polo and how he ended up changing the world, bringing noodles all over the place, you got to start with his Papa. All right. Now, Marco was born 1254 in Venice, Italy to a woman named Nicole and Defusa and Niccolo Polo. Now, with the age of six, his father Niccolo and his uncle, Mafaio, were, you know, small-time Venetian merchants.

They were selling a little bit of how you doing, you know, just making it work the Italian way, all right? And they decided to try their luck trading along the Silk Road. Now, the Silk Road is popping off. This was this new way to make money, trade into the east. It was a big deal. But from the jump, their whole journey gets interrupted. So they start in Constantinople. They get caught up in a little civil war. You know, it happens. They have to flee to the north and they somehow end up deeper in Central Asia than any Europeans had really gone at the time. Like, people weren't really going that way. And neither were they. They weren't exactly exploring. They were just literally running from, you know, a human calamity. But then around the year 1266, they meet. some Mongol officials who are just shocked that they're alive. These little Italian, you know, Venetian kids, they made it? They're just shocked. And they're like, this is so crazy. So because they're so shocked that they meet a European guy in the middle of Central Asia,

they decide the Mongols literally escort them all the way to the court of Kublai Khan in China. Now, if you don't know who Kublai Khan is, he's the grandson of Genghis Khan. Yes, that Genghis Khan, Chingus Khan, as he's referred to in some circles, Jinghus Khan. But I'm going to say Genghis. But also, I think I'm related to Genghis Khan. So are you. So is most people watching. There's hundreds of thousands of people related to this guy.

I don't appreciate the insinuation. No, that is true. You are Asian. But also, the fact that this guy is literally like the actual grandson. So Kublai Khan, for reasons that are still unknown, decides that he likes them. They meet in the courts and he meets these, like, swag little Italians doze. And he's like, you know what? I like this.

And he rocks with them. So he's curious about Christianity, he's curious about Europe, and so he gives them a mission. He goes, go back to your pope, ask him to send 100 educated Christian scholars and holy oil from Jerusalem, and come back and tell me all about it. So in 1269, after nine years away, Niccolo and Mafayo returned to Venice, but they come back, stupid wealthy. The Mongols ran the Silk Road, right? And Kublai Khan controlled the trade across Asia. So when he sent the brothers back west, he sent them as official envoys. That meant safe passage, escorts, and more importantly, valuable gifts meant to signal

like status and authority wherever they went, wherever they would go. People would be like, oh, these guys are, you know, from the con. We can't mess with them. And these gifts aren't just souvenirs. They're, you know, likely gold and silver and precious gems and, you know, Bitcoin and all sorts of stuff that these brothers could then freely exchange on the Silk Road, which they did. So by the time they reached Venice in 1269, they weren't just returning as travelers. They were men with gifts from the Mongol emperor.

They were fluent enough in a bunch of different languages and had a rare knowledge of the outside world that made them just instantly rich and interesting by European standards. So when his father returns, Marco is now 15 years old. His mother had actually died shortly after Niccolo left. So Marco had been raised by relatives who probably figured his dad was dead in like a ditch somewhere in Asia. And now this stranger shows up claiming to be his father speaking a bunch of languages. It basically says, hey, son, I haven't seen you in nine years. Pack your bags. We're going to China.

Now, this is literally how Marco Polo's story begins, not with like a plan to explore, but with a father who had just spent a, you know, a decade in Asia and decided that his teenage son needed to come along for round two. So by 1271, Marco, his father, and his uncle, Maffaio, left Venice carrying letters from the Pope, two Dominican friars, who were supposed to be the first two of these hundred, scholars to go to Kublai Khan. Now, the friars turn back immediately.

They realize that they're going to have to go back through war zones and deserts and years of travel with now guarantees. And they're basically like, hey, we're good. But the polos, they keep going. And what they're attempting is insane by medieval standards. They're literally going to walk from Venice to Beijing. We should get a map for this. Venice to Beijing, 5,600 miles through deserts, mountains, and bandits and war zones

and territories controlled by people who might kill them just for being foreigners. They cross the Mediterranean. They travel through what is now Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan. They spend months crossing the Pamirs, which are mountains so high that Marco later wrote. He literally writes about how fire doesn't burn properly and food takes forever to cook because of the thin air. They're still not in China yet. They've got to go through the Gobi Desert, which Marco describes as one of the most psychologically terrifying places of the journey.

