History Unplugged Podcast - History Unplugged

Key Battles of the Barbary War, Episode 6: Swashbuckling Ship Battles and 500-Mile Desert Marches Won the First Barbary War Nov 21, 2024

In Episode 6, we dive into two pivotal battles in the First Barbary War: Tripoli and Derne. It starts with Stephen Decatur's dramatic assault on Tripoli Harbor in August 1804, where he led American gunboats against a larger Tripolitanian fleet, avenging his brother's death in single combat and shelling the city. Commodore Preble's daring attempts to destroy Tripoli's defenses are followed by the tragic loss of the USS Intrepid crew.

We then move to William Eaton’s ambitious overland march with a small band of Marines and mercenaries across the Libyan desert to Derne. Facing hunger, mutiny, and harsh terrain, Eaton's force managed to surprise Derne’s defenders, capturing the city in America’s first coordinated land-sea assault. Despite Eaton’s victory, peace talks led by Tobias Lear overshadowed Eaton’s campaign, forcing a strategic withdrawal that left Hamet Karamanli, Eaton’s ally, without power. Eaton returned home as a hero, but haunted by the treaty’s outcome. This episode captures the challenges of America’s first overseas conflict and the complicated peace that followed.

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Knights Could Still Be Found on English Battlefields in the 1640s. What Were They Doing There? Nov 19, 2024

The 17th-century battlefield ushered in a new era, with formed musketeers and pistol-wielding cavalry gradually taking over from the knights and men-at-arms that had dominated the European battlefield. But knights could still be found on these battlefields as late as the 1640s, proudly donning their full-plated armor as their lightly clad compatriots looked on in a mix of envy and confusion. What were they doing fighting 17th-century battles?
Today’s guest is Myke Cole, author of “Steel Lobsters: Crown , Commonwealth, and the Last Knights in England.” We examine the life and times of Sir Arthur Hesilrige and his Regiment of Horse, known as "the Lobsters" as they were encased in plate armor. We cover the full history of England's last knights, from the seeds of their creation in Hesilrige’s experience as a young cavalry officer, to their final defeat at Roundway Down in July 1643, and the decision to abandon their armor.

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Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 5: The Destruction of the USS Philadelphia Nov 14, 2024

The USS Philadelphia, launched in 1799, played a crucial role in early American naval history but was captured by Tripolitan forces in 1803 after running aground near Tripoli during the Barbary Wars. Captain William Bainbridge attempted to prevent its capture by lightening the ship and destroying key materials but was ultimately forced to surrender, leading to his crew’s captivity and increased ransom demands. Commodore Preble responded by planning to destroy the Philadelphia to prevent it from strengthening Tripoli's forces, selecting Lieutenant Stephen Decatur for a daring raid to set the frigate ablaze. Decatur and his crew succeeded in a swift, covert operation that won admiration back in the U.S. and internationally, shifting the balance of the war in America’s favor.

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The Jewish Confederates Nov 12, 2024

Over a 100,000 Jewish Americans lived in the Old South before the Civil War. They were active members of society, involved in farming, business, and politics (one Secretary of State of the Confederacy was Jewish).

One of which was Emma Mordecai. She was Jewish when Jews comprised less than 1 percent of the population of the Old South. She also lived well within the social parameters established for Southern white women, espoused Southern values, and owned enslaved African Americans.
In today’s episode, we discuss her Civil War experiences, and those of Jewish Southerners at large. We are joined by Melissa Klapper, who with Diane Ashton, edited and published The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai.

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Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 4: The First Barbary War (1801-05) Nov 07, 2024

The First Barbary War began in response to decades of harassment of American traders by North African pirates. Before becoming president, Thomas Jefferson faced renewed Barbary pirate attacks, with the Pasha of Tripoli threatening war unless more tribute was paid. Despite being known for his frugality and opposition to a naval buildup, Jefferson deployed a naval squadron, believing military force was cheaper and more effective than paying tribute.

In 1801, after the U.S. failed to meet the Pasha’s demands, Tripoli declared war, leading to naval skirmishes, including a decisive early victory by the USS Enterprise. Jefferson's efforts to blockade Tripoli faced setbacks, including the capture of the American frigate Philadelphia and its crew. This loss raised the stakes, with the Pasha demanding an even larger ransom, complicating efforts to resolve the conflict.

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Was The Vietnam War Unwinnable? Nov 05, 2024

It’s been fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War, yet the memory of the war lives on, the nationwide protests of the 1970s mirroring ones happening on college campuses today. In today’s episode we take a panoptic overview of the political debates in Washington, the ground and air operations in Southeast Asia, and the shocking erosion of American defense capabilities. We also dive into the five-decade-old question of whether the Vietnam War could have been won (proponents say victory could come by such strategy as Americans invading Laos and Cambodia and cutting off the Ho Chi Minh Trail; opponents say such policies as “search and destroy” led to recruitment of more Viet Cong soldiers rather than reduce their numbers).

We’re joined by Geoffrey Wawro, author of “The Vietnam War: A Military History.” We discuss whether the American war in Vietnam was a war of choice, pursued for all the wrong reasons. Shedding light on the inner workings of three presidential administrations and their field commanders, we look at political power, its limits, and the devastation that arises when power is compounded by willful delusion and carelessness in the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon.

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Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 3: The Barbary States and Their 300-Year Reign of Mediterranean Piracy Oct 31, 2024

The Barbary States (Morocco, Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis) were the greatest thorn in the side of the young American republic after it won independence, preying on trade ships, enslaving American crews, and demanding levels of ransom that consumed much of the federal budget. But why did the Barbary states rely on piracy for economic survival and why couldn't they engage in typical commerce?

In the 16th century, the Barbary States transitioned from Mediterranean trade to piracy after Spain's conquests and Ottoman expansion disrupted their economy. Algiers and other North African ports became notorious bases for corsairs, launching raids on European shipping under the protection of the Ottoman Empire. By the early 17th century, piracy became central to their economy, with hundreds of corsair vessels operating from Algerine ports, capturing ships and enslaving crews. However, by the late 1800s, the Barbary States' power had waned due to European naval interventions, reducing their fleets and influence significantly.

But they were still a major threat, as the newborn United States was soon to find out. In this episode, James and Scott look at the origins of the Barbary States and understand their perspective in the Barbary Wars.

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What a Modern-Day Stonemason Can Tell Us About Hand Building 13th- Century Gothic Cathedrals and Carving Gargoyles Oct 29, 2024

Churches are many things to us - they are places of worship, vibrant community hubs and oases of calm reflection. To know a church is to hold a key to the past that unlocks an understanding of our shared history.
Andrew Ziminski, today’s guest and author of “Church Going – A Stonemason’s Guide” has spent decades as a stonemason and church conservator, acting as an informal guide to curious visitors He has restored medieval churches across the British Isles, in which he reveals their fascinating histories, features and furnishings, from flying buttresses to rood screens, lichgates to chancels.

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Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 2: The British Origins of the US Navy Oct 24, 2024

The American Navy was birthed in the Barbary Wars. Sure, there was a token navy in the Revolutionary War, but battles were mostly won in that war by American privateers (or, if you were British, pirates). To understand where the U.S. Navy came from, we need to take a step back and look at the stake of naval warfare in the 18th century.

The early American Navy resembled the British Navy in its use of British ship designs, naval tactics, and organizational structures, largely inherited from the colonial period when the colonies relied on British maritime power. Many American naval officers had British training or were influenced by British traditions, such as ship discipline, officer ranks, and the use of frigates for protecting trade routes.

However, the U.S. Navy was different in its focus and scale. While the British Navy was a vast global force designed for empire-building and large-scale warfare, the early American Navy was smaller and more focused on defending American merchant ships, often relying on nimble frigates rather than large ships-of-the-line. Additionally, the U.S. Navy operated with a more democratic ethos, as naval officers in America were often more accountable to elected officials, reflecting the values of the new republic.

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The Conquest of Constantinople in 1453 Permanently Altered Siege Warfare, Middle Eastern Demographics, and Global Trade Oct 22, 2024

On May 29, 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople, bringing an end to over a thousand years of Byzantine rule. The city's formidable walls, which had stood nearly impenetrable for eight centuries, finally fell to hisforces. With its conquest, Constantinople was declared the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. Some historians marked this conquest as the end of the Middle Ages.

Built by Theodosius II to safeguard the "New Rome," these walls stretched from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara, marking the borders of ancient Istanbul. Through centuries of earthquakes, sieges, and urban expansion, their gates and fortifications have endured, preserving the legacy of the city's past.

To discuss the world-history importance of this conquest is today’s guest, Alexander Christie-Miller, author of “To The City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul.”

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Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 1: America Wanted to Take 1776 to the High Seas. North African Pirates Disagreed. Oct 17, 2024

In this new mini-series, Scott Rank is rejoined by James Early (his co-host on many other military history mini-series, covering the Civil War, World War One, and the Revolutionary War) to look at a little-known war that pitted the infant United States against the Barbary States of North Africa.
The Barbary Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa (modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) from 1801 to 1815, fought over the piracy and tribute demands imposed on American ships. These wars marked the U.S. Navy's first significant overseas military engagements and helped establish American maritime power. We also see the birth of of the U.S. Marines and how they literally fought on the shore of Tripoli.

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New Series Launches Tomorrow: Key Battles of the Barbary Wars (with James Early) Oct 15, 2024

James Early and Scott will be doing a nine-part series starting tomorrow called Key Battles of the Barbary Wars (1801-1815). We look at an infant United States try to assert itself in the Atlantic World, as North African pirates demand tribute, capture crews, and do everything it can to humiliate the nation as European powers looked on, wondering if the new nation would be project any sort of power beyond its shores.

New episodes every Thursday.

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How Civil War Vets Continued Living Despite Being Double, Triple, or Even Quadruple Amputees Oct 15, 2024

The Civil War wrought horrible devastation on its soldiers: Nearly 500,000 were wounded by bullets, shrapnel or sabers and bayonets. Medicine was still primited, and often a doctor could do little more than amputee an injured limb. As a result, thousands of veterans were left missing one to four limbs, yet still needed to attempt providing for their families despite few job prospects and even fewer resources available to the disable3d.

In this episode we will look at profiles of seven veterans―six soldiers and one physician―and how they coped with their changed bodies in their postwar lives.
Today’s guest is Robert Hicks, author of “Wounded for Life.” We look at how these soldiers were shaped by the trauma of the battlefield and hospital, and the construction of a postwar identity in relation to that trauma.

In particular we discuss:

Electrical treatments during the Civil War to revive damaged bodies -- part of the founding of American neurology by the physician S. Weir Mitchell
Phantom limb syndrome and how the veterans still suffered from these wounds decades after the war
The collective experiences of the veterans profiled in the book show how they dealt with common expectations after the injuries

How this story relates to today's war veterans

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What’s the Difference Between a Pirate, a Privateer, and a Naval Officer? In the 1700s, Very Little Oct 10, 2024

The pirates that exist in our imagination are not just any pirates. Violent sea-raiding has occurred in most parts of the world throughout history, but our popular stereotype of pirates has been defined by one historical moment: the period from the 1660s to the 1730s, the so-called "golden age of piracy."

The Caribbean and American colonies of Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands—where piracy surged across these decades—are the main theater for buccaneering, but this is a global story. From London, Paris, and Amsterdam to Curaçao, Port Royal, Tortuga, and Charleston, from Ireland and the Mediterranean to Madagascar and India, from the Arabian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean.

Familiar characters like Drake, Morgan, Blackbeard, Bonny and Read, Henry Every, and Captain Kidd all feature here, but so too will the less well-known figures from the history of piracy, their crew-members, shipmates, and their confederates ashore; the men and women whose transatlantic lives were bound up with the rise and fall of piracy.

To explore this story is today’s guest, Richard Blakemore, author of “Enemies of All: The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Piracy.”

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After Genghis Khan Conquered the Earth, Kublai Khan Conquered the Seas Oct 08, 2024

Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world. How did a nomad come to conquer China and master the sea?

Kublai Khan is one of history's most fascinating characters. He brought Islamic mathematicians to his court, where they invented modern cartography and celestial measurement. He transformed the world's largest land mass into a unified, diverse and economically progressive empire, introducing paper money. And, after bitter early setbacks, he transformed China into an outward looking sea-faring empire.

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Aesop’s Fables and Whether They Were Written By an Ugly, Enslaved “Barbarian” Who Discretely Mocked His Masters Oct 03, 2024

Aesop’s fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Dog in the Manger,” and “Sour Grapes” have captivated audiences for roughly 2,600 years. Written by a non-Greek slave (who may not have existed but was reported to be very ugly), Aesop was an outsider who knew how to skerwer Greek society and identify many of the contraditions of antiquity. HIs tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours—one with clear good and plain evil—but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity.
Today’s guest is Robin Waterfield, author of “Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation.” Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables. We look at historical accounts of Aesop, how his tales were recorded, and shine a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables.

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"Thermopylae, the “300” Spartans, and the 26 Other Battles Fought There Over the Last 2,400 Years Oct 01, 2024

Since the dawn of the Greek Classical Era up to World War II, thousands have lost their lives fighting over the pass at Thermopylae.. The epic events of 480 BC when 300 Spartans attempted to hold the pass has been immortalized in poetry, art, literature and film. But that is not the only battle fought there. Twenty-six other battles and holding actions took place, and they were fought by Romans, Byzantines, Huns and Ottomans during the early and late medieval periods and finally the two desperate struggles against German occupying forces during World War II.
To discuss it is today’s guest, Michael Livingston, author of “The Killing Ground: A Biography of Thermopylae” The Killing Ground details the background and history of each conflict, the personalities and decision making of the commanders, the arms and tactics of the troops, and how each battle played out.

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The Last Emperor of Mexico: How a Habsburg Archduke Set Up a Kingdom in the New World in the 1860s Sep 26, 2024

In 1864, a young Austrian archduke by the name of Maximilian crossed the Atlantic to assume a faraway throne. He had been lured into the voyage by a duplicitous Napoleon III (the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte). Keen to spread his own interests abroad, the French emperor had promised Maximilian a hero's welcome. Instead, he walked into a bloody guerrilla war. With a head full of impractical ideals - and a penchant for pomp and butterflies - the new 'emperor' was singularly ill-equipped for what lay in store.

In this episode we are looking at this barely known, barely believable episode - a bloody tragedy of operatic proportions, the effects of which would be felt into the twentieth century and beyond. To discuss his life is today’s guest, Edward Shawcross, author of “The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World

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First-Hand Account of Hiroshima: Before, During, and After the Atomic Bomb Drop Sep 24, 2024

Over the past few years, much has been written and created around Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, but little attention is paid to those whose lives were ended or forever changed when the bombs dropped in Japan.
In this episode, we delve into the experiences of the hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. On that day the Enola Gay released its devastating payload, ushering in the nuclear age. The survivors, now with an average age of over 90, provide some of the last living testimonies of the horrors that unfolded in the seconds, minutes, and hours following the explosion.
Today’s guest is M.G. Sheftall, author of The Stories of Hibakusha. Sheftall has spent years interviewing those who were young adolescents at the time of the bombing, now elderly but still haunted by their memories.

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America’s Professional Sports Grew From Farm Teams to Multi-Billion Dollar Franches Thanks to the Harlem Globetrotters Founder Sep 19, 2024

The original Harlem Globetrotters weren’t from Harlem, and they didn’t start out as globetrotters. The talented team, started by Jewish immigrant Abe Saperstein, was from Chicago’s South Side and toured the Midwest in Saperstein’s model-T. But with Saperstein’s savvy and the players’ skills, the Globetrotters would become a worldwide sensation
At 5’3”, Saperstein is not who we might imagine would bring the sport of basketball to the entire world, pioneer the three-point shot, or to befriend the likes of Jesse Owens, Satchel Paige, and Wilt Chamberlain to name a few. Born in 1902 in London’s Whitechapel slum neighborhood to parents who had immigrated from Poland, Saperstein and his family then immigrated to America in 1906. He founded the team in the 1920s, steadily building a reputation for talent and comedy until their footprint covered the entire world.
Abe Saperstein’s impact went well beyond the Harlem Globetrotters. He helped keep baseball’s Negro Leagues alive, was a force in getting pitching great Satchel Paige his shot at the majors, and befriended Olympic star Jesse Owens when he fell on hard times. When Saperstein started the American Basketball League, he pioneered the three-point shot, which has dramatically changed the sport. Today’s guests, Mark Jacob and Matthew Jacob, authors of “Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook Up the World of Sports” piece together the of his life.

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Why Did Presidents Seem Incredibly Rich Yet Were Completely Broke Most of the Time? Sep 17, 2024

Was Harry Truman really our poorest president or simply a man up at 2 a.m. struggling with financial anxiety? Did Calvin Coolidge get bad advice from his stockbroker to buy stocks in 1930 as the market continued to crash? Is it true George Washington enhanced his net worth by marrying up?
We often think of the US presidents as being above the fray. But the truth is, the presidents are just like us—worried about money, trying to keep a budget, and chasing the American financial dream. While some presidents like Herbert Hoover and Gerald Ford became wildly successful with money, others like Thomas Jefferson and Joe Biden struggled to sustain their lifestyle. The ability to win the presidency is no guarantee of financial security, although today it’s a much easier path to monetize.
Today’s guest is Megan Gorman, author of “All the Presidents’ Money.” We look at the different personal money stories of the presidents. Grit, education, and risk are just some of the different ways that the presidents over the last 250 years have made (or lost) money.

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A 1,300 History of the Middle East in Seven Religious Wars Sep 12, 2024

From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy.
Some of the most significant clashes of arms in human history include the taking and retaking of Jerusalem and the collapse of the Crusader states; the fall of Constantinople; the sieges of Rhodes and Malta; the assault on Vienna and the 'high-water mark' of Ottoman advance into Europe; culminating in the Allied capture of Jerusalem in World War I, the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the dissolution of the sultanate and the caliphate, and the formation of modern Europe and the modern Middle East.
To explore this history is today’s guest, Simon Mayall, author of “The House of War: The Struggle between Christendom and the Caliphate.”

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When Good Ideas Were Bad Medicine: Why Vitamin C and Handwashing was Rejected by the Medical Establishment Sep 10, 2024

More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they're three years old. Getting the science perfectly backward, triggering intolerance with lack of early exposure, the US now leads the world in peanut allergies-and this misinformation is still rearing its head today.
How could the experts have gotten it so wrong? Could it be that many modern-day health crises have been caused by the hubris of the medical establishment? Experts said for decades that opioids were not addictive, igniting the opioid crisis. They demonized natural fat in foods, driving Americans to processed carbohydrates as obesity rates soared.
These failures of medical groupthink have been seen throughout history. Philosophers of the 16th century who claimed that blood circulated throughout the body (instead of resting in a layer below the epidermis) faced capital punishment. James Lind, who discovered that Vitamin C prevented scurvy, was ignored for 40 years. Ignaz Semmelweis was rejected by the medical community for suggesting that doctors should perhaps wash their hands before operating on patients.
Today’s guest is Marty Makary, author of “Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What it Means for Our Health.” We see how when modern medicine issues recommendations based on good scientific studies, it shines. Conversely, when medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict, it can mold beliefs that harm patients and stunt research for decades.

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Appleton Oaksmith: The Confederate Blockade Runner Who Became Lincoln’s Public Enemy #1 Sep 05, 2024

Appleton Oaksmith was a swashbuckling Civil War-era sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-19th century, from the California Gold Rush, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua, Cuban liberation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. But in his life we also see the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade. That’s because he spent years working as an outlaw mariner for the Confederacy and later against the Klan.
Oaksmith lived in the murky underworld of New York City, where federal marshals plied the docks in lower Manhattan in search of evidence of slave trading. Once they suspected Oaksmith, federal authorities had him arrested and convicted, but in 1862 he escaped from jail and became a Confederate blockade-runner in Havana. The Lincoln Administration tried to have him kidnapped in violation of international law, but the attempt was foiled. Always claiming innocence, Oaksmith spent the next decade in exile until he received a presidential pardon from U.S. Grant, at which point he moved to North Carolina and became an anti-Klan politician.
To look at this story is today’s guest, Jonathan White, author of “Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade.”

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The Bible Triggered Two Communications Revolutions: The Codex and the Printing Press Sep 03, 2024

For Christians, the Bible is a book inspired by God. But it has been received by different cultures and language groups in (sometimes) radically different ways. Following Jesus’s departing instruction to go out into the world, the Bible has been a book in motion from its very beginnings, and every community it has encountered has read, heard, and seen the Bible through its own language and culture. It was spread by merchants, missionaries, and colonizers Asia, Africa, and to the Americas. Local communities adapted the "alien" book through a blend of cultural integration and reinterpretation. For instance, 20th-century Chinese theologians described similarities between Confucianism and biblical texts, while Native Americans placed themselves directly into biblical narratives—a group of 18th-century Mohican converts renamed themselves Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, proclaiming themselves "patriarchs of a new nation of believers."
Today’s guest is Bruce Gordon, author of “The Bible: A Global History.” We discuss the story of the Bible’s journey around the globe and across more than two thousand years, showing how it has shaped and been shaped by changing beliefs and believers’ different needs. The people who received it interpreted it in radically different ways, from desert monasteries and Chinese house churches, Byzantine cathedrals and Guatemalan villages.

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Steering an Aerial Plywood Box Through Enemy Fire: The Glider Pilots of WW2 Aug 29, 2024

In World War II, there were no C-130s or large cargo aircraft that could deliver heavy equipment
– such as a truck or artillery piece – in advance of an airborne invasion. For that, you needed to put that equipment, along with its crew, in a glider. These were unpowered boxes of plywood, pulled by a towing plane into enemy territory by a single cable wrapped with telephone wire.
The men who flew on gliders were all volunteers, for a specialized duty that their own government projected would have a 50 percent casualty rate. In every major European invasion of the war they led the way. They landed their gliders ahead of the troops who stormed Omaha Beach, and sometimes miles ahead of the paratroopers bound for the far side of the Rhine River in Germany itself. From there, they had to hold their positions. They delivered medical teams, supplies and gasoline to troops surrounded in the Battle of the Bulge, ahead even of Patton's famous supply truck convoy.
These all-volunteer glider pilots played a pivotal role from the day the Allies invaded Occupied Europe to the day Germany finally surrendered. Yet the story of these anonymous heroes is virtually unknown.
To explore these stories with us is today’s guest, Scott McGaugh, author of “Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin: The Glider Pilots of World War II.”

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Why Few Presidents Had Beards, And Only One Had a Mullet Aug 27, 2024

From George Washington’s powdered pigtail to John Quincy Adams’ bushy side-whiskers and from James Polk’s masterful mullet to John F. Kennedy’s refined Ivy League coif, the tresses of American leaders have long conveyed important political and symbolic messages.
There are surprising, and multi-dimensional ways that hair has influenced the personalities, public and private lives, personal scandals, and tragedies of the men and women who have occupied the White House and influenced the nation at large.
To explore this unconventional aspect of American history is today’s guest, Ted Pappas, author of “Combing Through the White House: Hair and Its Shocking Impact on the Politics, Private Lives, and Legacies of the Presidents.”

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How Much Did Average Germans Know About the Holocaust During World War Two? Aug 22, 2024

This is the question that historians have argued since the end of World War Two. How much did an average person know, and, more importantly, how responsible were they? What made people “perpetrators,” “bystanders,” and “victims” within a wider context of coercion and consent?
To explore this question is today’s guest, Richard Evans, author of “Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich.” We look at a connected series of biographical portraits of key Nazi figures that follows power as it radiated from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime’s leadership. This includes personal lives of figures whose names appear in nearly all Nazi biographies, like Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels (“The Policeman” and “The Propagandist”), as well as professionals with skills deemed advantageous to the Nazi agenda, including Julius Streicher (“The Schoolmaster”) and the eugenicist Karl Brandt (“The Professional”), and some of the women in Hitler’s orbit such as Ilse Koch (“The Witch”) and Leni Riefenstahl (“The Star”).
Through these biographies, one of our greatest historians explores the enduring and unnerving questions: How could human beings carry out such terrible and murderous atrocities? Were they degenerate, deranged psychopaths, or were they ordinary men doing their jobs? How can examining individual personalities help us reach an understanding of the evil and immorality that sustained the Nazi regime?

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Carthage Lost the 2nd Punic War from Hannibal’s Logistics Failure and His Brother’s Bad Strategy Aug 20, 2024

Iberia was one of three crucial theatres of the Second Punic War between Carthage and Rome. Hannibal of Carthage’s siege of Saguntum in 219 BC triggered a conflict that led to immense human and material losses on both sides, pitting his brother Hasdrubal against the Republican Roman armies seeking to gain control of the peninsula. Then, in 208 BC, the famous Roman general Scipio Africanus defeated Hasdrubal at Baecula, forcing Hasdrubal’s army out of Iberia and on to its eventual annihilation at the Metaurus.
Today’s guest, Mir Bahmanyar, author of “Second Punic War in Iberia: 220-206 BC” brings to life the key personalities and events of this important theatre of the war, and explains why the Roman victory at Baecula led to a strategic shift and Carthage’s eventual defeat. It covers Scipio Africanus’ brilliant victory at Ilipa in 206 BC, where he crushed the army of Mago Barca and Hasdrubal Gisco.

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The Real Robin Hood May Have Been an Anglo-Saxon Hitman Who Killed an English King Aug 15, 2024

Contrary to popular belief, Robin Hood may not have been the merry medieval outlaw of Sherwood Forest. Rather, a look at real historical figures who inspired the legend are narrowed down to the most unlikely suspect: an Anglo-Saxon hitman who may have assassinated the King of England.
Today’s guest, Peter Staveley, proposes that Robin Hood lived during the time of William II (near the time of the Norman conquest of England in 1066), rather than Richard I and Prince John of the late 1100s. He argues that Robin was responsible for the death of William II, also known as Rufus, in what was long considered a hunting accident in the New Forest in 1100. This act conveniently paved the way for William’s brother to ascend the throne as Henry I. Staveley places Robin deep within the geography of South Yorkshire, with strong ties to historic Hallamshire, Loxley, Bradfield, and Ecclesfield, challenging the traditional narrative and the long-held association with Nottingham.
We explore how Yorkshire, particularly Sheffield, might reclaim the legacy of Robin Hood from Nottingham and reveal the true, rougher man behind the legend.
Staveley is author of “Robin Unhooded, And the Death of a King.”

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Civilization Owes Its Existence to the Horse Aug 13, 2024

The use of horses by humans began roughly 5,500 years ago on the windswept grasslands of the Pontic- Caspian Steppe when a daring man (or a woman – we have no way of knowing) jumped on the back of a docile mare. Thus began the horse’s unrivalled historical influence across millennia to the present day.
The horse dominated every facet of humanity—as a mode of transportation, a vehicle of trade, an essential farming tool, a status symbol, a formidable weapon of war, a source of energy, an agent of both lethal disease and lifesaving medicine, a participant in sport, and, of course, a steadfast and loyal companion.
For most of us, horses are not part of our everyday, practical lives, and are instead relegated to entertainment and recreation through racing, rodeos, and equestrian or television shows and movies depicting bygone eras. But this is a relatively recent development as cars “unseated” the horse as the primary method of transportation a mere one hundred years ago. To demonstrate the profound historical impact of the horse on our global civilization, we are joined by Timothy Winegard, author of “The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity.”

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Charles Cowlam: The Civil War Con-Man Who Received Presidential Pardons From Both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis Aug 08, 2024

Charles Cowlam’s career as a convict, spy, detective, congressional candidate, adventurer, and con artist spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age. His life touched many of the most prominent figures of the era, including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and Ulysses S. Grant. One contemporary newspaper reported that Cowlam “has as many aliases as there are letters in the alphabet.” He was a chameleon in a world of strangers, and scholars have overlooked him due to his elusive nature.
Reconstruction offered additional opportunities for Cowlam to repackage his identity. He convinced Ulysses S. Grant to appoint him U.S. marshal and persuaded Republicans in Florida to allow him to run for Congress. After losing the election, Cowlam moved to New York, where he became a serial bigamist and started a fake secret society inspired by the burgeoning Granger movement. When the newspapers exposed his lies, he disappeared and spent the next decade living under an assumed name. He resurfaced in Dayton, Ohio, claiming to be a Union colonel suffering from dementia to gain admittance into the National Soldiers’ Home.
Today’s guest, Frank Garmom, author of A Wonderful Career in Crime, Cowlam’s stunning machinations

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The Extent of Soviet Infiltration Into Depression and Cold War America Aug 06, 2024

Soviet espionage existed in the United States since the U.S.S.R.’s founding and continued until its dissolution in the 1990s. It reached its height in World War 2 and the early Cold War, especially to steam atomic weapon’s technology (revealed to the public with the trials and executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two Americans who fed intelligence back to the Soviets).
The funnel for Americans into Soviet espionage was the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), a movement that attracted egalitarian idealists and bred authoritarian zealots. Throughout its history, the American Communist Party attracted a variety of seemingly contradictory people. Democratic, reform-minded individuals who wanted to end inequality worked alongside authoritarians and ideologues who espoused Soviet propaganda. These factions reached loggerheads following Nikita Khrushchev’s revelation of Joseph Stalin’s crimes, leading to the organization’s decline into political irrelevance.
To look at this history is today’s guest, Maurice Isserman, author of “Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism.”

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America’s First Crime Boss Was Female Immigrant-Turned-Criminal Mastermind Aug 01, 2024

In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth?
In the intervening years, “Marm” Mandelbaum had become the country’s most notorious “fence”—a receiver of stolen goods—and a criminal mastermind. By the mid-1880s as much as $10 million worth of purloined luxury goods (nearly $300 million today) had passed through her Lower East Side shop. Called “the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime,” she planned robberies of cash, gold and diamonds throughout the country.
But Mandelbaum wasn’t just a successful crook: She was a business visionary—one of the first entrepreneurs in America to systemize the scattershot enterprise of property crime. Handpicking a cadre of the finest bank robbers, housebreakers and shoplifters, she handled logistics and organized supply chains—turning theft into a viable, scalable business.
To discuss this story is today’s guest, Margalit Fox, author of The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum. We look at a colorful fixture of Gilded Age New York—a city teeming with nefarious rogues, capitalist power brokers and Tammany Hall bigwigs, all straddling the line between underworld enterprise and “legitimate” commerce.

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The War Under No-Man’s Land: Military Mining and Tunnel Combat in World War One Jul 30, 2024

Beneath the trench warfare of World War One existed an entirely separate war underground: battles in the mines and dugouts between the Great Powers. In 1914–17, the underground war was a product of static trench warfare, essential to survive it and part of both sides' attempts to overcome it.
In the stagnant, troglodyte existence of trench warfare, military mining was a hidden world of heroism and terror in which hours of suspenseful listening were spent monitoring the steady picking of unseen opponents, edging quietly towards the enemy, and judging when to fire a charge. Break-ins to enemy mine galleries resulted in hand-to-hand fighting in the darkness.
We are joined by Simon Jones to discuss the ingenuity, claustrophobia and tactical importance of the underground war. He is the author of “The War Underground, 1914-1918: Tactics and Equipment.”

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Eisenhower’s Logistics and Diplomatic Nightmare: Planning and Executing D-Day Jul 25, 2024

In the months leading up to D-Day, Eisenhower’s attention was in relentless demand, whether he was negotiating, rallying troops, or solving crises from his headquarters in Bushy Park, London. He projected optimism outwardly but resisted it inwardly. The day of the invasion, he gave the most rousing speech of his life, exhorting the tens of thousands of young men of the “Great Crusade” ahead of them. Then in a fleeting moment of quiet, he wrote out a draft of a resignation letter in case the invasion failed.
Outwardly, Eisenhower was a genial cypher. He was liked by all and seemed to make success inevitable. Inwardly, he was near constantly abuzz with brilliance, exhaustion, will, frustration, and the acute awareness that failure was always a possibility. The D-Day landing sees him at this unique, extraordinarily consequential moment, for D-Day would not only go down as one of the most important military successes in history but would also forge a modern George Washington.
To explore this story, we are joined with today’s guest, Michel Paradis, author of “The Light of Battle.” We see how Ike masterminded D-Day, wielding his unique leadership skills to save Europe and shape the course of history.

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53 Days on Starvation Island: How The US Marines Fought on Guadalcanal While Completely Surrounded Jul 23, 2024

On August 20, 1942, twelve Marine dive-bombers and nineteen Marine fighters landed at Guadalcanal. Their mission: defeat the Japanese navy and prevent it from sending more men and supplies to "Starvation Island," as Guadalcanal was nicknamed. The Japanese were turning the remote, jungle-covered mountain in the south Solomon Islands into an air base from which they could attack the supply lines between the U.S. and Australia. The night after the Marines landed and captured the partially completed airfield, the Imperial Navy launched a surprise night attack on the Allied fleet offshore, resulting in the worst defeat the U.S. Navy suffered in the 20th century, which prompted the abandonment of the Marines on Guadalcanal.
The Marines dug in, and waited for help, as those thirty-one pilots and twelve gunners flew against the Japanese, shooting down eighty-three planes in less than two months, while the dive bombers, carried out over thirty attacks on the Japanese fleet. The attacks were led by such figures as Major John L. Smith, a magnetic leader who became America’s top fighter ace for the time; Captain Marion Carl, the Marine Corps’ first ace, and one of the few survivors of his squadron at the Battle of Midway (he would be shot down and forced to make his way back to base through twenty-five miles of Japanese-held jungle; and Major Richard Mangrum, the lawyer-turned-dive-bomber commander whose inexperienced men wrought havoc on the Japanese Navy.
To discuss these stories is today’s guest, John Bruning, author of Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island.

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Taiwan’s 100-Year Rise From Japanese Colony to Monopoly Producer of Microchips Jul 18, 2024

When global supply chains were shut down in 2020 and messily rebooted after COVID lockdowns ceased, one island nation emerged as the most important player in getting critical components to factories around the world. That was Taiwan, which produces 90 percent of the world’s advanced semiconductors. Without this island nation of 23 million, there are no smart phones, new cars, or any advanced consumer electronics.
Things were no less dull on the foreign policy side, as US-Chinese relations deteriorated. When Nancy Pelosi declared her intent to visit Taiwan in 2022, it sparked frenzied discussions across the United States, China, and Taiwan—a discourse that was characterized by amnesia and half-truths about the history of this pivotal island nation. Today, as relations between Washington and Beijing deteriorate and as tensions over Taiwan reach a boiling point, its survival as an independent democracy is precarious indeed. Any attempt to resolve the impasse and avert a devastating war demands that we understand how it all began.
To explore Taiwan’s modern history is toda’s guest Sulmaan Wasif Khan, author of “The Struggle for Taiwan: A History of America, China, and the Island Caught Between.’ The story begins in 1943, when the Allies declared that Japanese-held Taiwan would return to China at the conclusion of World War II. When the Communist Party came to power in China, the defeated Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan, where he was afforded US protection despite establishing a brutal police state. From the White Terror to the Taiwan Straits Crises, from the normalization of Sino-American relations to the tensions of the Trump-era, we look at the tortuous paths that led to our present predicament. War is not inevitable, Khan shows, but to avoid it, decision-makers must heed the lessons of the past.

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When States Rights Were Emancipatory and Federalism was Restrictive: The Interbellum Constitution of 1812-1865 Jul 16, 2024

Today, the words “federalism” and “originalism” are bandied about in the news almost daily, but to get at the underpinnings of these modern interpretations of constitutional law, it is essential to look at how the Constitution was being interpreted and applied during the crucial period of 1815-1861, between the end of the War of 1812 and the beginning of the Civil War.
Early nineteenth-century Americans found themselves consumed by arguments about concurrent power—the areas in which the Constitution had left the line between federal and state authority unclear. The scope of specific concurrent powers became increasingly important, and controversial, in the early nineteenth century. In 1815, the most pressing political and legal issues increasingly concerned situations in which multiple layers of governmental power overlapped—and the Constitution provided no clear delineation. Moreover, the choice of which level of government regulated each subject had dramatic consequences for the policy that resulted.
To explore this topic is today’s guest, Alison LaCroix, author of “The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms.” We see just how deeply these constitutional questions dominated the discourse of the time.

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Is America Going Through a Late Roman Moment of Its Own? Jul 11, 2024

Every citizen of every state for the last two thousand years has compared his nation to Rome at some point. Americans considered Geroge Washington their Cincinnatus for taking on supreme power and giving it up once his work was done. Inflation hawks call for a Diocletian to end the debasing of national currency. Upset citizens call their leader a Nero for ignoring a conflagration in favor of musical composition. Americans can’t help but do the same now, especially when 2024 gives so much reason for pessimism and feelings that we are experiencing a late Roman moment of our own.
To discuss this, we are joined by Jeremy Slate, a historian of the Roman Empire (and host of Create Your Life podcast). We delve into the parallels between ancient propaganda (think Virgil's book, The Aeneid, paid for by a Roman Emperor) and the modern echo chamber of 2024's media frenzy.
Drawing inspiration from Diocletian's reforms in Rome's third century, after which Rome lasted nearly 200 years, we discuss whether a contemporary reformer could reshape our tumultuous 2024 landscape and restore stability. In an era of rampant inflation, immigration, and crumbling power structures, the parallels are uncanny.

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How Five Castaways Survived After Being Left for Dead on the Falklands in 1812 Jul 09, 2024

Charles H. Barnard, captain of the American sealing brig Nanina, had only the best of intentions. His aim was to ensure the survival of the people under his care. On June 11, 1813, Barnard and four other volunteers disembarked the anchored Nanina, climbed into a small boat, and sailed about 10 miles from New Island to Beaver Island, both part of the Falkland Islands archipelago in the South Atlantic. Armed with knives, clubs, lances, and guns, and with the assistance of Barnard’s trusty dog, Cent, the five men planned to kill birds and hogs and take them back to the Americans and British who remained on the Nanina and were fast running out of fresh provisions. It was a mission of mercy.
The hunt went well, and within a few days the boat was filled to the gunwales with the bloody carcasses of slain animals. But when the men sailed back to New Island late on June 14, they were greeted with an alarming sight. The Nanina was gone. Stunned, confused, and angry, the men hauled the boat up onto the beach and, according to Barnard, “awaited the approach of daylight in the most impatient and tormenting anxiety.” Sleeping fitfully in the cold night air, they hoped that in the morning light they would find a letter telling them why the Nanina had left, and when it was coming back.
A frantic search at dawn turned up nothing: no note either in a bottle or hung conspicuously from a piece of wood or a boulder. They saw only sand, rocks, scrubby vegetation, and birds in the distance, walking on the beach or flying overhead.
The events leading up to this abandonment, and what happened afterward, produce a story with so many unlikely threads, and a cast including such exceptionally colorful characters, that one might think that it sprang from the pen of a fiction writer with an overactive imagination. And yet, the story is true. It is a tale involving a shipwreck, British and Americans meeting under the most stressful circumstances in a time of war, kindness and compassion, drunkenness, the birth of a child, treachery, greed, lying, a hostile takeover, stellar leadership, ingenuity, severe privation, the great value of a good dog, perseverance, endurance, threats, bullying, banishment, a perilous thousand-mile open-ocean journey in a 17.5-foot boat, an improbable rescue mission in a rickety ship, and legal battles over a dubious and disgraceful wartime prize. And it all started with two ships—one American, the other British—sailing to the Falklands from different directions.
To explore this story is today’s guest, Eric Dolan, author of Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World.”

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The Capetians: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France and Gave Us the Fleur-De-Lys Jul 04, 2024

If Gothic cathedrals, troubadours, and the Crusades evoke a certain picture of medieval Europe, you might be surprised that these foundations of a shared French culture continue to shape European society, all beginning with a single dynasty. Reigning from 987 to 1328, the Capetians transformed an insecure foothold around Paris into the most powerful European monarchy of the Middle Ages.
Today’s guest is Justine Firnhaber-Baker, author of “House of Lilies: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France.” She tells the epic story of the Capetian dynasty, showing how their ideas about power, religion, and identity are all-too-relevant to the Europe we know today. The Capetians were the first royal house to adopt the iconic fleur-de-lys, displaying this lily emblem to signify the belief that their nation was chosen by God to fulfill a great destiny. By 1250, Capetian France stood as the richest and most prestigious kingdom in Europe, with Paris lauded as a new Rome, a new Athens, and—due to a tradition of both profound piety and violent persecution of religious minorities—even a new Jerusalem.

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Why the Book is Humanity’s Most Important Invention Jul 02, 2024

Even in our increasingly digitized world, the print book endures as a technology at the heart of human culture. Throughout its 550-yearhistory, the book has transformed at the hands of countless printers, bookbinders, typographers, and illustrators who have yet to see their own stories of innovation on the printed page.
In “The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives,” today’s guest Adam Smyth demonstrates the role of human agency in the evolution of technology, from binding to paper-making, typography to illustrations, and libraries to small presses. Beginning with the early printed books made by Dutch immigrant Wynkyn de Worde in 1490s London and ending with the zines in 2023 New York City, we look at the evolution of the print book through eighteen biographical portraits of bookbinders, typographers, illustrators, and more.

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How and Why Humans Started Speaking Jun 27, 2024

Most people know at least 50,000 words and speak around 16,000 per day. We speak between 120 and 200 words per minute and read them at twice that speed. We invent word games like crosswords, Scrabble, and Wordle, and we are constantly adding new terminology and slang to our dictionaries. Our love of words is no secret, but how we evolved to acquire so many words and manipulate them into complex thoughts is one of science’s greatest unsolved mysteries.
Today’s guest is Steven Mithen, author of “The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved. “ He explores evidence from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, genetics, and archaeology to unearth new theories about the origins of language.
Beginning with an overview of human evolution during which language evolved, The Language Puzzle looks to our distant ape and monkey relatives to see what their vocalizations can tell us about the foundations of language in our earliest ancestors. Mithen analyzes fossil evidence to explain what we can glean from changes in humans’ vocal tracts over time, and the linguistic implications from how our ancestors made stone tools.

