American History Tellers

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Encore: The Space Race | Taking the Lead | 3 Jun 03, 2020

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In times of crisis, Americans had always put their confidence in their country’s superiority in power, technology and leadership. America had never failed them. And in 1961, hope and faith in their country burned brighter than ever as NASA prepared to launch the first man into space. A month out from launch, that light was effectively snuffed. The Soviets beat them to it. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first person in space and the first person to orbit Earth. The world was in awe. And America was in shock.

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Encore: The Space Race | Playing Catch Up | 2 May 27, 2020

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Information sharing was normal in the global scientific community, but when it came to rockets, normal rules didn’t apply. If the details got passed along to civilian scientists, there was no telling where that intel might end up…

But for many Americans, the Eisenhower just wasn’t moving fast enough. Sputnik was still orbiting! The Soviets were winning! Eisenhower downplayed Sputnik,calling it “one small ball in the air,” but privately he was worried.

The U.S. had the ability to beat the Soviets to space. But they didn’t. And Eisenhower wanted to know why.

Warning: this episode is packed with as much explosive power as is packed in the warhead of a ballistic missile.

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Encore: The Space Race | Starting Gun | 1 May 20, 2020

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Remember Werner von Braun? We talked a little bit about him in our Cold War series. He was in charge of the German rocket program in World War II. First used to lob missiles and bombs all over Europe, von Braun always dreamed of something better for his rockets. As the Soviet and American forces were closing in on Germany to end the war, von Braun saw only one way out: surrender to the American forces and get to the States.

Amid the wreckage of the Third Reich, the first leg of the Space Race would be a sprint to locate von Braun.

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The WWII Home Front | United We Win | 2 May 13, 2020

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As the nation’s factories and shipyards ramped up production for the war, the demand for labor exploded. Millions of women and minorities entered the workforce for the first time, finding a path to prosperity and opportunity.

But as Americans joined in common purpose, strife and challenges hit the homefront.

In 1943, half a million coal miners in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania went on strike, sparking nationwide uproar and threatening to derail the war effort. Cities erupted with tensions over housing and jobs as the largest migration in history transformed the nation. And deep questions over loyalty and belonging arose, as the federal government forced more than 100,000 Japanese Americans into detention camps.

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The WWII Home Front - Arsenal of Democracy | 1 May 06, 2020

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On December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese warplanes rained death and destruction down on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor—shocking the nation and drawing it into World War II. The U.S. had been ravaged by the Great Depression. Mobilizing the country for war would require unprecedented government intervention in industry, the economy, and American lives. But the crisis would also spark new opportunities, challenges and questions about what it meant to be a patriot and an American during a time of crisis.

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Rebellion in the Early Republic - How Early American Revolts Shaped Today’s Protests | 7 Apr 29, 2020

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In 1799, the U.S. government imposed a new tax on houses, land, and slaves to fund an expanded military. A man named John Fries led Pennsylvania Dutch farmers in protest of the law. What became known as Fries’ Rebellion was the third major tax revolt in the nation’s short history. But President Adams quashed Fries’ Rebellion with military force—a response widely viewed as an overreaction. The protesters went on to help usher Adams out of office.

Their actions proved that Americans could challenge their government without resorting to violence, and that popular dissent could exist within the rule of law…affirming a tradition of protest that exists now.

On today’s episode, we hear from Pulitzer winning historian and legal scholar Edward J. Larson. Larson is a history professor and the Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He is also author of the new book “Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership” (William Morrow, 2020).

Larson takes us into a deeper dive into how the early American rebellions were resolved, and what that era of our nation’s history can teach us about how the government handles pushback from citizens now.

Additional books by Edward J. Larson:

“The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789” (William Morrow, 2015)

“A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800” (Free Press, 2008)

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Rebellion in the Early Republic - Nat Turner’s Rebellion | 6 Apr 22, 2020

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In February 1831, a solar eclipse caused the skies to darken over the isolated backwater of Southampton County, Virginia. An enslaved man and self-proclaimed prophet named Nat Turner saw it as a sign from God that it was time to rise up against slavery.

In the early morning hours of August 22, 1831, Turner and a small group of fellow slaves emerged from the woods armed with axes. They marched on the farm of Turner’s owner, where they struck the first fatal blows of their revolt. Over the next 48 hours, the rebels roved from farm to farm, killing dozens and sowing panic throughout the white community.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion was the bloodiest slave revolt in American history. It sparked widespread hysteria and deadly reprisals, further propelling the nation down the path to civil war.

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Rebellion in the Early Republic - Gabriel’s Rebellion | 5 Apr 15, 2020

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As a new century dawned on the United States, an enslaved blacksmith named Gabriel began planning a bold plot to overthrow slavery in Virginia’s capital. The uprising would change the future of slavery in the South.

In the spring and summer of 1800, the charismatic Gabriel recruited an army of enslaved artisans, freedmen, and white laborers in Richmond and the surrounding countryside. They fashioned homemade weapons out of farming tools and scrap metal. They planned to attack white merchants, storm Richmond’s treasury, and kidnap Governor James Monroe. By August, hundreds of men had joined Gabriel’s Rebellion, making it the most extensive slave plot the South had seen yet.

But when the day finally came to seize Richmond, a late summer storm threatened to doom Gabriel’s plans.

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Rebellion in the Early Republic - Crisis in the West | 4 Apr 08, 2020

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In 1794, anti-government protests grew into an all-out rebellion, and President Washington faced his first major test of federal authority. Some 7,000 armed Westerners marched on Pittsburgh and threatened its residents. Violent resistance to the whiskey tax soon spread from western Pennsylvania to Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Washington and his cabinet held tense meetings to debate a response to the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. The country’s first president was determined to act quickly and decisively, despite divisions among his close advisers. Nothing less than the sovereignty of the young nation was at stake.

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Rebellion in the Early Republic - The Whiskey Rebellion | 3 Apr 01, 2020

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Only a few years after Shays’ Rebellion was suppressed, a new revolt broke out in western Pennsylvania. Anti-government resentment had been growing on the frontier for years. Then in 1791, the U.S. government handed down a tax on domestic spirits. It became known as the Whiskey Tax. Many western farmers and distillers, already struggling under harsh conditions, refused to pay the tax and rose up in defiance. Armed gangs ambushed tax collectors—and anyone who supported them.

As resistance spread, authorities struggled to suppress the violence. Then, in the summer of 1794, hundreds of rebels went to battle against U.S. Army troops at Bower Hill, the mountaintop mansion of a wealthy tax collector. The rebels burned the manor to the ground and a popular rebel leader was shot dead, inflaming tensions.

The federal government had an unprecedented crisis on its hands.

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