He claims, when night comes on, traveler, hear spirits talking and sometimes the sound of musical instruments and sometimes the spirits will call the travelers by name and he following the voice is led astray and perishes. I mean, this is just an insane track. It's like truly mind-blowing, especially at the time. But finally, in 1274, after three years of traveling, they reach the court of Kublai Khan.

Now, when the polos arrive at, you know, Kublai Khan's court, they're meeting the ruler of the largest, bordering empire in human history, right? Like, the guy literally controls territory from Eastern Europe to the Pacific Ocean, commanding armies larger than, like, the entire countries in Europe. And somehow, 20-year-old Marco Polo catches the attention of the most powerful man on earth. Kublai Khan is just impressed by Marco's adaptability and his intelligence, you know. He speaks Persian fluently.

He learns Mongolian and quickly understands just how the empire works, something that most foreigners never can even grasp at all. So when Kublai Khan sees this, he starts sending Marco on imperial missions across Asia, basically making him like an attache or like an inspector for the Mongol Empire. Now Marco claims that while serving Kublai Khan, he wasn't just traveling, he was working. He says he's handling tax matters and carrying out diplomatic missions and even spent several years in Yangzhou in like an administrative role. But why, like this is the thing that I didn't understand.

why would Kublai Khan trust this random foreign rich kid with these important responsibilities? Well, the thing about the Mongol Empire is that it was incredibly meritocratic, meaning that if you were useful, your ethnicity didn't really matter. So Kubla Khan used Chinese advisors, Persian administrators, Arab engineers, and apparently some diplomatic inspectors from Venice. But Marco was different from others because he was genuinely curious about everything, which made him the perfect guy to go and gather intelligence. Meanwhile, Niccolo and Mafaio, they weren't just sitting around. They were running their own operations for the Khan. Niccolo handled commercial ventures and trade negotiations, while Mafaio focused on diplomatic communications between the Mongol court

and all the foreign merchants trying to bring money in. But it was Marco's youth and curiosity that ultimately caught Kublai cause attention. And along with gaining intelligence from around this empire, Marco was also exposed to a brand new world. Perhaps the most uncomfortable thing Marco describes is just how advanced Mongol civilization actually is. Europeans think of Mongols as like these savage horsemen that are just destroying everything they touch. They hear stories and myths of Genghis Khan, but Marco describes this empire that is religiously tolerant and merit-based and technologically advanced and in many ways better organized than anything in Europe. Also remember, Khan's court include people from different types of cultures all working together.

But then compare this to Europe where, like, you know, people are killing each other for being the wrong type of Christian and religious tolerance isn't really in vogue. And he's shocked by this. The Mongols also promote people based on ability rather than birth. So in Europe, if your father's a peasant, you're probably going to die a peasant. However, in the Mongol Empire, if you're useful, you can rise to the highest levels of government, something that Marco was not familiar with at all. And so as a result, this is really uncomfortable for Europeans that are hearing this because it just, shows that these people that they considered as barbarians are actually running a more efficient and more advanced civilization in many instances. I mean, one example is paper money. So in Europe,

money was gold or silver coins when the Mongols were already using tree bark to make paper. Marco also describes coal and gunpowder and spices and these advanced silk techniques and even medical practices that are just completely unknown to the Europeans. But one of the most surprising things that he witnessed was inside the city. He writes about Chinese cities so large and so organized that they make European cities look tiny in comparison. At the time, London had like under 100,000 people and Paris maybe had like a couple hundred thousand, but Marka was describing cities that felt impossibly big by medieval standards. And they even had a postal system. Across the Mongol Empire, messages could be relayed thousands of miles in weeks using these

organized networks of stations and horses. While in Europe, communication was still moving at the speed of kind of whoever was willing to walk or ride from point A to point B, it wasn't any type of centralized post. But the new discoveries take us to the next chapter of Marco's life, the story that becomes the foundation of the word, assassin. As the Polos travel through Persia in 1270, they pass through a region where people are talking about this

secretive Islamic sect, known in the West, as Hash Hash Hashin. And if you've ever played Assassin's Creed, you've definitely heard of these guys. Now, Marco never claims to meet them face to face. By this point, their mountain fortress, Alamut, had already been destroyed by the Mongols, but the stories were everywhere. And Marco wrote them down as he heard them. According to these accounts, the Hashashin were led by a figure called Hassan Isabah, also known as the Old Man of the Mountain.