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The American Detective Who Fought the Kaiser’s Spy Ring and an Anarchist Bombing Syndicate Jun 25, 2024

America in the early twentieth century was rife with threats. Organized crime groups like the Mafia, German spies embedded behind enemy lines ahead of World War I, package bombs sent throughout the country, and the 1920 Wall Street bombing dominated headlines. And one man was tasked with combating these threats.
Born to working-class parents in 1867, Willaim Flynn launched the first antiterrorist program, unraveled a German spy network, and took on the Mob. Dubbed “the bulldog” for his tenacity, Flynn earned a high-profile reputation as one of the most respected, incorruptible, and storied law enforcement officials in the country.
To explore these issues is today’s guest is Jeffrey Simon, author of "The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America's First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists." He takes us back to an era when counterfeiters plagued butcher shops, German spies rode the subway, and anarchists bombed targets across the country, including using a horse-drawn wagon to set off an explosion on Wall Street that, at the time, was the worst terrorist attack ever to occur in America.

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Patton’s Tactician: Geoffrey Keys, “The Best Tactical Mind” of WWII Jun 20, 2024

Nineteen months after Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and forced the United States to enter World War II, boats carrying the 7th US Army landed on the shores of southern Sicily. Dubbed Operation Husky, the campaign to establish an Allied foothold in Sicily was led by two of the most noted American tacticians of the twentieth century: George S. Patton Jr. and Geoffrey Keyes.
While Patton is the subject of numerous books and films, Keyes's life and achievements have gone unrecognized, but his anonymity is by no means an accurate reflection of the value of his contributions and dedicated service in World War II and the succeeding cold war.
To look at this lacuna is today’s guest, James Holsinger, author of Patton's Tactician: The War Diary of Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes. His account begins in October 1942, prior to the invasion of French Morocco and Keyes's engagement in World War II and the Cold War. Holsinger has integrated a variety of related sources, including correspondence between Keyes, Patton, and Eisenhower. A day-to-day chronicle of Keyes's experiences in the World War II Mediterranean Theater and the early days of the Cold War in occupied Germany and Austria, Patton's Tactician is an invaluable primary source that offers readers a glimpse into the mind of one of America's most important World War II corps commanders.

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The Seven Cleopatras Who Ruled Egypt Jun 18, 2024

Behind the legendary, singular figure of Cleopatra stood six other women who bore her name. The infamous Cleopatra we think we know was actually the seventh queen in a long line of powerful female rulers whose stories have been lost to history. The seven queens named Cleopatra, ruling from 192–30 BC, defied the stereotype of the nameless, faceless women of antiquity and instead challenged the norms of their time.
Today’s guest, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones unearths the lost stories of all seven monarchs in “The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt.” Exploring a part of the Hellenistic World often neglected by historians, Llewellyn-Jones brings to life the complicated, tempestuous stories of the seven queens marrying the same man, sending armies into war, and plotting to overthrow their kings for sole rulership.
While each Queen Cleopatra encountered a unique set of challenges and ruled with her own set of strengths, each generation influenced the next, culminating in a powerful dynastic line that ultimately transformed the imperial politics of their house into global politics.
The Cleopatras shines a light on the six influential yet forgotten Queen Cleopatras and reveals how Cleopatra VII, whose real story disappears beneath the weight of all the stereotypes we pin on her, should be remembered as a consummate politician who learned from the generations of women before her.

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Modern Black Ops Warfare Began with a British WW2 Operation to Steal Boats Off Africa’s Coast Jun 13, 2024

When France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Churchill declared that Britain would resist the advance of the German army--alone if necessary. Churchill commanded the Special Operations Executive to secretly develop of a very special kind of military unit that would operate on their own initiative deep behind enemy lines. The units would be licensed to kill, fully deniable by the British government, and a ruthless force to meet the advancing Germans.
The very first of these "butcher-and-bolt" units--the innocuously named Maid Honour Force--was led by Gus March-Phillipps, a wild British eccentric of high birth, and an aristocratic, handsome, and bloodthirsty young Danish warrior, Anders Lassen. Amped up on amphetamines, these assorted renegades and sociopaths undertook the very first of Churchill's special operations--a top-secret, high-stakes mission to seize Nazi shipping in the far-distant port of Fernando Po, in West Africa.
Though few of these early desperadoes survived WWII, they took part in a series of fascinating, daring missions that changed the course of the war. It was the first stirrings of the modern special-ops team, and all of the men involved would be declared war heroes when it was all over.
To discuss this unit, dubbed by Churchill “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is today’s guest, Damien Lewis, author of the book by the same name.

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The 7 Wonders of the Ancient World Were Colossal, Prone to Destruction, and Not All May Have Existed Jun 11, 2024

For millennia, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World have been known for their aesthetic sublimity, ingenious engineering, and sheer, audacious magnitude: The Great Pyramids of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus, the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Echoing down time, each of these persists in our imagination as an emblem of the glory of antiquity, but beneath the familiar images is a surprising, revelatory history.
Guiding us through it is today’s guest, Bettany Hughes, author of “The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.” She has traveled to each of the sites to uncover the latest archaeological discoveries and bring these monuments and the distinct cultures that built them back to life.

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Being the Ultimate Constitutional Originalist in 2024 Means Donning a Tricorn Hat and Applying to Practice Piracy Jun 06, 2024

Many decisions impacting the lives of Americans today adhere to a set of rules established over 200 years ago. The Constitution is in the news more than ever as politicians and Supreme Court justices battle over how literally it should be taken. Did the framers intend for Americans to follow their instructions as written for eternity? Or did they want to offer a set of guidelines that would evolve as time marched on? These are the questions today’s guest, A.J. Jacobs, author of the Year of Living Constitutionally, set out to answer.
For one year, he committed to living as the original originalist, expressing his constitutional rights using the tools, lifestyle and mindset of when they were written in 1787. He bore muskets. He wrote pamphlets with a goose quill by candlelight. He quartered soldiers. He tried to pay for goods and services with gold. He applied for a letter of marque from Congress, which would make him a legal pirate (a practice that the U.S. government sanctioned during the Revolutionary War). He gave his friends the same gift that George Washington did: a lock of his own hair. This year-long project was Jacobs’ humble attempt to figure out how to interpret the Constitution and whether we can improve the American experiment.

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The Last Time Humanity Believed in Unstoppable Progress: Paris in the Belle Époque (1871-1914) Jun 04, 2024

Many of the specific features we associate with Paris today – impressive sites like the Eiffel Tower and Sacré Coeur, French cinemas, and even the distinguished Art Nouveau Metro entrances – were born out the period of the Belle Époque. This era, which lasted from the later 19th century up to the beginning of World War I, is oft characterized as one of pleasure, wealth, and beauty.
But it was also an era riven by political unrest, plagued by many of the issues the contemporary world contends with today, with the rise of radical political factions that resorted to extreme protests and violence to achieve their This can be seen in the construction of the Basilica of the Sacré-Coeur, symbol of reactionary French Catholicism, and the Eiffel Tower, centerpiece for the Universal Exposition of 1889—both of which were the result of significant technological progress. That progress also brought electricity (Paris became “the city of light”) as well as industrial displacement, already underway with the other construction projects of Baron Georges Haussmann.
To explore these themes is today’s guest, Mike Rappaport, author of “City of Light, City of Shadows, Paris in the Belle Époque.” We explore social pressure from both right and left to address the deepening sense of social injustice and inequalities in the form of violent anarchism and syndicalism.

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The Silk Road Travel Adventures of a 16th Century Mughal Princess and Her Massive Royal Retinue May 30, 2024

To most Westerners, the Mughal Empire is a forgotten stepchild of world history. Even though it produced the Taj Mahal and controlled nearly all modern-day India, the Mughal Dynasty’s accomplishments are crowded out by those of the Romans, Chinese, and British. Nevertheless, it was a great Asian power from the 16th-19th centuries, comparable to the Ming Dynasty in wealth, population, and military strength, dwarfing its European contemporaries. And one of the greatest figures in that empire was Princess Gulbadan (1523-1603), a daughter of the first Mughal Emperor who wrote the empire’s first history.
Gulbadan was a dynamic and influential figure and a trusted advisor to the Empire. She was part of the peripatetic royal household. The Mughals had moved often across long distances, living for extended periods in the open country in royal tents pitched in gardens, and in citadels. But when Gulbadan was in her 50s, her nephew Akbar the Great established a walled harem in his capital Fatehpur-Sikri near Agra — an effort to showcase his regal authority as Emperor. From behind these walls, Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she’d long known.
With Akbar’s blessing, Gulbadan led a remarkable and unprecedented four-year pilgrimage of Mughal women to the distant Muslim Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina and beyond. Amid increasing political tensions, the women were expelled for their “un-Islamic” behavior, a thinly veiled effort to curb Mughal influence in the Holy cities, controlled at the time by the Ottoman Sultans of Turkey. Their travels home included a dramatic shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden.
After her return to India, Akbar asked Gulbadan to record her memories of the Mughal Dynasty to serve as a source for the first official history of the Empire. What she wrote was unparalleled in both form and content. She captured the gritty and fabulous daily lives of ambitious men, subversive women, brilliant eunuchs, devoted nurses, gentle and perceptive guards, captive women, and children who died in war zones.
To explore Gulbadan’s life is today’s guest, Ruby Lal, author of “Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan.”

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The Months Leading up to the Civil War That Inflamed North-South Tensions from Animosity to Murderous Hatred May 28, 2024

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern radicals were moving ever closer to dividing the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
In today’s episode I’m speaking to Erik Larson, author of “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War. “ We analyze the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
At the heart of this narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

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LSD’s Origins in Nazi Germany Brain-Washing Experiments, the CIA’s MKUltra Program, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age May 23, 2024

LSD has been banned in the United States for decades and became a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance in 1970, but it has experienced a resurgence among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to overcome mental roadblocks and psychiatrists running tests to use it as a treatment for addiction, PTSD, and other mental illnesses. But what few know is that LSD has its origins in Nazi Germany.
The drug was developed in Switzerland in 1943 and quickly acquired and militarized by the Third Reich. The Nazis coopted LSD for their mind control military research—research that the US was desperate to acquire. This research birthed MKUltra, the CIA's notorious brainwashing and psychological torture program during the 1950s and 1960s.
Today’s guest is Norman Ohler, author of “Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age.” We discuss:
· How the history of LSD is interwoven with that of the Cold War and its arms race, and how the US government’s introduction to LSD through Nazi research influenced much of the federal government’s early attitudes around it
· How, in addition to LSD’s militarized misconception from the Nazis, there were other areasof US drug policy influenced by the Third Reich for over half a century
· How psychedelic research was marginalized and stigmatized for so long by prohibition and the War on Drugs, and how high the hurdles remain today for approval of psychedelic medicine, despite the opportunities—rather than dangers—they represent

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How Duke Ellington and Other Jazzmen Became America’s First Globally Famous Musicians May 21, 2024

The first globally famous American musicians weren’t part of the 50s rock wave that included Elvis Pressly or Chuck Berry. They were three 3 jazzmen who orchestrated the chords that throb at the soul of twentieth-century America: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie.
While their music is well-known, their background stories aren’t. Duke Ellington was the grandson of slaves whose composing, piano playing, and band leading transcended category. Louis Daniel Armstrong was born in a New Orleans slum so tough it was called The Battlefield and, at age seven, got his first musical instrument, a ten-cent tin horn that drew buyers to his rag-peddling wagon and set him on the road to elevating jazz into a pulsating force for spontaneity and freedom. William James Basie was son of a coachman and laundress who dreamed of escaping every time the traveling carnival swept into town, and who finally engineered his getaway with help from Fats Waller.
To explore their stories is today’s guest, Larry Tye, author of “The Jazz Men: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America.

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Why America Could Have a Presidential Succession Crisis May 17, 2024

America has an unmatched record when it comes to the peaceful transfer of power. According to legal scholar Roy E. Brownell II, however, our country is not that far off from a presidential succession crisis.
In this preview of an episode of "This American President," hosted by Richard Lim, Brownell covers the history of presidential succession and the flaws in the current system.

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Dunkirk from the German Perspective May 16, 2024

The British evacuation from the beaches of the small French port town of Dunkirk is one of the iconic moments of military history. The battle has captured the popular imagination through LIFE magazine photo spreads, the fiction of Ian McEwan and, of course, Christopher Nolan's hugely successful Hollywood blockbuster. But what is the German view of this stunning Allied escape? We are exploring that with today’s guest, Robert Kershaw, author of Dünkirchen 1940: The German View of Dunkirk. We look at what went wrong for the Germans at Dunkirk.
As supreme military commander, Hitler had seemingly achieved a miracle after the swift capitulation of Holland and Belgium, but with just seven kilometers before the panzers captured Dunkirk – the only port through which the trapped British Expeditionary force might escape – they came to a shuddering stop. Only a detailed interpretation of the German perspective – historically lacking to date – can provide answers as to why.
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The Global Manhunt For The Confederate Ship That Sunk Union Supply Vessels, From the Caribbean to the South Pacific May 14, 2024

Naval warfare is an overlooked factor of the Civil War, but it was a vitally important part of overall strategy for North and South, especially from the perspective of the Union, which used naval blockages from the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River to deny critical resources to the Confederacy, forcing them the ultimately surrender.
But the naval war was about much more than blockages. One Confederate ship managed to harass Union supply lines around the globe and sink dozens of merchant vessels. Its fate was sealed on June 19, 1864, after a fourteen-month chase that culminated in one of the most dramatic naval battles in history.
The dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the death, and the outcome would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas. To talk about this story is historian Tom Clavin, author of the new book To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth: The Epic Hunt for the South's Most Feared Ship―and the Greatest Sea Battle of the Civil War.
We look at historically overlooked Civil War players, including John Winslow, captain of the USS Kearsarge, as well as Raphael Semmes, captain of the CSS Alabama. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the secretary of the navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama." Winslow pursued Semmes in a spectacular fourteen-month chase over international waters, culminating in what would become the climactic sea battle of the Civil War.
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Which Statues Should We Take Down? How To Fairly Judge Historical Figures by Today’s Standards May 09, 2024

In the United States, questions of how we celebrate – or condemn – leaders in the past have never been more contentious. In 2017, a statue of Robert E. Lee was removed – leading to a race riot and terrorist attack. But in 2020, statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus, and even Ulysses S. Grant were defaced or toppled. All of this comes to the question of how we judge the past. When are the morals and ethics of people born centuries earlier excusable for the conditions of their birth, and when are they universally condemnable? What separates a Thomas Jefferson from an Emperor Nero?
To discuss this incredibly challenging topic is someone perhaps nobody better qualified: Dr. Victor Davis Hanson. He is an emeritus classics professor and author of books on the Peloponnesian War or assessing the ancient world’s best military leader. He was also awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 and was a presidential appointee in 2007–2008 on the American Battle Monuments Commission.
We discuss the following:
•Times when American’s feared the removal of Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt statues in 2021 (or their toppling in riots). But we have also celebrated statue removal, such as the removal of Saddam Hussein’s statues after the fall of his regime in 2003 or the removal of Marx/Lenin Statues in Eastern Europe in 1991. What is the difference?
•The criteria for a community to remove a statue in a healthy way
•How we judge those of the past and determine that some character flaws are due to their times of birth, while other character flaws are universally condemnable – Essentially, what makes a slave-owning Jefferson a product of his time while, say, a Nero, is universally understood as cruel
•The dangers of canceling anyone who doesn’t meet our 21st century standards; conversely, the dangers of slavish worship of them
•Who deserves more statues today

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The 160-Minute Race to Save the Titanic May 07, 2024

One hundred and sixty minutes. That is all the time rescuers would have before the largest ship in the world slipped beneath the icy Atlantic. There was amazing heroism and astounding incompetence against the backdrop of the most advanced ship in history sinking by inches with luminaries from all over the world. It is a story of a network of wireless operators on land and sea who desperately sent messages back and forth across the dark frozen North Atlantic to mount a rescue mission. More than twenty-eight ships would be involved in the rescue of Titanic survivors along with four different countries.
At the heart of the rescue are two young Marconi operators, Jack Phillips 25 and Harold Bride 22, tapping furiously and sending electromagnetic waves into the black night as the room they sat in slanted toward the icy depths and not stopping until the bone numbing water was around their ankles. Then they plunged into the water after coordinating the largest rescue operation the maritime world had ever seen and thereby saving 710 people by their efforts.
The race to save the largest ship in the world from certain death would reveal both heroes and villains. It would begin at 11:40 PM on April 14, when the iceberg was struck and would end at 2:20 AM April 15, when her lights blinked out and left 1500 people thrashing in 25-degree water. Although the race to save Titanic survivors would stretch on beyond this, most people in the water would die, but the amazing thing is that of the 2229 people, 710 did not and this was the success of the Titanic rescue effort.
We see the Titanic as a great tragedy but a third of the people were rescued and the only reason every man, woman, and child did not succumb to the cold depths is due to Jack Phillips and Harold McBride in an insulated telegraph room known as the Silent Room. These two men tapping out CQD and SOS distress codes while the ship took on water at the rate of 400 tons per minute from a three-hundred-foot gash would inaugurate the most extensive rescue operation in maritime history using the cutting-edge technology of the time, wireless.
To talk about this race against time is frequent guest Bill Hazelgrove, author of the new book One Hundred and Sixty Minutes: The Race to Save the RMS Titanic.

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Vikings Went Everywhere in the Middle Ages, From Baghdad to Constantinople to….. Oklahoma? May 02, 2024

Scandinavia has always been a world apart. For millennia Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes lived a remote and rugged existence among the fjords and peaks of the land of the midnight sun. But when they finally left their homeland in search of opportunity, these wanderers—including the most famous, the Vikings—would reshape Europe and beyond. Their ingenuity, daring, resiliency, and loyalty to family and community would propel them to the gates of Rome, the steppes of Russia, the courts of Constantinople, and the castles of England and Ireland. But nowhere would they leave a deeper mark than across the Atlantic, where the Vikings’ legacy would become the American Dream.
Today’s guest Arthur Herman, author of The Viking Heart, discusses this historical narrative but matches it with cutting-edge archaeological discoveries and DNA research to trace the epic story of this remarkable and diverse people (despite myths of racial purity misappropriated by groups like Nazi ethnographers). He shows how the Scandinavian experience has universal meaning, and how we can still be inspired by their indomitable spirit and the strength of their community bonds, much needed in our deeply polarized society today.

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The 15-Hour Work Week Was Standard For Nearly All of History. What Happened? Apr 30, 2024

There’s nothing in human DNA that makes the 40-hour workweek a biological necessity. In fact, for much of human history, 15 hours of work a week was the standard, followed by leisure time with family and fellow tribe members, telling stories, painting, dancing, and everything else. Work was a means to an end, and nothing else.
So what happened? Why does work today define who we are? It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like?
To answer these questions, today’s guest James Suzman, author of Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same.
Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman argues that automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world.

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Pancho Villa’s 1916 Raid on New Mexico: The Pearl Harbor Bombing of Its Time Apr 25, 2024

Before 9/11, before Pearl Harbor, another unsuspected foreign attack on the United States shocked the nation and forever altered the course of history. In 1916, Pancho Villa, a guerrilla fighter who commanded an ever-changing force of conscripts in northern Mexico, attached a border town in New Mexico. It was a raid that angered Americans, and President Woodrow Wilson ordered the Punitive Expedition in which the US Army invaded Mexico and defeated General Villa's troops, but failed to capture him. This event may have been the catalyst for America’s entry into World War One and permanently altered U.S.-Mexican border policy.
Jeff Guinn, author of the new book "War on the Border," joins us to discuss this critically important event in American history. The “Punitive Expedition” was launched in retaliation under Pershing’s command and brought together the Army, National Guard, and the Texas Rangers—who were little more than organized vigilantes.
The American expedition was the last action by the legendary African-American “Buffalo Soldiers.” It was also the first time the Army used automobiles and trucks, which were of limited value in Mexico, a country with no paved roads or gas stations. Curtiss Jenny airplanes did reconnaissance, another first. One era of warfare was coming to a close as another was beginning. But despite some bloody encounters, the Punitive Expedition eventually withdrew without capturing Villa.
Although the bloodshed has ended, the US-Mexico border remains as vexed and volatile an issue as ever.

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A Radical Abolitionist Youth Movement Consumed America in 1860, Elected Lincoln, Then Disappeared Completely Apr 23, 2024

At the start of the 1860 presidential campaign, a handful of fired-up young Northerners appeared as bodyguards to defend anti-slavery stump speakers from frequent attacks. The group called themselves the Wide Awakes. Soon, hundreds of thousands of young white and black men, and a number of women, were organizing boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing brigades of their own. These Wide Awakes—mostly working-class Americans in their twenties—became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political movements in our history. To some, it demonstrated the power of a rising majority to push back against slavery. To others, it looked like a paramilitary force training to invade the South.
Today’s guest, Jon Grinspan (author of “Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War”) examines how exactly our nation crossed the threshold from a political campaign into a war. We look at the precarious relationship between violent rhetoric and violent actions.

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Socrates May Have Been Executed For Revealing Secrets of Athens’ Religious Rituals Apr 18, 2024

The influence of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates has been profound. Even today, over two thousand years after his death, he remains one of the most renowned humans to have ever lived—and his death remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries.
There is another side to this story: impiety, lack of reverence for the gods, was a religious crime. From the perspective of the religious authorities of the time, the charge of impiety against Socrates was warranted. The priests did not tolerate scrutiny, even in the form of philosophical critique. To understand what happened and how it happened, we have to come to terms with the motives of the priests, and as importantly, Socrates’ motives in provoking them. His trial is perhaps first, but not last, great battle between philosophy and religion.
To explore this mystery is today’s guest, Matt Gatton, author of “The Shadows of Socrates.”

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The Age of Discovery Through American-Indian Eyes Apr 16, 2024

A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. So, when Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand, having developed differently from their own, and whose power they often underestimated. And no civilization came to a halt when a few wandering explorers arrived, even when the strangers came well-armed.
To explore this overlooked history is today’s guest, Kathleen DuVal, author of “Native Nations.” For centuries after these first encounters, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch--and influenced global markets--and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists.
Power dynamics shifted after the American Revolution, but Indigenous people continued to control the majority of the continent. Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa forged new alliances and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created new institutions to assert their sovereignty on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their preponderance of power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory.

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A Short History of the Sioux Wars (1862-1890) Apr 12, 2024

War, Conflict, Victory & Defeat. These are all aspects of life that some may have to face. This was true for the various groups of the Sioux Tribes. On today's bonus episode from "Key Battles of American History" join host James Early as he discusses the multiple wars that took place between 1862-1890, collectively known as "The Sioux Wars"

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The Deerfield Massacre: The Infamous 1704 Indian Raid That Left Hundreds Dead and More Captured Apr 11, 2024

In an obscure village in western Massachusetts, there lies what once was the most revered but now totally forgotten relic from the history of early New England—the massive, tomahawk-scarred door that came to symbolize the notorious Deerfield Massacre. This impregnable barricade—known to early Americans as “The Old Indian Door”—constructed from double-thick planks of Massachusetts oak and studded with hand-wrought iron nails to repel the flailing tomahawk blades of several attacking native tribes, is the sole surviving artifact from the most dramatic moment in colonial American history: Leap Year, February 29, 1704, a cold, snowy night when hundreds of native Americans and their French allies swept down upon an isolated frontier outpost and ruthlessly slaughtered its inhabitants.
The sacking of Deerfield led to one of the greatest sagas of adventure, survival, sacrifice, family, honor, and faith ever told in North America. 112 survivors, including their fearless minister, the Reverand John Williams, were captured and led on a 300-mile forced march north, into enemy territory in Canada. Any captive who faltered or became too weak to continue the journey—including Williams’s own wife and one of his children—fell under the knife or tomahawk.
Survivors of the march willed themselves to live and endured captivity. Ransomed by the King of England’s royal governor of Massachusetts, the captives later returned home to Deerfield, rebuilt their town and, for the rest of their lives, told the incredible tale. The memoir of Rev. Williams, The Redeemed Captive, became the first bestselling book in American history and published a few years after his liberation, it remains a literary classic.
To discuss this event is today’s guest, James Swanson, author of “The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America.”

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The Dangerous and Thrilling Life of a 19th-Century Whaler Apr 09, 2024

In mid-nineteenth century New England, Robert Armstrong was a young man with the world at his feet. His family was wealthy and gave him the opportunity to attend the nation’s first dental school. But Armstrong threw his future away, drinking himself into oblivion. Devoured by guilt and shame, in December 1849 he sold his dental instruments, his watch, and everything he possessed, and signed on for a whaling voyage leaving New Bedford for the South Pacific.
His story was re-discovered when his great great grandson (Alex Brash) found a manuscript buried at the bottom of an old leather trunk, under a child’s dancing shoes and a grandfather’s WWI paraphernalia. Brash, today’s guest, re-published the account as “Whaler at Twilight,” the story of an American whaler who embarked on a harrowing adventure in the mid-nineteenth century in search of absolution and redemption.
Decades later, Armstrong wrote an eloquent autobiographical account based on the logbooks he kept, chronicling his thrilling, gritty experiences during ten years away, including encounters with other whalers, beachcombers, Peruvian villagers, Pacific islanders, Maori warriors in New Zealand, cannibals on Fiji, and the impacts of American Expansionism. He also recounted his struggles with drink, his quest for God,In mid-nineteenth century New England, Robert Armstrong was a young man with the world at his feet. His family was wealthy and gave him the opportunity to attend the nation’s first dental school. But Armstrong threw his future away, drinking himself into oblivion. Devoured by guilt and shame, in December 1849 he sold his dental instruments, his watch, and everything he possessed, and signed on for a whaling voyage leaving New Bedford for the South Pacific.
His story was re-discovered when his great great grandson (Alex Brash) found a manuscript buried at the bottom of an old leather trunk, under a child’s dancing shoes and a grandfather’s WWI paraphernalia. Brash, today’s guest, re-published the account as “Whaler at Twilight,” the story of an American whaler who embarked on a harrowing adventure in the mid-nineteenth century in search of absolution and redemption.
Decades later, Armstrong wrote an eloquent autobiographical account based on the logbooks he kept, chronicling his thrilling, gritty experiences during ten years away, including encounters with other whalers, beachcombers, Peruvian villagers, Pacific islanders, Maori warriors in New Zealand, cannibals on Fiji, and the impacts of American Expansionism. He also recounted his struggles with drink, his quest for God,

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Fiorello LaGuardia: Immigrant Son and Ellis Island Interpreter Who Became America’s Mayor Apr 04, 2024

Fiorello LaGuardia was one of the twentieth century’s most colorful politicians―a 5’2’’ ball of energy who led New York as major during the Depression and World War Two, charming the media during press conference and fighting the dirty machine politics of the city. He was also quintessentially American: the son of Italian immigrants, who rose in society through sheer will and chutzpah.
La Guardia made an unsuccessful attempt to enlist during the Spanish-American War. Following that, he served in two U.S. consulates in Europe from 1901 to 1906, and later worked as an interpreter at Ellis Island from 1907 to 1910. Strongly disapproving of corrupt Tammany Hall, his charisma and appeal to minority groups led to victories in districts that were traditionally Democratic. From 1923 to 1933, La Guardia gained national prominence in the House of Representatives, aligning himself with reformers and progressives. In the 1933 mayoral race, Franklin Roosevelt saw La Guardia as a potential ally who could collaborate across party lines. From there he took on the New York mayor’s office with gusto.
Today’s guest is Terry Golway, author of “I Never Did Like Politics: How Fiorello La Guardia Became America's Mayor, and Why He Still Matters.”

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How the West Tried and Failed to Stop the Russian Revolution Apr 02, 2024

The Allied Intervention into the Russian Civil War remains one of the most ambitious yet least talked about military ventures of the 20th century. Coinciding with the end of the first World War, some 180,000 troops from several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Romania, among others, were sent to fight alongside Russian “Whites” against the Red Army.
Despite one victory for the Allied troops – independence for the Latvians and the Estonians – the two-year long attempt at reversing the 1917 Russian Revolution ended in humiliating defeat. To explore this crucial event of the early 20th century is today’s guest, Anna Reid, author of “A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War.”
What was originally aimed to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution ultimately morphed into the Allies’ gamble to destroy Communist ideology. It was a mixture of good intentions and self-delusion, flag-waving and empty promises, cover-ups, exaggerations, and downright lies from politicians.

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Kings Were Inevitable and Untouchable Until They Suddenly Weren’t After a Few 1700s Revolutions Mar 28, 2024

At the turn of the nineteenth century, two waves of revolutions swept the Atlantic world, disrupting the social order and ushering in a new democratic-republican experiment whose effects rippled across continents and centuries. The first wave of revolutions in the late 1700s (which included the much-celebrated American and French Revolutions and the revolt against slavery in Saint Domingue/Haiti) succeeded in disrupting existing political structures. But it wasn’t until the second wave of revolutionaries came to maturity in the early 1800s—imbued with a passion for social mobility and a knack for political organizing—that these new forms of political life took durable shape, from the states of independent Haiti and Spanish America to the post-revolutionary governments that arose during and after Napoleon’s long reign over early nineteenth-century Europe.
Today’s guest is Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, author of “The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It.” We look at familiar figures like John Adams and little-known yet pivotal actors such as Marie Bunel, a confidant of Toussaint Louverture in the Haitian Revolution. Monarchies topple and are resurrected, republics emerge and find their footings, and a new social order of mobility upends the previous hierarchical system of rigid social classes. We see that one generation’s fledgling successes allowed their successors to fulfill the promise of a new world order.

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The Fall Of Japanese-held Hong Kong in January 1945 Mar 26, 2024

Commander John Lamade started the war in 1941 a nervous pilot of an antiquated biplane. Just over three years later he was in the cockpit of a cutting-edge Hellcat about to lead a strike force of 80 aircraft through the turbulent skies above the South China Sea. His target: Hong Kong. As a storm of antiaircraft fire darkened the sky, watching from below was POW Ray Jones. For three long years he and his fellow prisoners had endured near starvation conditions in a Japanese internment camp. Did these American aircraft, he wondered, herald freedom?
Today’s guest is Steven Bailey, and he discovered that much of the story of the U.S. Navy airstrikes on Japanese-held Hong Kong during the final year of World War II had never been told despite being an important step on the march toward Japan. Operation Gratitude involved nearly 100 U.S. Navy warships and close to a thousand planes. Bailey is the author of “Target Hong Kong,” and we look at the air raids through the experiences of seven men whose lives intersected at Hong Kong in January 1945: Commander John D. Lamade, five of his fellow U.S. Navy pilots and the POW Ray Jones.

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WW1 German Spies Infiltrated America and Attempted to Start a Race War Mar 21, 2024

On January 30, 1918, a young man “with the appearance of a well-educated, debonair foreigner” arrived at the U.S. customs station in Nogales, Arizona, located on the border with Mexico. After politely informing the customs inspector that he had come to complete his draft registration questionnaire and meet a friend in San Francisco, he was approved to cross the border into the United States. Lothar Witzke, the most dangerous German agent in the western hemisphere had reached his destination. His assignment: launch a campaign of sabotage, insurrection, and murder to destabilize the American home front.
The terror campaign would be devastating - unless it could be stopped by U.S. counterintelligence.
The Witzke mission was the intelligence game played at its highest level - a plan for destruction on a massive scale, violent insurrection, and assassination, complete with master spies and double agents, diabolical sabotage devices, secret codes, and invisible ink.
To look at these forgotten elements of German sabotage and assassination plots in the United States during World War One is today’s guest, Bill Mills, author of “Agents of the Iron Cross.”

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The Air Battles of the 1945 Eastern Front Forged Air Force Doctrines of the Cold War Mar 19, 2024

The last months of World War II on the Eastern Front saw a ferocious fight between two very different air forces. Soviet Air Force (VVS) Commander-in-Chief Alexander Novikov assembled 7,500 aircraft in three powerful air armies to support the final assault on Berlin. The Luftwaffe employed some of its most advanced weapons including the Me 262 jet and Mistel remotely guided bomb aircraft.
To discuss this overlooked part of World War 2 is today’s guest William Hiestand, author of “Eastern Front 1945: Triumph of the Soviet Air Force.” We discuss the aerial capacities of the SSV, the Luftwaffe, and specific battles that laid the groundwork for Cold War air force doctrine.

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The First Pre-Columbian Explorers to Reach North America Mar 15, 2024

Have you ever wondered if there was a group to reach North America before Christopher Columbus? Find out more in today's bonus episode from another Parthenon podcast "History of North America." Join host Mark Vinet as he discusses the search for the first non-indigenous explorers to reach the North American continent prior to Christopher Columbus’ 1492 voyage.
If you like what you hear, subscribe to "History of North America" on Apple or Spotify and look for it on Parthenonpodcast.com

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A Classicist Believes that Homer Directly Dictated the Iliad, and Was Also an Excellent Horseman Mar 14, 2024

The Iliad is the world’s greatest epic poem—heroic battle and divine fate set against the Trojan War. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving, but great questions remain: Where, how, and when was it composed and why does it endure?
To explore these questions is today’s guest, Robin Lane Fox, a scholar and teacher of Homer for over 40 years. He’s the author of “Homer and His Iliad” and he addresses these questions, drawing on a lifelong love and engagement with the poem. He argues that the poem is the result of the genius and single oral poet, Homer, and that the poem may have been performed even earlier than previously supposed a place, a date, and a method for its composition—subjects of ongoing controversy. Lane Fox considers hallmarks of the poem; its values, implicit and explicit; its characters; its women; its gods; and even its horses.

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In 1860, Damascus Nearly Committed Genocide Against Christians. How Did it Pull Back? Mar 12, 2024

On July 9, 1860, a violent mob swept through the Christian quarters of Damascus. For eight days, violence raged, leaving 5,000 Christians dead, thousands of shops looted, and churches, houses, and monasteries razed. The sudden and ferocious outbreak shocked the world, leaving Syrian Christians vulnerable and fearing renewed violence.
Rogan is today’s guest, and author of “The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East.” Drawn from never-before-seen eyewitness accounts of the Damascus Events, Rogan tells the story of how a peaceful multicultural city came to be engulfed in slaughter. He traces how rising tensions between Muslim and Christian communities led some to regard extermination as a reasonable solution. Rogan also narrates the wake of this disaster, and how the Ottoman government moved quickly to retake control of the city, end the violence, and reintegrate Christians into the community. These efforts to rebuild Damascus proved successful, preserving peace for the next 150 years until 2011.
Although history does not offer a road map for solving contemporary problems, it does illustrate the depths of possibility.

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Silk: The History of a Fabric That Was Civilization’s First Burial Cloth, Body Armor, and Much More Mar 07, 2024

Silk—prized for its lightness, luminosity, and beauty—is also one of the strongest biological materials ever known. More than a century ago, it was used to make the first bulletproof vest, and yet science has barely even begun to tap its potential. As the technologies it has inspired—from sutures to pharmaceuticals, replacement body parts to holograms—continue to be developed in laboratories around the world, they are now also beginning to offer an alternative to such modern materials as plastics.
But it’s history goes much further back, Starting with 1,000 years ago, as caravans crossed Eurasia to transport silk from China to Europe; and at least as far back as 6,000 years, when silk was first used in funeral rituals.
Today’s guest is Aarathi Prasad, author of “Silk: A World History.” She wrote a cultural and biological history from the origins and ancient routes of silk to the biologists who learned the secrets of silk-producing animals, manipulating the habitats and physiologies of moths, spiders, and mollusks. Because there is more than one silk, there is more than one story of silk. More than one road, more than one people who discovered it, and wove its threads.

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Frank Lloyd Wrong – When America’s Greatest Architect Created His Masterpiece While Written-Off as a Has-Been Mar 05, 2024

Nobody blossomed late in life like Frank Lloyd Wright. He was written off as a has-been by middle age after a promising start. Between 1909 and 1929, Wright’s career was marked by personal turmoil and a roller coaster of career-related ups and downs. In these years, before he completed the buildings, we know him for today, Wright’s career was so far gone that most critics had written him off as a product of the 19th century.
But to everyone’s surprise, after the Great Depression, Wright, now in his seventies, emerged from total career chaos to create one of America’s greatest icons. From this time forward, his career surged, so much so that one third of all his buildings were constructed during the last 20 years of his life.
An oft-overlooked aspect of his life is that the Great Depression played a key role in Wright's resurgence. The Depression disrupted the practice of architecture substantially, to the extent that most architects of the 1920s simply closed up shop. Unwilling to give up, Wright instead figured out ways to practice architecture during the Depression without building any buildings. And, the choices he made during this period gave rise directly to the American icon, Fallingwater. In the end, Wright stands alone as the only “big name” architect to survive the Depression years.
Today’s guest is Catherine Zipf, author of “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: American Architecture in the Depression Era.” We explore Wright's career at its lowest moment, the years of the Great Depression, before his comeback as America's greatest architect.

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Frederick Rutland, Britain’s Most Beloved WW1 Pilot, Became a Spy for Imperial Japan Feb 29, 2024

Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a ship, a decorated warrior for his feats of bravery and rescue, was trusted by the admirals of the Royal Navy, had a succession of aeronautical inventions, and designed the first modern aircraft carrier. He was perhaps the most famous early twentieth-century naval aviator.
Despite all of this, and due mostly to class politics, Rutland was not promoted in the new Royal Air Force in the wake of WWI. This ignominy led the disgruntled Rutland to become a spy for the Japanese government. Plied with riches and given a salary ten times the highest-paid admiral, shuttled between Los Angeles and Tokyo where he lived in large mansions in both Beverly Hills and Yokohama, and insinuating himself into both LA high society and Japan’s high command,
Rutland would go on to contribute to the Japanese navy with both strategic and technical intelligence. This included scouting trips to Pearl Harbor, investigations of military preparedness, and aircraft technology. All this while living a double life, frequenting private California clubs and hosting lavish affairs for Hollywood stars and military dignitaries in his mansion on the Los Angeles Bird Streets.
Supported by recently declassified FBI files and by incorporating unique and rare research through MI5 and Japanese Naval archives that few English speakers have access to, today’s guest, Ronald Drabkin, pieced together this story in his new book “Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor.”

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The Rise and Fall of the Global Age of Piracy (17-19th Centuries) Feb 27, 2024

Piracy didn’t spring into existence in the 18th century Caribbean. It has existed as long as there has been commercial shipping and people to steal the goods. There were medieval pirates. Vikings loved robbing ships in the Baltic and North Seas. The Romans dealt with pirates in the Mediterranean, and the Greeks and Carthaginians before them. Pirates are as much part of history as armies, taxes, and temples. Why do we associate pirates with one specific time and place in the 18th century Caribbean with eye patches and peg legs?
Today’s guest is Katherine Howe, author of “The Penguin Book of Pirates.” We go behind the eye patches, the peg legs, and the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger and into the no-man’s-land of piracy that is rife with paradoxes and plot twists We look at real maritime marauders like the infamous Blackbeard; the pirates who inspired Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean,Stede Bonnet in Max’s Our Flag Means Death, and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride; the egalitarian multi-ethnic and multilingual crews that became enmeshed in historical horrors like the slave trade; and lesser-known but no less formidable women pirates, many of whom disguised themselves as men.

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A WW2 Polish Diplomat Forged Thousands of Paraguayan Passports to Save Jews from the Holocaust Feb 22, 2024

Between 1940 and 1943, Polish diplomats based in Bern, Switzerland, engaged in a remarkable – and until now, almost completely untold – humanitarian operation. This operation was one of the largest actions to aid Jews of the entire war and far eclipsed the better-known efforts of Oskar Schindler. In concert with two Jewish activists, these diplomats masterminded a systematic program of forging documents for Latin American countries that were smuggled into occupied Europe, in an attempt to save the lives of thousands of Jews facing extermination in the Holocaust.
Today’s guest is Roger Moorhouse, author of “The Forgers: The Forgotten Story of the Holocaust’s Most Audacious Rescue Operation.” We look at the heroism of a group of ordinary men whose actions were part of a wider story of the Polish Underground resistance.

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Stories From Captives on The Last Slave Ship to America Feb 20, 2024

The Clotilda was the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of slaves, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. Five of its passengers, ranging in age from two to nineteen when kidnapped, died between 1922 and 1940.
Today’s guest is Hannah Durkin, author of “Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade.” We follow their lives from their kidnappings in what is modern-day Benin through a terrifying 45-day journey across the Middle Passage; from the subsequent sale of the ship’s 110 African men, women, and children in slavery across Alabama to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in Selma; from the foundation of an all-black African Town (later Africatown) in Northern Mobile—an inspiration for writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Zora Neale Hurston—to the foundation of Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective—a black artistic circle whose cultural influence remains enormous.

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Was Union Support in the Confederacy Actually Widespread? The Alabamans Who Fought for Sherman Say 'Yes' Feb 15, 2024

As the popular narrative goes, the Civil War was won when courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But an aspect of the war that has remained little-known for 160 years is the Alabamian Union soldiers who played a decisive role in the Civil War, only to be scrubbed from the history books. One such group was the First Alabama Calvary, formed in 1862. It went on raids that destroyed Confederate communications and also marched with Sherman’s forces across the South. They aided the fall of Vicksburg and the burning of Atlanta.
Today’s guest is Howell Raines, author of “Silent Cavalry: How Union Soldiers from Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta—and Then Got Written Out of History.” As Raines has pieced together, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s decisive effort to burn Atlanta was facilitated by an unsung regiment of 2,066 yeoman farmers and former slaves from Alabama—including at least one member of Raines’s own family.
So why have the best-known Civil War historians, including Ken Burns and Shelby Foote, given only passing – or no – attention to this regiment of southerners who chose to fight for the North – a regiment that General Sherman hailed as one of the finest in the Union? We explore this question through an account of Alabama’s Mountain Unionists and their exploits, along with investigating why they and others like them were excised from the historical record.

