With a tagline reading “Heaven for History Buffs,” Joe Gillard claims History Hustle is not your grandfather’s history brand. 

Gillard, a Port Townsend resident and Centrum’s marketing manager, is just that: a history buff. He is also the founder of one of the top digital history publications for fellow antiquity enthusiasts.

History Hustle boasts more than 500,000 loyal followers across platforms, millions of video views, and has been featured on various internet platforms and international news sites.

What began with a goal to start and run a media business, History Hustle was born in 2016 after several experiments in crafting online content. It sprang from the decision to combine Gillard’s love of history with creating a new media website.

The pop history brand was conceived first as a website and Facebook page then evolved from there.

“It’s not a huge household name,” he confessed, “but it started growing faster than I expected. I was able to get some traction early on.”

That traction came from a 2016 video called “Art History in 90 Seconds” which received over 1 million views on Facebook.

“I’m not the only person doing something like this. I’m not the first,” said Gillard, who crafted the brand for “people wanting to see the lighter side of history, people that consider themselves history buffs, history geeks.”

History Hustle became an attempt to make history fun.

“I wanted to make [History Hustle] about what history is to me, which is human stories that are fun, people that are relatable, people that we can see ourselves in, and not wars and dates and all the tragic things that we’re used to hearing about history.”

A 2018 video entitled “20 Awesome Historical Words We Should Bring Back” received around 18 million views — one was a literary agent who thought the sentiment book-worthy.

“I didn’t really have any desire to be an author,” Gillard said, “but it was a good way I thought to get History Hustle out there.”

Gillard sold the book idea to Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

One video became the driving force behind Gillard’s 2019 authorial debut, “The Little Book of Lost Words: Collywobbles, Snollygosters, and 86 Other Surprisingly Useful Terms Worth Resurrecting.”

This led to an interview on NPR’s “Here and Now,” setting off a string of smaller public radio interviews around the country plus a few in Australia.

“In 2019, Will Shortz, The New York Times crossword puzzle editor, personally emailed me inviting me to be a speaker at the Wonderful World of Words conference in New York,” Gillard added to the list.

“Since then I’ve still continued to help try to grow the brand of History Hustle and keep it relevant,” Gillard explains. “On History Hustle, people that did amazing things that we’ve never heard about get a chance to be seen and have their story heard.”

“I’ve tried to highlight women and BIPOC historical figures whose stories may have been lost because they didn’t fit in the narrative that we’re all used to,” he said.

With interest-piquing articles titled “The Iroquois Had Powerful Women and Collective Government,” “Benjamin Lay: A Civil Rights Activist Way Ahead of His Time,” and “With a Sword and a Baby Bump, Caterina Sforza Took on Rome and the Pope,” a vast supply of historical knowledge is available on the site and via social media. Visit History Hustle to learn about the “African who Became the First Black Samurai in 16th-Century Japan,” the “Heiress With 2 Leashed Cheetahs and a Live ‘Snakelace’ on Her Neck,” and the reason why “Lord Byron brought his pet bear to college.”

Gillard has created a wild and wonderful world of the history you’ve probably never heard about.

“History is fun and not boring,” he said. “By acknowledging that, acknowledging our history helps us to see who we are and what we can do moving forward for a better future.”

If you’re interested in contributing to History Hustle, you can email info@historyhustle.com.