He supposedly recruited young men and subjected them to a ritual meant to convince them that they had seen paradise. The recruits were said to be drugged maybe and taken into a hidden garden filled with luxury which had flowing water and music and food and beautiful women and when they woke up, they believed that for a brief moment they entered the afterlife. And then they were drugged again

and returned to the real world where they were told the paradise they had seen was real and that they could return there forever, but only if they obeyed the orders of the sect. Now we don't know if this whole garden and afterlife thing is true, but the Hashashin themselves were very real. They were members of the Nazari-Ismiley sect, a group that essentially mastered political assassination

centuries before it became common. Their attacks were public, and they didn't escape because death was expected. But sometimes they didn't even have to attack. There's rumors of rulers reportedly waking up and finding daggers left on their pillows just as warnings. For Europeans reading Marco Pol's account, this was shocking. And even though the Hashashin were already gone

by the time Marco passed through Persia, their legend lived on through his writings. Now, after 17 years in Asia, the Polos decided it's time to go back to Venice. But Kubla Khan has become dependent on their services and he doesn't want them to leave. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick

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But the route was completely blocked by wars, and the Mongol court didn't trust their naval capabilities for such an important mission. But the polos had proven their skill, and they know the sea routes from their Venice background. So Koublay Khan makes them an offer. Escort the princess to Persia by sea, and then you can continue home to Venice. So the polos take the deal, and they head on their way. But there are issues once again from the very beginning. This expedition was not small. It starts with 600 people, the princess, her royal court, the Mongol officials, and a fleet of ships. But only 18 people survive the trip. They're at sea for two years. They're fighting storms and disease and starvation. Ships are lost. People die of illness. And at several

points, the entire expedition nearly fails. But thankfully, somehow, the princess survives. And the mission is technically successful, despite losing, you know, over 500 crew members and royal courtesans and stuff like that. Regardless, the princess survives. So when they finally reach Persia, the most unexpected thing happens. They discover that the con, the princess was supposed to marry, has died while they were at sea. Now, despite this, there's no turning back. The journey has already cost hundreds of lives, and the alliance still needs to happen. So the marriage is redirected, and the princess marries the dead Khan's son instead. Marco doesn't describe a wedding or a ceremony. He simply acts as if the mission was complete, and the voyage is over, and they can go home.

And now they finally can. So in 1295, after 24 years away, the polos finally returned to Venice, but there's an issue. Nobody recognizes them. And this is where legend takes over. So according to later accounts, Marco hosts a dinner for his skeptical relatives and shows up wearing the same rough travel clothes that he's worn for years. But halfway through the meal, he takes a knife and cuts open the seam of his garment and jewels spill out onto the table. I mean, we're talking rubies and sapphires and diamonds, precious stones that are sewn into his clothing for safekeeping. Now, whether this exact scene happened exactly or not, the idea is true that the polos returned extraordinarily wealthy. Now, once their identity is accepted, Marco starts talking. And it begins

telling people of the craziness that he saw, paper money and cities and gunpowder. And he even tells them about Kubla Khan and how he rules this massive empire. However, most Venetians think that he's either lying or that he's gone crazy. Now, Venice eventually gives him a nickname, Marco Milione, or Marco the Millionaire, which sounds like a compliment, but it's actually an insult. They were making fun of these crazy stories and these wild claims saying that he was just inflating this tale to sound cooler than he actually was. Now, the Polos are settling back into their life in Venice, and three years goes by, and the unexpected happens, the Battle of Corzola. Now, Venice goes to war with Genoa, and Marco Polo ends up commanding a ship in a naval battle. At some point during the battle,

