[Abridged] Presidential Histories

Latest Episodes:

2025 Friendsgiving History Podcast Spectacular Nov 24, 2025

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It's the week of Thanksgiving, which means its time for the fourth annual Friendsgiving Podcast Spectacular. Four compelling podcast hosts sit down for a round table where each host gets to ask 1 question of each other host. Questions like:

On the eve of the United States' 250th birthday, what ideas or facts from the revolution could use more emphasis today?
Is there anyone from history your opinion pulled a 180 on as you learned more about them?
If you could take any one president and swap their place with any other president, who would you swap and why?

Join me for a merry discussion with 3 of the best U.S. / Presidential History podcasters you'll find:

Howard Dorre, Plodding through the Presidents
Jerry Landry, Presidencies of the United States
Alycia, Civics & Coffee

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20.B) Death by Lightning, an interview on the assassination of James Garfield with Candice Millard Nov 13, 2025

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Historian Candice Millard, author of Destiny of the Republic, discusses what it's like to have your book turned into a major Netflix Miniseries, Death by Lightning, and what first attracted her to the story of President James Garfield and the assassin Charles Guiteau.

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The improbable Victoria Woodhull, an interview with Eden Collinsworth Sep 01, 2025

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"While others prayed for the good time coming, I worked for it," - Victoria Woodhull, April 2, 1870, in a newspaper column announcing her candidacy for presidency of the United States.

You may know that Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president, but did you know that prior to running for office, she turned a reputation for being a clairvoyant into a stock brokerage career? Or that her vice presidential candidate was Frederick Douglass, but he didn't know it? Or that she missed the election because she was in jail?

Join me for an interview with Eden Collinsworth on her new book, The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President.

If there are other historians or authors of presidential history you would like to hear from, drop me a line: abridgedpresidentialhistories@gmail.com

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Democricide season 1: Who Killed Athenian Democracy? Episode 2 Jun 14, 2025

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Please enjoy this preview of my new podcast, Democricide.

Athenian Democracy was established, but who cared? Compared to the mighty Persian empire, the Greek city states were a bunch of backwaters. And that's how history may have remembered them, if not for one suicidally ambitious Greek, and one desperately crafty Athenian who saved his city from destruction.

Sources:

The Peloponnesian War, by Donald Kagan
Lords of the Sea, by John R. Hale

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Democricide season 1: Who Killed Athenian Democracy? Episode 1 Jun 14, 2025

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Please enjoy this preview of my new podcast, Democricide.

Athens wasn't always a democracy, but when a tyrant overplayed his hand and a revolutionary proposed something better, it launched a new form of government that changed the Greek world.

Sources:

The Peloponnesian War, by Donald Kagan
Lords of the Sea, by John R. Hale

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45.) Donald Trump part 1 2017-2021 Jun 09, 2025

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"This American carnage stops right here and stops right now." - Donald Trump, inauguration speech, Jan. 20, 2017.

The American presidency had long fascinated Donald Trump. Ever since attending the 1988 GOP National Convention, Trump had wanted a piece of it - he'd even called Bush that year to ask to be on the ticket. But the idea that a twice divorced, six-times bankrupted Democratic donor could become the Republican president of the United States - that was laughable. Until it happened.

Follow along as Donald Trump develops a personal brand for luxury, rides that brand to the White House, and then spends four years contending with investigations, impeachments, and a global pandemic. When he's voted out of office at the end of those four years, he won't accept it, and his supporters will storm the U.S. capital to try and take the presidency back for him.

Sources

Confidence Man - Maggie Haberman
CDC - for COVID stats and timelines
WHO - for COVID stats and timelines
Jan. 6 Committee - for Jan. 6 details and timelines
Washington Post & New York Times - for miscellaneous other details on Trump's presidency.

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8.A) Martin Van Buren, America's first politician, an interview with James Bradley Apr 07, 2025

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Martin Van Buren is known as the "little magician." If he was a magician, he cast a powerful spell. The two party system he championed and helped establish has ruled the United States for two centuries and Democratic party he co-founded is the oldest American political party alive today.

Historian and Journalist James Bradley, author of the new book Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician discusses how Martin Van Buren took over New York politics, and then American politics, to transform the American political system forever.

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44.A) Obama's 08' Iowa campaign, an interview with Chelsea Waliser Mar 03, 2025

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What's it like to be on the inside of a dark horse presidential campaign?

Chelsea Waliser knows.

Waliser was an Obama campaign regional field director during the lead up to first-in-the-nation 2008 Iowa Caucus. For nearly a year, she hired, trained, and organized volunteers for a candidate who was viewed by many as a long shot. What drove her to Obama? What's it like to spend a year of your life in Iowa? And how did Obama's campaign beat the odds?

Tune in to find out.

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44.) Barack Obama 2009-2017 Feb 17, 2025

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"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." - Barack Obama, on the campaign trail, Feb. 5, 2008

Nothing was ever going to come easy to Barack Obama, and many thought he was crazy for trying, but belief himself was something Obama had in spades, and it lifted him to the presidency of the United States. Follow along as Barack Obama rises from a humble start as a community organizer in Chicago to crack into Illinois Democratic politics, transform his career with a 2004 national convention speech, and shock the political establishment by becoming the first African American President in U.S. history in 2009. His reward? Two foreign wars, an economy in free fall, and an opposition party committed to saying 'no!' at every turn. It was one of the most challenging hands any president has been given, and yet he overcame it to save the American economy and settle its foreign policy on stable ground.

Bibliography
1. Obama: The Call of History - Peter Baker
2. Bush - Jean Edward Smith

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43.A) An Afghan Story, an interview with Sahba Azami Jan 27, 2025

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Sahba Azami was born an Afghan refugee.
Today, she's an Afghan refugee once more.
But, for nearly 20 years, she was not a refugee. She was simply an Afghan. And the future was bright.
Brought back to the country of her parents' birth after the United States toppled the Taliban, Sahba joined a vanguard of young women who were going to make the most of the precious opportunity that had been denied every generation of Afghan women before them -- She pursued an education.
Sahba graduated college. She graduated law school. She joined the Afghan president's administration. She was building a new country.
But then the Taliban returned.
It's an odd thing to realize: Sahba's life has almost certainly been more dramatically changed and changed again by the decisions of American presidents than my own, but it's a realization I can't shake. The decision of American presidents made it possible for Sahba to return to Afghanistan and pursue an education. The decisions of American presidents contributed to Afghanistan's collapse, separating her from her family, and making her a refugee in a faraway land.
But still, she dreams.
Today, she shares her story.

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