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The Heroes, Legends, and Liars Who Fought in WW2 Feb 13, 2024

Veterans of World War 2 are called the Greatest Generation for their uncommon courage and self-determination. Whether this descriptor is true or part of America’s self-mythologizing during the 20th century is a challenging question, one that Andrew Biggio, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, worked to answer.
Biggio found that many were brave, but they were all ordinary men who also shared in humanity’s weaknesses and flaws while responding to the call of duty. Biggio is today’s guest and author of “The Rifle 2: Back to the Battlefield.” He shares first-person accounts from the last of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who fought the most dreadful war in history.
The idea for his first book “The Rifle” was simple: travel across the country with a 1945 M1 Garand, the basic U.S. fighting rifle of World War II, ask combat veterans of that war to sign it, and listen carefully as the sight, touch, and feel of that rifle evoke a flood of memories and emotions. In this follow-up book, Andrew Biggio once again reveals the astonishing effect his M1 Garand had on the old warriors who held it.

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Turning Okies Into New Dealers: How 1930s Technocrats Pushed Progressivism on Dust Bowl Refugees in Federal Farm Camps Feb 08, 2024

In the midst of the Great Depression, punished by crippling drought and deepening poverty, hundreds of thousands of families left the Great Plains and the Southwest to look for work in California’s rich agricultural valleys. In response to the scene of destitute white families living in filthy shelters built of cardboard, twigs, and refuse, reform-minded New Deal officials built a series of camps to provide them with shelter and community.
Today’s guest is Jonathan Ebel, author of “From Dust They Came: Government Camps and the Religion of Reform in New Deal California.” We look at the religious dynamics in and around migratory farm labor camps in agricultural California established and operated by the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration. Ebel makes the case that the camps served as mission sites for the conversion of migrants to more modern ways of living and believing. Though the ideas of virtuous citizenship put forward by the camp administrators were framed as secular, they rested on a foundation of Protestantism. At the same time, many of the migrants were themselves conservative or charismatic Protestants who had other ideas for how their religion intended them to be.
By looking at the camps as missionary spaces, Ebel shows that this New Deal program was animated both by humanitarian concern and by the belief that these poor, white migrants and their religious practices were unfit for life in a modernized, secular world.

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Whistle-Stop Tours: When Trains Ruled American Presidential Elections Feb 06, 2024

For nearly two centuries, the beating heart of electoral politics was on the back of a train. William Jennings Bryan spoke to an estimated 5 million people from a train car in his 1896 presidential campaign. Yet memories of the pivotal role campaign trains played in American elections fade with the passing of each generation. Also forgotten are the stories documented by the reporters who traveled with hundreds of whistle-stopping politicians including Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.
Today’s guest is Edward Segal, author of “Whistle-Stop Politics: Campaign Trains and the Reporters Who Covered Them.” Campaign trains were an American invention that enabled politicians to connect with as many voters as possible in the country’s largest cities and smallest towns.

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The Jewish Bankers Who Built Wall Street, Financed the American Century, and Spawned Countless Conspiracy Theories Feb 01, 2024

Joseph Seligman arrived in the United States in 1837, with the equivalent of $100 sewn into the lining of his pants. Then came the Lehman brothers, who would open a general store in Montgomery, Alabama. Not far behind were Solomon Loeb and Marcus Goldman, among the “Forty-Eighters” fleeing a Germany that had relegated Jews to an underclass.
These industrious immigrants would soon go from peddling trinkets and buying up shopkeepers’ IOUs to forming what would become some of the largest investment banks in the world—Goldman Sachs, Kuhn Loeb, Lehman Brothers, J. & W. Seligman & Co. They would clash and collaborate with J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, and other famed tycoons of the era. And their firms would help to transform the United States from a debtor nation into a financial superpower, capitalizing American industry and underwriting some of the twentieth century’s quintessential companies, like General Motors, Macy’s, and Sears. Along the way, they would shape the destiny not just of American finance but of the millions of Eastern European Jews who spilled off steamships in New York Harbor in the early 1900s, including Daniel Schulman’s paternal grandparents.
Today’s guest is Dan Schulman, author of “The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America.” We trace the interconnected origin stories of these financial dynasties from the Gilded Age to the Civil War, World War I, and the Zionist movement that tested both their burgeoning empires and their identities as Americans, Germans, and Jews.

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The Ghost Army of World War 2 Jan 30, 2024

In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—including such future luminaries such as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to conduct a secret mission. From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Every move they made was top secret and their story was hushed up for decades after the war's end.
The unit’s official US Army history noted that “its complement was more theatri¬cal than military,” and “It was like a traveling road show that went up and down the front lines impersonating the real fighting outfits.”
They pulled off twenty-one differ¬ent deceptions and are credited with saving thousands of lives through stagecraft and sleight of hand. They threw themselves into their impersonations, sometimes setting up phony command posts and masquerading as generals. They frequently put themselves in danger, suffering casualties as a consequence. After holding Patton’s line along the Moselle, they barely escaped capture by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, and in March 1945 they performed their most dazzling deception, misleading the Germans about where two American divi¬sions would cross the Rhine River.
To explore the story of this forgotten subterfuge is today’s guest, Rick Beyer, author of “The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery.” We look at how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives.

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How Free Time Transformed From Strolls Through Aristocratic Gardens to Doomscrolling on TikTok Jan 25, 2024

Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes?
Despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it. Here to explain why this is today’s guest Gary Cross, author of “Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal.” We discuss a broad historical explanation of why our affluent society does not afford more time away from work and why that time is often unsatisfying.
We begin with a survey of the past 250 years to understand the roots of our conception of free time and its use. By the end of the nineteenth century, a common expectation was that industrial innovations would lead to a progressive reduction of work time and a subsequent rise in free time devoted to self-development and social engagement. However, despite significant changes in the early twentieth century, both goals were frustrated, thus leading to the contemporary dilemma.
Cross touches on leisure of all kinds, from peasant festivals and aristocratic pleasure gardens to amusement parks, movie theaters and organized sports to internet surfing, and even the use of alcohol and drugs. This wide-ranging cultural and social history explores the industrial-era origins of our modern obsession with work and productivity, but also the historical efforts to liberate time from work and cultivate free time for culture.

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Everyday Life In a War Zone: How To Live For Years With Air Raid Sirens and Tanks in the Street Jan 23, 2024

What goes through the mind of a mother who must send her child to school across a minefield or the men who belong to groups of volunteer body collectors? When living in a warzone, such questions become part of the daily calculus of life. This is an everyday form of war that included provisioning fighters with military equipment they purchased themselves, smuggling insulin, and cutting ties to former friends.
Today’s guest is Greta Uehling, author of “Everyday War: The Conflict Over Donbas, Ukraine.” She explored these questions by researching Donbas, Ukraine, where an armed conflict over the region began in 2014 and continues to today. Uehling engaged with the lives of ordinary people living in and around Donbas and showed how conventional understandings of war are incomplete. She found that rather than nonstop air raid sirens, humans are able to forge a sense of normalcy in the most abnormal conditions.

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Behind the Bulldog: Winston Churchill's Public Image vs. Private Reality, Based on Those Who Knew Him Jan 18, 2024

Winston Churchill remains one of the most revered figures of the twentieth century, his name a byword for courageous leadership. But the Churchill we know today is a mixture of history and myth, authored by the man himself. Today’s guest, David Reynolds, author of “Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him,” re-evaluates Churchill’s life by viewing it through the eyes of his allies and adversaries, even his own family, revealing Churchill’s lifelong struggle to overcome his political failures and his evolving grasp of what “greatness” truly entailed.
Through his dealings with Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain, we follow Churchill’s triumphant campaign against Nazi Germany. But we also see a Churchill whose misjudgments of allies and rivals like Roosevelt, Stalin, Gandhi, and Clement Attlee blinded him to the British Empire’s waning dominance on the world stage and to the rising popularity of a postimperial, socialist vision of Great Britain at home.

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American Anarchy of the Early 1900s and The First U.S. War Against Domestic Extremists Jan 16, 2024

In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, government officials launched a decades-long “war on anarchy,” a brutal program of spying, censorship, and deportation that set the foundations of the modern surveillance state. The lawyers who came to the anarchists’ defense advanced groundbreaking arguments for free speech and due process, inspiring the emergence of the civil liberties movement.
Today’s guest is Michael Willrich, author of “American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century.” We look at this tumultuous era and parallels with contemporary society.

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Why Armies Stopped Burning Libraries and Weaponized Them Instead Jan 11, 2024

Books are often seen as “victims” of combat. When the flames of warfare turn libraries to ashes, we grieve this loss as an immense human and cultural tragedy. But that’s not the complete picture. Books were used in war across the twentieth century—both as agents for peace and as weapons. On one hand, books represent solace and solidarity for troops and prisoners of war desperate for reading materials. On the other hand, books have also been engines of warfare, mobilizing troops, spreading ideologies, and disseminating scientific innovation. With accounts that span from ancient Rome to the Cold War, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Mao’s Little Red Book, Pettegree demonstrates how books have shaped societies at war—for both good and ill.
Today’s guest is Andrew Pettegree, author of “The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading.” We explore the weaponization of the publishing industry, the mechanics of mass-scale censorship, and why the Soviets Hated Ian Fleming.

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Shining Light on the British Dark Ages: Anglo-Saxon Warfare, 400-1070 Jan 09, 2024

In a country fragmented by Roman withdrawal during the 5th century, the
employment of Germanic mercenaries by local rulers in Anglo-Saxon Britain was
commonplace. These mercenaries became settlers, forcing Romano-British
communities into Wales and the West Country. Against a background of spreading
Christianity, the struggles of rival British and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were exploited by
the Vikings, but eventually contained by the Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred of Wessex. His
descendants unified the country during the 10th century, however, subsequent weak
rule saw its 25-year incorporation into a Danish empire before it finally fell to the
Norman invasion of 1066.
Scholars of the early Church have long known that the term ‘Dark Ages’ for the 5th to
11th centuries in Britain refers only to a lack of written sources, and gives a false
impression of material culture. The Anglo-Saxon warrior elite were equipped with
magnificent armour, influenced by the cultures of the late Romans, the Scandinavian
Vendel people, the Frankish Merovingians, Carolingians and Ottonians, and also the
Vikings.
Today’s guest is Stephen Pollington, author of ”Anglo-Saxon Kings and Warlords AD 400-1070.” We look at the kings and warlords of the time with latest archaeological research.

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The Last Ship From Hamburg: How Russian Jews Escaped Death on the Eve of World War I Jan 04, 2024

For a 30-year period, from the 1880s to World War I, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the United States. Many sailed on steamships from Hamburg.
This mass exodus was facilitated by three businessmen whose involvement in the Jewish-American narrative has been largely forgotten: Jacob Schiff, the managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line, who created a transportation network of trains and steamships to carry them across continents and an ocean; and J. P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine (I.M.M.) trust, who tried to monopolize the lucrative steamship business. Though their goals were often contradictory, together they made possible a migration that spared millions from persecution.
Today’s guest is Steven Ujifusa, author of “The Last Ships From Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and The Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I.” His great-grandparents were part of this immigrant group, and he describes how they moved from the shtetls of Russia and the ports of Hamburg to the mansions of New York’s Upper East Side. We explore how debates on immigration have changed from the 1880s to today, and what it takes for the interests of billionaires and the interests of society’s poorest members to align.

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James Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied The South And Was Scapegoated for Its Loss Jan 02, 2024

During the Civil War, Gen. James Longstreet was one of the Confederacy’s most beloved generals. Southerners called him “Lee’s Warhorse” and considered him a pillar of the war effort, largely responsible for victories at Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chickamauga.
But after the war Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he dramatically changed course. He supported black voting and joined the newly elected, integrated postwar government in Louisiana. When white supremacists took up arms to oust that government, Longstreet, leading the interracial state militia, did battle against former Confederates. His defiance ignited a firestorm of controversy, as white Southerners branded him a race traitor and blamed him retroactively for the South’s defeat in the Civil War.
Today’s guest is Elizabeth Varon, author of “Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South.” We consider why although Longstreet was one of the highest-ranking Confederate generals, he has never been commemorated with statues or other memorials in the South because of his involvement in the Republican Party and rejecting the Lost Cause mythology. We also look at his second life as a statesman, serving in such positions as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

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The Septuagint – It Really is Greek to Me Dec 30, 2023

The Septuagint is the most important translations you’ve never heard of. In this episode of the 10th Anniversary of the History of the Papacy series, Steve Guerra and his special guest Garry Stevens lay out the basics of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. They talk about the issues of translation and the process of translation.
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Benedict Arnold Was America’s Greatest Hero Before He Became Its Worst Villain Dec 28, 2023

Benedict Arnold committed treason— for more than two centuries, that’s all that most Americans have known about him.
Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat—his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era.
Today’s guest is Jack Kelly, author of “God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America’s Most Hated Man.” We look at Arnold’s rush of audacious feats—his capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery brawl at Valcour Island, the turning-point battle at Saratoga—that laid the groundwork for our independence.
Arnold was a superb leader, a brilliant tactician, a supremely courageous military officer. He was also imperfect, disloyal, villainous. One of the most paradoxical characters in American history, and one of the most interesting.

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The Sacking of Rome in 410: Caused By Sclerotic Bureaucrats or Unassimilated Barbarians? Dec 26, 2023

It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the battlefield – rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire.
Roman general Flavius Stilicho, the man behind the Roman throne, dedicated himself to restoring imperial glory, only to find himself struggling for his life against political foes. Alaric, King of the Goths, desired to be a friend of Rome, was betrayed by it, and given no choice but to become its enemy. Battling each other to a standstill, these two warriors ultimately overcame their differences in order to save the empire from enemies on all sides. And when Stilicho fell, Alaric took vengeance on Rome, sacking it in 410, triggering the ultimate downfall of the Western Empire.
To discuss this critical decade in Western history is Don Hollway, author of “At the Gates of Rome: The Fall of the Eternal City, AD 410.”

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How Scientists Learned to Stop Deuling With Each Other (Literally) and Start Cooperating Dec 21, 2023

Scientists have always been rivals—for priority, prizes, and positions within science, and for fame and funding. This can be seen when Newton and Leibniz fought over who invented calculus (and the former destroyed the reputation of the latter), or Tycho Brahe losing part of his nose in a duel with his third cousin over a differing opinion on a mathematical formula, or when Thomas Edison publicly electrocuted animals to prove Nikola Tesla’s alternating current was dangerous. Yet, scientific rivals must co-operate in order for progress to be made, especially on massive projects that require international teams. But how?
Today’s guest, Lorraine Daston, author of Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate,” guides us through a few major efforts of scientific collaboration over the ages, including the creation of the map of the stars and the Cloud Atlas, both of which we still use today.

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Victory to Defeat: The British Army, 1918–40 Dec 19, 2023

The British Army won a convincing series of victories between 1916 and 1918. But by 1939 the British Army was an entirely different animal. The hard-won knowledge, experience and strategic vision that delivered victory after victory in the closing stages of the First World War had been lost. In the inter-war years there was plenty of talking, but very little focus on who Britain might have to fight, and how. The British Army wasn’t prepared to fight a first-class European Army in 1939 for the simple reason that as a country Britain hadn’t prepared itself to do so. The failure of the army’s leadership led directly to its abysmal performance in Norway and France in 1940.
Today’s guest is General Lord Richard Dannat, author of “Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918-40.” The discussion issues a stark warning that we neglect to understand who our enemy might be, and how to defeat him, at the peril of our country. The British Army is now to be cut to its smallest size since 1714. Are we, this book asks, repeating the same mistakes again?

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The Most Interesting American: Personal Encounters, Quotations, and First-Hand Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt Dec 14, 2023

A century after Theodore Roosevelt’s death, the personal attributes that endeared him to Americans have become obscured.
He is mostly known for his many accomplishments in conservation, as a solider and explorer, and a successful presidency. Most photos of Roosevelt are formal portraits as we he was seldom recorded in motion pictures, and cartoonists often portrayed him as overexaggerated and hyperactive.
Today’s guest is Rick Marschall, and he has mined old newspapers, memoirs, diaries and letters for personal impressions to share almost five hundred vital and interesting accounts of the fascinating man who captivated a nation in his day in his new book, The Most Interesting American: Personal Encounters, Quotations, and First-Hand Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt

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The History of Equality, and How Close Different Civilizations Were to Attaining It Dec 12, 2023

The most tried-and-true method of kings or politicians justifying their hold on power is by promising equality (this was the slogan of the French Revolution, along with liberty and brotherhood). All societies promise equality (regardless of how poorly they delivery), from the dawn of humanity through the Enlightenment to today.
Equality has been reimagined continually, in the great world religions and the politics of the ancient world, by revolutionaries and socialists, Nazis and fascists, and postwar reformers and activists.
Today’s guest is Darrin McMahon, author of Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea. We trace equality’s global origins and spread from the dawn of humanity through the Enlightenment to today. Equality has been reimagined continually, in the great world religions and the politics of the ancient world, by revolutionaries and socialists, Nazis and fascists, and postwar reformers and activists.

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How the Catholic Church Maintained Civilization in the Lowest Points of the Middle Ages Dec 07, 2023

For 2,000 years, Catholicism – the largest branch of Christianity and – has shaped global history on a scale unequal by any other institution. It created the university, modern health care, reinvigorated philosophy in the West, and funded scientific enterprises.
Today’s guest is H.W. Crocker, author of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church – A 2,000 Year History. We discuss Roman legions, crusades, epic battles, and toppled empires, the Catholic church midwifing Europe through the lowest points of the medieval period, the Renaissance popes, the Reformation, and the present and future of the Catholic church.

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Marty Glickman: The New York Sports Legend Who Lost His Spot in the 1936 Olympics For Being Jewish Dec 05, 2023

For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, the Knicks’ Walt Frazier, or the Jets’ Joe Namath.
In addition to the stories of how he became a master of American sports airwaves, Marty Glickman has also been remembered as a Jewish athlete who, a decade before he sat in front of a microphone, was cynically barred from running in a signature track event in the 1936 Olympics by anti-Semitic American Olympic officials. Glickman’s story underscores the complexities that faced his generation of American Jews as these children of immigrants emerged from their ethnic cocoons and strove to succeed in America amid challenges to their professional and social advancement.
To explore Glickman’s story is today’s guest, Jeffrey Gurock, author of Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend.

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Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation Nov 30, 2023

The conquest of Indian land in the eastern United States happened through decades of the U.S. government’s military victories, along with questionable treaties and violence. This conflict between two civilization came to head in 1813 in a little-known but consequential struggle between two extraordinary leaders.
William Henry Harrison was born to a prominent Virginia family, the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He journeyed west, became governor of the vast Indiana Territory, and sought statehood by attracting settlers and imposing one-sided treaties.
Tecumseh, by all accounts one of the nineteenth century’s greatest leaders, belonged to an honored line of Shawnee warriors and chiefs. His father, killed while fighting the Virginians flooding into Kentucky, extracted a promise from his sons to “never give in” to American settkers . An eloquent speaker, Tecumseh traveled from Minnesota to Florida and west to the Great Plains convincing far-flung tribes to join a great confederacy and face down their common enemy. Eager to stop U.S. expansion, the British backed Tecumseh’s confederacy in a series of battles during the forgotten western front of the War of 1812 that would determine control over the North American continent.
Today’s guest, Peter Stark, discusses these battles and diplomacy. He’s the author of “Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation.”

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The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and Rebuilding The Windy City Into a World Metropolis Nov 28, 2023

In October of 1871, Chicagoans knew they were due for the “big one”—a massive, uncontrollable fire that would decimate the city. There hadn’t been a meaningful rain since July, and several big blazes had nearly outstripped the fire department’s scant resources. On October 8, when Kate Leary’s barn caught fire, so began a catastrophe that would forever change the soul of the city.
Leary was a diligent, hardworking Irish woman, no more responsible for the fire than anyone else in the city at that time. But the conflagration that spread from her property quickly overtook the neighborhood, and before too long the floating embers had spread to the far reaches of the city. Families took to the streets with everything they could carry. Grain towers threatened to blow. The Chicago River boiled. Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, Chicago saw the biggest and most destructive disaster the United States had ever endured, and Leary would be its scapegoat.
Out of the ashes rose not just new skyscrapers, tenements, and homes, but also a new political order. The city’s elite saw an opportunity to rebuild on their terms, cracking down on crime and licentiousness and fortifying a business-friendly environment. But the city’s working class recognized a naked power grab that would challenge their traditions, hurt their chances of rebuilding, and move power out of elected officials’ hands and into private interests. As quickly as the firefight ended, another battle for the future of the city began between the town’s business elites and the poor and immigrant working class.
Today’s guest is Scott Berg, author of “The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul.” Beginning with the fire’s origin on the property of Irish immigrant Kate Leary, we explore how a simple barn fire brought Chicago to its knees and ushered in a new political order in which immigrants wrested control of the city from the business class and birthed the machine politics for which the city is known today.

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Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of JFK's Assassination Nov 27, 2023

November 22nd marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. To commemorate this pivotal event in American history, learn more about Kennedy's 1963 Texas visit, reelection campaign, assassination, and legacy, with this excerpt from This American President.

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Hitler, Stalin, and a Jewish Couple Who Met After Surviving Their Extermination Programs Nov 23, 2023

About four years ago Times of London journalist Daniel Finkelstein undertook an effort to tell his parents’ stories of survival in WW2 Europe. They met at a Jewish youth club in London in the Spring of 1956. He was twenty-six years old and she was twenty-two. Between them, they had lived in ten countries and survived years of hunger, disease, and the barest of survivals.
Daniel’s mother Mirjam Wiener was the youngest of three daughters born in Germany to Alfred and Margarete Wiener. Alfred, a decorated hero from the Great War, is now widely acknowledged to have been the first person to recognize the existential danger Hitler posed to the Jews and began, in 1933, to catalogue in detail Nazi crimes. After moving his family to Amsterdam, he relocated his library to London and was preparing to bring over his wife and children when Germany invaded Holland. Before long, the family was rounded up, robbed, humiliated, and sent to Bergen-Belsen.
Daniel’s father Ludwik was born in Lwow, (now Lviv) the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, the family was rounded up by the communists and sent to do hard labor in a Siberian gulag. Working as slave laborers on a collective farm, his father survived the freezing winters in a tiny house they built from cow dung.
Finkelstein is today’s guest and he’s here to discuss his new book “Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My Family.” It is both a family story and a larger exploration of how an entire continent came apart.

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Crown, Cloak, and Dagger: How the British Royal Family Spied on Others and Was Spied on in Turn Nov 21, 2023

The British Royal Family and the intelligence community are two of the most mysterious and mythologized actors of the British State. From the reign of Queen Victoria to the present, they shared a complicated relationship, with some monarchs working hand-in-glove with their spies, while others detesting them. Nevertheless, successive queens and kings have all played an active role in steering British intelligence, sometimes against the wishes of prime ministers. Even today, the monarch receives “copy No. 1” of every intelligence report.
Today’s guests are Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac, authors of “Crown, Cloak, and Dagger: The British Monarchy and Secret Intelligence from Victoria to Elizabeth II.” We explore attempted assassinations and kidnappings, the abdication crisis, world wars and the Cold War, and the death of Princess Diana, all within the complex interconnection of the British Monarchy and its spy corps.

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Joshua Chamberlain: From Stuttering Child to Civil War Hero to Polyglot Governor of Maine Nov 16, 2023

Before 1862, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had rarely left his home state of Maine, where he was a trained minister and mild-mannered professor at Bowdoin College. His colleagues were shocked when he volunteered for the Union army, but he was undeterred and later became known as one of the North’s greatest heroes: On the second day at Gettysburg, after running out of ammunition at Little Round Top, he ordered his men to wield their bayonets in a desperate charge down a rocky slope that routed the Confederate attackers. Despite being wounded at Petersburg—and told by two surgeons he would die—Chamberlain survived the war, going on to be elected governor of Maine four times and serve as president of Bowdoin College.
How did a stuttering young boy come to be fluent in nine languages and even teach speech and rhetoric? How did a trained minister find his way to the battlefield? To explore Chamberlain’s fascinating story is today’s guest, Ronald White, author of “On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.” He is presented from cradle-to-grave in all his ideals, tenacity, and contradictions.

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White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Charmed Early 1900s America Nov 14, 2023

During Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency—from 1901 to 1909, when Mark Twain called him the most popular man in America—his daughter Alice Roosevelt mesmerized the world with her antics and beauty. Alice was known for carrying a gun, a copy of the Constitution, and a green snake in her purse. When her father told her she couldn’t smoke under his roof, she climbed to the top of the White House and smoked on the roof. She became the most famous woman in America—and even the world—predating Princess Diana and Jackie Kennedy as an object of public obsession.
As her celebrity grew, she continued to buck tradition, push against social norms, and pull political sway behind the curtain of privilege and access. She was known for her acerbic wit and outspoken tendencies which hypnotized both the social and political world.
Today’s guest is Shelley Fraser Mickle, author of “White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America.” We explore what it would have been like to be a strong-willed, powerful woman of the 20th century aughts.

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The First Attempted Nazi Takeover of Germany: The Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 Nov 09, 2023

In 1923, the Weimar Republic faced a series of crises, including foreign occupation of its industrial heartland, rampant inflation, radical violence, and finally Hitler’s infamous “beer hall putsch.” Fanning the flames of anti-government and anti-Semitic sentiment, the Nazis tried to violently seize power in Munich, only failing after they were abandoned by like-minded conservatives.
Today’s guest is Mark Jones, author of “1923: The Crisis of German Democracy in the Year of Putsch.” We discuss how the Nazis’ plan was initially to seize power in Munich, control Bavaria, then march on Berlin. Hitler needed the support of the military and the police, which he did not get in 1923 but did get in 1933. Tracing Hitler’s early rise, Jones reveals how political pragmatism and unprecedented international cooperation with the West brought Germany out of its crisis year. Although Germany would succumb to tyranny a decade later, the story of the republic’s survival in 1923 offers essential lessons about the future of democracy today.

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The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and the Making of Modern European Warfare Nov 07, 2023

Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the war succeeded in shattering French supremacy, deposing Napoleon III, and uniting a new German Empire. But it also produced brutal military innovations and a precarious new imbalance of power that together set the stage for the devastating world wars of the next century.
Today’s guest is Rachel Chrastil, author of “Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe.” We see how the war reshaped and blurred the boundaries between civilian and soldier as the fighting swept across France by bolstering a unified Germany to contributing to the development of modern warfare.

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How Ancient Religions Affect What We Do and Don’t Eat in 2023 Nov 02, 2023

Religious beliefs have been the source of food "rules" since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls), Kosher and Halal rules forbade the shrimp cocktail (shellfish are scavengers_, and the Catholic church forbade its peoples from eating meat on Fridays (fasting to atone for committed sins). Rules about eating are present in nearly every American belief, from high-control groups that ban everything except air to the infamous strawberry shortcake that sated visitors to the Oneida Community in the late 1800s.
To explore the intersection of religion and modern diet is Christina Ward, author of “Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat.” The explosion of religious movements since the Great Awakenings that birthed a cottage industry of food fads and cookbooks. Ward uncovers the interconnectivity between obscure sects and communities of the 20th Century who dabbled in vague spirituality and used food to both entice and control followers.

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Life in Rome at the Very Height of Its Power Oct 31, 2023

The Pax Romana has long been shorthand for the empire’s golden age. Stretching from Caledonia to Arabia, Rome ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind.
Today we are speaking with Tom Holland, author of “Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age” to explore Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to realms beyond the frontier, we see ancient Rome in all its glory and cruelty: Nero’s downfall, the destruction of Jerusalem and Pompeii, the building of the Colosseum and Hadrian’s Wall, and the conquests of Trajan. Looking at the lives of Romans both ordinary and spectacular, from slaves to emperors, we see that Roman peace was the fruit of unprecedented military violence.

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How Russians Survive the 900-Day-Long Siege of Leningrad Oct 26, 2023

The first year of the siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941 marked the opening stage of a 900-day-long struggle for survival that left over a million dead. The capture of the city came tantalizingly close late that year, but Hitler paused to avoid costly urban fighting. Determined to starve Leningrad into submission, what followed was a winter of unimaginable suffering for ordinary citizens and defenders alike. First-hand accounts from Soviet and German soldiers, many never previously published, together with those of the civilians trapped in the city detail the relentless specter of death which defined life in and around Leningrad.
Today’s guest is Prit Buttar, author of “To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42.” Personal vignettes give a glimpse into the reality of life in a city under siege. The teenage volunteer climbers, weak from hunger, scaling the slender spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress to shroud it in camouflage as the German bombers circle overhead like vultures. Or the soldier trombonist completing a long day on the front line to perform Shostakovich’s epic Seventh Symphony alongside a starving and sickly orchestra – an act of defiance broadcast to defenders and attackers alike.

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The Origins of the KKK and its First Death in the 1870s Oct 24, 2023

The Ku Klux Klan was arguably America’s first organized terrorist movement. It was a paramilitary unit that arose in the South during the early years of Reconstruction. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. And their mission was to obliterate the small but growing economic and political power of newly emancipated black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable.
To repel the virulent tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against both armed southern enemies of Reconstruction and northerners seduced by visions of post-war conciliation, testing for the first time the limits of the federal government in determining the extent of states' rights.
To discuss this early history of reconstruction is today’s guest, Fergus M. Bordewich, author of “Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction.” We explore the hamlets of the former Confederate States and the marble corridors of Congress, analyzing key figures such as crusading Missouri Senator Carl Schurz and the ruthless former slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest.

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A Nazi Defector Revealed Germany’s Infiltration in All Major Governments in His 1945 Memoir Oct 19, 2023

Heinrich Pfeifer was a senior member of the Nazi deep state who defected in 1938. He wrote his memoirs in 1945, with the goal of describing the inner workings of Nazi intelligence with enough detail to keep any of the members from escaping justice from the encroaching Allies. However, he was assassinated in 1949 after a pro-Nazi hit squad killed him, and copies of his work were mostly destroyed. However, today’s guest, Robert Temple, was able to obtain a copy and recently translated it to English.
Temple is author of Drunk On Power: A Senior Defector’s Inside Account of the Nazi Secret Police State. It is the first complete description of the Nazi “Deep State” by its most senior defector, Pfeifer. We discuss a complete X-Ray of the structure of the Nazi Deep State and describe the international infiltration of Nazis into key institutions in every country in the world.

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From Orphan to RAF Hero Oct 17, 2023

Many of the WW2 generation faced hardship in their youth (they did spend their childhood in the Great Depression), but few had as bad of an early life as Denis Elliott, who became an RAF Flight Lieutenant. At age three he was placed in a brutal and abusive orphanage in London and was later subject to beatings by his first foster father. It wasn’t until the Second World War that everything in Denis’s life began to change — he finally overcame the lack of confidence and self-esteem that had plagued his childhood in Kent and went on to become a skilled, confident, brave pilot flying operations against Japanese forces in Burma, Malaya and Thailand.
He spent two stints serving in the RAF, which saw him posted across Africa, the Middle East, the Far East and Europe, flyingearning to flying B-24 Liberators and Avro Lancasters.
Today’s guest is Phillip Martin, author of “From Orphan to High-Flyer.” We discuss these stories, along with those of Denis’s personal growth, friendship and overcoming adversity.

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The Life and Tragic Death of R101, The World’s Largest Flying Machine Oct 12, 2023

The tragic story of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular hydrogen-fueled fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. But airships, those airborne leviathans that occupied center stage in the world in the first half of the twentieth century, were a symbol of the future.
R101 was not just the largest aircraft ever to have flown and the product of the world’s most advanced engineering—she was also the lynchpin of an imperial British scheme to link by air the far-flung areas of its empire from Australia to India, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, and Singapore. No one had ever conceived of anything like this. R101 captivated the world. There was just one problem: beyond the hype and technological wonders, these big, steel-framed, hydrogen-filled airships were a dangerously bad idea.
To tell the story of this disaster is today’s guest, S.C. Gwynne, author His Majesty's Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine. We discuss a number of characters, including Lord Christopher Thomson, the man who dreamed up the Imperial Airship Scheme and then relentlessly pushed R101 to her destruction; Princess Marthe Bibesco, the celebrated writer and glamorous socialite with whom he had a long affair; and Herbert Scott, a national hero who had made the first double crossing of the Atlantic in any aircraft in 1919—eight years before Lindbergh’s famous flight—but who devolved into drink and ruin.

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The Postwar Lives of WW2 Leaders, Both Axis and Allies Oct 11, 2023

Check out this episode sample from James Early's "Key Battles of American History," In this episode, which wraps up a season devoted to World War 2 in the European Theatre, hosts James Early and Sean McIver follow a long-established Key Battles tradition by giving brief overviews of the postwar lives and careers of the major leaders, Axis and Allies, discussed in the series.
Subscribe to Key Battles of American History!
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3nCfZZy
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Listen to more episodes of Key Battles of American History!
The Longest Day: D-Day and the Normandy Campaign: https://apple.co/46jPeuw / https://sptfy.com/P2g7
Saving Private Ryan: https://apple.co/3Q9z0i4 / https://sptfy.com/P2g6
Hitler’s Last Gambit: The Battle of the Bulge: https://apple.co/3tprLJN / https://sptfy.com/P2g4

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Why Robert E. Lee was America’s Most Admired General For Over a Century Oct 10, 2023

Robert E. Lee has become a target of activists in the last decade, with statues of him being taken down across the United States, and eponymous schools and streets being renamed. But for over a century after the Civil War, he was considered a brilliant general, courageous leader, and, in the words of Winston Churchill, “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.” Today, however, he is vilified and the virtues of hard work and leadership he inspired are largely forgotten.
To explore his legacy, and reasons for the drastic change is today’s guest, H.W. Crocker, author of “Robert E. Lee on Leadership.” From successfully reviving a debt-ridden plantation, to teaching and working his way to a prestigious university, Lee became an inspiration to the men under his charge. His personal standards of excellence and his unflinching character created a formidable force on the battlefield.
We discuss the challenges of a disadvantaged upbringing; Lee’s education at West Point and years as an army engineer; the role Lee played during the Mexican War, in which he showed courage and level-headedness in the face of combat; Lee as a businessman and owner of a farm in Arlington; and Stonewall Jackson under Lee’s command

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Parthenon Roundtable: Which Person From History Deserves a Movie? Oct 05, 2023

Who are people from the past whose lives are so cinematic that they deserve their own movie, but haven't received the right silver screen treatment, such as, say, Abraham Lincoln from Steven Spielberg or Napoleon Bonaparte from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Hosts from different shows on the Parthenon Podcast Network are here to discuss this question, including Steve Guerra (History of the Papacy), Richard Lim (This American President), yours truly, and Mark Vinet (History of North America).

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Charlie Chaplin vs. America Oct 03, 2023

Charlie Chaplin was the most famous movie star in the world, especially at his height in the 1920s, when the silent film star won the hearts of audience around the globe. But in the aftermath of World War II, Charlie Chaplin was criticized for being politically socialist and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the Red Scare took hold. As soon as he left the U.S. to promote a new picture, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover persuaded the State Department to revoke Chaplin's visa (a move of doubtful legality).
Politics aside, Chaplin had another problem: his l interest in young women. He had been married four times, had had numerous affairs, and was publicly involved in at least three paternity suits. His inappropriate sexual proclivity became another reason for those who opposed his ideas to condemn him.
Today’s guest is Scott Eyman, author of “Charlie Chaplin vs. America.” We discuss historically pivotal moment of Hollywood’s rise and a prescient narrative with modern implications: that of cancel culture, artistic freedom, censorship, and the all-important question of whether we should be separating art from the artist.

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Joe McCarthy, the Hydrogen Bomb, and Ten Fateful Months That Kicked Off the Cold War Sep 28, 2023

There’s a good argument to be made that the entire trajectory of the Cold War was set off by ten fateful months of American and global history, between the first Soviet atom bomb test in the late summer of 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. The following events then all occurred in rapid succession: the dawning of the Taiwan question, the rise of Senator Joe McCarthy, the birth of NATO, the hydrogen bomb, and the origins of the European Union.
To look at these fateful months is today’s guest, Nick Bunker, author of “In the Shadow of Fear.” At the time, Sir Winston Churchill described the United States as “this gigantic capitalist organization, with its vast and superabundant productive power – millions of people animated by the profit motive.” The dollar reigned supreme, and Harry S. Truman and his Democratic allies in Congress hoped to use the country’s economic might to build on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s achievements with a bold new program of liberal reforms.
However, in the autumn of 1949 and the first half of 1950, Truman and his party were overtaken by the unforeseen. While Mao Zedong’s army swept through China, in America the age of FDR gave way to the beginnings of a new conservatism. An aggressive Republican Party, desperate for power, seized on rifts among its opponents, and Truman’s programs went down to defeat. As he launched his first anti-communist campaign, the young Joe McCarthy ambushed Truman with a style of politics that polarized the country. Leaders and citizens were compelled to improvise as events spun out of control.

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The SAS Began as a Lie but Became Britain’s Most Elite WW2 Commando Unit Sep 26, 2023

Created during the World War II, the SAS was a small band of men brought together in the North African desert. They were the toughest and brightest of their cohort, the most resilient, most capable in close combat and most careful in surveillance. Winning approval for this radical new form of warfare was no small feat, but eventually it was achieved. The SAS was born, their mission to take on small-scale but often devastating raids and risks behind enemy lines.
Today’s guest is Joshua Levine, author of “SAS: The Authorized Illustrated History of the SAS.” We discuss what it was like to fight and train in the SAS during the World War II by exploring individual stories and personal testimonies of the wartime experience.

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Eyewitnesses of History Share Stories of the 1980 Miracle on Ice, Pablo Escobar, Jonestown, and Much More Sep 22, 2023

In this special compilation episode, Josh Cohen of Eyewitness History shares his favorite interview moments and stories from people who witnessed some of history’s most extraordinary events.
First up, revisit his conversation with Frank DeAngelis, former principal of Columbine High School, recounting the harrowing events of the 1999 massacre.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Ow8UF0 / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMr
Next, dive into the world of podcasting with the podfather himself, Adam Curry. Discover the fascinating tale of his MTV days and presenting an award to Michael Jackson.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Df7jgn / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMt
CIA Agent Valerie Plame takes the spotlight in the next segment, shedding light on the notorious 'Plame Affair' of 2003.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/48gSyYx / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMw
Sports enthusiasts, get ready! HBO Boxing legend Jim Lampley shares his experiences covering the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, including the unforgettable 'Miracle on Ice.'Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3YeyxNZ / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMx
Jonestown cult survivor and writer Eugene Smith takes a solemn turn as he revisits his journey through tragedy and survival.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/451VIgu / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMz
Rock music lovers, stay tuned for insights from Ken Caillat, the record producer behind Fleetwood Mac's iconic albums, including the Emmy-winning 'Rumors.'Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3rhuyEb / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMB
Hear from DEA Agents Steve Murphy and Javier Peña, the real-life heroes who took down Pablo Escobar, inspiring the hit Netflix series 'Narcos.'Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3r5Cf0h / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMD
Podcasting sensation Jordan Harbinger shares his adventures and observations in North Korea.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3JXYmfe / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMF
And finally, wrap up with a legendary performance – an interview with Queen's keyboardist, Spike Edney, discussing their iconic set at Live Aid in 1985.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Roxxp6 / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMH

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In 1864, Nine Union Officers Escaped from a POW Camp and Trekked 300 Miles to the North Sep 21, 2023

At the height of the Civil War in November 1864, nine Union prisoners-of-war escaped from a Confederate Prison known as Camp Sorghum in Columbia, South Carolina. They scrambled north on foot in rags that had once been uniforms of blue. Traveling in brutal winter conditions more than 300 miles with search parties and bloodhounds hot on their trail. On the difficult journey they relied on the help of enslaved men and women, as well as Southerners who sympathized with the North, before finally reaching Union lines on New Years Day 1865.
After arriving in Knoxville, Tennessee, and checking in with Union authorities, one of the men had a wonderful idea. The nine officers and their three mountain guides found a local photographer, hoping to commemorate what they had accomplished by posing together for a photograph. The instant, frozen in time, showed twelve ragged men with determination strong on their faces. It was a Civil War selfie. A moment that Captured Freedom.
Steve Procko, a documentarian, received a copy of the more than 150-year-old photograph from a descendant of one of the mountain guides. Upon identifying and researching the men in the photograph, he realized their remarkable story had never been told. Procko is today’s guest, and he’s here to tell the story. He’s also the author of “Captured Freedom: The Epic True Civil War Story of Union POW Officers Escaping From a South Prison.”

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Teddy Roosevelt Nearly Died in a Cavalry Charge Against German Machine Guns in WW1 Sep 19, 2023

Teddy Roosevelt faced many challenges at the end of his life. Racked by rheumatism, a ticking embolism, pathogens in his blood, a bad leg from an accident, and a bullet in his chest from an assassination attempt. But none of that stopped Roosevelt from attempting to reassemble the Rough Riders for a final charge against the Germans in World War One, pushing them into a likely suicide mission of a cavalry attack against 50 caliber machine guns.
Suffering from grief and guilt, marginalized by world events, the great glow that had been his life was now but a dimming lantern. But TR’s final years were productive ones as well: he churned out several “instant” books that promoted U.S. entry into the Great War, and he was making plans for another run at the Presidency in 1920 at the time of his death. Indeed, his political influence was so great that his opposition to the policies of Woodrow Wilson helped the Republican Party take back the Congress in 1918. To look at Roosevelt’s final years is today’s guest Bill Hazelgrove, author of “The Last Charge of the Rough Rider.” It was Roosevelt’s quest for the “vigorous life” that, ironically, may have led to his early demise at the age of sixty. "The Old Lion is dead,” TR’s son Archie cabled his brother on January 6, 1919, and so, too, ended a historic era in American life and politics.

