The Tudor Minute is a quick no-longer-than-2-minutes splash into Tudor history available every weekday on the Amazon Echo, or any Alexa-enabled device – enable the skill here.

Since I update these daily, it’s not really feasible to post a constantly updated archive here. But, if you don’t have an Alexa device, you can still sign up for the special mailing list to get them delivered to your inbox.  Every weekday I send out the Tudor Minute to the list, along with the transcript.

A note on the source: Claire Ridgway has written an excellent Today in Tudor History Book, which is where I grab many of my dates to get started with a particular date. If you want a day by day accounting of the Tudor period, this is a great book to buy!

Thanks for listening, and if you have any questions about individual episodes, feel free to tweet me (@teysko) or text me at 801 6TEYSKO.

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I should add, as an editorial note, that having the Amazon Echo Dot has rocked my world.

I thought it was just going to be another gizmo, but it looked fun, and so I spent the $50 on the Echo Dot after Christmas. I had read that the sound on the Echo speaker wasn’t actually that great, so buying the Dot and hooking it up to a good bluetooth speaker was the way to go. So I put the Dot in my kitchen, paired it with my Bose Mini Soundlink I got for Christmas a few years ago, and we were off.

Let me tell you why the Echo Dot rocks my world. Okay, so here’s how mornings used to go for me. Hannah would be running around the kitchen, talking, maybe pretend cooking with her kitchen set, and being interested in everything I do. I also have my hands full with broken eggs and oatmeal, making sure one doesn’t burn, adding in spinach, and making my coffee. There’s a lot going on. Generally I would look in the fridge and realize I was almost out of something. Which meant I had to dry off my hands, put down whatever utensil I was working with, and go over to the counter where the paper and pencil were, and write down said necessity. During which time Hannah would generally stop what she was doing to ask me what I was writing, and I’d either tell her it didn’t matter, to which she would respond, “why” endlessly, or I’d explain it to her, and before I knew it, the eggs were burned. Later in the day I’d go to the store and realize I forgot my list. I’d try to remember what was on it, remember 3/4 of it, then have to start a new list once I got home.

So here’s how it goes with the Echo Dot.

Hannah’s sitting and talking, or pretend cooking, and I’m digging in the fridge. I realize we’re out of something, and I just say, “Alexa, add milk to the shopping list.” She adds it. When I’m in Mercadona, I pull out my phone, check my list in the Alexa app (or, I also sync with Evernote) and boom. List is there. No burning the eggs.

Also, I can easily say, “Alexa, play Thomas Tallis on Spotify” and I don’t need to dry my hands to go to the phone and search and pull it up.

Look, I know these are First World Problems. But for a $50 device to solve it has made my mornings so much less stressful. So that’s why I wanted to do the Skill for Alexa.

If you decide you want to get an Echo or Echo Dot you can use my affiliate links here. You pay the same price, but the podcast gets part of the proceeds. Hooray for that.

Echo Dot – if really good sound is important to you, I recommend you get the Dot and then hook it up to a bluetooth speaker. It’ll cost less, and the sound will be much better.

This Sony Bluetooth Speaker is a really good one for the price if you want to get one to pair with the Dot. Together it’ll cost you about $150, which is $29 less than the full Echo, with way better sound.

The Bose Mini SoundLink is probably the best mini bluetooth speaker on the market. It’s pricier though, at $179. Still, if you want a superior portable sound, this is it.

Echo – Still better sound than the Dot on its own.