Marco's ship is boarded and many of his crew get killed. But Marco himself gets captured simply because he's the captain and can be used for ransom. This single act is literally why we know about Marco Polo today. Once captured, Marco is thrown into a cell with a man named Rustykello of Pisa, a writer who specializes in romance literature. Rustykello hears Marco telling stories about his travels and realizes that these adventures are crazier and more fantastic than anything that he could conceive. And so he convinces Marco to tell his entire life story. So sitting in this prison in Genoa, Marco Polo recounts 24 years of experiences from memory, and Rusticelo writes it all down in French.

The result becomes the travels of Marco Polo, one of the most copied, translated, and influential books of the medieval period. It became so popular that even Christopher Columbus carried a copy on his voyages to the Americas. And we can tell that Christopher Columbus was reading this because it was heavily annotated. Columbus was actually going through and writing down his own thoughts. And the annotations showed that Columbus didn't just read, but he was studying this. And it's so influential that European mapmakers

use Marco's descriptions of regions that they'd never seen, and merchants were using his routes to plan their own trading expeditions. But if Marco hadn't been captured in that naval battle, or if he just had a different cellmate, this book might have never existed.

Now, for centuries, historians and readers have accused Marco Polo of lying or exaggerating his adventures. The main criticisms are that he doesn't mention certain things that Europeans expect, right, the Great Wall of China or foot binding or tea drinking or chopsticks, none of this is brought up. But modern historians point out that these things don't necessarily prove that he's lying. They prove that Europeans didn't understand what China was like in the 13th century.

When Marco traveled through China, the Great Wall wasn't the massive stone structure that people imagined today. Earlier dynasties had built walls made of wood and dirt, but the wall that we see now was actually constructed by the Ming Dynasty in the 15th and 16th century. centuries, roughly 200 years after Marco's journey. And just a little fun fact, to make the Great Wall, the Ming Dynasty actually mixed sticky rice porridge into lime mortar because the starch and the rice basically acted like a cement. So in part, the Great Wall of China is made by rice. But regardless, the other things like footbinding, tea drinking chopsticks, they're also not widespread yet and were limited to specific social classes and regions that Marco just did.

didn't really interact with. Meanwhile, Marco's descriptions of things like paper money and coal and postal systems are so accurate that he had to have actually seen them. Now, Marco lives for 25 years after returning to Venice, working as a merchant and dealing with people who thought that he was just making everything up. And on his deathbed in 1324, friends and family are just asking him to retell his stories or maybe to admit that he was making things up. But his response is legendary. He simply just says, I didn't tell them half of what I saw. Think about that. After decades of being called a liar, his final statement isn't some apology or hedging or just like confirming that he lied. He basically just said that what he actually witnessed was even crazier than what was in the

book. And after, you know, following centuries as European explorations expanded and more travelers actually went to Asia, Marco's descriptions were just repeatedly confirmed. The cities he described, were real. And the trade routes were real. And the political structures were real. Marco and his book did something that no European text had really ever done before. It described a world that was larger and more complex and a lot of ways more advanced than what the Europeans were used to. Before Marco, European map showed Europe, North Africa, and maybe some vague regions with like a dragon on or something. But after Marco, Europeans had detailed descriptions of India, China, Southeast Asia, and islands in the Pacific.

His descriptions inspired generations of explorers and merchants. We mentioned Columbus having a copy of Marco's book, but it's important to note that Columbus was also trying to reach the places that Marco was describing when he accidentally discovered the Americas. And perhaps more importantly, Marco's book just challenged European assumptions about civilization itself, right? He described these societies that were more tolerant and more advanced and more efficient than a lot of these European kingdoms. And this really planted the idea that maybe Europe wasn't the center of the world in the way that Parisians or Londoners thought.

And maybe there were things that Europeans could actually learn from other cultures. Ew. I mean, that shift in perspective. I mean, going from thinking that your civilization is the only one that matters to realizing that you're actually a part of this global ecosystem and people over there actually doing crazy stuff. It's one of the foundations of the modern era. And Marco Polo really ushered it in. Now, Polo didn't set out to be an explorer, right? He was just a kid whose daddy dragged him on this, you know, business trip.