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Beyond the Wall: What Life Was Really Like in East Germany Sep 14, 2023

When the Iron Curtain fell in 1990, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics.
Today’s guest is Katja Hoyer, author of “Beyond the Wall,” who was born in the GDR. She saw beyond the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR and experienced the political, social, and cultural landscape that existed amid oppression and hardship to see the other Germany, beyond the Wall.

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How An Unlikely Cohort of Black Nurses at a New York Sanatorium Helped Cure Tuberculosis Sep 12, 2023

Nearly a century before the COVID-19 pandemic upended life as we know it, a devastating tuberculosis epidemic was ravaging hospitals across the country. In those dark, pre-antibiotic days, the disease claimed the lives of 1 in 7 Americans; in the United States alone, it killed over 5.6 million people in the first half of the twentieth century. Nowhere was TB more rampant than in New York City, where it spread like wildfire through the tenements, decimating the city’s poorest residents. The city’s hospital system was already overwhelmed when, in 1929, the white nurses at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital began quitting en masse. Pushed to the brink of a major labor crisis and fearing a public health catastrophe, city health officials made a call for black female nurses seeking to work on the frontlines, promising them good pay, education, housing, and employment free from the constraints of Jim Crow.
Today’s guest is Maria Smilios, author of “The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.” We look at the unlikely ways in which public health developed in America, by means of these nurses who put in 14-hour days caring for people who lay waiting to die or, worse, become “guinea pigs” to test experimental (and often deadly) drugs at a facility that was understaffed and unregulated.

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The Mississippi Was First Mapped by a Polyglot Priest and a College Dropout-Turned-Fur Trapper Sep 07, 2023

Perhaps the most consequential expedition in North American history wasn’t the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was one that happened 130 years earlier and undertaken by a Catholic priest fluent in multiple Indian languages and a philosophy-student-drop-out-turned fur trapper. This was the 1673 Jolliet and Marquette expedition – in which French explorers mapped out the Mississippi Valley and confirmed that the river led to the Gulf of Mexico, not the Pacific or Atlantic – and it took place against a sprawling backdrop that encompassed everything from ancient Native American cities to French colonial machinations.
Today’s guest, Mark Walczynski, author of “Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition“ place the explorers and their journey within seventeenth-century North America. His account takes readers among the region’s diverse Native American peoples and into a vanished natural world of treacherous waterways and native flora and fauna.
Walczynski also charts the little-known exploits of the French-Canadian officials, explorers, traders, soldiers, and missionaries who created the political and religious environment that formed Jolliet and Marquette and shaped European colonization of the heartland. A multifaceted voyage into the past, Jolliet and Marquette expands and updates the oft-told story of a pivotal event in North American history.

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The Eurasian Steppes Gave Us Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Global Trade and Hybrid Camels Sep 05, 2023

The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their impact has gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. And their deeds still resonate today.
These nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East. From a single region emerged a great many peoples – the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths – all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world. But their legacy is also death. An estimated 100 million died in the Mongol conquests, include 90 percent of Iran’s population, which only recovered in the 20th century.
To discuss these legacies is Kenneth Harl, author of “Empires of the Steppes.” He draws on a lifetime of scholarship to vividly recreate the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age.

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Decades of Turbulent Decolonization After WW2 Launched With The Dutch-Indonesian Wars of 1945-49 Aug 31, 2023

The Dutch–Indonesian War was one of the first postwar struggles that followed the Japanese surrender in September 1945, which left a power vacuum in the colonial Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The infant nation didn’t have a normal standing army but was a fragile coalition of various forces involved in the struggle: the Indonesian nationalists who immediately proclaimed an independent republic, remaining Japanese troops, and revolutionary student groups. Pitted against them were the Dutch forces, which arrived in 1946, and tried to restore its colony.
Today’s guest is Marc Lohnstein, author of “The Dutch-Indonesian War 1945-49.” We discusss how the nationalists were defeated by Dutch and Dutch-led local forces in urban areas, but how their guerrillas evaded Dutch troops in the jungle hills and swamps.
While mostly forgotten, this war is one of many such conflicts in the turbulent years of decolonization.

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Could the Pacific War of WW2 Have Been Entirely Avoided if Not For U.S. Diplomats in Over Their Heads? Aug 29, 2023

It’s November 1941. Japan and the US are teetering on a knife-edge as leaders on both sides of the Pacific strive to prevent war between them. But failed diplomacy, foiled negotiations, and possible duplicity in the Roosevelt administration thwart their attempts.
Drawing on now-declassified original documents, today’s guest, Dale Jenkins, author of “Diplomats & Admirals” reveals the inside story of one fateful year, including:

How the hidden agendas of powerful civilian and military leaders pushed the two nations toward war
The miscommunications, misjudgments, and blunders that doomed efforts at peace
China’s role in the US ultimatum that triggered the attack on Pearl Harbor
Why the carrier-to-carrier showdown at Coral Sea proved a fatal mistake for Japan
How courageous US navy pilots snatched victory from defeat at the Battle of Midway

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The WW2 Pacific Theatre of January-May 1942: When Japan Was Omnipotent and America Was a Fearful Underdog Aug 24, 2023

After the devastating Japanese blows of December 1941, the Allies found themselves reeling with defeat everywhere in the Pacific. Although stripped of his battleships and outnumbered 10:3 in carriers, the US Navy commander-in-chief Admiral Ernest J. King decided to hit back at Japan’s rapidly expanding Pacific empire immediately, in an effort to keep the Japanese off-balance.
On February 1, 1942, Vice Admiral Bill Halsey led the US Pacific Fleet carriers on their first raid, using high-speed hit-and-run tactics to strike at the Japanese, at a time when most of the Japanese carrier fleet was in the Indian Ocean. Halsey’s aggressive commitment inspired its American participants to invent the mythical “Haul Ass With Halsey” club. The last of the 1942 US carrier raids in March 1942 would form a defining moment in the Pacific War, prior to a new phase of high-seas battles between the opposing fleets.
To discuss this overlooked era is Brian Herder, author of “Early Pacific Raids 1942: The American Carriers Strike Back.”

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The History of America’s Ice Obsession: Why The U.S. Loves Frozen Drinks and Ice Rinks Aug 22, 2023

Ice is everywhere: in gas stations, in restaurants, in hospitals, in hotels via noisy machines, and in our homes. Americans think nothing of dropping a few ice cubes into tall glasses of tea to ward off the heat of a hot summer day. Most refrigerators owned by Americans feature automatic ice machines. Ice on-demand has so revolutionized modern life that it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way—in fact, the national obsession with ice can be traced back to a Bostonian merchant who, 200 years ago, figured out how to get Caribbean bartenders addicted to serving their drinks cold.
Today’s guest is Amy Brady, author of “Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks.” She shares the strange and storied two-hundred-year-old history of ice in America: from the introduction of mixed drinks “on the rocks,” to the nation’s first-ever indoor ice rink, to how delicacies like ice creams and iced tea revolutionized our palates, to the ubiquitous ice machine in every motel across the US. But Ice doesn’t end in the past. Brady also explores the surprising present-day uses of ice in sports, medicine, and sustainable energy—including cutting-edge cryotherapy breast-cancer treatments and new refrigerator technologies that may prove to be more energy efficient—underscoring how precious this commodity is.

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Introducing Mark Vinet's New Show: Historical Jesus Aug 20, 2023

This is a preview of the new Parthenon Podcast Network show "Historical Jesus," hosted by Mark Vinet. This show explores the question of who was Jesus Christ and why did he inspire such admiration, fervor, and devotion? Join Mark as he unravels the truth, myth, legends, and mysteries surrounding this Titan of History.
Subscribe to Historical Jesus:
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3rgGPbr
Spotify: https://sptfy.com/Ojws
Discover more episodes of Historical Jesus:
The Bible: https://apple.co/44ChqHL / https://sptfy.com/OjwT
Old Testament: https://apple.co/3pxYqeM / https://sptfy.com/OjwU
Roots of Christianity: https://apple.co/3rkq8Mz / https://sptfy.com/OjwX
What is Religion?: https://apple.co/43eaorH / https://sptfy.com/OjwY

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Leyte Gulf: The Largest Naval Battle in History and the Downfall of the Japanese Navy Aug 17, 2023

The WW2 battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval encounter in history and probably the most decisive naval battle of the entire Pacific War, and one that saw the Imperial Japanese Navy eliminated as an effective fighting force and forced to resort to suicide tactics.
Leyte was a huge and complex action, actually consisting of four major battles. And much of the accepted wisdom of the battle has developed from the many myths that surround it, myths that have become more firmly established over time, such as the “lost victory” of the Japanese advance into Leyte Gulf that never happened. To explore this battle is today’s guest, Mark Stille, author of “Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World’s Largest Sea Battle.”

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Britain Controlled the Globe by Farming Out Colonial Governance to the East Indian Company and other Corporations Aug 15, 2023

How did Britain – an island nation the same size as Oregon – manage to control most of the world through its colonial empires? The answer is that it didn’t, at least not directly. Britain farmed out control to its imperial holdings by granting land rights to joint-stock corporations. And many of them, like the East India Company, were sovereign nations in all but name.
Across four centuries, from Ireland to India, the Americas to Africa and Australia, British colonialism was above all the business of corporations. Corporations conceived, promoted, financed, and governed overseas expansion, making claims over territory and peoples while ensuring that British and colonial society were invested, quite literally, in their ventures. Colonial companies were also relentlessly controversial, frequently in debt, and prone to failure. The corporation was well-suited to overseas expansion not because it was an inevitable juggernaut but because, like empire itself, it was an elusive contradiction: public and private; person and society; subordinate and autonomous; centralized and diffuse; immortal and precarious; national and cosmopolitan—a legal fiction with very real power.
Breaking from traditional histories in which corporations take a supporting role by doing the dirty work of sovereign states in exchange for commercial monopolies, today’s guest, Philip Stern (author of Empire, Incorporated) argues that corporations took the lead in global expansion and administration. Whether in sixteenth-century Ireland and North America or the Falklands in the early 1980s, corporations were key players. And venture colonialism did not cease with the end of empire. Its legacies continue to raise questions about corporate power that are just as relevant today as they were 400 years ago.

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How the Monroe Doctrine Led to America Occupying Cuba, Panama, Hawaii, and Haiti Aug 10, 2023

Following the Napoleonic Wars, a tidal wave of independence movements hit the Western Hemisphere. The United States was afraid that expansionist powers—namely Britain, France, Germany, and Japan—might extend their empires into these regions, threatening the growth of fledgling republics in the Americas. This kicked off a century of American launching well-intentioned but bloody imperialism in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, with the annexation of Hawaii, the Spanish-American War, and military occupations of Cuba, Haiti, Panama, and other countries as a firewall against European expansion.
Only after making these preemptive incursions to restore order and support democracy in its “mortal combat” against imperialism, as Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan put it, did the U.S. get bogged down in interventionist quagmires.
Today’s guest is Sean Mirski, author of “We May Dominate the World: Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus.” Mirski examines a lost chapter of American foreign policy, the century following the Civil War in which the United States carved out a sphere of influence and became the only great power in modern history to achieve regional hegemony.
By understanding what drove the United States’ behavior, it offers a window into the trajectory that other regional powers—including China, Russia, and Iran—may take in the coming decades.

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A 1943 Translation Blunder Saved FDR, Churchill, and Eisenhower From Being Assassinated Aug 08, 2023

In a recently bombed, spy-infested Casablanca, Morocco, the architects of Allied victory in World War Two meet. It is January 1943, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and more assemble secretly at a resort hotel. Here, they will put together the plan to end the war – if they can make it out of the country alive. One word to the Germans, and it would be a bloodbath. Turns out, one word really was all they needed… to escape assassination. A spy in the Spanish division of German intelligence informs Berlin about the meeting at Casablanca. A wooden German officer, seemingly unfamiliar with Spanish or geography or both, translates “Casablanca” as “White House.” A slip-up that meant Hitler and his goons missed the singular chance to bomb the entire Allied command as they all assembled in one small spot. To talk about this incident and many more at the 1943 conference that determined the Allied course of the war (and the post-war world after that) is today’s guest Jim Conroy, author of “The Devilss Will Get No Rest: FDR, Churchill, and the Plan that Won the War.” We recount the the Casablanca Conference – a meeting that many historians now view as one of the most crucial conclaves directly associated with the Allied victory of World War II.

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James Garfield – Overlooked for his Short Presidency – Was the Most Beloved Politician of Reconstruction Aug 03, 2023

James Garfield was the last president born in a log cabin, and was raised by a poor widow on Ohio’s rugged Western Reserve. By his late twenties, he had become a respected preacher, state senator, and college president, and, after the Civil War broke out, joined the Union Army to help eradicate the “monstrous injustice of human slavery.” Soon Garfield was the youngest general fighting for the Union, and before war’s end was its youngest Congressman—as well as one of its most progressive. He helped establish equal citizenship and voting rights for Black Americans, and became one of the most powerful leaders of the postwar Republican Party. By 1880, Garfield was not only Minority Leader of the House, but also a practicing Supreme Court attorney, the founder of the Department of Education, the creator of a proof of the Pythagorean theorem, a Senator-elect, and (unwillingly) the Republican nominee for President. A more compelling “American Dream” story among Presidents does not exist.
Garfield’s personal achievements are even more notable given the turmoil surrounding his ascent to power. He was the only major American politician who held national office for all of Reconstruction and the start of the Gilded Age. A crucial pragmatist of a divided era, he even brokered the peaceful but controversial settlement of the country’s first disputed Presidential election in 1876. “To be an extreme man is doubtless comfortable,” Garfield once remarked before his assassination. “It is painful to see so many sides to a subject.” The parallels between his time and our own are easy to spot. To explore forgotten aspects of Garfield’s life is today’s guest, C.W. Goodyear, author of “President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier.”

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Road Tripping with Henry Ford and Thomas Edison Through Rural America In Beat-Up Model Ts Aug 01, 2023

Some of the most important moments in the lives of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison weren’t their inventions or business successes. It was their road trips through the most remote, rustic parts of America. Between 1916 and 1924, Ford, Edison, Harvey Firestone went on a number of camping trips. Calling themselves the Vagabonds, they set up campsites, took photographs, and fixed cars themselves. They were also joined by famous naturalist John Burroughs, an elderly writer with a large white beard who looked like a gold prospector.
The relationship began in 1913 between Burroughs, then 75, and Ford, nearly 50, and enjoying a banner year for the Model T. Both men were influenced by the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but they disagreed about the role of the automobile in American life.
To Ford’s chagrin, Burroughs wrote in an article in Atlantic Monthly that the automobile “was going to kill the appreciation of nature”; Ford believed it would open up facets of America that most people could not access. In response, Ford sent Burroughs a new Model T, which indeed changed the old naturalist’s life by prompting him to set out on wide-ranging road trips beyond his Hudson River homestead. Meanwhile, Ford and Edison, who had both “imbibed” the rural values of the Midwest, and Firestone, “the head of the largest tire manufacturing concern in the country,” were long-standing friends, busy plotting numerous new business ventures.
Their road trips became increasingly ambitious to San Francisco, the Adirondacks of New York, and the Green Mountains of Vermont. Davis chronicles the memorable road trip of summer 1918, when the fast friends—who held wildly different views about the impending war—drove from the Allegheny range through West Virginia and into the “rustic magic of the Great Smoky Mountains,” all in the spirit of curiosity and exploration.
To discuss these journeys, and the long-lasting impact it had on Ford, Edison, and 20th-century America, is today’s guest Wes Davis, author of “American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and John Burroughs.”

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Did the South Lose the Entire Civil War Because One General Got Lost at the Battle of Gettysburg? Jul 27, 2023

Did the Confederacy lose the entire Civil War on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 because one of their generals showed up late to a battle site? That’s a very simple answer to a very complicated question, but as early as the 1870s, former Confederate generals like Jubal Early offered such an explanation, laying the war’s loss at the feet of Lt. General James Longstreet, who was hours late to a battle because of faulty intelligence delivered to him by Captain Samuel Johnston.
Longstreet’s countermarch and Samuel Johnston’s morning reconnaissance are two of the most enigmatic events of the Battle of Gettysburg. Both have been viewed as major factors in the Confederacy’s loss of the battle and, in turn, the war. Yet much of it lies shrouded in mystery.
To explore this event, and determine whether or not the war was really lost in one day, is today’s guest Allen Thompson, author of In the Shadow of the Round Tops.
Though the Battle of Gettysburg is one of the most well-documented events in history, the vast majority of knowledge comes from the objective words and memories of the veterans and civilians who experienced it. In the Shadow of the Round Tops focuses on individual memory, rather than collective memory. It takes a personal psychological approach to history, trying to understand the people and explain why the historiography happened the way it did with new research from previously unused sources.

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Alexander the Great’s Final Battle Nearly Killed Him with Drowning and War Elephants Jul 25, 2023

In the years that followed Alexander the Great’s victory at Gaugamela on October 1, 331 BC, his Macedonian and Greek army fought a truly ‘Herculean’ series of campaigns in what is today Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. But it was in the Indus Valley, on the banks of the Hydaspes River (known today as the Jhelum) in 326 BC that Alexander would fight his last major battle against King Poros.
Alexander used feints and deception to transport a select force from his army across the swollen River Hydaspes without attracting the enemy’s attention, allowing his troops the crucial element of surprise. There was a fascinating array of forces that clashed in the battle, including Indian war elephants and chariots, and horse archers and phalanx formations.
Although a tactical masterpiece, the Hydaspes was the closest that Alexander the Great came to defeat, and was one of the costliest battles fought by his near- exhausted army. To examine this battle is today’s guest, Nic Fields, author of “The Hydaspes 326 BC: The Limit of Alexander the Great’s Conquests.

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In 1938, America Underwent a 7-Year Transformation From an Weak, Pacifist Nation to the Arsenal of Democracy Jul 20, 2023

Nobody would have thought that the United States could fight in a world war in 1938, let alone be a major reason for victory. That year, it was so politically isolationist and pacifist that its defense forces were smaller than Portugal’s, and Charles Lindbergh was so forceful in his public praise of Nazi air power that Göring decorated him with the German. But while this was going on, Franklin Roosevelt ordered the federal government to spark a dramatic expansion in domestic airplane production, and this minor effort — three years before Pearl Harbor — would in time become the arsenal of democracy, the full-throttle unleashing of American enterprise that was the secret weapon for victory in World War II. Combined with Roosevelt’s public fight with Lindbergh -- known as the Great Debate — victory at land and sea and air across the globe began at home in America.
Today’s guest is Craig Nelson, author of “V is for Victory: Franklin Roosevelt’s American Revolution and the Triumph of World War II.” Revealing an era when Detroit was Silicon Valley, Ford was Apple, and Sears Roebuck was Amazon, we see how during the war years, America built 2.5 million trucks, 500k jeeps, 286k aircraft, 86k tanks, and 2.6 million machine guns. More importantly, Roosevelt said that it wasn’t these weapons that were the real arsenal of democracy, but the American people themselves.

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Exploring the Aztec Empire and Indigenous Mexico Jul 19, 2023

This is a preview of Mark Vinet's "History of North America." Explore one of the most glorious Mesoamerican societies and encounter the Pre-Hispanic Mexico ancient culture & civilization that was the Aztec Empire with this special episode from the History of North America podcast, hosted by Mark Vinet.
Subscribe to History of North America: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3NMEUTz Spotify: https://sptfy.com/Ojwu
Discover more episodes of History of North America: Deep Timeline of USA, Canada and Mexico: https://apple.co/44jjZP5 / https://sptfy.com/OjwC Dinosaur Extinction to the Arrival of Humans: https://apple.co/3pFt062 / https://sptfy.com/OjwG Did China Discover America in 1421?: https://apple.co/3D5G7jZ / https://sptfy.com/OjwI Sir Ferdinando Gorges: https://apple.co/3pM3VGv / https://sptfy.com/OjwN

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The First War on Terror: How Europe Fought Anarchist Suicide Attacks, From 1850 to WW1 Jul 18, 2023

At the end of the nineteenth century, the world came to know and fear terrorism. Much like today, this was a time of progress and dread, in which breakthroughs in communications and weapons were made, political reforms were implemented, and immigration waves bolstered the populations of ever-expanding cities.
This era also simmered with political rage and social inequalities, which drove nationalists, nihilists, anarchists and republicans to dynamite cities and discharge pistols into the bodies of presidents, police chiefs and emperors. The most notorious incidents were Tsar Alexander II’s murder by the People’s Will in 1881, and the dynamiting of the Café Terminus in Paris in 1894, specifically targeting innocents.
This wave of terrorism was seized upon by an outrage-hungry press that peddled hysteria, conspiracy theories and, sometimes, fake news in response, convincing many a reader that they were living through the end of days.
Against the backdrop of this world of fear and disorder, today’s guest, James Crossland, author of “The Rise of Devils,” discusses the journeys of the men and women who evoked this panic and created modern terrorism “revolutionary” philosophers, cult leaders, criminals and charlatans, as well the paranoid police chiefs and unscrupulous spies who tried to thwart them. We examine how radicals once thought just in their causes became, as Pope Pius IX denounced them, little more than “devils risen up from Hell”.

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The Italian Squad: A Group of 1920s NYPD Immigrant Detectives Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia Jul 13, 2023

The story begins in Sicily, on Friday, March 12th, 1909. Three gunshots thundered in the night, and then a fourth. Two men fled, and investigators soon discovered who they had killed: Giuseppe Petrosino, the legendary American detective whose exploits in New York were celebrated even in Italy. He was part of the “Italian Squad,” a group of immigrant NYPD members who battled increasingly powerful gangsters and crooked politicians in the early 20th century. They were famous for meting out tough justice to criminals who comprised the “Black Hand,” an international extortion ring. Beyond trying to prevent horrific crimes—nighttime bombings in crowded tenements, kidnappings that targeted children at play, gangland shootings that killed innocent bystanders—the Italian Squad commanders hoped to persuade society of what they knew for themselves: that their fellow immigrant Italians, so often maligned, would make good American citizens. Today’s guest is Paul Moses, author of “The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia.”

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Conspiracy Theories Haunt the Assassination of MLK 55 Years After His Death Jul 11, 2023

Doubts about James Earl Ray, Dr. Martin Luther King’s lone assassin, arose almost immediately after the civil rights leader was fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. From the start, his aides voiced suspicions that a conspiracy was responsible for their leader’s death. Over time many Americans became convinced the government investigations covered up the truth about the alleged assassin. Exactly what led Ray to kill King continues to be a source of debate, as does his role in the murder.
However, today’s guest, Mel Ayton, believe the answers to the many intriguing questions about Ray and how conspiracy ideas flourished can now be fully understood. Missing from the wild speculations over the past fifty-two years has been a thorough investigation of the character of King’s assassin. Additionally, the author examines exactly how the conspiracy notions came about and the falsehoods that led to their promulgation.
Mel is the author of The Man Who Killed Martin Luther King, the first full account of the life of James Earl Ray based on scores of interviews provided to government and non-government investigators and from the FBI’s and Scotland Yard’s files, plus the recently released Tennessee Department of Corrections prison record on Ray.
In the short-lived freedom he acquired after escaping from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1967, following being sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses, he traveled to Los Angeles and decided to seek notoriety as the one who would stalk and kill Dr. King, who he had come to hate vehemently.

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Early 1800s Newspaperman William Hunter Was a British Soldier’s Son Who Built Early America Jul 06, 2023

In June 1798, President John Adams signed the now infamous Alien & Sedition Acts to suppress political dissent. Facing imminent personal risks, a gutsy Kentucky newspaper editor ran the first editorial denouncing the law's attempt to stifle the freedom of the press. Almost immediately, government lawyers recommended his arrest and prosecution. That editor was William Hunter, amazingly, the son of a British soldier.
Witnessing first-hand the terrors of combat and twice experiencing capture, Hunter wrote the only surviving account written by a child of a British soldier during the American Revolution. Previously unknown, the journal is one of the most important document discoveries in recent years. William Hunter represents a previously underappreciated community leader who made essential contributions to developing democratic and civic institutions in Early America.
To discuss Hunter is today’s guest, Gene Procknow, author of William Hunter: Finding Free Speech.

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Long Before Seabiscuit, a Civil War-era Racehorse Smashed Records and Sired Thousands of Colts Jul 04, 2023

The early days of American horse racing in the pre-Civil War era were grueling. Four-mile races, run two or three times in succession, were the norm, rewarding horses who brandished the ideal combination of stamina and speed. The stallion Lexington, named after the city in Kentucky where he was born, possessed these winning qualities, which pioneering Americans prized.
Lexington shattered the world speed record for a four-mile race. He would continue his winning career until deteriorating eyesight forced his retirement in 1855. But once his groundbreaking achievements as a racehorse ended, his role as a sire began. Horses from his bloodline won more money than the offspring of any other Thoroughbred—an annual success that led Lexington to be named America’s leading sire an unprecedented sixteen times. Yet with the Civil War raging, Lexington’s years at a Kentucky stud farm were far from idyllic. Confederate soldiers ran amok, looting freely and kidnapping horses from the top stables. They soon focused on the prized Lexington and his valuable progeny.  Kim Wickens, a lawyer and dressage rider, became fascinated by this legendary horse when she learned that twelve of Thoroughbred racing’s thirteen Triple Crown winners descended from Lexington – plus the first seventeen winners of the Kentucky Derby. She is the author of the book “Lexington” and presents an account of the raucous beginning of American horse racing and introduces them to the stallion at its heart. We see what happens to Lexington and how he and his progeny has entered the bloodline of nearly every horse who ran after him.

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How the 1910 Return of Halley's Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization Jun 29, 2023

Halley’s Comet visits the earth every seventy-five years. Since the dawn of civilization, humans had believed comets were evil portents. In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from these primordial superstitions (or so it was thought), proving that Newtonian mechanics rather than the will of the gods brought comets into our celestial neighborhood. Despite this scientific advance, when Halley’s Comet returned in 1910 and astronomers announced that our planet would pass through its poisonous tail, newspapers gleefully provoked a global hysteria that unfolded with tragic consequences. In “Comet Madness: How the 1910 Return of Halley's Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization,” Richard J. Goodrich examines the 1910 appearance of Halley’s Comet and the ensuing frenzy sparked by media manipulation, bogus science, and outright deception. The result is a fascinating and illuminating narrative history that underscores how we behave in the face of potential calamity – then and now. As the comet neared Earth, scientists and journalists alike scrambled to get the story straight as citizens the world over panicked. Popular astronomer Camille Flammarion attempted to allay fears in a newspaper article, but the media ignored his true position that passage would be harmless; weather prophet Irl Hicks, publisher of an annual, pseudo-scientific almanac, announced that the comet would disrupt the world’s weather; religious leaders thumbed the Bible’s Book of Revelation and wondered if the comet presaged the apocalypse. Newspapers, confident that there was gold in these alternate theories, gave every crackpot a megaphone, increasing circulation and stoking international hysteria. As a result, workmen shelved their tools, farmers refused to plant crops they would never harvest, and formerly reliable people stopped paying their creditors. More opportunistic citizens opened “comet insurance” plans. Others suffered mental breakdowns, and some took their own lives.
We will see how humans confront the unknown, how scientists learn about the world we inhabit, and how certain people—from outright hucksters to opportunistic journalists—harness fear to produce a profit.

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The Coronation of Charles III and the Meaning Behind His Vestments, 5-Pound Crown, and the "Sovereign Orb" Jun 27, 2023

Charles III was crowned king of England on May 6, 2023, the first of its kind in 70 years. He wore regalia that look straight out of a portrait of Charlemagne: the St. Edward’s Crown, which wegiths five pounds and has 444 gemstones; the “Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross,” a three-foot gold rod set with the largest stone cut from the largest diamond ever discovered; and The “Sovereign’s Orb,” a huge sphere that represent his command of the known world. We look the incredibly thick symbolism of this event and compare-and-contrast it to Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years ago.
To explain the significance of these ceremonies is Jennifer Robson, author of “Coronation Year,” a historical fiction book set in 1953, when Elizabeth is about to be crowned.

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Why Did WW2 Advance Civil Rights When WW1 Reversed Them? Here's What WEB DuBois Said Jun 22, 2023

Many of us think that we know all there is to know about W.E.B Du Bois was the early 20th century’s most significant thinker, writer, and philosopher of the U.S. civil rights movement. He saw an extraordinary opportunity during World War 1 to advance the rights of black Americans. He encouraged them to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause in World War 1, enlisting to fight in the war. This decision would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for over two decades, Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of black participation in World War 1. His book, however, remained unpublished. Today’s guest is Chad Williams, author of “The Wounded World,” an account of Du Bois’s efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works of history. He reveals Du Bois’s struggles to reckon with both the history and troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for black people in the 20th century. He also addresses larger questions of why lynchings against black Americans spiked following the war.

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What It Was Like to be a WW2 Paratrooper Jun 20, 2023

When General Douglas MacArthur fled the Phillipines in the beginning of World War Two, he swore to return, and did so in 1944 in an epic battle in which the Allies faced banzai charges, jungle warfare, and the block-by-block battle to retake Manila. Critical players were the 11th Airborne Division, one of five of America’s paratrooper divisions, who battled a fanatical enemy but also the sweltering tropical landscape, insects, and disease. To share their story is today’s guest James Fenelon, author of Angels Against the Sun: A WWII Saga of Grunts, Grit, and Brotherhood. The Pacific theater of WWII pitted the 11th Airborne against the merciless Japanese army and the combined enemy of monsoons, swamps, mud, privation, and disease. These rowdy paratroopers, serving under General Joseph Swing answered the call and fought in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific War.

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Vlad the Impaler is the (Partial) Inspiration for Count Dracula Jun 15, 2023

Vampire lore goes back to the ancient world (revenant legends abound from Rome to China) but vampire mythology doesn't come into its own until at least the Renaissance period. Was the inspiration for it all the bloodthirsty Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes, the ruler who impaled tens of thousands in the 1400s? Was he the direct inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula? Partially yes, but it's not as clear cut as most think. In this episode we will sink our fangs into vampire lore, the reign of Vlad Tepes, and where Bram Stoker got his ideas for his most famous novel.

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In the Premodern Era, Survival Meant Overcoming Earthquakes, Sieges, Global Cooling, Asteroid Strikes, and Cannibalism Jun 13, 2023

Have you ever wondered if you could have survived the eruption at Pompeii, escaped San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake, found a seat on Titanic's lifeboats, outrun the Goths in the Sack of Rome, or lived through the apocalyptic Chicxulub asteroid strike?
Surprisingly, the answer to all those questions is yes, even the last one. Today’s guest Cody Cassidy discusses the reasons that the past had an incredibly high mortality rate, along with survival strategies that humans used to keep from extinction. He is the author of “How to Survive History” and helps us appreciate the challenges our predecessors faced.

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The Time in 1943 That Eleanor Roosevelt Disappeared for 10 Days in the South Pacific Jun 08, 2023

Eleanor Roosevelt is undisputedly one of America’s most influential First Ladies. She used the office to promote international initiatives that stabilized global peace after the hellish destruction of World War Two, doing such things as securing the passage of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
But one thing few know is that for 10 days the First Lady went missing. In August of 1943, Eleanor was not attending to her domestic duties at the White House, in fact, she was nowhere to be found. Later, Americans would read in newspapers that Eleanor’s whereabouts had been discovered—she was on the other side of the world.
In an unprecedented mission which only a handful of First Ladies since have ever attempted, Eleanor’s assignment was to go undercover into a battle zone and report back, firsthand, what America’s servicemen and women were facing... and bring secret information back to the Oval Office. At a time when commercial air travel was unrefined (transcontinental flights took at least 20 hours and involved several fueling stops) and war was still active in the South Pacific, Eleanor faced dangers every day to complete her secret mission and boost troop morale.
Today’s guest is Shannon McKenna Schmidt, author of The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back. She shares the largely untold story of Eleanor’s top-secret mission to the Pacific theater that had ripple effects throughout the 20th century.

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"Witches" Weren't Burned During The Middle Ages. That Actually Happened in the Renaissance Period. Jun 06, 2023

At the height of the witch burning craze, thousands people, largely women, were falsely accused of witchcraft. Many of them were burned, hanged, and executed, typically under religious pretense. But this phenomena largely didn’t happen in the Middle Ages, and if so it only occurred at the very end of this period.
Witch burnings did not begin en masse until the Renaissance period and did not peak until the Enlightenment period in the eighteenth century. Although executions by being burn at the stake were somewhat common in the Middle Ages, they were not used on “witches”—only heretics and other disobeyers of Catholic teachings received this ignominious death. Witch trials and their accusations of weather manipulation, transforming into animals, and child sacrifices, have no documented occurrence before 1400.

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Pandemics Cause Misery and Death, But They Also Created Agriculture and Put Humans on Top of the Food Chain Jun 01, 2023

Three years into a global pandemic, the fact that infectious disease is capable of reshaping humanity is obvious. But seen in the context of sixty thousand years of human and scientific history, COVID-19 is simply the latest in a series of world-changing pathogens. In fact, the role that humans play in social and political change is often overstated. Instead, bacteria and viruses have been the invisible protagonists of mankind's ever-evolving story. Today’s guest is Jonathan Kennedy, author of “Pathogensis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues.” We discuss how Neanderthals and other early species of humans died out—not because they were cognitively inferior to Homo sapiens but because they were vulnerable to the diseases they carried; how disease triggered the agricultural revolution and allowed it to spread; how plague outbreaks in the 6th and 7th centuries led to the creation of modern states in Western Europe and the transformation of Islam into a world religion; and how infectious diseases aided the colonization of the Americas but inhibited the colonization of Africa

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The 1920s Female Hungarian Murder Ring That Left 160 Dead May 30, 2023

The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in 1920s Hungary. Investigators would discover that a murder ring of women was responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men. It was an unlikely lineup of killers—village wives, mothers, and daughters. At the center of it all was a sharp-minded village midwife, a “smiling Buddha” known as Auntie Suzy, who distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév. “Why are you bothering with him?” Auntie Suzy would ask, as she produced an arsenic-filled vial from her apron pocket. In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses. But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. With each vial of poison emptied, a new reason surfaced to drain yet another. Some women disposed of sickly relatives. Some used arsenic as “inheritance powder” to secure land and houses. For more than fifteen years, the unlikely murderers aided death unfettered and tended to it as if it were simply another chore—spooning doses of arsenic into soup and wine, stirring it into coffee and brandy. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead. Todays guest is Patti McCracken, author of “The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring.” We explore whether these murders were of a very particular time and place, or if they could happen anywhere if the right conditions emerge.

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How a Flying Ace Survived 24 Days Lost at Sea on the Pacific May 25, 2023

Eddie Rickenbacker shouldn’t have survived—his childhood, his auto racing career, the first World War as he became America’s greatest ace, the many plane crashes that had taken others’ lives but yet, not his. A Medal of Honor recipient, he became a genuine icon and hero to the American people, providing a reason to celebrate during the Depression and inspiring them to face life’s daily challenges. But then, in his 50s in 1942, Rickenbacker faced his worst odds yet: a B-17 bomber forced to ditch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with only inflatable rafts to survive the searing days and freezing
nights—and no way to contact anyone. To tell Eddie’s story is today’s guest, John Wukovits, author of “Lost at Sea: Eddie Rickenbacker's Twenty-Four Days Adrift on the Pacific.” We look at his fight for survival with seven other men adrift on the Pacific. We also look at how many times Eddie Rickenbacker actually defied death—including one airline crash when a dislodged eyeball dangled on his cheek, and yet he tried to help the other
people escape while he remained pinned inside the plane.

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Civil War Barons: The Tycoons, Entrepreneurs, and Inventors and Visionaries Who Forged Victory and Shaped a Nation May 25, 2023

The American Civil War brought with it unprecedented demands upon the warring sections—North and South. The conflict required a mobilization and an organization of natural and man-made resources on a massive scale.
In this episode I talk with Jeffry Wert, author of the new book Civil War Barons, which profiles the contributions of nineteen Northern businessmen to the Union cause. They were tinkerers, inventors, improvisers, builders, organizers, entrepreneurs, and all visionaries. They contributed to the war effort in myriad ways: they operated railroads, designed repeating firearms, condensed milk, sawed lumber, cured meat, built warships, purified medicines, forged iron, made horseshoes, constructed wagons, and financed a war. And some of their names and companies have endured—Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Deere, McCormick, Studebaker, Armour, and Squibb.
The eclectic group includes Henry Burden, a Scottish immigrant who invented a horseshoe-making machine in the 1830s, who refined the process to be able to forge a horseshoe every second, supplying the Union army with 70 million horseshoes during the four years. John Deere’s plows “sang through the rich sod, portending bountiful harvests for a Union in peril.” And Jay Cooke emerged from the war as the most famous banker in America, earning a reputation for trustworthiness with his marketing of government bonds.

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The Forage War of 1777 Saw George Washington Launch Numerous Hit-and-Run Assaults on the British that Crippled the Army May 23, 2023

In late December 1776, the American War of Independence appeared to
be on its last legs. General George Washington’s continental forces had
been reduced to a shadow of their former strength, the British Army
had chased them across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, and
enlistments for many of the rank and file would be up by month’s end.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and George
Washington responded to this crisis with astonishing audacity. On
Christmas night 1776, he recrossed the Delaware as a nor’easter
churned up the coast, burying his small detachment under howling
sheets of snow and ice. Undaunted, they attacked a Hessian brigade at
Trenton, New Jersey, taking the German auxiliaries by complete
surprise. Then, only three days later, Washington struck again, crossing
the Delaware, slipping away from the British at Trenton, and attacking
the Redcoats at Princeton—to their utter astonishment.
The British, now back on their heels, retreated toward New Brunswick
as Washington’s reinvigorated force followed them north into Jersey.
Over the next eight months, Washington’s continentals and the state
militias of New Jersey would go head-to-head with the British in a
multitude of small-scale actions and large-scale battles, eventually
forcing the British to flee New Jersey by sea. In this narrative of the American War of Independence, today’s guest Jim Stempel, author of “The Enemy Harassed: Washington's New Jersey Campaign of 1777” brings to life one of the most violent, courageous, yet virtually forgotten periods of the Revolutionary War.

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Medieval Gender Roles Were Much More -- and Less -- Strict Than We Can Imagine May 18, 2023

The Middle Ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, saints and kings: a patriarchal society which oppressed and excluded women. But when we dig a little deeper into the truth, we can see that the “dark” ages were anything but.
Oxford and BBC historian Janina Ramirez, today’s guest author of the new book “Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It,” has uncovered countless influential women's names struck out of historical records, with the word FEMINA annotated beside them. Only now, through a careful examination of the artefacts, writings and possessions they left behind, are the influential and multifaceted lives of women emerging. Femina goes beyond the official records to uncover the true impact of women, such as: · Jadwiga, the only female King in Europe · Margery Kempe, who exploited her image and story to ensure her notoriety · Loftus Princess, whose existence gives us clues about the beginnings of Christianity in England

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Firsthand Account of the Vietnam War from a "Tunnel Rat" May 17, 2023

In this snippet from Josh Cohen's "Eyewitness History," Vietnam War veteran & "tunnel rat" Nick Sanza discusses his experience overseas, what it's like coming from a long lineage of military service, and what he learned from the tunnels in this interview from the Eyewitness History podcast.
Continue listening to Eyewitness History:
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/44jShCi
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3LPfaXd
Discover more episodes of Eyewitness History:
Podcasting Inventor Adam Curry: https://apple.co/44kEfQV / https://spoti.fi/410f3MF
Ex Double Agent & Nelson Mandela Spy Bradley Steyn: https://apple.co/3LN9EEp / https://spoti.fi/3oZtqUi
Holocaust Survivor Gene Klein: https://apple.co/3EhOIQK / https://spoti.fi/3g7VGQA
WWII Veteran Vince Speranza: https://apple.co/3gh33VN / https://spoti.fi/3tAxTM2
Queen Keyboardist Spike Edney: https://apple.co/3Ocx6dR / https://spoti.fi/3OhXLGg

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Why Do We Consider Assyria The Most Sadistically Violent Empire When Oftentimes It Wasn't? May 16, 2023

At its height in 660 BCE, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was the first empire the world had ever seen. Assyria’s wide-ranging conquests have long been known from the Hebrew Bible and later Greek accounts (and its reputation for unspeakable cruelty, with images of Assyrians skinning its enemies alive carved into stone on an Assyrian royal palace). But nearly two centuries of research now permit a rich picture of the Assyrians and their empire beyond the battlefield: their vast libraries and monumental sculptures, their elaborate trade and information networks, and the crucial role played by royal women. Today’s guest is Eckart Frahm, author of “Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire.” Using archaeological research, along with the study of tens of thousands of cuneiform texts, researchers have been able to construct a more accurate depiction of Assyrian life, revealing the empire’s enduring impact on global civilization. Frahm shows how despite its war-prone image, Assyria proved innovative in the realms of architecture, arts, technology, and diplomacy. Readers will learn about the elaborate “Royal Road” that enabled trade and communication over vast distances, how Assyrian scholars created the first universal library, and about the impact of plagues and climate change on the empire’s fortunes.

