The Colonial Department
History

The Colonial Department

by Lio Mangubat

Lost stories from 🇵🇭 history
🔊 Narrative nonfiction pod
📖 Book version published by @factionpress
📻 Written, produced, engineered by @liomangubat

100 episodes
EN-US language
All Episodes
1
S8E1: The Philippine Sour-chipelago
17:23 Mar 21, 2026
2
An important announcement about the future of The Colonial Dept.
6:27 Feb 27, 2026
3
INTERVIEW: Twin timelines, entangled histories
37:32 Feb 7, 2026
4
INTERVIEW: Sungka as a wargame?
45:49 Jan 28, 2026
5
Extra Credit: The supersized storms that hit the Philippines
4:57 Dec 29, 2025
6
S7E13: The War and the Weatherpriests
17:09 Dec 20, 2025
7
Extra Credit: What we can still learn from the Laguna Copperplate Inscription
5:57 Dec 6, 2025
8
S7E12: Turbulent Times at Manila Bay
16:18 Nov 29, 2025
9
Extra Credit: The Indian-Armenian who preserved and produced Philippine art
4:23 Nov 23, 2025
10
S7E11: Paint Me By Your Name
17:22 Nov 15, 2025
11
Extra Credit: On Tomas Claudio and other Filipinos in the frontlines of World War I
4:23 Nov 9, 2025
12
S7E10: Abaca World War
17:48 Nov 1, 2025
13
Extra Credit: A bullfight in Sulu
4:54 Oct 24, 2025
14
S7E9: Running of the Bulls, Part Two
14:40 Oct 11, 2025
15
S7E8: Running of the Bulls, Part One
15:57 Oct 3, 2025
16
Extra Credit: Bits and pieces about Bagumbayan
4:36 Sep 27, 2025
17
S7E7: Extramuros
16:43 Sep 20, 2025
18
Extra Credit: The “cultural fighters” of the Japanese Propaganda Corps
4:56 Sep 6, 2025
19
S7E6: Shisōsen—A Japanese Propagandist Confronts the Filipino Psyche
16:28 Aug 29, 2025
20
Extra Credit: The socialites, spies, and convicts who dined at Tom’s Dixie Kitchen
4:38 Aug 23, 2025
21
S7E5: Inside Tom’s Dixie Kitchen, Prewar Manila’s Hottest Restaurant
15:43 Aug 16, 2025
22
Extra Credit: “Epidemia maligna”—the devastating outbreaks that hit Luzon and Visayas in the late 1500s
4:26 Aug 9, 2025
23
S7E4: The Plague Years
15:05 Aug 2, 2025
24
Extra Credit: The complicated story of the 1800s coffee boom
4:51 Jul 26, 2025
25
S7E3: A Short Philippine History of Beverages
16:15 Jul 18, 2025
26
Extra Credit: More Ottoman links to the Philippine colonial period
4:24 Jul 12, 2025
27
S7E2: An Ottoman Emissary in Mindanao
16:58 Jul 4, 2025
28
Extra Credit: Pianos in 1800s Phillippines
4:27 Jun 28, 2025
29
S7E1: Foreign Piano Devils
15:41 Jun 20, 2025
30
Extra Credit: The shipwrecks of the Galleon Trade, by the numbers
5:48 Mar 29, 2025
31
S6E13: If Not Shipwrecks, Scurvy
15:24 Mar 21, 2025
32
Extra Credit: On Filipino studio photos from the 1900s
5:01 Mar 16, 2025
33
S6E12: The Skull Photographers
15:37 Mar 7, 2025
34
Extra Credit: On William Dampier, privateer of the Pacific
5:06 Mar 1, 2025
35
S6E11: Robinson Crusoe Captures a Manila Galleon
16:55 Feb 22, 2025
36
Extra Credit: On a prisoner’s life in Japanese-occupied Manila
6:05 Feb 14, 2025
37
S6E10: A Guerilla’s Torment
18:37 Feb 7, 2025
38
Extra Credit: On the end of the Galleon Trade
5:10 Feb 2, 2025
39
S6E9: Francisco Goya and the Royal Philippine Dead End
16:48 Jan 23, 2025
40
Extra Credit: On American campaigns against Lanao
5:05 Jan 18, 2025
41
S6E8: The Lost War Boats of Lake Lanao
16:37 Jan 10, 2025
42
Special: The Colonial Dept. 2024 Year in Review
11:29 Dec 21, 2024
43
Extra Credit: Carriages and coachmen in Manila’s motorized age
6:39 Dec 14, 2024
44
S6E7: Manila, Meet the Automobile
16:45 Dec 7, 2024
45
Extra Credit: Japanese mercs, merchants in colonial Luzon
5:19 Nov 29, 2024
46
S6E6: A Saint, a Samurai, and a Shipwreck
14:52 Nov 23, 2024
47
Extra Credit: ‘Trained baboons’—Filipino servants and their American employers in the 1900s
4:39 Nov 16, 2024
48
S6E5: Who Murdered Señor Villegas?
14:12 Nov 10, 2024
49
Extra Credit: More about the legend of Bernardo Carpio
4:53 Oct 11, 2024
50
S6E4: When Giants Walked the Philippines
14:06 Oct 5, 2024
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