The History of Salt, It's Darker Than You Think

A Roman soldier's payday included something you'd never expect: salt. The word for that payment — salarium — is where we get the word "salary." That's just the beginning. This episode traces salt from ancient Rome (where an entire road was built just to move it) to West African trade empires where it was worth its weight in gold, to a French tax so unfair it helped trigger a revolution, to a single 61-year-old man who walked 240 miles to legally pick up a handful of it off a beach — and helped bring down the British Empire in the process. It's sitting in a shaker on your table right now, completely taken for granted. 🔍 Next up: Coffee — banned by kings and popes, smuggled across empires, and brewed into actual revolutions.