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Moral Panics and Mass Hysteria: The Dancing Plague, Salem Witch Trials, and The Tulip Market Bubble May 11, 2023

One person's psychosis can be easily dismissed, but how do we account for collective hysteria, when an entire crowd sees the same illusion or suffer from the same illness? It's enough to make somebody believe in dark magic and pick up their pitchfork, ready to hang an accused witch.
Sadly, such paranoia has led to many witch hunts in the past. In today's episode we look at some of the most notorious historical cases of mass hysteria and moral panics. But these cases don't only extend to Puritan-era witch panics. We will also look at cases that hit closer to home—such as economic bubbles and the housing market crash of the early 2000s.
This episode includes such cases of mass hysteria as
-- Dancing mania, in which German peasants in 1374 spent weeks dancing in a fugue state, with some toppling over dead from utter exhaustion
-- The cat nuns of medieval France, where the sisters became to inexplicably meow together, leaving the surrounding community perplexed
-- The Salem Witch trials, where 19 were executed due to claims of sorcery
-- The Jersey Devil Panic, in which dozens of newspapers claimed in 1909 that a winged creature attacked a trolley car in Haddon Heights

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A French Archeologist – Considered the Female Indiana Jones – Saved Dozens of Ancient Egyptian Temples From Flooding May 09, 2023

In the 1960s, the world’s attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time: Fifty countries contributed nearly a billion dollars to save a dozen ancient Egyptian temples, built during the height of the pharaohs’ rule, from drowning in the floodwaters of the gigantic new Aswan High Dam. But the massive press coverage of this unprecedented rescue effort completely overlooked the gutsy French archaeologist who made it all happen. Without the intervention of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, the temples—including the Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur—would be at the bottom of a huge reservoir. It was a project of unimaginable size and complexity that required the fragile sandstone temples to be dismantled, stone by stone, and rebuilt on higher ground.
A willful, real-life version of Indiana Jones, Desroches-Noblecourt refused to be cowed by anyone or anything. As a member of the French Resistance in World War II she had survived imprisonment by the Nazis; in her fight to save the temples, she defied two of the most daunting leaders of the postwar world, Egyptian President Abdel Nasser and French President Charles de Gaulle. As she told one reporter, “You don't get anywhere without a fight, you know.” Yet Desroches-Noblecourt was not the only woman who played a crucial role in the endeavor. The other was Jacqueline Kennedy, America’s new First Lady, who persuaded her husband to call on Congress to help fund the rescue effort. After a century and a half of Western plunder of Egypt’s ancient monuments, Desroches-Noblecourt had done the opposite. She had helped preserve a crucial part of its cultural heritage and, just as important, made sure it remained in its homeland.
Today’s guest is Lynne Olson, author of “Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archeologist Who Saved Egypt’s Ancient Temples.” We discuss why Christiane Desroches is something of a real-life female Indiana Jones, what tactics Desroches used to save Egyptian antiquities from flooding in the Nile basin, and how important her intervention was to the effort.

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Eugenics is Considered a Form of Scientific Fascism Today, But 100 Years Ago It Was Universally Popular May 04, 2023

Inspired by Charles Darwin’s ideas about evolution, the theory of eugenics arose in Victorian England as a proposal for ‘improving’ the British population. It quickly spread to America, where it was embraced by presidents, funded by Gilded Age monopolists, and enshrined into racist laws that became the ideological cornerstone of the Third Reich. Despite this horrific legacy, eugenics looms large today as the advances in genetics in the last thirty years—from the sequencing of the human genome to modern gene editing techniques—have brought the idea of population purification back into the mainstream. Today’s guest, Adam Rutherford, author of “Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics” calls eugenics “a defining idea of the twentieth century.” Eugenics has “a short history, but a long past,” Rutherford writes. With roots in key philosophical texts of the classical world that formed the basis of the Nazi worldview and the rationale for genocide, eugenics still informs present-day discussions and beliefs about race supremacy and genetic purity. It remains an eternal temptation to powerful people who wish to sculpt society through reproductive control.

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James Early Launches New Series: The Second World War in Europe May 03, 2023

The roots of the Second World War in Europe lie within the First World War. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles formally ended the war between Germany and the western Allies, but the geopolitical situation it created was far from stable. Ten years later, the Great Depression made things even worse. In this episode preview from Key Battles of American History (the first in the World War II in Europe series), James and cohost Sean McIver discuss the unsettled state of Europe between 1918 and 1930 and the gradual fracturing of the uneasy peace that it enjoyed.
To continue listening to Key Battles of American History, check out the links below!
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3nCfZZy
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3nIwO5c

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Light-Horse Harry Lee: A Founding Father's Journey From Glory to Ruin May 02, 2023

The history of the American Revolution is written by and about the victors like Washington, Jefferson, and Adams. But separating the heroes from the villains is not so black and white.
So how should we remember a man like Major General Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee III—the father of Robert E. Lee— who rose to glory, helped shape the fabric of America, but ultimately ended his life in ruin? He is responsible for valiant victories, enduring accomplishments, and catastrophic failures.
Today I'm speaking with Ryan Cole, author of the new book Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero
We discuss how he was a...
Brilliant cavalryman who played a crucial role in Nathanael Greene’s strategy that led to Britain’s surrender at Yorktown
Close friend of George Washington—he gave the famous eulogy of “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen” which is widely quoted today
Strong supporter of the Constitution—his arguments led Virginia, the most influential colony in the soon-to-be country, to ratify it
Victim of a violent political mob—he was beaten with clubs, his nose was partially sliced off, and hot wax was dripped into his eyes

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Abraham Lincoln’s Religious Transformation Mirrored Larger Revival Trends of 1860s America Apr 27, 2023

Abraham Lincoln, unlike most of his political brethren, kept organized Christianity at arm’s length. He never joined a church and only sometimes attended Sunday services with his wife. But over the course of his life, the erstwhile skeptic effectively evolved into the nation’s first evangelical president. The Civil War, he told Americans, was divine retribution for the sin of slavery.
“Lincoln’s God: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation” by today’s guest Joshua Zeitz, is the story of that transformation, the role Lincoln’s conversion played in the war, and the way it in turn transformed Protestantism. Rather than focus on battles and personalities, we explore the social impact of the war on Northerners’ spiritual worldview, and the ways in which religion helped millions of Northerners interpret the carnage and political upheaval of the 1850s and 1860s. about the book. Long underestimated in accounts of the Civil War, religion—specifically evangelical Christianity—played an instrumental role on the battlefield and home front, and in the corridors of government.

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Augustine Built the Medieval World With the Help of His Mother, Concubine, Empress, and 10-Year-Old Fiancé Apr 25, 2023

Saint Augustine of Hippo is one of the most important figures of the Latin Middle Ages, and his writings have shaped Western thought on marriage and sexuality. However, few have considered the deeply influential role of the women in his life and how they shaped his thinking. Drawing on how Augustine’s presents them in his startlingly intimate memoir, Confessions, it becomes clear that this canonical Western is not only arguably the first autobiography; it offers a rare account of the Classical World through the eyes of women. Today’s guest is Kate Cooper, author of Queens of a Fallen World, a book that explores the troubled world of the waning Roman Empire through the lens of four prominent women whose lives were chronicled in Saint Augustine of Hippo’s startlingly intimate memoir, Confessions — Justina, the troubled empress of ancient Rome; Tacita, the ten-year-old Milanese heiress from whom Augustine broke his engagement, irrevocably altering the course of both their lives; Monica of Thagaste, Augustine’s mother; and Una, Augustine’s mistress, companion of fifteen years and mother to his illegitimate son. It's a story of not only Augustine, but, more broadly, the role of women in Antiquity.

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When Irish Vets of the American Civil War Invaded Canada in 1866 Apr 20, 2023

One year after the Civil War ended, a group of delusional and mostly incompetent commanders sponsored by bitterly competing groups riddled with spies, led tiny armies against the combined forces of the British, Canadian, and American governments. They were leaders of America’s feuding Irish émigré groups who thought they could conquer Canada and blackmail Great Britain (then the world's military superpower) into granting Ireland its independence.
The story behind the infamous 1866 Fenian Raids seems implausible (and whiskey-fueled), but ultimately is an inspiring tale of heroic patriotism. Inspired by a fervent love for Ireland and a burning desire to free her from British rule, members of the Fenian Brotherhood – a semi-secret band of Irish-American revolutionaries – made plans to seize the British province of Canada and hold it hostage until the independence of Ireland was secured.
When the Fenian Raids began, Ireland had been subjugated by Britain for over seven hundred years. The British had taken away Ireland’s religion, culture, and language, and when the Great Hunger stuck, they even took away her food, exporting it to other realms of the British Empire. Those who escaped the famine and fled to America were inspired by the revolutionary actions of the Civil War to fight for their own country’s freedom. After receiving a promise from President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward not to interfere with any military plans, the Fenian Brotherhood - which included a one-armed Civil War hero, an English spy posing as French sympathizer, an Irish revolutionary who faked his own death to escape capture, and a Fenian leader turned British loyalist – began to implement their grand plan to secure Ireland’s freedom. They executed daring prison breaks from an Australian penal colony, conducted political assassinations and engaged in double-dealings, managing to seize a piece of Canada for three days.
Today I'm speaking with Christopher Klein, author of the book WHEN THE IRISH INVADED CANADA: The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom. He brings light to this forgotten but fascinating story in history.

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The Destructive Power of the Family, From Oedipus to the Godfather Apr 18, 2023

Family has been an inexhaustible source of conflict for writers from the ancient to modern worlds – maybe even more inexhaustible than war. From Greek dramatists Aeschylus and Sophocles to Confucius, family is a source of both self-destruction and self-actualization. In this episode, we explore how family dynamics have changed over the centuries but have surprisingly universal characteristics across time and space. We are joined by Krishnan Venkatesh, host of the “Continuing the Conversation” podcast. We being with a journey deep into the heart of Thebes—where King Laius has died at the hands of his own son Oedipus, and Oedipus has unwittingly married his mother Jocasta—and a subtler journey into the world of 20th century Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu, where a happily domiciled father and daughter, Somiya and Noriko, will be ripped apart by the norms and expectations of tradition. This is an exploration of the nature of family, the tension between the safety and anxiety that family creates, and the rich and multiple ways that different societies express these insights.

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A 15th-Century Islamic Scholar Has Surprisingly Contemporary Advice on Handling Pandemics Apr 13, 2023

Six hundred years ago, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani —an esteemed judge, poet, and scholar in Cairo— wrote “Merits of the Plague,” a landmark work of history and religious thought that looked at accounts of centuries worth of plague outbreak and their possible origins, along with explanations of why God would allow such devastation to take place. This work wasn’t only theoretical but also based on experience. He survived the bubonic plague, which took the lives of three of his children, not to mention tens of millions of others throughout the medieval world. Holding up an eerie mirror to our own time, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani reflects on the origins of plagues—from those of Muhammad’s era to the Black Death of his own—and what it means that such catastrophes could have been willed by God, while also chronicling the fear, isolation, scapegoating, economic tumult, political failures, and crises of faith that he lived through. But in considering the meaning of suffering and mass death, he also offers a message of radical hope. Today’s guests are Joel Blecher and Mairaj Syed, editors and translators of the book into modern English. We discuss the book and how it weaves together accounts of evil jinn, religious stories, medical manuals, death-count registers, poetry, and the author’s personal anecdotes. “Merits of the Plague” is a profound reminder that with tragedy comes one of the noblest expressions of our humanity: the practice of compassion, patience, and care for those around us.

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Andrew Jackson’s Victory in the Creek War Set the Stage for Southern Secession 50 Years Later Apr 11, 2023

An oft-overlooked chapter in American History is the Creek War, a conflict between the Creek Indians and a young United States hungry for expansion in the early 1800s. It’s remembered as an important early chapter in the life of Andrew Jackson, but what few realize is that it altered the course of early American history more than any other event, opening the Deep South to plantation cultivation and setting the stage for the Civil War. Today’s guest is Peter Cozzens, author of “A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South.” We discuss the dispossession of Indian lands by the young American republic and an unexplored piece of early American history, and a vivid portrait of Jackson as a young, ambitious, and cruel military commander.

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After Woodrow Wilson Suffered a Stroke, His Wife Edith Secretly Served As President for a Year Apr 06, 2023

The United States has yet to elect its first female president, but over a century ago, there was a woman acting as the leader of this nation—before women could even vote nationwide. Her name was Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson. When Woodrow was incapacitated by a stroke in 1919, this fact was hidden from the public, Congress, and nearly everyone but his closest allies. Edith ran the executive branch, while at the same time downplaying her own role and influence. Portrayals of Edith tended to cast her as either a naïve rube who was manipulated by sophisticated political strategists or a power-hungry climber who seized control for her own gratification. But she was far more complex than these caricatures. Edith was raised by Confederates who mourned their lost plantation lifestyle, then rose to social prominence in the glittering years of Gilded Age Washington, then was elevated of the role of First Lady, just as the U.S. was becoming an international superpower. Today’s guest is Rebecca Boggs Roberts, author of “Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson.” We look at her many contradictions – an independent woman of means (who owned her own business and was the first licensed female driver in DC), at once deeply invested in exercising her own power but also opposed to women’s suffrage.

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Victory Gardens Produced Nearly Half of America’s Fresh Produce in WW2. With Today's Supply-Chain Meltdowns, Are They Ready for a Comeback? Apr 04, 2023

Victory gardens are perhaps the U.S. government’s most successful and long-lasting propaganda campaign. It began during World War One, when the War Garden Commission offered free handbooks for garden tips and published stories in newspapers to encourage citizens to plant food crops in any little piece of unused land so citizens could help provide food for America’s allies fighting in Europe. The idea caught on, and by the end of the war, over 5 million gardens were planted, producing nearly $10 billion (in today’s dollars) worth of food. By World War 2, nearly 60 percent of U.S. households had some kind of garden. Over 40 percent of the nation’s fresh produce was grown in a local garden. Today’s guest is Maggie Stuckey, author of “The Container Victory Garden: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Your Own Groceries.” With a renewed interest in home gardening during the 2020 lockdowns, she realized the astonishing surge of gardening activity was a modern-day version of wartime Victory Gardens, when Americans planted a few vegetables in whatever little patch of ground they could find. And even more surprising was how eerily the tragedies mirrored each other through the decades: World War I with its gardens and its influenza pandemic, World War II with its gardens and its devastating loss of life, and 2020’s gardens in response to the coronavirus pandemic. We look at the surprising relevance of Victory Gardens today.

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Despite the Spartans’ Last Stand at Thermopylae, They Are Still the Most Overrated Warriors of the Ancient World Mar 30, 2023

The last stand at Thermopylae made the Spartans legends in their own time, famous for their toughness, stoicism and martial prowess. They were feared for never surrendering and never running from a fight, always preferring death to dishonor. But was this reputation earned? How much of it was true versus an exaggeration that compounded over the centuries?
That’s the question that today’s guest, Myke Cole, asked himself when he set out to investigate their military history, which became his book “The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy,
Spartan history had its moments of glory, but it was also punctuated by frequent and heavy losses. It was a society dedicated to militarism not in service to Greek unity or to the Spartan state itself, but as a desperate measure intended to keep its massive population of helots (a near-slave underclass) in line. What successes there were, such as in the Peloponnesian Wars, gave Sparta only a brief period of hegemony over Greece. Today, there is no greater testament to this than the relative position of modern Sparta and its famous rival Athens.
Nevertheless, there is still plenty to appreciate about the Spartans when we look at them as real people, not as mythological figures.

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The Real-Life King Arthur May Have Been a Roman Equestrian Who Served Marcus Aurelius Mar 28, 2023

King Arthur. The search for the historical figure behind what is arguably the most famous cycle of legends ever has been relentless over the centuries. Many think he was a Romano-British military commander in the 5th/6th centuries who fought the Anglo-Saxons and saved Britain in its infancy. But other historians put the real-life Arthur at a much earlier date, arguing that the man whose story started the traditions of Arthur was a soldier name Lucius Artorius Castus who lived at the end of the second century A.D.
There are enough historical clues to reconstruct Castus’s extraordinary, which career took him from one end of the Roman Empire to the other, bringing him into contact with tribespeople amongst the Steppe nomads – in particular the Sarmatians. For several decades the Sarmatians have been thought to be the inspiration behind Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, among other British tales.
Today’s guests are John Matthews and Linda Malcor, authors of “Artorius: The Real King Arthur.” We focus on Castus’s career, not only commenting on the parallels with the Arthurian tradition but also providing details about the Roman Empire of the second century A.D. along the way.

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How Botany Was Weaponized in the 19th Century For Imperial Expansion of Plantations, And How Humble Gardeners Pushed Back Mar 23, 2023

In 19th century America, no science was more important than botany. Understanding plants meant more productive plantations, more wealth extracted from cash crops, and more money flowing into the United States. The science of botany became weaponized, fueling ideas of Manifest Destiny and other programs of political expansion was used for political ends. But other authors and thinkers believed that nature could teach humanity different lessons. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s struggles in his garden inspired him to write stories in which plants defy human efforts to impose order. Radical scientific ideas about plant intelligence and sociality prompted Emily Dickinson to imagine a human polity that embraces kinship with the natural world. Frederick Douglass cautioned that the most prominent political context for plants remained plantation slavery. Today’s guest is Mary Kuhn, author of “The Garden Politic: Global Plants and Botanical Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century America.” We explore how politicians of the 19th century used agriculture as a vehicle for power politics, but the same branch of science contained the seeds of alternative political visions.

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Nicolas Said was an Enslaved Africa Who Gain Emancipation, Traveled to Europe’s Royal Courts, and Fought in the Civil War Mar 21, 2023

In the late 1830s a young black man was born into a world of wealth and privilege in the powerful, thousand-year-old African kingdom of Borno. But instead of becoming a respected general like his fearsome father (who was known as The Lion), Nicolas Said’s fate was to fight a very different kind of battle.
At the age of thirteen, Said was kidnapped and sold into slavery, beginning an epic journey that would take him across Africa, Asia, Europe, and eventually the United States, where he would join one of the first African American regiments in the Union Army. Nicholas Said would then spend the rest of his life fighting for equality. Along the way, Said encountered such luminaries as Queen Victoria and Czar Nicholas I, fought Civil War battles that would turn the war for the North, established schools to educate newly freed black children, and served as one of the first black voting registrars.
Today’s guest is today’s guest Dean Calbreath, author of“The Sergeant, a biography of Said. Through the lens of Said’s continent-crossing life, Calbreath examines the parallels and differences in the ways slavery was practiced from a global and religious perspective, and he highlights how Said’s experiences echo the discrimination, segregation, and violence.

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Pizza, Pinocchio and the Papacy: Finding the Very Best and Very Worst of Italy Mar 20, 2023

What do Italian unification, Pinocchio and pizza have in common? In this episode preview from History of the Papacy, host Steve Guerra dives in!
The Risorgimento was a period of political and social upheaval in Italy that lasted from the early 19th century to the mid-20th century. The movement aimed to unite the various states and regions of Italy into one unified nation. Pinocchio, the beloved children's story written by Carlo Collodi, can be seen as a metaphor for Italian unification through the character's journey from a wooden puppet to a real boy. And last but not least, let's talk about pizza. Italy's most famous export, pizza, is a symbol of the country's rich cultural heritage and culinary traditions. Whether you're a fan of traditional Margherita or a more unconventional topping, there's a pizza for everyone.
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This 1791 US Military Defeat Was 3x Worse than Little Bighorn And Nearly Destroyed the Army Mar 16, 2023

November 4, 1791, was a black day in American history. General Arthur St. Clair’s army had been ambushed by Native Americans in what is now western Ohio. In just three hours, St. Clair’s force sustained the greatest loss ever inflicted on the United States Army by American Indians—a total nearly three times larger than what incurred in the more famous Custer fight of 1876. It was the greatest proportional loss by any American army in the nation’s history. By the time this fighting ended, over six hundred corpses littered an area of about three and one half football fields laid end to end. Still more bodies were strewn along the primitive road used by hundreds of survivors as they ran for their lives with Native Americans in hot pursuit. It was a disaster of cataclysmic proportions for George Washington’s first administration, which had been in office for only two years. Today’s guest is Alan Gaff, author of Field of Corpses: Arthur St. Clair and the Death of the American Army. We look at the first great challenge of Washington’s presidency, a humiliating defeat that the United States needed to strengthen its military or die. It’s a war story that emphasizes individuals and small units rather than grandiose armies and famous generals, making St. Clair’s defeat all the more immersive and personable.

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The KGB Agent Who Lived Incognito in New York for 10 Years That Was Exchanged at the Bridge of Spies Mar 09, 2023

Rudolf Ivanovich Abel was one of the most integral agents of the KBG, the Soviet Union’s most renowned spy network during the Cold War of the 1950s. He may have infiltrated Los Alamos labs and fed critical intelligence back to Moscow through the use of cloak-and-dagger techniques like sneaking microfilm in hollowed- out coins and dropping bundles of cash at lamppost hideaways. He kept it up until his cover was blown by an incompetent colleague who wanted to defect to the United States. This lead resulted in a frenzied search by the FBI to discover the identity and whereabouts of the spymaster. The month long stake out of his hotel in Manhattan leading to his eventual arrest and transfer to a Texas deportation facility where he was put under extensive interrogation. His three-month trial and guilty verdict for violating U.S. espionage laws resulted in 30 years in prison rather than the electric chair. The exchange for his freedom several years later involved the American Spy Francis Gary Powers. To discuss this story is today’s guest Cecil Kuhne, a prominent litigator, who has long been interested in the world of Cold War. He is the author of KGB Man: The Cold War’s Most Notorious Soviet Agent and the First to be Exchanged at the Bridge of Spies.

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How a Slave Coupled Escaped the Antebellum South in Disguise Mar 07, 2023

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. They escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled white man and William posing as “his” slave. They made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles crisscrossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day—among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.
But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line, and the stakes never higher. Today’s guest is Ilyon Woo, author of “Master, Slave, Husband, Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom.” We look at this story of escape, emancipation, and the challenges of Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction America.

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Operation Torch: WW2’s first Paratrooper Missions Were On One-Way Flights With Drops Into Total Darkness Mar 02, 2023

The December 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the
United States into World War II. Just six months later in May 1942,
flying new C-47 transport aircraft, the 60th Troop Carrier Group led
the way as the first U.S. TCG to deploy to England and the European
Theater of Operations in World War II. Leading the way to victory,
the 60th TCG’s first mission—dropping U. S. paratroopers outside of
Oran, North Africa—was not only the first combat airborne mission
in U.S. Army history, but also the longest airborne mission of the
entire war. This drop spearheaded Operation TORCH, also known as
the Invasion of North Africa, by taking key Axis airfields just inland
from the amphibious landing zones. The 60th TCG went on to fly some of the first combat aeromedical evacuation missions and the first combat mission towing CG-4A “Waco” gliders during Operation HUSKY—the Invasion of Sicily. As the new airborne, air land,
aeromedical evacuation, and glider missions matured in World War
II, the 60th TCG continued to play a major role, paying in blood for
valuable lessons learned in the school of hard knocks. The group later
flew dramatic missions into Yugoslavia, supporting Partisans as part
of the secret war in the Balkans, an episode of World War II history
still all but unknown today and dropped British paratroops in the
airborne invasion of Greece. The Group was inactivated at the end of
the war. Today’s guest is Col. Mark C. Vlahos, author of “Leading the Way to Victory: A History of the 60th Troop Carrier Group 1940-1945.” We look at the group’s battles, adversity, hardships, and triumphs from inception through the Allied victory in Europe.

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Anne Frank Was Only One of Thousands in Occupied Netherlands That Kept Diaries. Others Include Dutch Nazis, Farmers, and Resisters Feb 28, 2023

Growing up in New York as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Nina Siegal had always wondered about the experience of her mother and maternal grandparents living in Europe during World War II. She had heard stories of the war as a child from her mother and grandfather, and read Anne Frank’s diary in school, but the tales were crafted as moral lessons — to never waste food, to be grateful for all you receive, to hide your silver — while the details of the past went untold to make it easier to assimilate into American life. When Siegal moved to Amsterdam as an adult, those questions came up again, as did another horrifying one: Why did seventy five percent of the Dutch Jewish community perish in the war, while in other Western European countries the proportions were significantly lower? How did this square with the narratives of Dutch resistance she had heard so much about? Siegal decided to get into the archives and look at wartime diaries of Dutch citizens from all walks of life and eventually wrote “The Diary Keepers World War II In The Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It.” Siegal joins us to discuss a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before. We look at stories of a Dutch Nazi police detective, a Jewish journalist imprisoned at Westerbork transit camp, a grocery store owner who saved dozens of lives, and several others into a braided nonfictional narrative of the Nazi occupation and the Dutch Holocaust, as individuals experienced it day by day.

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How Shakespeare Impacted U.S. Presidents, from John Adams to JFK Feb 23, 2023

There are countless ways Shakespeare has made his way into unexpected corners of American life. It starts at the top with our presidents. Shakespeare is a longtime ally of America’s Commanders-in-Chief: Thomas Jefferson took a pilgrimage to his house, John Adams took lessons from King Lear about child usurpers, and JFK thought that the Bard spoke so directly to the U.S.’s Cold War challenges that he was more American than British. But Shakespeare speaks to many other classes of people. In 1849, a riot broke out in New York between working class and aristocratic theatre fans over which actor did the best Hamlet, and 31 were left dead.
Today’s guest is Barry Edelstein, a seasoned director of Shakespeare and host of the new podcast Where There’s a Will: Finding Shakespeare. . From a Henry V performance in a maximum security prison to a look at how Shakespeare assists children on the autism spectrum, we explore why the Bard’s works permeate our history and culture, and what that says about him, and about our society.

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The Unexpected Turbulence of the Eisenhower Years Feb 22, 2023

Some remember Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency as a time of peace and prosperity, but in reality, it was an era of constant global crises. In this episode preview from This American President, host Richard Lim explores how Eisenhower skillfully navigated the perils of the Cold War.
To continue listening to This American President, check out:
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3RNJS4j
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jTClEj
Parthenon: https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/this-american-president
Hear more episodes of This American President:
Theodore Roosevelt and the Pursuit of Greatness: https://apple.co/3IgUAx9 / https://spoti.fi/3E0zoZv
Zachary Taylor, America's Only Homeless President: https://apple.co/40OuGaW / https://spoti.fi/3DUzzFB
The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland: https://apple.co/3xdIUER / https://spoti.fi/3ltBmLF

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A Union Spy's Mission to Stop the Confederates From Building a Secret Navy in Britain Feb 21, 2023

In 1861, just as the Civil War began, the leaders of the Confederacy soon realized they were outmatched when it came to military might, especially in terms of Naval power. (For example, the U.S. Navy had 42 commissioned ships as of the start of the year—the Confederacy had 1.) And the Northern states had much more industrial might in order to get more ships built. With such a stark advantage, the Union was able to form a naval blockade that could choke the Confederacy militarily, and also economically.
The leaders of the Confederacy realized that the only way to outfit a strong navy was to receive support from aboard—namely, from the still-neutral Great Britain. Neutral though its leaders claimed to be, public sentiment in Britain at the time leaned toward the Confederacy. The Southern leaders dispatched the charming and devious Captain James Bulloch to Liverpool to lead the way to clandestinely acquire a cutting-edge fleet of ships (and weapons) that would break President Lincoln’s blockade of Confederate ports, sink Northern merchant vessels, and drown the U.S. Navy’s mightiest ships at sea. The profits from gunrunning and smuggling cotton—Dixie’s notorious “white gold”—would finance the scheme.
Opposing him was the American consul named Thomas Dudley, a resolute Quaker lawyer and abolitionist. Knowing that the state of the Union was at stake, he was determined to stop Bulloch by any means necessary in a spy-versus-spy game of move and countermove, gambit and sacrifice, intrigue and betrayal. If Dudley failed, Britain would likely ally with the South and imperil a Northern victory.
The battleground for these spy games was the Dickensian port of Liverpool, whose dockyards built more ships each year than the rest of the world combined, whose warehouses stored more cotton than anywhere else on earth, and whose merchant princes, said one observer, were “addicted to Southern proclivities, foreign slave trade, and domestic bribery.”
To tell this story is today’s guest Alexander Rose, author of “The Lion and the Fox: Two Rival Spies and the Secret Plot to Build a Confederate Navy.”

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WW2 Bombing Raids on Germany Were Bloodbaths for the Allies Until a Futurist Fighter Plane (the P-51) Was Developed Feb 16, 2023

One of the lowest points of World War 2 for the Allies was autumn 1943, when bombing runs from England to Germany were ramping up. Hundreds of B-17s flew out to strike military targets, but they flew unescorted due to being the only planes with enough range (fighters could only make it from England to Belgium and back) and were sitting ducks for German fighters. Losses were as high as 25 percent. Flight crews were grounded and murmured mutiny.
But what change everything was the revolutionary P-51 Mustang fighter. It had a top speed of over 400 mph and fly over 2,000 miles – outrunning and outlasting any other fighter in the war. But not many know the story of how it gained its reputation—how it nearly didn’t make it to the skies at all. Today’s guests are David and Margaret White, author of “Wings of War: The World War II Fighter Plane that Saved the Allies and the Believers Who Made It Fly.”
We discuss how the P-51 Mustang airplane was not only used in the war, but how it was created, the roadblocks that almost prevented it from taking flight against the Luftwaffe, and how it ultimately won the war.

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John Burgoyne: The British Playboy Who Lost the Revolutionary War Feb 14, 2023

No British General of the Revolutionary War has been written about more than John Burgoyne. That’s because of his surrender of his army at Saratoga, New York in 1777, widely seen as the turning point in the Revolutionary War. He is considered a reckless lout, and there’s plenty in his life story to support this characterization. He gambled heavily and possibly had to flee England as a young man to escape his debtors. His father-in-law eventually paid Burgoyne’s debts and got him another commission in the army, just in time for the 7 Years War. There he served admirably and became a war hero. But 300 years after his birth, the many lives of Burgyone -- dashing cavalry colonel of the Seven Years War, satirical London playwright, reformer Member of Parliament, gambler in the clubs on St James’s Street – have been forgotten.
Today’s guest is Norman Poser, author of From the Battlefield to the Stage: The Many Lives of General John Burgyone. We look not only at the Saratoga campaign, but also elements of Burgoyne’s eventful life that have never been adequately explored. He was a socialite, welcome in London’s fashionable drawing rooms, a high-stakes gambler in its elite clubs, and a playwright whose social comedies were successfully performed on the London stage. Moreover, as a member of Parliament for thirty years, Burgoyne supported the rule of law, fought the corruption of the East India Company – he was a sworn enemy of Clive of India whom he denounced with all his might – and advocated religious tolerance.

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How Britain Stole Intelligence from Nazi High Command Via Their German Drinking Buddies Feb 09, 2023

"How might the British have handled Hitler differently?” remains one of history’s greatest "what ifs."
Many fault the Neville Chamberlain administration of the 1930s with trying to appease the Fuhrer by any means necessary. But they failed, still got a war, and earned a reputation for cowardice. Or as Winston Churchill said to Chamberlain, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” But what if we haven’t given Britain enough credit for trying to stave off the war in ways that weren’t dishonorable?
It turns out they did, and they got very creative. One method involved using a handful of amateur British intelligence agents who wined, dined, and befriended the leading National Socialists between the wars. With support from royalty, aristocracy, politicians, and businessmen, they hoped to use the recently founded Anglo-German Fellowship as a vehicle to civilize and enlighten the Nazis.
At the heart of the story are a pacifist Welsh historian, a World War I flying ace, and a butterfly-collecting businessman, who together offered the British government better intelligence on the horrifying rise of the Nazis than any other agents. They infiltrated the Nazi high command deeper than any other spies, relaying accurate intelligence to both their government and to its anti-appeasing critics. Having established a personal rapport with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, they delivered intelligence to him directly, paving the way for American military support for Great Britain against the Nazi threat.
To tell this story is today’s guest, Charles Spicer, author of “Coffee With Hitler.” His book is based on eight years of research among letters, intelligence reports, and other primary sources, many of which have been lost or overlooked by historians.
While these men didn’t succeed in their goal, they did feed critical intelligence to the British Establishment and gave them a very clear understanding of the threat that Hitler posed. That’s why when war did finally break out, Britain wasn’t caught asleep at the switch. It had spent years arming itself and training for the outbreak of hostilities. More could have been done – and that’s always the case when it comes to total war – but we have these men to credit for trying to avoid and neutralize an enemy that was unavoidable and immovable.

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The Encyclopedia: One Book’s Quest to Hold the Sum of All Knowledge Feb 07, 2023

What if one book could contain the sum of mankind’s knowledge? Scholars and chroniclers have tried to write this book since antiquity, penning several so-called universal histories (perhaps the best was Rashid al-Din’s “Compendium of the Chronicles” that was commissioned by a Mongol Empire daughter state in 14th century). This goal was reached in 1768 with the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was published in Scotland by Enlightenment thinkers who believed that human thinking could be categorized. It became a fixture of American households in the 19th century and occupied the bookshelves of every library and school in the United States until very recently.
Today’s guest is Jill Lepore's show, host of the show “The Last Archive,” about the US's post-truth crisis -- of how we know what we know and why it seems lately as if we can't agree on anything at all. She both reckons with the present moment through her historical expertise and also presents solutions that are forward and current.

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How Much Can One Individual Alter History? More and Less Than You Think Feb 02, 2023

How far can a single leader alter the course of history? Thomas Carlyle, who promoted the Great Man Theory, says that talented leaders are the primary – if not the sole – cause of change. This view has been challenged by social scientists who understand that leaders are not only constrained by their societies, but merely products of them. Whatever this interplay between a personality and his society, it raises the question of whether dictators are as unconstrained as they seem, and if so, how do they attain that power?
Today’s guest is Ian Kershaw, author of Personality and Power. We look at an array of case-studies of twentieth-century European leaders – some dictators, some democrats – and explore what was it about these leaders, and the times in which they lived, that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power, and what factors brought that era in Europe to an end?

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The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East Jan 31, 2023

The most disruptive and transformative event in the Middle Ages wasn’t the Crusades, the Battle of Agincourt, or even the Black Death. It was the Mongol Conquests. Even after his death, Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire grew to become the largest in history—four times the size of Alexander the Great’s and stretching from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. But the extent to which these conquering invasions and subsequent Mongol rule transformed the diverse landscape of the medieval Near East have been understated in our understanding of the modern world.
Today’s guest is Nicholas Morton, author of “The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Middle East.” We discuss the overlapping connections of religion, architecture, trade, philosophy and ideas that reformed over a century of Mongol rule. Rather than a Euro- or even Mongol-centric perspective, this history uniquely examines the Mongol invasions from the multiple perspectives of the network of peoples of the Near East and travelers from all directions—including famous figures of this era such as Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, Ibn Khaldun, and Roger Bacon, who observed and reported on the changing region to their respective cultures—and the impacted peoples of empires—Byzantine, Seljuk and then Ottoman Turks, Ayyubid, Armenian, and more—under the violence of conquest.

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Weather Itself Was WW2's Fiercest Enemy: The Sinking of the USS Macaw Jan 26, 2023

On January 16, 1944, the submarine rescue vessel USS Macaw ran aground at Midway Atoll while attempting to tow the stranded submarine USS Flier. The Flier was pulled free six days later but another three weeks of salvage efforts plagued by rough seas and equipment failures failed to dislodge the Macaw. On February 12, enormous waves nudged the ship backward into deeper water. As night fell and the Macaw slowly sank, the twenty-two sailors on board—ship's captain Paul W. Burton, his executive officer, and twenty enlisted men—sought refuge in the pilothouse but by the following afternoon, the compartment was almost entirely flooded. Burton gave the order to open the portside door and make for the foremast. Three men succeeded but most of the others were swept overboard. Five of them died, including Burton. Three sailors from the base at Midway also lost their lives in two unauthorized rescue attempts.
Today’s guest is Tim Loughman, author of A Strange Whim of the Sea: The Wreck of the USS Macaw. He traces the ship's service from its launch on San Francisco Bay to its disastrous final days at Midway. It tells a war story short on combat but not on drama, a wartime tragedy in which the conflict is more interpersonal, and perhaps intrapersonal, than international. Ultimately, for Burton and the Macaw the real enemy was the sea, and in a deadly denouement, the sea won. Highlighting the underreported role auxiliary vessels played in the war, A Strange Whim of the Sea engages naval historians and students alike with a previously untold story of struggle, sacrifice, death, and survival in the World War II Pacific.

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A Short History of War Jan 24, 2023

Some anthropologists once believed that humanity lived in a peaceful state that lacked large-scale warfare before the arrival of large civilizations and all its wealth inequality and manufacture of weapons. But archeological findings have shown over and over that warfare dates back as far as homo sapiens themselves (such as the Bronze Age Battle of Tollense River, about which we known nearly nothing, save that 5,000 soldiers fought each other with primitive weapons).
Throughout history, warfare has transformed social, political, cultural, and religious aspects of our lives. We tell tales of wars—past, present, and future—to create and reinforce a common purpose.
Today’s guest is Jeremy Black, author of “A Short History of War.” We examine war as a global phenomenon, looking at the First and Second World Wars as well as those ranging from Han China and Assyria, Imperial Rome, and Napoleonic France to Vietnam and Afghanistan. Black explores too the significance of warfare more broadly and the ways in which cultural understandings of conflict have lasting consequences in societies across the world.

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Stories From 300 British Men Executed For Cowardice During WW1 Jan 19, 2023

Over 300 men were executed by the British Army for desertion and cowardice during the first World War. In this episode preview from Vlogging Through History, host Chris Mowery explores the process for executions and the stories of the men involved.
To continue listening to Vlogging Through History, check out:
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3X3USwk
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3WX5A7E
Parthenon: https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/vlogging-through-history
Discover more episodes of Vlogging Through History:
The History of the Medal of Honor: https://apple.co/3iqhU17 / https://spoti.fi/3vLt9V7
The Tragic Lives of U.S. Presidents: https://apple.co/3Xa63Dm / https://spoti.fi/3VYHTdU
Alvin York: An American Legend: https://apple.co/3GTHRjf / https://spoti.fi/3QpT3Hc

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The 1911 McNamara Bros. Murder Trial was the OJ Simpson/Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard Case of Its Time Jan 19, 2023

Considered by many to be one of the best-known criminal defense lawyers in the country, Clarence Darrow became nationally recognized for his eloquence, withering cross-examinations, and compassionate support for the underdog, both in and out of the courtroom.
Though his fifty-year-long career was replete with momentous cases, specifically his work in the Scopes Monkey Trial and the Leopold and Loeb Murder Trial, Darrow’s Nightmare zeroes in on just two years of Darrow’s career: 1911 to 1913. It was during this time period that Darrow was hired to represent the McNamara brothers, two union workers accused of bombing the Los Angeles Times building, an incident that resulted in twenty-one deaths and hundreds more injuries.
Along with investigative journalist Lincoln Steffens, Darrow negotiated an ambitious plea bargain on behalf of the McNamara brothers. But the plan soon unraveled; not long after the plea bargain was finalized, Darrow was accused of attempting to bribe a juror. As Darrow himself became the defendant, what was once his shining moment in the national spotlight became a threat to the future of his career and the safety of his family.
Today’s guest is Nelson Johnson, author of Darrow's Nightmare: The Forgotten Story of America's Most Famous Trial Lawyer: (Los Angeles 1911–1913). Drawing upon the 8,500-page transcript saved from the two trials, Johnson makes Darrow’s story come to life like never before.

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Daniel Webster -- Perhaps History’s Greatest Orator -- Turned Virginians and New Yorkers Into Americans Jan 17, 2023

When the United States was founded in 1776, its citizens didn’t think of themselves as “Americans.” They were New Yorkers or Virginians or Pennsylvanians. It was decades later that the seeds of American nationalism—identifying with one’s own nation and supporting its broader interests—began to take root. But what kind of nationalism should Americans embrace? The state-focused and racist nationalism of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson? Or the belief that the U.S. Constitution made all Americans one nation, indivisible, which Daniel Webster and others espoused?
Today’s guest is Joel Richard Paul, author of Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism. We look at the story of how Webster, a young New Hampshire attorney turned politician, rose to national prominence through his powerful oratory and unwavering belief in the United States and captured the national imagination. In his speeches, on the floors of the House and Senate, in court, and as Secretary of State, Webster argued that the Constitution was not a compact made by states but an expression of the will of all Americans.
As the greatest orator of his age, Webster saw his speeches and writings published widely, and his stirring rhetoric convinced Americans to see themselves differently, as a nation bound together by a government of laws, not parochial interests. As these ideas took root, they influenced future leaders, among them Abraham Lincoln, who drew on them to hold the nation together during the Civil War.

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How Ottoman Sultan Suleyman Conquered Most of Europe and the Mediterranean While Avoiding Assassination Jan 12, 2023

Within a decade and a half, Ottoman Sultan Suleyman, who reigned form 1520 to 1566, held dominion over twenty-five million souls, from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna, and with the help of his brilliant pirate commander Barbarossa placed more Christians than ever before or since under Muslim rule. He launched voyages into the Indian Ocean, threatened to conquer all of Europe, and took firm control over the Mediterranean Sea.
And yet the real drama takes place in close-up: in small rooms and whispered conversations, behind the curtain of power. His confidantes include the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, and the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife.
Today’s guest Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Lion House. He tells not just the story of rival superpowers in an existential duel, nor of one of the most consequential lives in human history, but of what it means to live in a time when a few men get to decide the fate of the world.