But by accurately describing what he saw, he gave Europeans the first realistic picture of the world beyond their own. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of Marco Polo. I mean, what an awesome life. I mean, how sick would that be, right? Like, I always think about, like, how travel is, like, distilled in a lot of ways. Like, it's kind of like, the world is so globalized and we kind of know so much. You go to London, it's not like you're in like a different country. You're kind of just in like a different America a little.

Like, yeah, there's things that are different, but like it doesn't have that feeling of like even going to Paris and, you know, the early 1900s must have just been a mind-blowing experience. And for him to go to China in the, what, 13th century? Like, that's, it must have been so crazy. Like, you don't even have any reference for anything. Like, I'm like, even thinking about this, like, yeah, he, you know, learned a bunch of languages. It's like he had to. He was there for years, and it was the only way for him to communicate.

And I couldn't imagine. He's the only dude that you would ever meet that would ever travel. It's like he's an astronaut or something. But instead of going to the moon, he actually went to like a different country with people and talked to him. And was like, yeah, they're doing crazy stuff over there. Now, there's a myth that Marco Polo introduced noodles to the Italians. Have you heard this before? Not true.

Apparently that was a campaign that was made up in like the 1920s to sound like historic. But like they had noodles going all the way back before. of like Markopola. Pretty interesting. They think he like introduced a bunch of stuff, but really the things that he introduced was like, you know, like they think like, oh, he brought gunpowder, da-da, didn't really import it. Like the thing that he introduced was like just this idea of like paper money, you know, postal system, mega cities, and maybe above all perspective for the Europeans to be like, whoa, this is a big old world out here. And if that's just over there, I mean, what else is broan you know what i mean they didn't have any idea of the inca or the aztecs or anything going on i mean

that's just it's crazy right i mean what was your takeaway from this i'm a little disappointed that there's no direct link between marco polo the person and marco polo the game what is that link apparently it's there's no on there's no direct connection to it the game itself is a variation of blind man's bluff a land-based game from the 16th century and then they just applied it to marco polo for like pools and water. I mean, that must be connected to him. Like, like, I, the whole game is like, hey, close your eyes and go around the water and try to find someone.

It just directly, the only link is him being an explorer. I mean, I'll take that. What else would the link be? Like, he invented the game in China. He played it with Kublai Khan. Come on. Come on. He was connected to.

Yeah, bro, he's connected. That's my granddaddy you're talking about. Be careful when you talk about Ku Blike Khan, okay? I mean, that's crazy. I mean, I mean, I'm like, again, I don't know, but I'm assuming it's connected to them, right? Like, the game is you go around water, you try to find people, that's what Marco Polo was doing. He's with the princess. You think he smashed?

Guys, this is, we got to be serious, okay? This is a serious historical channel. We can't just be talking about all these craziness, all this crazy riffing we're doing, you know? This is wild. Could you imagine Marco Polo and Kublai Khan playing Marco Polo in a pool? Oh, that sounds crazy. I could, um, I wonder how much swimming they were doing. No merch idea.

That's a great idea. Yeah, absolutely. We should, oh, we should patent our own version of Marco Polo. How is it our own thing? I don't know. We're going to find Marco Gagnon. That doesn't really roll. I don't know. We'll figure out a way. But I mean, it's just, I mean, what an awesome life. I always think about this. Like, who are the people in history that live the craziest lives? Warner von Braun was up there. Yep. Right? Chilling with Hittie one day and all of a sudden he's with JFK the next. Like, crazy. I mean, who else? Highly Salasi becomes the king, and then is the king in obscencia or whatever? He's away.

And then comes back and then is worshipped as a god. That's pretty cool. Mark Gagnon. Me? Yep. I'm maybe in the top, you know, 20 billion. Living in a church. Yeah, that's something.