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Yoga Came to America via an Indian Monk at the 1893 Worlds Fair Jan 10, 2023

If you are one of the 40 million people in the United States who practice yoga, or if you have ever meditated, you have a forgotten Indian monk named Swami Vivekananda to thank. Few thinkers have had so enduring an impact on both Eastern and Western life as him, the Indian monk who inspired the likes of Freud, Gandhi, and Tagore. Blending science, religion, and politics, Vivekananda introduced Westerners to yoga and the universalist school of Hinduism called Vedanta. His teachings fostered a more tolerant form of mainstream spirituality in Europe and North America and forever changed the Western relationship to meditation and spirituality.
Today’s guest is Ruth Harris, author of Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda. She traces his transformation from son of a Calcutta-based attorney into saffron-robed ascetic. At the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, he fascinated audiences with teachings from Hinduism, Western esoteric spirituality, physics, and the sciences of the mind, in the process advocating a more inclusive conception of religion and expounding the evils of colonialism. Vivekananda won many disciples, most prominently the Irish activist Margaret Noble, who disseminated his ideas in the face of much disdain for the wisdom of a “subject race.” At home, he challenged the notion that religion was antithetical to nationalist goals, arguing that Hinduism was intimately connected with Indian identity.
The iconic monk emerges as a counterargument to Orientalist critiques, which interpret East–West interactions as primarily instances of Western borrowing. As Vivekananda demonstrates, we must not underestimate Eastern agency in the global circulation of ideas.

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A Modern-Day Knight Discusses What Knightly Service Means in 2023 (Essentially, Less Crusading and More Volunteering) Jan 05, 2023

In 1348, King Edward III founded a charity for impoverished men-at-arms, who came to be known as the Alms Knights (or Poor Knights). These knights were destitute because their families ransomed them in foreign wars, and their sovereign didn’t see fit to leave them as beggars. He also wanted them to commit to praying for the souls of him and his descendants, setting up a chapel for this very purpose (all part of the Chantry Craze in the 14th century) In 1833, their name was changed by William IV to the Military Knights of Windsor.
The order has continued to this day, unbroken for nearly seven hundred years. Over the centuries, there have been about six hundred and fifty such knights. Their backgrounds and careers have been very varied: one was a freed slave, another had to bind Casanova over to keep the peace. Most have had a military background (three have held the Victoria Cross) – but there have been astrologers, crusaders, mad baronets, politicians, artists,and con artists. Men-At-Alms tells their stories, set against the history of their times.
Today’s guest is Simon Durnford, one of the Military Knights of Windsor and author of Men-At-Alms: Six Centuries of The Military Knights of Windsor.” He discusses what it means to be part of a medieval institution and how the group has evolved over the centuries.

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J. Edgar Hoover’s 50-Year Career of Blackmail, Entrapment, and Taking Down Communist Spies Jan 03, 2023

J. Edgar Hoover was possibly the most powerful non-elected person in modern American history. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he used the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history. He ruthlessly rooted out real and perceived threats to the United States, from bank robbers to Soviet spies to civil rights groups, calling Martin Luther King, Jr. “the country’s most notorious liar.” But Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission; he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats.
Today’s guest is Beverly Gage, author of “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.” We explore the full sweep of Hoover’s life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied traditional values ranging from a fierce view of law and order to anticommunism, attracting him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing.

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The Irish Conquered the World With Plentiful Cheap Labor and Pints of Guinness Dec 29, 2022

When people think of Irish emigration, they often think of the Great Famine of the 1840s, which caused many to flee Ireland for the United States. But the real history of the Irish diaspora is much longer, more complicated, and more global. Today’s guest, Sean Connolly, author of “On Every Tide: The Making and Remaking of the Irish World,” argues that the Irish exodus helped make the modern world.
Starting in the eighteenth century, the Irish fled limited opportunity at home and fanned out across America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These emigrants helped settle new frontiers, industrialize the West, and spread Catholicism globally. This led to the commodification of Irish culture, best exemplified by the ubiquity of the Irish Pub and Guinness, the popularity of River Dance, and annual Saint Patrick’s Day parades.
As the Irish built vibrant communities abroad, they leveraged their newfound power—sometimes becoming oppressors themselves.

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Two British Sisters – A Typist and a Romance Novelist – Save Jewish Artists from the Holocaust With a Clever Con Involving Opera Dec 27, 2022

In 1937, two British sisters, Louise and Ida Cook, seemed headed for spinsterhood due to so many men of their generation dying in World War One. Louise was a typist, and Ida was becoming a famous romance novelist, who would go on to write over 100 books. They found refuge in their love of music, with frequent visits to Germany and Austria to see their favorite opera stars perform. But with the clouds of WW2 gathering, Europe’s opera stars, many of whom were Jewish, face dark futures under the boot heel of the Nazis.
Louise and Ida formed a secret cabal along with Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss (a favorite of Hitler, but quietly working with the Cook sisters) to bring together worldwide opera aficionados and insiders in an international operation to rescue Jews in the opera. They smuggled Jewish people's jewelry and other valuables into England, thereby enabling them to satisfy British financial security requirements for immigration. By the time war arrived, they had saved over two dozen Jewish men and women from the Holocaust and spirited them to safety in England.
Today’s guest is Isabel Vincent, Overture of Hope: Two Sisters’ Daring Plan That Saved Opera’s Jewish Stars from the Third Reich. We look at the Cook Sister’s daring rescue mission and what happened to those they saved in their post-war lives. It’s a story of common people who rise to the challenges of uncommon circumstances.

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The Double Victory Campaign: Over 1 Million Black Americans Enlisted in WW2 To Fight Fascism Abroad and Win Equality at Home Dec 22, 2022

In the wake of Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, American men famously flooded recruiting offices across the nation to join the war effort. These stories are well documented and attested by eye witnesses, but a part of this story left out or overlooked is that black Americans joined with an equal level of fervor. Over one million black men and women served in the war, playing crucial roles in every theatre of World War 2. They worked in segregated units and performed vital support jobs.
This mobilization did take time. This was during the Jim Crow era, and some black Americans asked if they should risk their lives to live as what one called “Half-American.” But as the war effort grew, black Americans increasingly enlisted as part of what newspapers called the Double V Campaign, a slogan to promote the fight for democracy abroad but also in the home front in the United States and the idea that black Americans wholeheartedly contributing to the war effort would lead to legal and social equality.
Today’s guest is Matthew Delmont, author of “Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad – the first-ever comprehensive history of World War II to focus on black Americans.
We look at stories figures such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated violence against black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Air Force to black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James Thompson, the 26-year-old whose letter to a newspaper set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the black press. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing.
Some of their greatest struggles came when they returned home. They were denied housing and education. On the streets of Southern cities, black soldiers were attacked just for wearing their uniforms in public, beaten for drinking from “Whites Only” water fountains, or chased away from the voting booth by mobs. Yet without black Americans’ crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have been victorious.

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Everyone Loves Free Markets. But This Meant One Thing To Romans And Something Completely Different to Milton Friedman Dec 20, 2022

“Free market” is a concept beloved by many but understood in incredibly different ways. Most use Milton Friedman’s definition: the absence of any and all government activity in economic affairs. In the Cold War, free markets were understood to be a feature of liberty that set the free world apart from the planned economies of communist nations. Politicians use “free markets” as a stand-in for less government regulation or red tape or taxation.
To interrogate this idea is Jacob Soll, author of “Free Market: The history of an idea.” He wonders why, in the United States, where the concept of free markets are universally loved, we’ve had two government bailouts in less than twenty years and whether our understanding of the term needs reappraisal. We discuss how we got to this current crisis, and how we can find our way out by looking to earlier iterations of free market thought.
Contrary to popular narratives, early market theorists believed that states had an important role in building and maintaining free markets. Roman thinkers such as Cicero believed the Roman Empire built and sustained trade. Throughout the Middle Ages, kingdoms were highly protectionist. But in the eighteenth century, thinkers insisted on free markets without state intervention, leading to a tradition of ideological brittleness.
Tracing the intellectual evolution of the free market, Soll argues that we need to go back to the origins of free market ideology to truly understand it—and to develop new economic concepts to face today’s challenges.

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Failed Futures: Russia's Plans to Defeat the U.S. in the Cold War Dec 15, 2022

Was it ever possible for the Soviets to win the Cold War? Looking back, its defeat seemed inevitable. The USSR had a political system hated by much of its population, a backwards economy, and harsh geographic conditions that made development challenging. But as late as the 1980s, few thought it would fall apart as catastrophically as it did.
How close was the USSR to victory? Was it structurally doomed to fail, or could better internal management and more strategic blunders from the United States brought it victory? If so, how? To explore this alternate reality and its level of plausibility is Dr. Robert Farley, a professor of security and diplomacy at the University of Kentucky and author of “Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology.”
Few who fought in the Cold War thought American victory was inevitable. Rather, they thought that U.S dominance – or even survival – depended on investments in cutting edge military technologies and extensive interventions across the globe, with Korea and Vietnam being only a couple of examples. We will explore the arguments on each side, and what the Soviet Union would have done if it had in fact won the Cold War.

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Failed Futures: The Confederacy Had Colossal Plans After the Civil War to Spread Slavery Across the Globe And Become Fabulously Wealthy Dec 13, 2022

Confederate leaders were nothing if not dreamers. They did not merely want to maintain slavery in a quiet corner of the world and hold onto antiquated traditions. They saw themselves as true progressives that would lead a neo-feudal order, becoming massively wealthy with trade, and dominate the Western Hemisphere.
In the antebellum era, leading Southern politicians, diplomats, clerics, planters, farmers, manufacturers, and merchants preached a transformative, world-historical role for the Confederacy, persuading many of their compatriots to fight not merely to retain what they had but to gain their future empire. Impervious to reality, their vision of future world leadership provided a vitally important, underappreciated motivation to form an independent Confederate republic.
Today’s guest is Adrian Brettle, author of Colossal Ambitions: Confederate Planning for a Post-Civil War World. We explore how leading Confederate thinkers envisioned their postwar nation—its relationship with the United States, its place in the Americas, and its role in the global order.
While some Confederate commentators saw wartime industrialization as pointing toward a different economic future, most Confederates saw their society as revolving once more around coercive labor, staple crop production, and exports in the war’s wake.
We can’t know what would have happened if the Confederacy had a chance to implement their plans. But when we put ourselves in their shoes, seeing how they drew up plans for a future that was extremely plausible, we understand better the mindset of the leaders of the Confederacy at one of the most important moments in American history.

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Failed Futures: If Alexander The Great Hadn’t Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road Dec 08, 2022

And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer. That’s a quote from Hans Gruber in Die Hard, which is a very convoluted paraphrase from Plutarch’s essay collection Moralia. There’s plenty of truth in that unattributed quote from Mr. Gruber.
Alexander the Great’s death at 323 BC in Babylon marked the end of the most consequential military campaign in antiquity. He left behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India, planted the seeds of the Silk Road, and made Greek an international language across Eurasia, all in 13 short years. He became and remained the biggest celebrity in the ancient world, probably only replaced by Jesus a few centuries into the Christian era.
But what if he had not died as a young man? What if he had lived years or decades more? How much more influence could he have had? We have clues about Alexander’s plans for the future – and they come from Greek chroniclers Diodorus and Arrian, writing centuries after his death. They include conquering the Mediterranean coast all the way to the Pillars of Hercules (Rock of Gibraltar), building a tomb for his father Philp that would be as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and transplanting populations from Greece to Persia and vice versa to unite his domains through intermarriage.
To explore this hypothetical scenario is Anthony Everitt, author of “Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death.” We look at the life of the most influential person in the ancient world, and explore the ramifications of his life having even more influence.

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Failed Futures: The Post-War Plans of Alexander the Great, the Confederacy, and the Soviet Union that Never Happened Dec 07, 2022

This is a preview of an upcoming series on this podcast that looks at the detailed post-war plans from generals and heads of state that never came about because said leaders either died or lost their war. Alexander the Great was said to have plans to launch conquest along the Mediterranean all the way to Spain and send naval expeditions around Arabia and Africa. The Confederacy wanted to dominate global trade and fortify slavery in the Western Hemisphere. The Soviet Union always had plans to spread communism around the globe. We will look at each of these plans in detail, not so much to speculate "what if" but to understand the mindsets of these people in question.

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Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and the Other Brilliant But Eccentric Characters That Electrified Our World Dec 06, 2022

You flick on a light without thinking about it. But what about the fascinating and bizarre stories hidden behind that simple action? Fortunes were made and lost, ideas stolen, rivalries pursued, dogs electrocuted, beards set on fire, arms amputated, and decapitated human heads reanimated all with the invention and evolution of electricity.
To discuss this history that we take for granted is Kathy Joseph, author of The Lightning Tamers: True Stories of the Dreamers and Schemers Who Harnessed Electricity and Transformed Our World.
We look at the stories of those who made it possible, from the assistant who invented the electric light 140 years before Edison to the severed ear that led to the telephone, follow the chain of experiments, inventions, and discoveries through time. We also look at the business wars between George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla that made Coke vs. Pepsi seem tame by comparison.

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Republicans Controlled 1920s America But Were Later Crushed By the New Deal Coalition. How Do These Realignments Happen? Dec 01, 2022

The pendulum in American electoral politics never swung harder than the 1920s to 1930s. In the 1924 presidential election, Democrats lost every state outside the Jim Crow south and barely scraped together 25 percent of the popular vote. In less than 10 years, they built the New Deal Coalition, a tremendously powerful political force that included everyone from the KKK on one side to black communists on the other, with Great Plains populists, backcountry Jacksonians and multilingual urbanites in between. How do electoral coalitions that seem timeless breakdown and reform in the blink of an eye, and what can that tell us about our current political coalitions?
To discuss how political realignment happens is today’s guest Timothy Shenk, author of the book Realigners. In a history that runs from the drafting of the Constitution to 2022, Shenk discusses characters from James Madison and Charles Sumner to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama. The result is a provocative reassessment of the people who built the electoral coalitions that defined American democracy―and a guide for a time when figures ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to MAGA-minded nationalists seek to turn radical dreams into political realities.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald was Every Bit the Alcoholic, Grandiose Delusional Dreamer as His Fictional Character Jay Gatsby Nov 29, 2022

The Great Gatsby has sold 25 million copies worldwide and sells 500,000 copies annually. The book has been made into three movies and produced for the theatre. It is considered the Greatest American Novel ever written. Yet, the story of how The Great Gatsby was written has not been told except as embedded chapters of much larger biographies. This story is one of heartbreak, infidelity, struggle, alcoholism, financial hardship, and one man’s perseverance to be faithful to the raw diamond of his talent in circumstances that would have crushed others.
The story of the writing of The Great Gatsby is a story in itself. Fitzgerald had descended into an alcoholic run of parties on Great Neck, New York, where he and Zelda had taken a home. His main source of income was writing for the “slicks,” or magazines of the day, the main source being the Saturday Evening Post, where Fitzgerald’s name on a story got him as much as $4,000. Then on May 1, 1924, he, Zelda, and baby daughter Scottie quietly slipped away from New York on a “dry” steamer to France, the writer in search of sobriety, sanity, and his muse, resulting in the publication of The Great Gatsby a year later.
To tell this fascinating story is today’s guest, William Hazelgrove, author of “Writing Gatsby: The Real Story of the Writing of the Greatest American Novel.”

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The Most Underrated People in History Include a U.S. President, Soviet Officer, and a Farmer Who Saved 2 Billion Lives Nov 24, 2022

Today’s episode is a round table of the podcasters who make up the Parthenon Podcast Network (Steve Guerra from Beyond the Big Screen; Josh Cohen from Eyewitness History, Richard Lim from This American President, and Scott Rank from History Unplugged). We discuss the most overlooked and underappreciated people in history and get into why they were overlooked and underappreciated in the first place.

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How a Founding Father and His Family Went From Slave Owners to Radical Abolitionists Nov 22, 2022

John Jay was a giant in the Founding Fathers generation. He was a diplomat, Supreme Court justice, coauthor of the Federalist Papers, and key negotiator at the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War. His children and grandchildren were also key players in the Early American Republic. They pushed changes in public opinion about slavery, moving the Overtone window on slavery from support to begrudging acceptance to calls for abolition.
The changes played out over the generations in the family. Jay’s Huguenot grandfather, Augustus Jay, arrived in New York in the 1680s, thought the family’s ownership of enslaved people was a marker of their “social ascendancy.” Jay himself owned slaves and was largely silent on the issue while pushing for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. But his involvement in foreign affairs fostered his abolitionist leanings, leading him to become the first president of a pioneering antislavery society. He enacted a gradual emancipation law as governor of New York in the 1790s.
Today’s guest is David Gellman, author of Liberty's Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York. He shows how American values were transmitted and transformed from the colonial and revolutionary eras to the Civil War, Reconstruction, and beyond through an extremely important family.
In the 1830s and ’40s, Jay’s son William Jay and grandson John Jay II were radical abolitionists that called for slavery’s immediate end. The scorn of their elite peers—and racist mobs—did not deter their commitment to end southern slavery and to combat northern injustice.
Across the generations, even as prominent Jays decried human servitude, enslaved people and formerly enslaved people served in Jay households. They lived difficult, often isolated, lives that tested their courage and the Jay family's principles. One such servant fell ill and died after she was jailed for running away from John Jay’s household in France
The Jays, as well as those who served them, show the challenges of obtaining and holding onto liberty. This family’s story helps us to grapple with what we mean by patriotism, conservatism, and radicalism.

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Growing Up as the Daughter of WW2 Spies Nov 17, 2022

As a child, Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop, along with her five brothers, was raised to revere the tribal legends of the Alsop and Roosevelt families. Her parents’ marriage, lived in the spotlight of 1950s Washington where the author’s father, journalist Stewart Alsop, grew increasingly famous, was not what either of her parents had imagined it would be. Her mother’s strict Catholicism and her father’s restless ambition collided to create a strangely muted and ominous world, one that mirrored the whispered conversations in the living room as the power brokers of Washington came and went through their side door.
Through it all, her mother, trained to keep secrets as a decoding agent with MI5, said very little. Today’s guest is Elizabeth, auth or of her memoir “Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies.”
She explores who her mother was, why alcohol played such an important role in her mother’s life, and why her mother held herself apart from all her children, especially her only daughter. In the author’s journey to understand her parents, particularly her mother, she comes to realize that the secrets parents keep are the ones that reverberate most powerfully in the lives of their children.

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Entrepreneurs in the Ancient World: From Neolithic Fashion Tycoons to Babylon’s 'Silicon Valley' Startup Founders Nov 15, 2022

Entrepreneurship didn’t begin with Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, or Adam Smith. Depending on how one interprets the archeological record, it goes back at least 9,000 years, when Neolithic tribes set up bead-making factories to transform worthless stones into jewelry, trading them for raw materials.
This culture of business spread and grew more sophisticated. Four thousand years ago the first LLCs appeared in Mesopotamia. Entrepreneurs became a respected and important part of life, and a dynamic entrepreneurial culture that worked like Silicon Valley does today. To discuss this 10,000-year story of business is today’s guest, Derek Lidow, author of “The Entrepreneurs: The Relentless Quest for Value.” We delve into the deep history of innovation to deliver essential new insights into how entrepreneurs have created value throughout history and continue to bring about change.
We explore how the archeological record proves entrepreneurship eventually develops in all urban cultures, how some groups of entrepreneurs have been hidden from history (women, slaves, ethnic and religious minorities, the underclass, and immigrants), and how monopolists like J.P. Morgan or Mark Zuckerberg threaten this entrepreneurial spirit, and what can be done about it.

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The Abolitionist Who Was Chaplain to Black Civil War Soldiers and Started a College Burned Down by the KKK Nov 10, 2022

George Richardson (1824-1911) was a traveling Methodist preacher who rode on a circuit across the antebellum Midwestern frontier and became increasingly caught up in the abolitionist movement. He became a “station master” on the Underground Railroad and served as chaplain to a black regiment during the Civil War. The soldiers under his care were survivors of the Ft. Pillow Massacre, in which the Confederates refused to take black soldiers as prisoners of war and unlawfully executed them instead.
In the 1870s, he founded a college in Texas for the formerly enslaved. When the Ku Klux Klan burned the school down, he built another one and rode on a circuit to teach those who were unable to travel to the attend.
Today’s guest is James D. Richardson –an ancestor of George Richardson, and also a retired journalist and Episcopalian priest. He retraced the steps of George across nine states, uncovering letters, diaries, and more memoirs hidden away. He’s the author of the new book, The Abolitionist’s Journal: Memories of an American Antislavery Family
We discuss what motivated George to become an abolitionist, the personal and financial challenges this brought on him and his family, and the incredible hardship that the formerly enslaved faced when they tried to build lives for themselves after emancipation when they had nothing or, thanks to the loansharking nature of sharecropping, less than nothing.

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The Russian-Jewish Woman Who Voluntarily Interred Herself in a WW2 Japanese Internment Camp Nov 08, 2022

During World War II, Elaine Black Yoneda [1906-1988], the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, spent eight months in a concentration camp—not in Europe, but in California. She was an activist who voluntarily joined her incarcerated Japanese-American husband, Karl, and their son, Tommy, at the Manzanar Relocation Center. But her beliefs were, to put it simply, complicated. While in the camp, Elaine and Karl publicly supported the United States’ decision to exclude Japanese Americans from the coast (they hated America’s internment policy but hated the threat of fascism in Europe even more and would do anything to support the Allied war effort).
Today’s guest is Rachel Schreiber, author of Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese American Exclusion and Incarceration. We discuss the story of this activist and her challenges to stand up for persecuted Americans of ethnic Japanese descent and whether she was unique in her beliefs or if her story suggests a more complicated WW2-era American society that we typically understand.
We discuss the ways Yoneda’s work challenged mainstream society and how she reconciled the contradictory political and social forces that shaped both her life and her family’s. Her story was one of many in the history of Japanese-American exclusion and incarceration during WWII and helps us understand this complicated history better.

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In 1963, A Stuttering, Nebbish Magazine Editor Negotiated a Secret Deal Between JFK and Khrushchev, Averting Nuclear War Nov 03, 2022

As the editor of the Saturday Review for more than thirty years, Norman Cousins had a powerful platform to shape American public debate during the height of the Cold War. Although he was a low-key, nebbish figure, under Cousins's leadership, the magazine was considered one of the most influential in the literary world and his advocacy on nuclear disarmament affect world politics ( his 1945 anti-nuclear essay “Modern Man is Obsolete” was read by over 40 million).
Cousins was respected by both JFK and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev, whom he visited at his vacation home on the Black Sea. As such, he met with both and passed messages between the two, getting involved in several secret citizen diplomacy missions during the height of the Cold War. He even played a major role in getting the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed. He also wrote JFK's famous 1963 American University commencement speech ("not merely peace in our time but peace for all time."
Today’s guest is Allen Pietrobon, author of Norman Cousins: Peacemaker in the Atomic Age
Cousins was much more important than we realize: he may very well have averted nuclear war.

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A Traumatized Civil War Vet -- Suffering Crippling Alcoholism and PTSD -- Spent 40 Years Wandering America as a Hobo Nov 01, 2022

William Aspinwal was many things. A child soldier. A ladies’ man. A mechanic. A tramp. A drunkard. A husband married five times. Each of these descriptions capture an aspect of his life, yet none do him justice. And they don’t explain how he became one of the most unlikely folk heroes of pre-World War One America.
Known later as “Roving Bill,” Aspinwal’s story begins when he was severely wounded and left for dead while fighting for the Union in the Battle of Champion Hill, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War. He recovered from his wounds but lived the next 60 years with shrapnel embedded in his brain and right arm. After the war, due to what we recognize now as PTSD, he wandered throughout the United States for the rest of his days, amiably making friends, working hard, and then pulling up stakes when it all became too comfortable.
To discuss his story, one that is left out of Reconstruction narratives, is today’s guest, Owen Clayton, author of Roving Bill Aspinwall: Dispatches from a Hobo in Post-Civil War America. Beyond travelling the states, Aspinwal spent 24 years writing letters to temperance advocate and professor, John McCook. His letters give a lucid account of the realities of living on the road as well as the challenges Bill faced dealing with his lingering war injuries both mental and physical.

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The Secret Role of Japanese Americans Who Fought in the WW2 Pacific Theatre Oct 27, 2022

Several thousand Japanese Americans were trained by the US Military Intelligence Service and sent to the Pacific to serve as interpreters, translators, and interrogators, even as their own families were being held in internment camps in America. Why haven’t we heard about their story?
Today’s guest is Bruce Henderson, author of “Bridge to the Sun.” He follows six of these soldiers, who were among the first Japanese Americans to serve in combat after Pearl Harbor, as they fight two wars simultaneously: one, overseas against their ancestral homeland, the other, against prejudice back home in America.
Exploring several first-person accounts including personal interviews, oral histories, diaries, and previously classified records, we look at the courage, heroism, and patriotism of these troops.

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FDR’s Polio Made Him Wheelchair Bound, But Also an Incredible Orator and Strategic Mastermind Oct 25, 2022

The qualities that made Franklin Roosevelt great weren’t things that he was born with but arguable the things that he had to learn in the hardest years of his life. Many thought of Roosevelt as the quintessential political natural. But the essential Roosevelt traits – his strategic ability, his gifts as an orator, his understanding of suffering and his own ability to ease it – were all born in the seven years he spent trying to recover from the effects of polio. To understand what made FDR a great president in a time of cascading global crises, you have to look at the lessons he took away from the greatest crisis of his own life.
Today’s guest is Jonathan Darman, author of “Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President.” We explore his searing struggle with polio, and how he emerged from illness with a strength and wisdom that propelled him towards one of the most consequential and ambitious presidencies in U.S. history. FDR’s bout with polio transformed him into a leader with the compassion and courage to lead and motivate Americans through the Great Depression and World War II.
Before polio, FDR was a handsome, vain, shallow politician who expected that things would always come easy to him because, up to then, most things always had. “He had a youthful lack of humility,” said his friend (and future Labor Secretary) Frances Perkins, “a streak of self-righteousness and a deafness to the hopes, fears, and aspirations which are the common lot.” Getting polio and losing the use of his legs at age 39 upended his plans for a future that had always seemed certain. It forced him to develop new skills – oratorical presence, strategic thinking, a sense of timing. It also helped him discover what suffering is really like and his own unique ability to ease it in others. “I would like to think that he would have done the things he did without his paralysis,” Perkins later said, “but . . . I don’t think he would have unless somebody had dealt him a blow between the eyes.”
FDR’s experience taught him the practical necessities that people most require when they are experiencing adversity. For FDR, these necessities included clear, honest, detailed communication about the path ahead and ways to accurately measure progress; support systems that foster a sense of dignity, purpose and community; experts who provide advice but also promote a sense of partnership and autonomy in one’s own recovery; and the ability to sustain optimism while also staying focused on what is achievable and real

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John Donne: The Genius Priest/Poet Who Saw Infinity and Triggered Stampedes At His Sermons Oct 20, 2022

John Donne was not a typical English clergyman. Before his ordination, the 17th century Anglican priest had worked as a poet, lawyer, pirate, satirist, politician, and chaplain to the King, before ultimately becoming dean of the St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. But it was his preaching and writing that made him famous. He was so popular that thousands came to hear him, nearly killing some attendees in a stampede in one incident in 1623.
It was his power over language that made him a celebrity. Most famous for his love poetry and erotic verse, Donne wrote about spirituality, and sex in a way that nobody else has, before or since. Taken together, Donne’s writings cements him as one of the finest writers in English, up there with Shakespeare.
Despite his fame at the time, today he is a mystery. No diary entries, firsthand accounts, or manuscript drafts of his poems remain. What we do know of his life is that he suffered incredible hardship. He was a father of 10, often lived in squalor, and wrote a treatise on suicide as a young man. Yet despite these problems, or perhaps because of them, he was full of awe and wonder and captured that better than any other writer of his time.
Today’s guest is Katherine Rundell, author of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne. She discusses how Donne saw with such a unique perspective and how he set down what he knew with such precision and flair that we can seize hold of it and carry it with us today.

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Sigmund Freud Deluded Himself Into Thinking The Nazis Weren’t A Threat Until It Was Nearly Too Late Oct 18, 2022

“The ‘uncanny’ is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar.” This is a quote from Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychanalysis. He laid the foundations of understanding the subconscious and how our mind tries to protect us in ways we don’t understand. But what is strange is that for Freud, he arguably had problems identifying the uncanny in his own life.
Freud’s ethnicity and beliefs made him an outsider in early 20th century Europe. As a Jew, Freud had long been met with anti-Semitism; but as an atheist, he took it less personally than others, and these encounters rarely struck a nerve. Only towards the end of his life, as warning signs of hatred and murder brewed in his native Austria, did he recognize the terrifyingly familiar prejudice. By then, it had already threatened his family – and he almost didn’t realize the very real danger until it was too late.
Today we are looking at Freud’s own neuroses, against the backdrop of Nazi conquest of Austria. When the Germans invaded in 1938, Freud was still in deep denial. Several prominent people close to Freud, however, knew better. They began a coordinated effort to persuade Freud to leave his cherished Vienna and emigrate to England.
I’m speaking today with Andrew Nagorski, author of “Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom.” We look at the remarkable collection of people – Freud’s personal physician, Napoleon’s great-grandniece, the heiress to the Tiffany fortune, his daughter Anna, an American ambassador, and his English-language translator – who succeeded in coaxing Freud to safety.
In light of his story, we also look at the limits of the human brain when faced with true horror and true evil, which pace Freud, is a psychoanalytic study in and of itself.

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The Most Important Diplomat in 1700s North America was a Cherokee Woman Who Saved Washington’s Life and Introduced Dairy to Her Tribe Oct 13, 2022

A Cherokee woman named Nanyehi, which means “One Who Goes About” was born in the 1730s in modern-day Tennessee. She stood out at an early age: At 17, she led her tribe to victory against the Creeks. She eventually became the only female voting member of the Cherokee General Council. Nanyehi later married Irish trader Bryant Ward and took the anglicized name Nancy. With her access to many differet cultures, she became one of the most important diplomats in eighteen-century North America, moving among the worlds of the British, Americans, and American Indians.
Nancy Ward was the negotiator of the sale of Kentucky to the Transylvania Company by Daniel Boone, as well as savior to countless settlers and pioneers who helped form the course of American history. She advocated for peaceful coexistence with Europeans and Americans and, later in life, spoke out for Cherokee retention of tribal lands.
Today’s guest is Debra Yates, author of “Woman of Many Names.” Debra is also the seventh-great-granddaughter of Nancy, who had ties to Daniel Boone and George Washington, including having saved the latter’s life (and, it’s believed, vice versa).
We discuss how Nancy Ward innovated among the Cherokees, introducing new loom weaving techniques and chow to successfully raised cows, being the first to introduce that industry among the Cherokees

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Do Racial Preferences in U.S. College Admissions Process Date Back to Ivy League Attempts to Limit Jewish Enrollment? Oct 11, 2022

Much of what we know about the college admissions process in the United States -- eg. requiring interviews to gauge "character"; seeking diversity of interest; looking for "geographic diversity" – are not timeless features of American higher education. They were actually implemented in the early 20th century to keep their Jewish populations down.
This was one of many ways these schools tried to maintain their WASP character. Columbia University created separate campus in Brooklyn from 1928 to 1938 where they tried to send Jews and other undesirable minorities, to keep the main, uptown campus a space for its wealthy, Protestant students. At Dartmouth, a professor told a Jewish students in the 1950s that anti-Jewish quotas were necessary, or else the campus would be "swimming in Jews."
Today’s guest is Mark Oppenheimer. He is a former New York Times religion columnist, author, and host of a new podcast series called Gatecrashers: The Hidden History of Jews and the Ivy League, in which he explores why we apply to college the way we do and how the Jewish experience in the Ivy League shaped American higher education and America at large.
He shares how much has changed at the elite colleges since the 1920s, the strides that have been made, and the parallels between the college experience then and how “diversity” is achieved now.

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Uber Succeed in the US but Failed in the UK and China Because of Jefferson and Hamilton’s Fight Over State Licensing Oct 06, 2022

Why was Uber able to destroy the taxi cab industry in the United States, but it failed to get any sort of market share in the United Kingdom and China? The reasons are many, but essentially, the UK had strict licensing codes that made Uber’s operations impossible, while China openly supported a local rival to prevent the foreign company from taking over its market. However, the story of Uber is larger than a 21st century tale of government red tape. It goes back centuries to the origins of entrepreneurship and property rights in the Western legal tradition
Entrepreneurship is more than taking risks to start a business, challenging legacy industries and innovating into success. It’s actually – as today’s guest argues – an act of rebellion that challenges the status quo and has a lot in common with fighting a revolution.
We’re joined by John Landry, author of Launchpad Republic: America’s Entrepreneurial Edge and Why It Matters. We discuss how this rebellious spirit has influenced the institutional, political, and legal factors that have shaped our economy—with an in-depth look at how these have operated throughout history and can be improved going forward.
Taking us from the economic foundation of the Constitution right to the present day, we explore current concerns about the ever-increasing inequality of wealth, offering strategies to improve the system without abandoning the balancing act between rewarding builders and enabling challengers that has proved remarkably resilient.

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James Early Explains Why the War of 1812 Turned America Into an Expansionist Military Power Sep 29, 2022

We are joined by James Early, the co-host of some of the best series on this show, including our Key Battles Series (World War One, the Civl War, the Revolutionary War) and Presidential Fight Club. James is here to discuss the War of 1812, a little war with a big impact. Although it was a sideshow for the British (that cared more about the Napoleonic Wars, which threatened its existence) and to the lesser extent the Americans (that couldn’t bother to field a standing army up to the war), the War of 1812 forged post-Revolutionary American identity. It gave the United States a new boost of confidence, shored up its military power, and kick off the age of expansion that continued for the next century.
Check out more of James’s content on his Key Battles of American History Podcast.

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How to Escape From a Nazi Prison Fortress Sep 27, 2022

Looking at Colditz Castle, it was no surprise why the Nazi’s chose the towering fortress as their prison-of-war camp for the most defiant Allied prisoners. Perched high above a rocky outcrop with thick medieval walls of stone, the men who had escaped other camps would surely have no such luck here, living out the war under the watchful eye of their German captors. But men do not resign themselves so lightly, and with nothing but time on their hands, the POWs of Colditz would engineer some of the most ingenious—and utterly reckless—methods of escape that could be imagined.
Today’s guest is Ben Macintyre, author of “Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape From Colditz.” We metaphorically go inside the prison to live among side these men as they grapple with class conflict, bullying, boredom, insanity and farce. There are heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.
We get into character portraits of the inmates, along with their stories of bravery and sacrifice.

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Thomas Jefferson’s European Travel Guide Includes Architectural Sketches, Farming Tips, and an Astronomical Wine Expense Report Sep 22, 2022

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson was a broken man. Reeling from the loss of his wife and humiliated from a political scandal during the Revolutionary war, he needed to remake himself. And to do that, he traveled. Traipsing through Europe, Jefferson saw and learned as much as he could, ultimately bringing his knowledge home to a young America. He wrote a travelogue called “Hints to Americans Traveling in Europe.”
Jefferson documented his trip in order to educate the infant nation on cutting-edge techniques in agriculture and architecture. He included sketches of buildings with Roman domes and columns, which he thought should be incorporated into America’s buildings to celebrate one of the ancient world’s greatest democracies. But he also indulged in European luxury and spent a gilded carriage’s worth on wine, ivory-handled knives, and porcelain statuettes, and (most odd) an organ for teaching songs to birds.
More than two hundred years later, Derek Baxter, a devotee of American history, decided to follow in his footsteps and see what he could learn from the Founding Father. Baxter is today’s guest and author of “In Pursuit of Jefferson: Traveling Through Europe With the Most Perplexing Founding Father.” He stumbled on Jefferson’s travelogue and used it as a roadmap, embarking on a new journey, following Jefferson to the same French wineries and rivers, even eating period-accurate food at Monticello. The goal was to figure out how to make sense of Jefferson and the multitude of contradictions in his life, the most debated being that he was a slaveholder who also wrote a world-historical testament to freedom.
This is an unflinching look at a founding father, and a moving personal journey. We explore how we can be better moving forward only by first looking back.

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The Michigan Politician Who Created a Proto-New Deal, Defeated the KKK in Court, and Defended Interred Japanese-Americans Sep 20, 2022

Frank Murphy was a public servant that achieved the highest levels of civilian success in the early 20th century. After serving in World War I, he served as mayor of Detroit, then as the top appointed U.S. official to the Philippines, then as Governor of Michigan, U.S. Attorney General, and ultimately as a Justice on the Supreme Court, appointed by FDR. But it was his securing justice for a black doctor against a KKK mob that made him an icon.
In 1925, Ossian Sweet, a black doctor, moved with his family into a traditionally white neighborhood in Detroit. The city did not have Jim Crow but it had the KKK and segregation, particularly in housing. On a daily basis, the Sweet family faced taunts and threats of violence from white mobs that gathered outside.
One day in September, the mobs grew violent and threw rocks at the Sweet house, shattering glass windows as the police stood by. Sweet (or one of his companions) shot out from the house and killed a white bystander. He was arrested and tried for murder before an all-white jury.
Judge Frank Murphy insisted on a fair trial for the Black defendants. As the trial judge, Murphy told the jury that Sweet had no duty to retreat if his home was threatened, as Americans had a right to live where they wanted. He evoked the house as a castle metaphor.
Twice, the jury refused to convict and the charges were eventually dropped. The result was hailed by the NAACP and others as a rare triumph of the legal process for black defendants. When Murphy later ran for mayor of Detroit, he won in black precincts by margins of 30-1.
Today’s guest, Greg Zipes, is here to share the story of Murphy. He’s the author of Justice and Faith: The Frank Murphy Story. Throughout his career, Murphy influenced the country’s values in tangible ways, cementing its focus on individual dignity and liberties at times in America’s history when it had moved in more authoritarian directions, whether through war-time suspension of rights or Jim Crow-era legislation or the internment of Japanese Americans.
Other fascinating parts of his life include his Organization of Mayors, which helped pressure the federal government to provide aid directly to cities and individuals, bypassing the states; how the US did not learn lessons about colonial decoupling from Murphy's role in the Philippines prior to World War II; and Murphy’s dissent in the 1944 Supreme Court decision Korematsu vs. US, a decision that debated the legality of Japanese internment camps.

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The Rag-Tag Art Renegades that Brought Picasso and Modernist Art to the United States Sep 15, 2022

Today we think of New York as the center of the twentieth century art world, but it took three determined men, two world wars, and one singular artist to secure the city’s cultural prominence. Pablo Picasso was the most influential and perplexing artist of his age, and the turning points of his career and salient facets of his private life have intrigued the world for decades. However, the tremendous feat of winning support for his art in the U.S. has long been overlooked.
To discuss this largely forgotten story is Hugh Eakin, author of Picasso’s War How Modern Art Came to America. He details the story of how a single exhibition, years in the making, finally brought the 20th century’s most notorious artist U.S. acclaim, irrevocably changed American culture, and in doing so saved dozens of the twentieth century’s most enduring artworks from the Nazis.
A small group of eclectic figures made this happen: the renegade Irish-American lawyer John Quinn and the mountain-girl-turned-foreign correspondent, Jeanne Foster; the art dealer and Paris kingmaker, Paul Rosenberg; the wunderkind museum founder Alfred Barr and his sharp-witted, Irish-Italian wife, Margaret Scolari. Working sometimes together and often at odds, they were determined to bring the radical art revolutions of Europe to the States, no matter what stood in their way. In the end, they would have to overcome political revolutions, bankruptcies, divorces, art seizures—and years of American cultural hostility before they could achieve their goal. Collectively, it would take the destruction of New York’s first great modern art collection and finally, the Nazis’ war on modernism to bring this twenty-year quest to its surprising conclusion.

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The Oldest Stories of King Arthur Have Female Warriors, Black Knights, and Whole Lot of Supernatural Encounters Sep 13, 2022

The stories of King Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan and the rest of the Knights of the Roundtable, and the search for the Holy Grail have been beloved for centuries and are the inspiration of many modern fantasy novels, films, and shows. These legends began when an obscure Celtic hero named Arthur stepped on to the stage of history sometime in the sixth century, generating a host of oral tales that would be inscribed some 900 years later by Thomas Malory in his classic Morte D’Arthur (The Death of Arthur).
But Malory had many more sources than he could ever use in his book. As such, historians of Arthur have thougth for decades than an update was necessary. Today’s guest, John Matthews, took up the challenge. He’s the author of “The Great Book of King Arthur & His Knights of the Round Table.” He brings these legends into the modern age, using accessible prose for contemporary readers for the first time. He includes many tales of Arthur and his knights either unknown to Malory or written in other languages, such as the story of Avenable, the girl brought up as a boy who becomes a famous knight; Morien, whose adventures are as fantastic and exciting as any found in Malory’s work; and a retelling of the life of Round Table favorite Gawain, from his strange birth to his upbringing among the poor to his ascension to the highest position—Emperor of Rome.

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Steve Guerra on Freemasonry, The Catholic Church, and the Modern World Sep 09, 2022

This is a sample of a recent episode of Steve Guerra's History of the Papacy Podcast (https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-the-papacy-podcast/) about Freemasonry, the Catholic Church, and the modern world.

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Mata Hari Was Either the World’s Greatest Female Spy or a WWI Exotic Dancer Way In Over Her Head Sep 08, 2022

Even before Mata Hari (née Margaretha Zelle) was executed by a French firing squad in 1917 for spying on behalf of the Germans, her life had already become legend. At her trial, prosecutors claimed that the world-famous exotic dancer had seduced countless men from both sides of the war (definitely true) and leaked intelligence that caused the deaths of 50,000 French soldiers (almost certainly false).
Immediately after her death, biographies ran with the juicier narrative and turned her into the femme fatale archetype, who lured high-ranking officers into her boudoir and steal their documents while they were asleep. She inspired books, musicals, and films.
But more recently, historians argued that she was merely a gossip who tried to steal state secrets but never discovered anything that couldn’t be found in the newspapers. The only recent the French military charged her with espionage was to distract the nation from France’s poor showing in the war.
In today’s episode, we explore the life and death of Mata Hari, a woman who was an excellent performer, perhaps a poor spy, but above all else, never, ever uninteresting.

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Vikings Definitely Came to the New World Before Columbus. Did Celtic Monks, the Chinese, and Phoenicians Do So Also? Sep 06, 2022

Many brave sailors arrived in North and South America long before Columbus, suggesting that trans-oceanic voyages could be accomplished centuries before his voyage. Some think that the Atlantic was crossed as far back as the Bronze Age. While written records of such voyages are often poorly sourced, archeology keeps rewriting the story about Old World visitors to the New World.

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How America Chooses to Remember Itself: 200 Years of U.S. Museums, and Presenting the Civil War, Spanish Flu, and the Culture Wars Sep 01, 2022

On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. The New York Times wrote that “the destruction of so many of its fine collections will be viewed as a national calamity.” Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum’s castle. Rare objects and valuable paintings were destroyed. The flames at the Smithsonian were not the first —and certainly would not be the last—disaster to upend a museum in the United States. Beset by challenges ranging from pandemic and war to fire and economic uncertainty, museums have sought ways to emerge from crisis periods stronger than before, occasionally carving important new paths forward in the process.
But museums ask questions about power and who gets to determine what stories are told or foregrounded, who gets to determine how those things are exhibited, framed, and talked about.
To talk with us today about museums is today’s guest, historian and professor Samuel J. Redman. He’s the author of The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience. We explore World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Great Depression, World War II, the 1970 Art Strike in New York City, and recent controversies in American museums from the COVID-19 pandemic to race and gender issues, this timely book takes a novel approach to understanding museum history, present challenges, and the future. By diving deeper into the changes that emerged from these key challenges, Samuel J. Redman argues that cultural institutions can—and should—use their history to prepare for challenges and solidify their identity going forward.

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The Many Ways To Die While Building an Aircraft Carrier Aug 30, 2022

Tip the Empire State Building onto its side and you’ll have a sense of the length of the United States Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the most powerful in the world: the USS John F. Kennedy. Weighing 100,000 tons, Kennedy features the most futuristic technology ever put to sea, making it the most dangerous aircraft carrier in the world.
Only one place possesses the brawn, brains and brass to transform naval warfare with such a creation – the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia and its 30,000 employees and shipyard workers.
The building of the USS JFK is part of a millennia-long story of the incredible danger that comes with building a ship. Welders have to walk hundreds of feet in the air and hang upside down like Batman to join beams. Painters have to squeeze into compartments smaller than coffins. All of this under impossible deadlines with the specter of COVID hanging overhead.
To talk about the past, present, and future of aircraft carriers is Michael Fabey, author of “Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers Who Build America’s Supercarriers.” We discuss the importance of this American made industry not only on a local but nationwide level, and why aircraft carriers still matter in the third decade of the 21st century.

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The Divorce Colony: Why Women Fled to South Dakota in the 1880s to End Their Troubled Marriages Aug 25, 2022

No-fault divorce laws began spreading across the globe in the 1970s, in which neither party had to prove wrong-doing. Before this time, somebody had to prove that the other party breached the marital contract, typically through infidelity or desertion. Basically, it was shockingly difficult to get divorced. For a woman in the late 19th century, there was only one place in the country to reliably get a divorce: Sioux Falls, otherwise known as the “Divorce Colony,” a place where the land and the laws had not yet been tamed.
To explore this topic further is today’s guest April White, author of “The Divorce Colony: How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier.” She discusses the stories of four real women who made the trek to Sioux Falls to get their divorces because the new state had short residency requirements before a settler fell under the jurisdiction of its flexible laws. We discuss salacious newspaper headlines, juicy court documents, and high-profile cameos from the era’s most well-known socialites to unveil the incredible social, political, and personal dramas that unfolded in Sioux Falls and reverberated around the country.
In particular, we discuss how the scandalous divorces of socialites and actresses at the turn-of-the-century led to greater acceptance of divorce in the United States; why turn-of-the-century suffragists were split on the question of divorce; and wow increased access to divorce changed the role of women in the United States.

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America's Universal Education System Exists From a Coalition of Progressives, the Know-Nothing Party, and the Ku Klux Klan Aug 23, 2022

In a remarkably short span of time, American children went from laboring on family farms to spending their days in classrooms. The change came from optimistic reformers like Horace Mann, who in the early 1800s dreamed of education, literacy, and science spreading throughout all levels of American society. But other supporters of universal education had darker motives. They feared the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants and thought they'd bring their papist ideas to the young republic. Only compulsory education could break these European children of their Catholic ways and transform them into obedient, patriotic Americans with a Protestant outlook in their worldview if not in their theology.
This episode explores the origins of compulsory education, from the Protestant Reformation (and how it was used as a weapon in the religious arms races of sixteenth-century Europe), Prussia's role as the first nation with universal schooling, how America adopted compulsory K-12 education, and whether modern-day schools are actually based on a factory from the 1800s.

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How 2 Men Escaped Auschwitz, Exposed the Holocaust to the World, and Saved Hundreds of Thousands of Hungarian Jews Aug 18, 2022

Europe’s Jewish population suffered during every stage of the Holocaust, but by the time the Third Reich occupied Hungary and targeted its Jews for deportation and extermination, the concentration camps had reached their most efficient form. Historian Geralt Reitlinger said the Hungarian Holocaust was “the most concentrated and methodical deportation and massacre program of the war, a slaughter machine that functioned, perfectly oiled, for forty-six days on end.” Every day, 12,000 arrived at Auschwitz and either were forced into hard labor or met their ends in gas chambers. But if it were not for the bravery of two prisoners who broke out of the camps and broke the story to the world, hundreds of thousands more could have died.
After nearly suffocating in an underground bunker, Auschwitz prisoners Ceslav Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin escaped and informed Jewish leaders about what they had seen. Their testimony in early June, 1944, corroborated earlier hard-to-believe reports of mass killing in Auschwitz by lethal gas and provided eyewitness accounts of arrivals of Hungarian Jews meeting the same fate. It was the spark needed to stir a call for action to pressure Hungary’s premier to defy Hitler—just hours before more than 200,000 Budapest Jews were to be deported.
Todays guest is Fred Bleakly, author of The Auschwitz Protocols: Ceslav Mordowicsz and the Race to Save Hungary's Jews. We discuss how the courage of only a few people can do incredible good, even in the absolute worst of circumstances.

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Josie Underwood: The Civil War-Era Socialite Who Owned Slaves, Hated Lincoln, and Loved the Union Aug 16, 2022

A well-educated, outspoken member of a politically prominent family in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Josie Underwood (1840–1923) left behind one of the few intimate accounts of the Civil War written by a southern woman sympathetic to the Union. This vivid portrayal of the early years of the war begins several months before the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861. "The Philistines are upon us," twenty-year-old Josie writes in her diary, leaving no question about the alarm she feels when Confederate soldiers occupy her once peaceful town.
Today’s guest, Nancy Disher Baird, published Josie’s memoirs as the book "Josie Underwood's Civil War Diary." It offers a firsthand account of a family that owned slaves and opposed Lincoln, yet remained unshakably loyal to the Union. Josie's father, Warner, played an important role in keeping Kentucky from seceding. Among the many highlights of the diary is Josie's record of meeting the president in wartime Washington, which served to soften her opinion of him. Josie describes her fear of secession and war, and the anguish of having relatives and friends fighting on opposite sides, noting in the spring of 1861 that many friendships and families were breaking up "faster than the Union."
The diary also brings to life the fears and frustrations of living under occupation in strategically important Bowling Green, known as the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy" during the war. Despite the wartime upheaval, Josie's life is also refreshingly normal at times as she recounts travel, parties, local gossip, and the search for her "true Prince." Bringing to life this Unionist enslaver family, the diary dramatically chronicles Josie's family, community, and state during wartime.

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The American Revolution Would Have Been Lost Without a Ragtag Fleet of Thousands of Privateers Aug 11, 2022

Privateers were a cross between an enlisted sailor and an outright pirate. But they were crucial in winning the Revolutionary War. As John Lehman, former secretary of the navy under President Ronald Reagan, observed, “From the beginning of the American Revolution until the end of the War of 1812, America’s real naval advantage lay in its privateers. It has been said that the battles of the American Revolution were fought on land, and independence was won at sea. For this we have the enormous success of American privateers to thank even more than the Continental Navy.”
Yet even in the face of plenty of readily available evidence, the official canon of naval history in both Britain and the United States virtually ignores privateers.
Privateers were privately owned vessels granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war – filled in the gaps. Nearly 2,000 of these private ships set sail over the course of the war, with tens of thousands of Americans capturing more than 1,800 British ships. A truly ragtag fleet ranging from twenty-five-foot-long whaleboats to full-rigged ships more than 100 ft long, privateersmen were not just pirates after a good loot – as too often assumed – but were, instead, crucial instruments in the war. They diverted critical British resources to protecting their shipping, played a key role in bringing France in as an ally, replenished much-needed supplies back home, and bolstered morale.
Today’s guest is Eric Jay Dolin, author of “Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution.” The story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the Revolution has been told many times – yet often missing from maritime histories of the period is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that were, in fact, critical to American victory.
Privateering provided a source of strength that helped the rebels persevere. Although privateering was not the single, decisive factor in beating the
British—there was no one cause—it was extremely important nonetheless.

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Gen. George Marshall and Henry Stimson Built America’s WW2 War Machine and Created the Postwar Global Order Aug 09, 2022

Five years after World War II ended, Winston Churchill said he was still amazed that the United States, which before WWII had a tiny military and was fully committed to isolationism, “were able not only to build up the armies and air force units, but also to find the leaders and vast staffs capable of handling enormous masses and of moving them faster and farther than masses have ever been moved in war before.” He was speaking in general about the United States, but much of the credit arguably was with Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
From 1940 until the end of the war, Marshall and Stimson headed the army machine that ground down the Axis. Theirs was one of the most consequential collaborations of the twentieth century. According to Dwight Eisenhower, the two possessed more greatness than any other men he had ever met.
The general and the secretary traveled very different paths to power. Educated at Yale, where he was Skull and Bones, and at Harvard Law, Henry Stimson joined the Wall Street law firm of Elihu Root, future secretary of war and state himself, and married the descendant of a Founding Father. He went on to serve as secretary of war under Taft, governor-general of the Philippines, and secretary of state under Hoover. An internationalist Republican with a track record, Stimson ticked the boxes for FDR, who was in the middle of a reelection campaign at the time.
Thirteen years younger, George Marshall graduated in the middle of his class from the Virginia Military Institute (not West Point), then began the standard, and very slow, climb up the army ranks. During World War I he performed brilliant staff work for General Pershing. After a string of postings, Marshall ended up in Washington in the 1930s and impressed FDR with his honesty, securing his appointment as chief of staff.
Today’s guest is Edward Aldrich, author of The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration that Won World War II. Marshall and Stimson were two very different men who combined with a dazzling synergy to lead the American military effort in World War II, in roles that blended politics, diplomacy, and bureaucracy in addition to warfighting. They transformed an outdated, poorly equipped army into a modern fighting force of millions of men capable of fighting around the globe.
They, and Marshall in particular, identified the soldiers, from Patton and Eisenhower to Bradley and McNair, best suited for high command. They helped develop worldwide strategy and logistics for battles like D-Day and the Bulge. They collaborated with Allies like Winston Churchill. They worked well with their cagey commander-in-chief. They planned for the postwar world. They made decisions, from the atomic bombs to the division of Europe, that would echo for decades.

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Bruce Lee Became a Global Celebrity by Embodying 400 Years of Western-Chinese Cultural Trade Aug 04, 2022

An Asian and Asian American icon of unimaginable stature and influence, Bruce Lee revolutionized the martial arts by combining influences drawn from around the world. Uncommonly determined, physically gifted, and artistically brilliant, Lee rose to fame as part of a wave of transpacific globalization that bridged the nearly seven thousand miles between Hong Kong and California.
Today’s guest, Daryl Joji Maeda (author of the new Bruce Lee biography Like Water) unpacks Lee’s global impact, linking his legendary status as a martial artist, actor, and director to his continual traversals across the newly interconnected Asia and America.
Movements and migrations across the Pacific Ocean structured the cultures Bruce Lee inherited, the milieu he occupied, the martial art he developed, the films he made, and the world he left behind. It includes the gold rush in California and the British occupation of Hong Kong, Lee was both a product of his time and a harbinger of a more connected future.
Nearly half a century after his tragic death, Bruce Lee remains an inspiring symbol of innovation and determination, with an enduring legacy as the first Asian American global superstar.

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John McWhorter Describes Human Language's 20,000-Year Journey from Proto-Sumerian to Ebonics Aug 02, 2022

Language not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries. How did different languages come to be? Why isn't there just a single language? How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth? How does a language become extinct?
In today's rebroadcast, I speak with John McWhorter, a linguist from Columbia University. He addresses these and other issues, such as how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today, everything from proto-Indo European to Ebonics English in the United States.

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No Supply Chain Was More Complicated Than the Allies’ During WW2. How Did They Maintain It? Jul 28, 2022

World War 2 was won due to Allied bravery, superior strategy, better technology, and more supplies. But the true unsung hero of the war effort is the Allied logistics network. The U.S. alone fed and supplied soldiers through a planet-spanning supply chain. It waged two wars on different continents at the same time. They kept supplied 98 divisions on a supply line that was well over 10,000 miles long: 7,000 from San Fran to Manila, 4000 from NYC to Normandy. About 1.9 million tons of supplies reached Britain in May 1944 alone.
The multi-step process from when supplies were built to when they arrived on the front lines could have failed at multiple points (and they often did). Goods, for example, were made in a U.S. factory then shipped halfway across the world to a remote beach or port. Once at the point of debarkation, an administrative organization had to offload, organize, and transport everything to the front. Support units had to build installations and airfields, establish factories for the assembly of vehicles, and create an administrative bureaucracy to manage the entire administrative effort to support a theater of war. Added to this, the Allied militaries had to provide food and medical care for civil populations, outfit allies that could not support themselves, as well as house and care for tens of thousands of prisoners of war.
To discuss the logistical challenge of the century is David Dworak, a retired U.S. Army colonel and academic administrator at the US Army War College. He is the author of the new book War of Supply: World War II Allied Logistics in the Mediterranean. We go behind the scenes with the Allies during the “war of matériel" that gave them a distinct, strategic advantage over the Axis powers.

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New Yorkers Feared Jack the Ripper Invaded the City in 1891 After a Prostitute Was Found Brutally Murdered Jul 26, 2022

Jack the Ripper’s serial killing spree of 1888 shocked the world, triggering panic from Paris to South America that he could strike anywhere, anytime. New Yorkers in particular were on high alert when local prostitute Carrie Brown, a.k.a. “Old Shakespeare,” was found brutally murdered in a seedy Manhattan hotel on the waterfront. NYPD Chief of Detectives Thomas Byrnes accused an Algerian named Amir Ben Ali of the crime. He was convicted of second degree murder despite the evidence against him being doubtful, but pardoned eleven years later. Who was the real killer?
To explore one of the most notorious crimes of the Gilded Age is Luke Jerod Kummer, author of the Audible audiobook Takers Mad. In his research, questions about what really happened in the hotel on that monstrous night began to reveal themselves. Did the police scapegoat the man arrested for the crime? What about the blood that detectives found? Or did authorities actually let Jack the Ripper walk free?

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When a Soldier’s Bravery is So Great His Comrades Fear Him: The Story of Band of Brothers’ Ronald “Killer “ Spiers Jul 21, 2022

No paratrooper in the legendary “Band of Brothers” – a WW2 parachute rifle company part of the 101st Airborne Division in the U.S. Army -- was more enigmatic than Ronald Speirs. Rumored to have gunned down enemy prisoners and even one of his own disobedient sergeants, he was one of World War II’s most storied soldiers, a controversial man whose ferocity and courage earned him the nickname “Killer.” But who was the real Ronald Speirs?
Most accounts about him end in 1945, but today’s guest Jared Frederick, author of Fierce Valor: The True Story of Ronald Speirs and His Band of Brothers, unveil the full story of Easy Company’s longest-serving commander and, for the first time, tell of his lesser-known exploits in Korea, the Cold War and Laos.
We explore how
• Speirs was a complex, driven man, and not a dark caricature as some have imagined him
• Speirs was deeply shaped by his whirlwind wartime romance with Edwyna. Theirs was a marriage that tragically ended in divorce after she discovered her first love was not dead, but a POW. Decades later, Speirs wrote about her, “I loved her and still do”
• Speirs survived gut-wrenching Cold War assignments in Korea and grinding battles with the Chinese. These lesser-known exploits come to light fully for the first time in Fierce Valor
As Easy Company’s most colorful and controversial figures, Spiers was a soldier whose ferocious courage in three foreign conflicts was matched by his devotion to duty and the bittersweet passions of wartime romance.

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Did Pope Pius XII Collaborate With the Nazis? This Historian Viewed the Vatican Archives and Has the Answer Jul 19, 2022

One of the biggest unresolved World War 2 debates is the Vatican’s complicity in the Holocaust – did Pope Pius XII sit back and do nothing as Nazi Germany exterminate 6 million Jews? Critics accuse him of a weakness for dictatorships and a distaste for Jews, a pushover that Mussolini and Hitler could easily intimidate. Defenders say he was a virtuous man who stood up to Nazis and their Italian fascist allies despite being threatened with kidnapping and assassination. He worked tirelessly and effective to prevent more Jews from being murdered.
The question was little more than speculation for decades because the Vatican’s archives that cover World War 2 were closed. However, Pope Francis decided to open them recently, and today’s guest, David Kertzer, took immediate advantage of this opportunity. He’s the author of the new book “The Pope at War” and he shows us what went on behind the scenes at the Vatican during World War II and the Holocaust. We discuss secret negotiations that Pius XII held with Hitler in the late 1930s, how the pope blessed Italy’s war effort until Mussolini’s fall in 1943, and how he held back aid to Jews after the Nazis’ systematic murder was revealed.

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Eating Roman Mouse-on-a-Stick, Shakespeare's Tavern Bread, and Other Forgotten Culinary "Treats" From the Past Jul 14, 2022

You and your ancestor from 1,000 years ago have almost nothing in common. Your clothes are different. Your worship rituals are different. Your thoughts about the opposite sex are definitely different. Almost the only similarity is that both of you are driven to obtain food. In fact, one could say that civilization itself began in the quest for food.
In this episode, Professor Ken Albala of the University of the Pacific puts the subject of food and its importance in history on the table. Ken has studied widely on the types of cuisine that would be featured at a Roman feast, a medieval banquet, or a Renaissance Italian civic celebration. He’s ground Italian flour to make the sort of bread one would eat in Pompeii. He’s made stewed rabbit in a homemade clay pot the way an Elizabethean peasant would. He hasn’t tried field-mouse-on-a-stick (a popular Roman delicacy) but probably not for lack of trying.
We discuss how Roman food reflected social rank, wealth, and sophistication; why the Middle Ages produced some of history’s most outlandish and theatrical presentations of food, such as gilded boars’ heads, “invented” creatures, mixing parts of different animals; and cooked peacocks spewing flames; modern foody gastronomy; and finally, one of my favorite desserts, Turkish Chicken pudding.

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Beyond Camelot: What It Was Like to Live Through the JFK Era Jul 12, 2022

For those that have no living memory of JFK, it’s nearly impossible to think of his presidency as anything but a few preordained moments that move inevitably toward his tragic death: His 1961 inauguration marking a high point of the optimism of the post-war era in which Jackie Kennedy holds their infant son and JFK famously intones: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” This is quickly followed by the botched Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Kennedy’s challenge for the US to land on the moon by the end of the decade. But his assassination tragically cuts his life short, and the legend of JFK becomes frozen in amber.
To get a sense of what it was actually like to live during the JFK presidency, we are joined by Mark Updegrove, author of Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency. Looking back on Kennedy’s strength and challenges as a man and leader from the lens of today, we eschew the Camelot myths and look at the textured portrait of a complicated leader, examining the major challenges JFK faced and the influential figures that surrounded him.

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After Custer’s Last Stand, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Fought an Impossible Battle To Preserve the Sioux Nation Jul 07, 2022

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were two Lakota chiefs born in the final generation of Plains Indians who grew up in the manner similar to their ancestors: hunting herds of buffalo so large they seemed to cover the earth and moving freely with their nomadic tribes. But they always had contact with white settlers, first a trickle of fur traders and pioneers, then a flood of fortune seekers in 1874 Black Hills Gold Rush. The conflict came to a head in the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn, in which they crushed George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. But what happened to them after this victory?
Today’s guest is Mark Lee Gardner, author of The Earth is All That Lasts: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation. We look at the their stories and how their victory over the U.S military also marked and the beginning of the end for their treasured way of life. And in the years to come, both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defiant to the end, would meet violent—and eerily similar—fates. They were two fascinating leaders struggling to maintain the freedom of their people against impossible odds.

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Introducing the Vlogging Through History Podcast Jul 06, 2022

Please enjoy this preview of the Vlogging Through History Podcast, hosted by Chris Mowery. In his show, Chris tells the story of the private soldier as much as it is the story of the great general. It is the story of the farmer in the field as much as it is the story of the man in the Oval office. Go to vloggingthroughhistory.com to enter a giveaway to mark the show's launch.

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How a WW2 Soldier Persevered Through Concentration Camps, Death Marches, and Starvation Jul 05, 2022

One of the most widely read books of the 20th century is Viktor Frank’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” In it, the author, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II, described his psychotherapeutic method to endure the most hellish experiences imaginable. One must hold onto a purpose in life and immersively imagine that outcome. Many have used Frankl’s method, one of which was Harold Frank, a WW2 rifleman who survived a Nazi POW camp, a multi-day death march, thousands of tons of bombs detonating nearby, and starvation conditions that caused him to lose over 100 pounds.
His combat began at D-Day in 1944: twenty-year-old PFC Harold Frank had moved as one with his battalion onto the shores of Utah Beach, pushing into France to cut off and blockade the pivotal Nazi-occupied deep-water port of Cherbourg. As a recognized crack shot with WW II's iconic American automatic rifle, Frank fought bravely across the bloody hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula.
During the most intense fighting, Frank was ambushed and wounded in a deadly, nine-hour firefight with Germans. Taken prisoner and with a bullet lodged under one arm, Frank found himself dumped first in a brutal Nazi POW concentration camp, then shipped to a grueling work camp on the outskirts of Dresden, Germany, where the young PFC was exposed to the vengeance of a crumbling Nazi regime, the menace of a rapidly advancing Russian military—and the danger of thousands of Allied bombers screaming overhead during the firebombing of Dresden.
Today’s guest is historian Mark Hager, author of The Last of the 357th Infantry: Harold Frank’s WWII Story of Faith and Courage. He builds on hundreds of hours of interviews with Frank, sharing the account of his journey as a child of the Great Depression to the bloody shores of the D-Day invasion, into the bowels of Nazi Germany, and back to the U.S. where as a young man Harold would spend years resolutely dealing with the lingering effects of starvation rations while determinedly building a new life—a life always mindful of the legacy of his POW experience and his faithful service in America’s hard-fought war against Nazi aggression.

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Did Thomas Edison Murder The Real Inventor of the Motion Picture Camera and Steal His Invention? Jun 30, 2022

In the late 1800s, there was an all-out sprint among inventors and tinkerers to create the first motion picture camera. The first across the finish line would get an incredibly valuable patent worth millions. The ultimate winner was an unassuming Frenchman named Louis Le Prince, who died before he could present his invention to the world, and some believe was murdered by Thomas Edison.
n 1890, Louis Le Prince, before any of his competitors, was granted patents in four countries for his “taker” or “receiver” device, the product of years of furious, costly work. The device would capture ten to twelve images per second on film, a reproduction of reality that could be replayed limitlessly, shared with those on the other side of the planet with only a few days delay. But just a month before unveiling his invention to the world, he mysteriously disappeared. Three and a half years later, Le Prince’s invention was finally made public – by his rival, Thomas Edison, who claimed to have invented it himself.
To unravel this mystery, I am joined by Paul Fischer, author of The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies. Le Prince’s disappearance is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of cinema history, and Fischer discusses what he and other film theorists think might have happened to this famous inventor and creator of the motion picture. But most of all, we explore the impact Le Prince’s work has had on centuries of filmmakers, and why it is so important to restore Le Prince’s place in history.

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Cars Are the Id of the Countries that Built Them. What Do The Model T and Pontiac Aztek Tell Us About the US? Jun 28, 2022

The earliest cars were nothing more than horse buggies with motors (the first Oldsmobile was a horseless carriage with a one-cylinder engine plunked in). But once sturdier cars were invented and mass production made them cheap, the 20th century was forever defined by the automobile. It was the first industry to use the assembly line. People had unimaginable levels of freedom and mobility. Whole new industries and services sprang up, including motels, amusement parks, restaurant franchises, and fast food.
Today’s guest is Eddie Alterman, host of the new podcast Car Show. He thinks all cars are great - even the awful ones (such as the Pontiac Aztek). But some cars, he says, transcend their "car-ness." Some cars have a story to tell us because changed how we drive and live, whose significance lies outside the scope of horsepower or miles per gallon. Such models include the Model T, Porsche 911, and even the Lunar Rover. Because some cars are more than just a pile of metal, glass, and rubber. Some cars are rolling anthropology.

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Making Sense of America’s Worst Moments: Jon Meacham on Understanding -- But Not Excusing -- Slavery and the Indian Removal Act Jun 23, 2022

John F. Kennedy once told a presidential biographer that rating presidents from best to worst that it was impossible without a deep appreciation of the office. Perhaps even first-hand experience was necessary: "No one has a right to grade a president - even poor James Buchanan - who has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions.”
While JFK’s view will never stop historians from ranking U.S. presidents from best to worst, he makes a good point that historical figures likely had good reasons for what they did, even if the end result was failure and their reputations were left in tatters. Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act or Thomas Jefferson’s failure to provide justice equally (even though he enshrined the equality of all in America’s founding documents) are explainable and understandable, even if they aren’t excusable.
To explore this theme further is today’s guest is Jon Meacham, host of the new podcast, Reflections of History. Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, and several other biographies, presidential or otherwise.
We discuss the lasting legacies of Jefferson, Jackson, and other presidents who rose or fell to the moment. We also discuss which historical figures should get greater recognition, whether the aftermath of the Titanic gives us ideas on how to mourn national tragedies, and the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century, including, but not limited to, NATO, vaccines, the Space Race, and Jackie Robinson breaking down baseball’s color barrier and accelerating the Civil Rights Movement.

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Parthenon Roundtable: Which Single Event Would You Eliminate From History Jun 21, 2022

All of us have terrible regrets. Accepting that job that became dead-end. Marry someone from high school who ended up being a kleptomaniac with halitosis. Emptying out our life savings to invest in Logan and Jake Paul’s NFT collections Don’t you wish you could take it all back?
While we can’t help you with your personal problems, we are pleased to let you know that the hosts of the history programs that make up Parthenon Podcasts are here to get rid of some of the worst events in history and cleaning up our timeline. In just one hour, we will do the following:
•Prevent the Civil War and Emancipate all U.S. slaves in 1861
•Prevent Saddam Hussein from seizing power in Iraq, thus prevent the Iran-Iraq War and both Gulf Wars
•Prevent half a century’s worth of conspiracy theories that sprung up in the wake of the JFK assassination
•Accelerate the invention of the printing press by 1,500 years by stopping the Bronze Age Collapse
Hope you enjoy this talk with James Early from Key Battles of American History, Josh Cohen from Eyewitness History, Steve Guerra from History of the Papacy and Beyond the Big Screen, Richard Lim from This American President, and yours truly from History Unplugged.

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The Worst Movie Ever Made Cast John Wayne as Genghis Khan and Exposed the Cast to Nuclear Radiation Jun 16, 2022

John Wayne’s 1956 film The Conqueror was a historical biopic about Genghis Khan far worse than you can imagine. The All-American legend was in full Fu Manchu make-up and depicted the Great Khan as a Mongol madman. He was given Shakespear-esque dialogue that was as grandiose as it was misapplied to the Duke loose way of speaking (one example: “I feel this Tartar woman is for me, and my blood says, take her.”) It was a film so embarrassing that it disappeared from print for over a quarter century. Worse yet, half its cast and crew met their demise bringing the film to life by being exposed to nuclear radiation while on set.
To get into this story is today’s guest Ryan Uytdewilligen, author of “Killing John Wayne, the Making of the Conqueror. Filmed during the dark underbelly of the 1950s—the Cold War—when nuclear testing in desolate southwestern landscapes was a must for survival, the very same landscapes were where exotic stories set in faraway lands could be made. Just 153 miles from the St. George, Utah, set, nuclear bombs were detonated regularly at Yucca Flat and Frenchman Flat in Nevada, providing a bizarre and possibly deadly background to an already surreal moment in cinema history.
We discuss the story of the making of The Conqueror, its ignominious aftermath, and the radiation induced cancer that may have killed John Wayne and many others.

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The Arsenal of Democracy: How the Revolver and Repeating Rifle Democratized Gun Ownership and Armed the United States Jun 14, 2022

The United States is the most heavily armed nation in the world, with an estimated 400 million guns in private hands. But few know that this legacy can be directly traced back to a handful of gunmakers who worked in the Springfield Armory of Massachusetts in the early 1800s. Their names became synonymous with American guns—Colt, Smith, Wesson, Winchester, and Remington among them – and they made firearms portable, powerful, rapid firing, and distinctly American. They also created the nation’s industrial base by making guns out of interchangeable parts, becoming early adopters of the assembly line process.
Today’s guest is John Bainbridge, Jr., author of Gun Barons: The Weapons That Transformed America and the Men Who Invented Them. More than just keen inventors and wily businessmen, these iconic gun barons were among the founding fathers of American industry. Their visionary work in the development of rapid-fire weaponry helped propel the U.S. into the forefront of the world’s industrial powers in the mid-nineteenth century.

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Seeking Hitler’s Horses: How a WW2 Infantryman Rescued Equines Caught Up Germany’s “Super Horse” Breeding Program Jun 09, 2022

Growing up in the 1930s in Memphis, Tennessee, Phil Larimore is the ultimate Boy Scout—able to read maps, put a compass to good use, and traverse wild swamps and desolate canyons. His other great skill is riding horses.
Phil does poorly in school, however, leading his parents to send him to a military academy. After Pearl Harbor, Phil realizes he is destined for war. Three weeks before his eighteenth birthday, he became the youngest candidate to ever graduate from Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Landing on the Anzio Beachhead in February 1944, Phil is put in charge of an Ammunition Pioneer Platoon in the 3rd Infantry Division. Their job: deliver ammunition to the frontline foxholes—a dangerous assignment involving regular forays into No Man’s Land.
As Phil fights his way up the Italian boot, into southern France, and across the Rhine River into Germany, he is caught up in some of the most intense combat ever as one of the youngest officers in the U.S. Army.
Toward the end of the war, after fifteen months of front-line fighting, he’s sent on a top-secret mission to find the world-famous Lipizzaner horses that Hitler has hidden away.
But it’s what happens in the final stages of the war and his homecoming – particularly the advocacy for amputees and the role that those permanently disabled from war can play in society -- that makes Phil’s story so remarkable.
Today’s guest is Walt Larimore, the son of Phil and author of the new book At First Light: A True World War II Story of a Hero, His Bravery, and an Amazing Horse. He tells a WW2 story about courage, combat, and resourcefulness that continues to resonate today.

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Almost President: Stephen Douglas, Thomas Dewey, and Other Failed Candidates That Would’ve Altered History Most by Winning Jun 07, 2022

Dozens of American leaders captured their party’s nomination for the presidency but never reached the Oval Office. How would history have changed if they had won? If Abraham Lincoln had lost to Stephen Douglas, a pro-slavery Democrat, in 1860, then Emancipation would be the last thing on his mind during the Civil War. If Richard Nixon had defeated JFK in 1960, then the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs Invasion, and Space Race could have also turned out very differently.
To explore these counterfactuals is today’s guest Peter Shea, author of the book In the Arena: A History of American Presidential Hopefuls. We discuss the rise, early career, campaign, and later achievements of historical giants like Aaron Burr and Henry Clay, up through modern candidates to get insight into what it’s like to run for one of the most powerful positions in the world – and come up short.
In a speech Theodore Roosevelt gave after losing the 1912 presidential election, he assigned ultimate credit “to the man who is actually in the arena…who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

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4 Foreign Correspondents Spent the 30s Warning About European Fascism. Why Didn't More Listen? Jun 02, 2022

In the 1930s, the biggest American media celebrities were four foreign correspondents: Dorothy Thompson, John Gunther, H.R. Knickerbocker, and Vincent Sheehan. They were household names in their heyday, as famous as their novel-writing Lost Generation counterparts, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. They helped shape what Americans knew about the world between the two World Wars by landing exclusive interviews with the epic political figures of their day, including Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, as well as Trotsky, Gandhi, Nehru, Churchill, and FDR. But they also went beyond state press releases and listened closely to dissidents in European nations and heard alarming reports of violence against these authoritarian regimes. And they made waves at home and abroad.
H.R. Knickerbocker was the only foreign reporter whose dispatches Mussolini bothered to read. Goebbels called Knickerbocker an “international liar and counterfeiter.” John Gunther shot to fame with the book Inside Europe (1936), arguing that “unresolved personal conflicts in the lives of various European politicians may contribute to the collapse of our civilization.”
These reporters warned their readers that the dictators wouldn’t be satisfied with the territories they conquered. They vehemently objected to policies of appeasement, and they predicted the coming of the Second World War, putting together the stories they covered—the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, the Spanish Civil War that broke out the next year, the 1938 German annexation of Austria, and the carve-up of Czechoslovakia in the Munich Agreement—to make startlingly accurate judgments about what would come next.
The story of these four journalists – and how they changed the news media irrevocably – is told by today’s guest Deborah Cohen, author of Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War. We see how these figures told the major stories of the day as reporters but also shaped them as opinion columnists and book authors. Contests over objectivity in the media aren’t new to the 21st century but age-old. These conflicts about taking sides heated up to a boiling point in the 1930s. Were reporters eyewitnesses or advocates? How far should they go in trying to shape public opinion? We’ll get into all that and more in this episode.

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In 1970, a Cyclone Killed 500,000 in Pakistan, Triggered a Genocide, and Nearly Started a Nuclear War. May 31, 2022

One of the worst natural disasters of the 20th century happened in 1990, when cyclone struck the most densely populated coastline on Earth in today’s Bangladesh. Over the course of just a few hours, the Great Bhola Cyclone would kill 500,000 people and begin a chain reaction of turmoil, genocide, war, and a U.S-Soviet standoff. The storm formed on warm ocean currents of the Indian Ocean. By the time it made landfall, it was about the size of Texas, creating a 20-foot storm surge. Survivors had to climb to the tops of balm trees, as the deluge filled apartments to the second story.
But the worst was yet to come. The cyclone caused a domino effect of cascading catastrophes: flipping a democratic election in the country of Pakistan, which led to a genocide of 3 million Bengalis, a civil war, and all the way up to a nuclear brinksmanship between the American and Soviet navies in which the two nuclear superpowers were an hour away from mutually-assured destruction.
In this episode we are going to explore how revolutions are not always man-made affairs, but often in response to natural disasters. We are joined by Scott Carney and Jason Miklian, authors of The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation.
We observe that seemingly unrelated small events can snowball not just into national revolutions but international ones or even global war (not least with the parallels to Ukraine today).

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Nazi Billionaires: The Business Dynasties That Built Hitler’s War Machine and Still Profit Today May 26, 2022

After the Allies defeated Germany in WW2, high-ranking Nazis and collaborators lived in a long, strange twilight. The lucky ones were recruited by the Allies (such as Wernher von Braun and his rocket science team who built America’s space program) but others either fled or tried to disappear back into German society.
But many of the closest Nazi collaborators became scions of German industry.
Today’s guest is David De Jong, author of the book Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties. He investigated the secret alliances between Germany’s richest modern business dynasties—many of which also have a large U.S. presence—and the Nazi Party during World War II. The tycoons, lauded by society today, seized Jewish businesses, procured slave laborers, and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burned around them. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz, and still control Porsche, Volkswagen, and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight.

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War Isn’t the Natural State of Human Affairs: It Shouldn’t Happen, and Most of the Time It Doesn't. May 24, 2022

War is assumed to be one of the chief features of human history. Plenty of ancient and modern writers back up this perspective (Plato said that only the dead have seen the end of war; John Steinbeck said all war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal, suggesting it was hard-wired into our brutish nature). But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if war isn’t the status quo? This is the argument made by today’s guest, who says prolonged violence between groups isn’t normal. Wars shouldn’t happen, and most of the time they don’t.
We are joined with Prof. Christopher Blattman, a professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago and author of Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace. He synthesizes decades of social science from politics, economics, and psychology to help people understand the reasons for war and why they are the exception to the normal state of human affairs, not the rule. On top of that, he uses game theory to explain the five reasons why wars happen.
Using this schema, we discuss why Russia invaded Ukraine; why it took so long for the US to leave Afghanistan; why he thinks it’s unlikely the US will have a civil war; and what to do about the spiking gang violence in big American cities. But what he really focuses on is peace -- what of remedies that shift incentives away from violence and get parties back to dealmaking? He walks us through the places where compromises and tradeoffs have worked, highlighting successful negotiation techniques or exploring often the much-maligned peacekeeping armies actually succeed, even using cognitive behavior therapy on drug lords, with surprising results.

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Western Religion of the 19th Century Competed with Darwin and Marx By Dabbling in Hinduism, Occultism, and Wellness May 19, 2022

We often think of the late nineteenth century in Western societies as an era of immense technological and scientific change, moving from religion to secularism, from faith to logic. But today’s guest, Dominic Green, author of The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; April 19, 2022) religion in the past was much stronger, and much weirder, than we give it credit.
Tsame period that introduced Darwin’s theory of evolution, democratic revolutions, mass urbanization, and the Industrial Revolutions, also brought with it new kinds of religiosity. It wasn’t an absence of religion, but instead new forms of spirituality that filled the vacuum left behind by the diminished prominence of the Church in European and American politics and life.
While fueled by rapid scientific and technological innovation, these formative decades were also a time of great social strife. The same period that welcomed the invention of the telephone and the motor vehicle, the de jure abolishment of slavery and serfdom, the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, and countless seminal artistic and literary movements, was also plagued by the aggressive rise of capitalism and colonialism, subjecting entire populations to the West’s bottomless appetite for money and power. In effect, another transformation was underway: the religious revolution.
Green chronicles this spiritual upheaval, taking us on a journey through the lives and ideas of a colorful cast of thinkers. He traces the influence of new Sanskrit translations of Hindu and Buddhist texts on the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He follows the rise of occultism from upstate New York to Bombay to Italy. He examines the ways in which religion and nationalism entwined for Wagner and Nietzsche. We get warts-and-all portraits of the many figures who profoundly influenced the religious shifts of this era, including big names like Marx, Darwin, Baudelaire, and Thoreau, as well as some lesser-known figures such as Éliphas Levi and--my personal favorite of the bunch--Helena Blavatsky. In response to the challenges brought on by industrialization, globalization, and political unrest, these figures found themselves connecting with their religious impulses in groundbreaking ways, inspiring others to move away from the oppressive weight of organized faith and toward the intimacies and opportunities that spirituality offered.

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The 1541 Spanish Expedition Down the Amazon to Find the Imaginary “El Dorado” and Valley of Cinnamon May 17, 2022

As Spanish conquistators slowly moved through Latin America, they encountered levels of wealth that were unimaginable. Most famously, Incan Emperor Atahualpa was captured by Francisco Pizarro and paid a ransom of a room filled with gold and then twice over with silver. The room was 22 feet long by 17 feet wide, filled to a height of about 8 feet. Such events fired the imaginations of the Spanish, who created myths such as of El Dorado, the “gilded man” who, legend held, was daily powdered from head to toe with gold dust, which he would then wash from himself in a lake whose silty bottom was now covered with gold dust and the golden trinkets tossed in as sacrificial offerings.
The story was fake but it lead to real expeditions, some of which were so dangerous that they nearly killed party members. Such is the 1541 expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco’s brother, to find El Dorado, and his well-born lieutenant Francisco Orellana down the Amazon to find these riches.
Today’s guest is Buddy Levy, author of River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana and the Deadly First Voyage through the Amazon. He reconstructs the first complete European exploration of the world’s largest river and the relentless dangers around every bend.
Quickly, the enormous retinue of mercenaries, enslaved natives, horses, and hunting dogs are decimated by disease, starvation, and attacks in the jungle. Hopelessly lost in the swampy labyrinth, Pizarro and Orellana make a fateful decision to separate. While Pizarro eventually returns home barefoot and in rags, Orellana and fifty-seven men continue downriver into the unknown reaches of the mighty Amazon jungle and river. Theirs would be the greater glory.

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Lost Airmen: The Epic Rescue of WWII U.S. Bomber Crews Stranded in the Yugoslavian Mountains May 12, 2022

Late in 1944, thirteen U.S. B-24 bomber crews bailed from their cabins over the Yugoslavian wilderness. Bloodied and disoriented after a harrowing strike against the Third Reich, the pilots took refugee with the Partisan underground. But the Americans were far from safety.
Holed up in a village barely able to feed its citizens, encircled by Nazis, and left abandoned after a team of British secret agents failed to secure their escape, the airmen were left with little choice. It was either flee or be killed.
Today’s guest is Charles Stanley Jr, author of The Lost Airmen and son of Charles Stanley Sr., a B-24 pilot who was one of the airmen shot down. Drawing on over twenty years of research, dozens of interviews, and previously unpublished letters, diaries, and memoirs written by the airmen, Stanley recounts the deadly journey across the blizzard-swept Dinaric Alps during the worst winter of the Twentieth Century-and the heroic men who fought impossible odds to keep their brothers in arms alive.