It becomes a comedian. That's something. Yeah, but compared to Marco Polo. It pales a comparison. it's just crazy. I mean, Barca Polo had a crazy life. So cool. I mean, and that line is baller. They didn't even hear half of it. That's sick as hell. I mean, just an all-time legend. I mean, what an awesome life. Oh, man, being an explorer back in the day, nothing better. Being on your boat, you and the boys, escorting princesses. I mean, that is crazy,

they consider the mission successful. Even though she died? She doesn't die. Everyone else dies. Oh, and then she shows up. And then the king she's supposed to marry is dead. But that's just so crazy, like, how these, like, alliance marriages worked, like these kingdom marriages being like, well, you got to marry someone. Like, I wonder if she got a pick or if she just showed up and they were like, you got to take this guy. I wonder if she was, like, the Bachelorette. It was like, ooh, I have seven cons to pick from.

This one has a nice jawline. You know, that's what I would have done. Something tells me she didn't have a choice in the matter. Yeah, probably not. But in my heart of hearts, I want it to be that way. But just a crazy story. I mean, what did you guys think? I mean, tell me, is there anything you took away from this episode,

anything that you didn't know that you learned? Or is there anything I got wrong? Maybe you're a historian that studies Markupil. Maybe you read the travels of Marka Pole, which I haven't read, but I deeply want to, especially now. I mean, that thing would blow my whole mind. There definitely was some embellishment.

Like, I don't know this for a fact, but, like, what dude goes on a story for... I go for two nights out with my buddies, and I'm coming back with embellished stories. You know what I mean? He absolutely had a little something. I wonder how much of what he didn't share. was like the illicit illegal families.

Oh, okay. He had some families over there for sure. Yeah. A hundred percent, right? Like, I need to see if there's some Italian-looking Mongolian people that are popping around, and they're like, yeah, I'm the descendant of Genghis Khan. They're like, I think you're the descendant of Marco Polo, actually. Doesn't count if you're in a different zip code.

Is that your rule? Not mine. I'll keep this in mind, Christos, all right? Now that I know that you're a flandering one. womanizer, all right? Anyway, guys, this has been another episode of History Camp. Thank you so much for tuning in and making this show possible. It truly means the world to me that you guys would be campers and hang in my tent, and you are welcome anytime, all right? We also do Religion Camp if you like religious deep dives. We also do Camp Gagnon, the main channel where I do interviews

with all sorts of interesting people and go through all sorts of crazy wormholes on all sorts of miscellaneous stuff. But if you're just like this, that's fine too. This is History Camp. Subscribe. Thank you so much. And I'll see you in the future to talk about the past. What's up, people? We're going to take a break really quick because I have amazing news. I'm coming on the road. That's right. My very first headlining tour where I'm going to every city that will possibly allow me to go there. I'm going to Salt Lake City. I'm going to Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, North Carolina in February. Those tickets will be announced soon. You can get all the tickets at Mark Yagnon live, and I'll see you guys there. What's up, people? We're going to take a break real quick because this episode is sponsored by me. Yes, Camp R&D. That is the merch. That is the threads that we'd be wearing around here at the campsite. And we've got all sorts of cool. stuff. My buddy Zach just cooked up a sick UFO collection. You can go check it out there at Camp R&D. I really appreciate you guys. We have so many people that came through for the holidays and picked up their threads. It's awesome. We got hats, hoodies, t-shirts, all that. And if you're

still listening to this and you didn't skip through, congrats, you got a promo code, all right? What do we do, Chris? Five percent. More. How much? Five more? Ten percent. Ten percent. Final offer? You won't go higher. You tell me. What do we give them? 12% All right We're doing 12% off Should we go more? Hey

It's your world I'm just living in it Let's round up 10% No 15% If you use the promo code Camp 15 You're gonna be getting

15% off Yes I think we should also Do Camp 10 Just if someone doesn't want to take too much Camp 10

Or Camp 15 Those are the only two That are available And then maybe We send a little Something extra To the ones That do 10

If you do Camp 10 Maybe there's something extra, no promises, but it's an interesting experiment. I'm just am curious to see what you guys do. Camp 10 or Camp 15 at Camp R&D when you check out, you're going to be getting those discounts. Thank you so much for rocking with us and wearing the threads. It keeps the lights on and keeps the fire burning.