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The Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax May 10, 2022

The financing of the Civil War was as crucial to the shaping of American history as the Emancipation Proclamation and the defeat of the Confederacy. Not only did the Lincoln government establish a national banking system, they invented many things to deepen and broaden the government’s involvement in the lives of ordinary Americans—the transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act, the Morrill Act (endowing land-grant colleges for the middle class), help for farmers, a government role in immigration, a new system of taxes including, for the first time, income taxes.
Lincoln and his fellow Republicans created a new notion of what government could do—larger, more proactive, more responsible for the national welfare. Lincoln and his allies had been fighting for this agenda for years, and until the war had been on the losing side. In the case of Lincoln personally, and for many of the original GOP leaders, belief in government arose from personal experience. Lincoln wanted the government to promote opportunity for others like himself—that is, for pioneers, poor settlers, remote western farmers. So the party backed legislation to support transportation, education, credit facilities, and so forth.
Today’s guest is Roger Lowenstein, author of Ways and Means: Lincoln, His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War. Lincoln and his cabinet created a new notion of what government could be—larger, more proactive, more responsible for the national welfare.

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Lt. Sonia Vagliano Helped Liberate Concentration Camp Victims, Repatriate WW2 Refugees, All While Avoiding Landmines and Kidnapping May 05, 2022

Following the German occupation of France in 1940, French women moved deftly into the jobs and roles left by their male compatriots—even the role of soldier. One of the more notable such female soldiers was Lt. Sonia Vagliano, who was part of a team of young French women attached to a US First Army unit that arrived in Normandy two weeks after D-Day. From 1943 to 1945, Vagliano followed her unit from Normandy to Paris, through Belgium, and finally into Germany, where they cared for 41,000 total displaced persons and prisoners of war.
She published a memoir of her experiences under the title Les Demoiselles de Gaulle. Vagliano not only described her experiences in rich detail—from caring for thousands of refugees in the worst possible conditions to defusing landmines and being kidnapped, shot at, torpedoed, and bombed—she also recounted the major events of the war in Europe, including the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, and finally, the liberation of the concentration camps. Spending five weeks at Buchenwald repatriating the 21,000 remaining prisoners, she is a unique witness to the transition period between the camp's liberation and its transferal to Russian oversight in July 1945. She saw firsthand "to what extremes the human imagination can go in its search for the most cruel methods of torture."
Today’s guest, Martha Noel Evans, is translator of Vagliano’s memoir into English under the title Lieutenant Sonia Vagliano: A Memoir of the World War II Refugee Crisis. We discuss both the dare devil escapades and the sobering reality of a wartime account

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Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie: The Serial Killer Family Who Terrorized 1870s Kansas May 03, 2022

Lone-wolf serial killers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy live in infamy – it’s a familiar archetype in true crime. But a family of serial killers is much less common, and the killing spree committed by the Benders in 19th century Kansas is likely the most famous murder case in American history that you’ve never heard of. This family became known as the Bloody Benders—a mother, father and their daughter and son—and their exploits were called the “little slaughterhouse on the prairie.”
Today’s guest is Susan Jonusas , author of the book Hell’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier. She discusses the dangers and lawlessness of the American West, and chroncles families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape.
In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood . . . And the Benders were nowhere to be found. This discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.
All of this takes place during a turbulent time in America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places.

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Benjamin Franklin – In the 200 Years After His Death – Funded New Businesses, Supported Boston and Philadelphia, and Play Pranks Apr 28, 2022

When Benjamin Franklin died on April 12, 1790, he made a final bet on the future of the United States -- a gift of 2,000 pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin’s inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall.
Today’s guest is Michael Meyer, author of Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet. He traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin’s wager was misused, neglected, and contested—but never wholly extinguished. Franklin’s stake in the “leather-apron” class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions.

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The Rise and Fall of 1970s Mob-Run Chicago Apr 26, 2022

In 1970s America, no city was arguable under more mafia control than Chicago. Murderers operated without fear of retribution. Getting an “innocent” verdict took nothing more than one bribe. Everyone got a cut of the action: policemen, aldermen, lawyers, cops, and judges. But it all came crashing down when a lawyer and fixer went undercover with the FBI to try to bring down one of the most powerful criminal syndicates in the country.
Today’s guest is Jake Halpern, host of the new podcast series Deep Cover: Mob Land, an investigative series that looks at Chicago’s criminal underworld and those involved
This story culminates with the prosecution of prominent mob figures and politicians with the entire operation resulting in more than two dozen arrests including cops, lawyers, judges, and more – forever damaging the mob’s stranglehold on the windy city. The fallout is still playing out in Chicago courtrooms today.

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An Antebellum-Era Irish Maid’s Incredible Determination and Business Savvy Led to the Creation of the Kennedy Dynasty Apr 21, 2022

The Kennedys are remembered the vanguard of wealth, power, and style. But their story begins in 1840s Boston, when a poor Irish refugee couple who were escaping famine created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched arguably the most powerful dynasty in America’s history.
The working class background and Irish ancestry JFK leveraged to connect to blue-collar voters referred to Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly. Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P.J. to become a successful saloon owner and businessman. P.J. went on to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office—the first of many.
To look at this story of survival and reinvention – and the powers and dangers of nepotism if left unchecked – is Neal Thompson, author of the book “The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty.” We look at what it took to rise from poverty to prosperity in antebellum America, the rough power politics of Irish Boston, and the seeds of empire planted by Joe Kennedy in Depression-era America.

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Six Kentucky Nuns Founded a Hospital in 1940s War-Torn India That Saved Hundreds of Thousands of Lives Apr 19, 2022

The year was 1947, and the mother superior of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth had managed to keep her order safe from the perils of World War II, and focused on the work at home in Kentucky. But when the opportunity came for a mission in one of the poorest regions of India—an area scarred by corruption and Partition violence—she saw in some of the younger nuns a keen desire to “serve the world by being fully part of it,” and to take their faith and healing skills abroad. What followed was a pioneering mission that no one could have predicted. The development of the hospital and nursing school not only upended the lives of those six Kentucky nuns, it changed the shape of the surrounding region and gave opportunities to Indian nurses who were eager to forge new paths for themselves.
Today’s guest is Jyoti Thottam, author of the new book “Sisters of Mokama: The Pioneering Women Who Brought Hope and Healing to India. Her mother travel to Mokama, in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, and train as a nurse at Nazareth. Thottam was always fascinated by this story: How did these nuns end up in Mokama, a town so small it didn’t appear on most maps of India? Why did they fill their hospital with teenage nurses from the other side of the country? Did they have any idea how radical their work would be – creating an enterprise run almost entirely by women, and determined to care for anyone, regardless of caste or religion?
With no knowledge of Hindi, and the awareness that they would likely never see their families again, the six founding nuns had traveled to the small town of Mokama determined to live up to the pioneer spirit of their order, founded in the rough hills of the Kentucky frontier. A year later, they opened the doors of the hospital; soon they began taking in young Indian women as nursing students, offering them an opportunity that would change their lives. Pain and loss were everywhere for the women of that time, but the collapse of the old orders provided the women of Nazareth Hospital with an opening—a chance to create for themselves lives that would never have been possible otherwise.

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A 1719 Prison Ship Transported Dozens of Women Accused of Sex Crimes to New Orleans. They Became the Founding Mothers of the Gulf Apr 14, 2022

In 1719, a ship named La Mutine (the mutinous woman), sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for the Mississippi. It was loaded with urgently needed goods for the fledgling French colony, but its principal commodity was a new kind of export: women.
Falsely accused of sex crimes, these women were prisoners, shackled in the ship’s hold. They came from all walks of life: a disgraced noblewoman, a street vendor falsely accused of murder, a seamstress who became New Orleans’s first fashionista, and an illiterate laundress who became an Indian captive and eventual world traveler. Of the 132 women who were sent this way, only 62 survived. But these women carved out a place for themselves in the colonies that would have been impossible in France, making advantageous marriages and accumulating property. Many were instrumental in the building of New Orleans and in the European settling of Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, and Mississippi.
To discuss the incredible impact these women had on the French North American colony is today’s guest, historian Joan DeJean, author of the book Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast. They were among the pioneering European settlers who built New Orleans, and the French trading outposts and permanent settlements that spanned the Mississippi River from the Gulf Islands to Illinois. Their legacy is present not only in those contemporaneous communities they shaped, but also in the descendants of these “first grandmothers” of the Gulf South now spread across the United States.
From their convictions and subsequent trials to their use of marriage to regain status, to relationships with Indigenous peoples amid changes in colonial governance and their ascension to property owners, these women’s stories represent the struggles of.

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Introducing the Eyewitness History Podcast Apr 13, 2022

Please enjoy this preview of the Eyewitness History Podcast, hosted by Josh Cohen. This show features first-hand testimonials of people who witnessed first-hand events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, the Vietnam War, and much more. Learn more about the show and enter a giveaway contest for the first people to review the show by going to eyewitnesshistorypodcast.com

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The Global Manhunt For The Confederate Ship That Sunk Union Supply Vessels, From the Caribbean to the South Pacific Apr 12, 2022

Naval warfare is an overlooked factor of the Civil War, but it was a vitally important part of overall strategy for North and South, especially from the perspective of the Union, which used naval blockages from the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River to deny critical resources to the Confederacy, forcing them the ultimately surrender.
But the naval war was about much more than blockages. One Confederate ship managed to harass Union supply lines around the globe and sink dozens of merchant vessels. Its fate was sealed on June 19, 1864, after a fourteen-month chase that culminated in one of the most dramatic naval battles in history.
The dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the death, and the outcome would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas. To talk about this story is historian Tom Clavin, author of the new book To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth: The Epic Hunt for the South's Most Feared Ship―and the Greatest Sea Battle of the Civil War.
We look at historically overlooked Civil War players, including John Winslow, captain of the USS Kearsarge, as well as Raphael Semmes, captain of the CSS Alabama. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the secretary of the navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama." Winslow pursued Semmes in a spectacular fourteen-month chase over international waters, culminating in what would become the climactic sea battle of the Civil War.

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Most Historians Consider Warren G. Harding America’s Worst President. This One Thinks He Belongs in the Top 10 Apr 07, 2022

Most historians think of Warren G. Harding as a jazz-age hedonist who was much more of an empty suit than a serious president. Once in the White House, they argue, the 29th president busied himself with golf, poker, and his mistress, while appointees and cronies plundered the U.S. government. His secretary of the interior allowed oilmen, in exchange for bribes, to access government oil reserves, including one in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, the namesake for the scandal that hangs over Harding’s legacy today.
But one American history professor thinks that this narrative is hopelessly simplified andsimplistic. In fact, Walters, author of the book The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G. Harding, that he belongs in the Top Ten list of U.S. chief executives.
He credits Harding with the following:
• Inheriting a postwar depression, Harding turned it into an economic boom. On his watch personal prosperity soared and unemployment fell to 1.6 percent
• He reversed Wilson’s grandiose plans to hand over American sovereignty to ambitious internationalist organizations
• He healed a nation in the throes of social disruption, releasing citizens imprisoned by the Wilson administration under the controversial Sedition Act of 1918 and using the bully pulpit to promote civil rights in the heyday of Jim Crow

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Why the Information Revolution Would Happened in Europe Even Without the Printing Press Apr 05, 2022

After Johannes Gutenberg invented the moveable type printing press, Europe changed irrevocably. What happened was a shift in the generation, preservation and circulation of information, chiefly on newly available and affordable paper, which created an information revolution.
But it wasn’t just the printing press that caused this. Today’s guest, historian and author Paul Dover, argues there would have been a revolution in information in early modern Europe even without Gutenberg’s invention. Most of the changes in institutions and mentalities were caused by a massive increase in manuscript writing, which injected massive amounts of information into society.
Everything changed. Europe saw the rise of the state, the Print Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters.
Dover is author of the book “The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe.” He interprets the historical significance of this 'information revolution' for the present day, and suggests thought-provoking parallels with the informational challenges of the digital age.

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Deeply-Held Religious Beliefs Can’t Be Easily Eradicated. That’s Why Stalin Co-Opted Russian Orthodoxy As a Ruler. Mar 31, 2022

The Russian Revolution is thought to have everything to do with the writings of Karl Marx. He predicted in the 19th century that history was marching inevitably toward a proletarian revolution and workers would overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist one. To many observers in Moscow, that’s exactly what was happening. But one Russian scholar disagrees. He believes the Russian Revolution had nothing to do with Marx and everything to do with, paradoxically, the Russian Orthodox Church. Namely, Russia’s century-old history of Orthodox monasticism.
Today’s guest is Jim Curtis, a Russian scholar, professor emeritus, and author of In Stalin’s Soviet Monastery. The story begins with the young Iosif Djugashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, who was studying to be a priest in an Orthodox seminary. He took on the role that defined his political career, that of a sadistic elder who imposed fiendish vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on hapless Soviet citizens. This led to Stalin’s policies essentially copying passion-suffering, a practice in which one takes on the sufferings of Christi to achieve sanctification, which he used to force gulag slave labor to work on useless infrastructure projects to purify them as a proper Soviet.
Applying Russia’s heritage of Orthodox monasticism to Soviet history gives coherence and meaning to what is often portrayed as a chaotic and contradictory period. Thus, by ignoring Marxist rhetoric and emphasizing Russia’s monastic heritage, it arguably makes sense that Russians would perceive Lenin as a Christ figure with appropriate symbolism.

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What “Dear John” Letters Tell Us About the Fragility of Wartime Relationships…and How They Unexpectedly Lead to Greater Camaraderie Mar 29, 2022

During World War II nearly one billion letters were sent to the front, but none struck more fear in the heart of the average soldier than the one that began with the following: “Dear John: I don’t know quite how to begin but I just want to say that Joe Doakes came to town on furlough the other night and he looked very handsome in his uniform, so when he asked me for a date…” Such is an example of the “Dear John” letters that World War II G.I.s received from sweethearts or wives at home who had decided to politely, but unceremoniously, end their relationship. Though the phrase “Dear John” was coined during World War II and the break-up letters have found their way into every American war since then, the exact origins of the term have always been shrouded in obscurity.
In her new book Dear John: Love and Loyalty in Wartime America, historian and today’s guest Susan L. Carruthers details the history of the “Dear John” letter and explores wartime relationships and breakdowns from multiple perspectives—civilian and military, male and female, historical and contemporary. Using a diverse range of research, using personal letters, declassified documents, press reports, psychiatric literature, movies, and popular music, Carruthers also shows how the armed forces and civilian society have attempted to weaponize romantic love in pursuit of martial ends, from World War II to today. Though many U.S. officers, servicemen, veterans, and civilians would agree that “Dear John” letters are lethal weapons in the hands of men at war, Carruthers explains that efforts to discipline feelings have frequently failed. We discuss the interplay between letter-writing and storytelling, breakups and breakdowns, and between imploded intimacy and boosted camaraderie. Incorporating vivid personal experiences in lively and engaging prose—variously tragic, comic, and everything in between—this compelling study will change the way we think about wartime relationships.
As Carruthers explains, “Making romantic intimacy serve the cause of victory has never been straightforward for the military. Nor has making love work in wartime been simple for individuals and couples. The reasons why can be discerned by reading the subtexts and contexts of ‘Dear John’ letters, and by listening attentively to what men and women have had to say about the fragility of love at war.”

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Cassie Chadwick Scammed the Gilded Age Elite Out of Millions and Convinced The World She Was Andrew Carnegie’s Bastard Daughter Mar 24, 2022

Of all the self-made millionaires of the Gilded Age (and there were many, such as John Rockefeller, son of a literal snake oil salesman who became the world’s first billionaire), nobody can rival bootstrapping tenacity of Cassie Chadwick. She was a drifter from Canada who set herself up as wife of a rich doctor in Cleveland before moving on to a much bigger con involving the richest man in the world, Andrew Carnegie. With little education, no financial training, and at a time when women didn't even have the vote, Cassie Chadwick (Elizabeth Bigley) moved up the chain of bankers, getting each banker to loan her more than the one before telling each one a simple lie, she was none other than the illegitimate daughter of Carnegie and she was due to inherit his entire fortune.
By the time the police caught up to her she had wrecked the banking system of Cleveland, sending one unfortunate banker to his grave and causing the collapse of a major bank. When the trial was held it was a media event that pushed the trial of Teddy Roosevelt off the front pages with a climactic moment when Andrew Carnegie appeared to face his accuser. Cassie was eventually convicted but not before taking others with her and leaving a legacy as the biggest con woman in the United States only to be eclipsed by Charles Ponzi.
Today’s guest is William Hazelgrove, author of the book Greed in the Gilded Age: The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick. We explore the excesses of this age, and the very thin line between radical reinvention and outright deception.

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How China Changed Its Language From Archaic Confucian Bureaucracy to the Lingua Franca of Globalization Mar 21, 2022

After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind.
Today’s guest is Prof. Jing Tsu, author of “Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that Made China Modern.” She argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the Chinese language—with its many dialects and complex character-based script—accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology.
We discuss the connection between language and power, challenges China faced to ensure their language remained dominant/widespread, the innovators who adapted the Chinese language to a world defined by the West and its alphabet, AND it was so important for China to preserve its ancient character set, even though it was seen as such a hindrance to their technological development.

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Which Statues Should We Take Down? How To Fairly Judge Historical Figures by Today’s Standards Mar 17, 2022

In the United States, questions of how we celebrate – or condemn – leaders in the past have never been more contentious. In 2017, a statue of Robert E. Lee was removed – leading to a race riot and terrorist attack. But in 2020, statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus, and even Ulysses S. Grant were defaced or toppled. All of this comes to the question of how we judge the past. When are the morals and ethics of people born centuries earlier excusable for the conditions of their birth, and when are they universally condemnable? What separates a Thomas Jefferson from an Emperor Nero?
To discuss this incredibly challenging topic is someone perhaps nobody better qualified: Dr. Victor Davis Hanson. He is an emeritus classics professor and author of books on the Peloponnesian War or assessing the ancient world’s best military leader. He was also awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 and was a presidential appointee in 2007–2008 on the American Battle Monuments Commission.
We discuss the following:
•Times when American’s feared the removal of Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt statues in 2021 (or their toppling in riots). But we have also celebrated statue removal, such as the removal of Saddam Hussein’s statues after the fall of his regime in 2003 or the removal of Marx/Lenin Statues in Eastern Europe in 1991. What is the difference?
•The criteria for a community to remove a statue in a healthy way
•How we judge those of the past and determine that some character flaws are due to their times of birth, while other character flaws are universally condemnable – Essentially, what makes a slave-owning Jefferson a product of his time while, say, a Nero, is universally understood as cruel
•The dangers of canceling anyone who doesn’t meet our 21st century standards; conversely, the dangers of slavish worship of them
•Who deserves more statues today

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On the Eve of World War One, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Suffragette Jane Addams Sought to Prevent Armageddon Mar 15, 2022

In the early years of the twentieth century, the most famous Americans on the national stage were Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jane Addams: two presidents and a social worker. Each took a different path to prominence, yet the three progressives believed the United States must assume a more dynamic role in confronting the growing domestic and international problems of an exciting new age.
Following the outset of World War I in 1914, the views of these three titans splintered as they could not agree on how America should respond to what soon proved to be an unprecedented global catastrophe. To discuss their approaches is today’s guest Neil Lanctot, author of “THE APPROACHING STORM: Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams, and Their Clash Over America’s Future by Neil Lanctot. We explore the story of three extraordinary leaders and how they debated, quarreled, and split over the role the United States should play in the world.
By turns a colorful triptych of three American icons who changed history and the engrossing story of the roots of World War I, this episode explores a surprising and important story of how and why the United States emerged onto the world stage.

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A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky Mar 10, 2022

Today’s episode is a look at the life of Frances Peter, a Civil War-era Kentuckian who witnessed all the major events of the conflict, and watched her hometown switch hands from the Confederacy to the Union multiple times.
She was one of the eleven children of Dr. Robert Peter, a surgeon for the Union army. The Peter family lived on Gratz Park near downtown Lexington, where nineteen-year-old Frances began recording her impressions of the Civil War. Because of illness, she did not often venture outside her home but was able to gather a remarkable amount of information from friends, neighbors, and newspapers. Peter's candid diary chronicles Kentucky's invasion by Confederates under Gen. Braxton Bragg in 1862, Lexington's month-long occupation by Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, and changes in attitude among the slave population following the Emancipation Proclamation.
Today’s guest is Prof. John Smith, editor of Peter’s diary, which has been published under the name “A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky.” As troops from both North and South took turns holding the city, she repeatedly emphasized the rightness of the Union cause and minced no words in expressing her disdain for the hated ""secesh."" Her writings articulate many concerns common to Kentucky Unionists. Though she was an ardent supporter of the war against the Confederacy, Peter also worried that Lincoln's use of authority exceeded his constitutional rights. Her own attitudes towards blacks were ambiguous, as was the case with many people in that time.
Peter's descriptions of daily events in an occupied city provide valuable insights and a unique feminine perspective on an underappreciated aspect of the war. Until her death by epileptic seizure in August 1864, Peter conscientiously recorded the position and deportment of both Union and Confederate soldiers, incidents at the military hospitals, and stories from the countryside. Her account of a torn and divided region is a window to the war through the gaze of a young woman of intelligence and substance.

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Does Waging War Viciously Actually Save Lives? A Look at the WW2 Decisions to Firebomb Tokyo and Drop Atomic Bombs Mar 08, 2022

This is a special episode, in which the microphone is turned around and Scott is interview. He was recently on Ray Harris’ History of World War Two Podcast. We discuss some of the biggest moral quandaries of the war. They include the Fire Bombing of Tokyo (in which hundreds of thousands of civilians died in a six-hour period), the justification for dropping the atomic bombs, and the likely casualties of an Allied invasion onto the main Japanese Islands.
We also discuss the quantum leaps in technology, such as the B-29 campaign, which cost more money than the Manhattan Project, and was so complex that more crews in the early use of the plane died from mechanical failure than enemy fire.

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Successes and Failures of The Last Century of U.S. Presidents, From Harding to Trump Mar 03, 2022

Today’s Guest is Ronald Gunger, author of “We the Presidents: How American Presidents Shaped the Last Century. We explore the successes and failures of 100 years of chief executives, from Warren G. Harding to Donald Trump.
Every generation tends to believe they live in unique times, but immigration, healthcare, civil rights, tax policy, income distribution, globalization and the evolving role of government have all had their roots in earlier presidencies - and continue to affect every American today.

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Teaser: Key Battles of WW2 Pacific - The Rise of Imperial Japan Mar 02, 2022

Listen to this full episode by searching for "Key Battles of American History" on the podcast player of your choice or go to https://parthenonpodcast.com.

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Mutiny on the Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate Mar 01, 2022

On the night of June 1, 1743, terror struck the schooner Rising Sun. After completing a routine smuggling voyage where the crew sold enslaved Africans in exchange for chocolate, sugar, and coffee in the Dutch colony of Suriname, the ship traveled eastward along the South American coast. Believing there was an opportunity to steal the lucrative cargo and make a new life for themselves, three sailors snuck below deck, murdered four people, and seized control of the vessel.
Today’s guest is Jared R. Hardesty, author of Mutiny on the Rising Sun. He recounts the origins, events, and eventual fate of the Rising Sun’s final smuggling voyage in vivid detail. Starting from that horrible night in June 1743, it becomes a story of smuggling, providing an incredible story of those caught in the webs spun by illicit commerce. The case generated a rich documentary record that illuminates an international chocolate smuggling ring, the lives of the crew and mutineers, and the harrowing experience of the enslaved people trafficked by the Rising Sun. Smuggling stood at the center of the lives of everyone involved with the business of the schooner. Larger forces, such as imperial trade restrictions, created the conditions for smuggling, but individual actors, often driven by raw ambition and with little regard for the consequences of their actions, designed, refined, and perpetuated this illicit commerce.
At once startling and captivating, Mutiny on the Rising Sun shows how illegal trade created the demand for exotic products like chocolate, and how slavery and smuggling were integral to the development of American capitalism.

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A Real-Life French Serial Killer Inspired Dostoyevsky to Write “Crime and Punishment” Feb 24, 2022

As a young man, Fyodor Dostoevsky was a celebrated writer, but his involvement with the radical politics of his day that swept Europe during the Revolutions of the 1840s condemned him to a long Siberian exile. There, he spent years studying the criminals that were his companions. Upon his return to St. Petersburg in the 1860s, he fought his way through gambling addiction and debt, the death of those closest to him, epilepsy, and literary banishment.
The inspiration for Crime and Punishment came from the sensational true crime story of a notorious murderer who charmed and outraged Paris in the 1830s--Pierre François Lacenaire—a glamorous egoist who embodied the instincts that lie beneath nihilism. Dostoevsky wanted to create a Russian incarnation of the Lacenaire: a character who could demonstrate the errors of radical politics and ideas. His name would be Raskolnikov.
Today’s guest is Kevin Birmingham, author of THE SINNER AND THE SAINT: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece. We discuss how Raskolnikov then began to merge with his creator. Dostoevsky was determined to tell a murder story from the murderer's perspective, but his character couldn't be a monster. No. The murderer would be chilling because he wants so desperately to be good.
The writing consumed Dostoevsky. As his debts and the predatory terms of his contract caught up with him, he hired a stenographer, Anna Grigorievna. She became Dostoevsky's first reader and chief critic and changed the way he wrote forever. By the time Dostoevsky finished his great novel, he had fallen in love.
Dostoevsky’s great subject was self-consciousness. Crime and Punishment advanced a revolution in artistic thinking and began the greatest phase of Dostoevsky’s career.

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The NAACP Leader Who Passed As White, Infiltrated Lynching Rings, Architected ‘Brown v. Board of Education’, and Ended His Life in Scandal Feb 22, 2022

One of the most important Civil Rights Leaders in the 20th century, behind perhaps only the giants of the movement such as Martin Luther King Jr. WEB DuBois, or Booker T Washington, was Walter Francis White, a Black man who led two lives: one as a leader of the NAACP and the Harlem Renaissance, and the other as a white journalist who investigated lynching crimes in the Deep South. Although White was the most powerful political Black figure in America during the 1930s and 40s, his full story has never been told until now due to scandal that happened at the end of his life.
I’m joined today by A.J. Baime, author of White Lies: The Double Life of Walter F. White and America’s Darkest Secret. We discuss…
•How Walter White was born mixed race with very fair skin and straight hair, which allowed him to “pass” as a white man and investigate 41 lynchings and 8 race riots between 1918 and 1931. As the second generation of the Ku Klux Klan incited violence across the country, White risked his life to report on the Red Summer of 1919, the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, the Marion lynchings of 1930, and more. His reports drew national attention and fueled the beginnings of the civil rights movement
•White’s rise in the NAACP to chief executive – as leader of the NAACP, he had full access to the Oval Offices of FDR and Harry Truman, and was arguably the most powerful force in the historic realignment of Black political power from the Republican to the Democratic party. He also made Black voting rights a priority of the NAACP, a fight that continues to this day.
•How White helped found the Harlem Renaissance as a famed novelist and Harlem celebrity – he hosted apartment parties where Black and white audiences alike were introduced to Paul Robeson’s singing, Langston Hughes’ verse, and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
•Why White’s full story has never been told until now, in part due to his controversial decision to divorce his Black wife and marry a white woman, which shattered his reputation as a Black civil rights leader.

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How Clocks Created Earth’s First Global Supply Chain in the 1700s – And Keep GPS Alive Today Feb 17, 2022

Our modern lives are ruled by clocks and watches, smartphone apps and calendar programs. While our gadgets may be new, however, the drive to measure and master time is anything but. It’s a long story that traces the path from Stonehenge to your smartphone.
Today’s guest is Chad Orzel, a psychics professor who is also author of the book A Brief History of Timekeeping.
Predating written language and marching on through human history, the desire for ever-better timekeeping has spurred technological innovation and sparked theories that radically reshaped our understanding of the universe and our place in it.
Ancient solstice markers (which still work perfectly 5,000 years later) depend on the basic astrophysics of our solar system; mechanical clocks owe their development to Newtonian physics; and the ultra-precise atomic timekeeping that enables GPS hinges on the predictable oddities of quantum mechanics.
In this episode we discuss the delicate negotiations involved in Gregorian calendar reform, the intricate and entirely unique system employed by the Maya, and how the problem of synchronizing clocks at different locations ultimately required us to abandon the idea of time as an absolute and universal quantity. It’s a story not just about the science of sundials, sandglasses, and mechanical clocks, but also the politics of calendars and time zones, the philosophy of measurement, and the nature of space and time itself.

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Parthenon Roundtable: Which Person From History Would You Keep From Dying Too Soon? (And You Can’t Choose JFK) Feb 15, 2022

A couple of months ago, the guys from Parthenon Podcast Network (James Early, Key Battles of American History; Steve Guerra, History of the Papacy; Richard Lim, This American President; and Scott Rank, History Unplugged) discussed who they would erase from history of they could. This time, instead of destroying, we are going to do some saving. If you could save one person in history from an untimely death, who would it be? How would their survival make a positive impact?
The only groundrule is that you can’t choose JFK. Stephen King already showed us this was impossible in 11/22/63.

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Assassination Attempts of U.S. President – From JFK to Joe Biden Feb 10, 2022

One of the most important – but overlooked – professions in U.S. history is a Secret Service agent assigned with presidential protection duty. That’s because failure can change the course of history, as it did on 11/22/63.
Protection for candidates changed and evolved from the free-wheeling style of the 1950s and early 1960s, which afforded presidential candidates little or no protection, to the growth of bodyguard personnel, increased intelligence facilities and state of the art technology employed today to keep the candidates safe. Presidential candidates relish connecting with the public and it has given greater visibility to the bodyguards who are willing to place themselves between a presidential candidate and a would-be attacker.
In the milieu in which the Secret Service operates, bodyguards have witnessed the terrors of election campaigns when presidential candidates have waded into crowds to shake hands with their supporters, rode in open-top cars, and made sudden but risky changes to their schedules – oblivious to the fact that in every campaign there have been people stalking candidates with ill intent.
Today’s guest, Mel Ayton, author of Protecting the Presidential Candidates looks at these stories, from JFK to Joe Biden. We discuss the personal as well as professional relationships between the candidate and the bodyguards who protected them. Some candidates were so trusting of their bodyguards they embraced them as part of an ‘inner circle’ of advisers.
Bodyguards have also witnessed embarrassing moments in a candidate’s campaign and how intrusive they have been at the most delicate of moments. "The president’s day is your day," one agent said. "Nobody sees the president the way an agent does."

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No, the Ancient Greeks Weren’t Color Blind. They Justed Had Unique Ways to Describe the World Feb 08, 2022

Were ancients color-blind? They weren’t but this idea has been passed around for centuries, usually by classicists confused by the Greeks’ odd choice of descriptive language. Homer, author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the first ‘great’ poet of western civilization described the sea as oînops, or ‘wine-dark’.
Today’s guest is David Wharton, editor and contributor to “A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity,” is here to disabuse those ideas of the ancient world. Some prominent, recent research on Latin color language asserts that the ancient Romans mostly lacked abstract color concepts, instead conceiving of “color” as intimately connected with the material substances that Latin color terms typically referred to. Not only that the Romans were fully capable of forming and expressing abstract color concepts, but also that they expressed relationships among these concepts using structured metaphors of location and motion in an abstract color space.
We also discuss how would a resident from the ancient world would view color differently from a modern person, techniques for color creation in the past, and how color was utilized iin such things as conspicuous consumption, sartorial purposes, and class distinction.

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The Severing Of a Sea Captain’s Ear Led to a Global War Between Spain and Britain in the 1740s Feb 03, 2022

In the early 1700s, decades of rising tensions between Spain and Britain culminated in a war that was fought all over the world. And it all started with a scene that sounds like it belongs in Reservoir Dogs: In 1731, a Spanish guarda costa abused its right to stop and search British merchant ships in the West Indies for contraband, and a Spanish privateer named Juan de León Fandiño cut off British captain Robert Jenkins’s ear during a search of his trading brig Rebecca.
Jenkins returned to England with his severed and then presented it to King George II. The incident helped spark arguably the first global war.
Today’s guest, Robert Gaudi, is author of the new book “The War of Jenkins’ Ear.” We discuss the three-year war that laid the groundwork for the French and Indian War and, eventually, the War of the American Revolution. It was a world war in the truest sense, engaging the major European powers on battlefields ranging from Europe to the Americas to the Asian subcontinent.
Yet the conflict barely known to us today, even though it resulted in the invasion of Georgia and even involved members of George Washington’s own family. It would cost fifty-thousand lives, millions in treasure, and over six hundred ships. Overall, this was turly an American war; a hard-fought, costly struggle that determined the fate of the Americas, and in which, for the first time, American armies participated.

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Future History: The Story Behind '2001: A Space Odyssey' Feb 02, 2022

Listen to the rest of this episode and others from Beyond the Big Screen at parthenonpodcast.com

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The Last King of America: George III, His Battles With Madness, and Being a Thoroughly Underrated Monarch Feb 01, 2022

Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon: a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities (picture the preening, spitting, and pompous version in Hamilton). But in 2017, the Queen of England put 200,000 pages of the Georgian kings’ private papers online, about half of which related to George III, and these papers have forced a full-scale reinterpretation of the king’s life and reign.
Today’s guest is Andrew Roberts, author of “The Last King of America.” He had unprecedented access to these archives. The result is the first biography of King George III in fifty years. We discuss how George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck.
Above all, we see a much more nuanced picture than the villain of the American Revolution but rather a monarch who created the modern notion of royalty, a powerful leader who carries the weight of noblesse oblige and works for the betterment of his subjects, not throwing around the powers of divine right.

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Dragons Exist In Nearly Every Culture’s Mythology As a Mirror of Their Fears. What Are Ours? Jan 27, 2022

We live in the golden age of dragons – they appear in Game of Thrones, most film adaptations of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, and nearly everything tangentially related to fantasy. They date back millennia, appearing in every cultures mythology, from ancient Greece and India to medieval Europe and China to the badlands of modern America.
But what do they represent? Today’s guest is Scott Bruce, a medievalist and author of the Penguin Book of Dragons. He’s here to explain the meaning of dragons in myth and legend. We discuss their origins in the deserts of Africa; their struggles with their mortal enemies, elephants, in the jungles of South Asia; their fear of lightning; the world’s first dragon slayer, in an ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns; the colossal sea monster Leviathan; the seven-headed “great red dragon” of the Book of Revelation; the Loch Ness monster; the dragon in Beowulf, who inspired Smaug in Tolkien’s The Hobbit; the dragons in the prophecies of the wizard Merlin; a dragon saved from a centipede in Japan who gifts his human savior a magical bag of rice; the supernatural feathered serpent of ancient Mesoamerica; and a flatulent dragon the size of the Trojan Horse.
Nearly a quarter of the selections are translated into English for the first time, from medieval European sources translated directly from the Latin, to medieval Greek stories. Bruce also dug deeply into obscure early modern and 19th century sources, like the reports of dragon sightings from two American newspapers around the turn of the 20th century.
I’ll conclude with a cautionary quote from Ursula K. Le Guin: “People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”

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Harry Guggenheim: The Elon Musk of the Gilded Age Jan 25, 2022

Harry Guggenheim was a man of impressive achievements and staggering wealth. While most commonly known for the creation of the famed Solomon Guggenheim Museum, Harry was also the co-founder of Newsday, dubbed “The Godfather of Flight” by Popular Science, chosen as the US ambassador to Cuba, and a major thoroughbred racehorse owner.
He even arguably had a greater impact on the development of aviation than the Wright Brothers.
Wilbur and Orville did invent the airplane, but they did everything they could to stall the growth of aviation by zealously protecting their patents in court. Later, Harry and others jumpstarted the industry by funding aeronautical schools, design competitions, reliability tours, and breakthroughs in technology
Today’s guest, Dirk Smillie, author of The Business of Tomorrow - The Visionary Life of Harry Guggenheim: From Aviation and Rocketry to the Creation of an Art Dynasty shows that it was the singular force of Harry Guggenheim that guided the family’s businesses into modernity. Part angel investor, part entrepreneur, part technologist, Harry launched businesses whose impact on 20th century America went far beyond the Guggenheims’ mines or museums.

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Are Cities Humanity’s Greatest Invention or an Incubator of Disease, Crime, and Horrific Exploitation? Jan 20, 2022

During the two hundred millennia of humanity’s existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. From their very beginnings, cities created such a flourishing of human endeavor—new professions, new forms of art, worship and trade—that they kick-started civilization.
Guiding us through the centuries, is today’s guest Ben Wilson, author of Metropolis: A history of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention. We discuss the innovations nurtured by the energy of human beings together: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Époque Paris. In the modern age, the skyscrapers of New York City inspired utopian visions of community design, while the trees of twenty-first-century Seattle and Shanghai point to a sustainable future in the age of climate change.

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Revolutionary Monsters: Why Lenin, Mao, Castro, and Others Turned Liberation into Tyranny Jan 18, 2022

All sparked movements in the name of liberating their people from their oppressors—capitalists, foreign imperialists, or dictators in their own country. These revolutionaries rallied the masses in the name of freedom, only to become more tyrannical than those they replaced.
Much has been written about the anatomy of revolution from Edmund Burke to Crane Brinton Crane, Franz Fanon, and contemporary theorists of revolution found in the modern academy. Yet what is missing is a dissection of the revolutionary minds that destroyed the old for the creation of a more harmful new.
Today’s Guest, Donald Critchlow, author of Revolutionary Monsters Five Men Who Turned Liberation into Tyranny presents a collective biography of five modern day revolutionaries who came into power calling for the liberation of the people only to end up killing millions of people in the name of revolution: Lenin (Russia), Mao (China), Castro (Cuba), Mugabe (Zimbabwe), and Khomeini (Iran).
Revolutionary Monsters explores basic questions about the revolutionary personality, and examines how these revolutionaries came to envision themselves as prophets of a new age.

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Robert E. Lee Was America’s Most Gallant, Decorated Traitor Jan 13, 2022

Robert E. Lee was one of the most confounding figures in American history. From Lee’s betrayal of his nation to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose, to his traitorous actions against the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, to the ways he benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution of slavery despite considering slavery immoral, it’s a major undertaking to understand him in all his complexity.
Today’s guest, Allen Guelzo, author of Robert E. Lee: A Life, describes the Virginian from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Overall, we explore the many complexities and unexpected paradoxes that existed within Robert E. Lee himself.

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Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Contentious Path to Emancipation Jan 11, 2022

In a little-noted eulogy delivered shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Frederick Douglass called the martyred president “emphatically the Black man’s president,” and the “first to show any respect for their rights as men.” To justify his description, Douglass pointed not just to Lincoln’s official acts and utterances, like the Emancipation Proclamation or the Second Inaugural Address, but also to the president’s own personal experiences with Black people. Referring to one of his White House visits, Douglass said: “In daring to invite a Negro to an audience at the White House, Mr. Lincoln was saying to the country: I am President of the Black people as well as the white, and I mean to respect their rights and feelings as men and as citizens.”
But Lincoln’s description as “the Black man’s president” rests on more than his relationship with Douglass or on his official words and deeds. Lincoln interacted with many other Black Americans during his presidency. His unfailing cordiality to them, his willingness to meet with them in the White House, to honor their requests, to invite them to consult on public policy, to treat them with respect whether they were kitchen servants or abolitionist leaders, to invite them to attend receptions, to sing and pray with them in their neighborhoods – all were manifestations of an egalitarian spirit noted by Frederick Douglass and other prominent African Americans like Sojourner Truth, who said: “I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln.”
To discuss this issue is today’s guest Michael Burlingame, author of the book The Black Man’s President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality. We focus on Lincoln’s personal interchange with Black Americans over the course his career, whichreveals a side of the sixteenth president that, until now, has not been fully explored.

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Henry Kissinger Used Cold Realpolitik to Create Order in the Middle East. Did it Work? Jan 06, 2022

More than twenty years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Today’s guest, Martin Indyk—a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013—has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand.
To understand the arc of American diplomatic influence in the Middle East, Indyk returns to the origins of American-led peace efforts and to Henry Kissinger, the man who created the Middle East peace process. He is the author of the new book “Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy.” He discusses the unique challenges and barriers Kissinger and his successors have faced in their attempts to broker peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Based on newly available documents from American and Israeli archives, extensive interviews with Kissinger, and Indyk’s own interactions with some of the main players, the author takes readers inside the pivotal negotiations and reveals how American diplomacy operates behind closed doors. He argues that understanding Kissinger’s design for Middle East peacemaking is key to comprehending how—and how not—to make peace.

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Europe’s Babylon: 16th-Century Antwerp was a City of Wealth, Vice, Heresy, and Freedom Jan 04, 2022

Before Amsterdam, there was a dazzling North Sea port at the hub of the known world: the city of Antwerp. For half the sixteenth century, it was the place for breaking rules – religious, sexual, intellectual. Known as Europe’s Babylon, the once-humble Belgian city had an outsized role in making the modern world.
In the Age of Exploration, Antwerp was sensational like nineteenth-century Paris or twentieth-century New York. It was somewhere anything could happen or at least be believed: killer bankers, a market in secrets and every kind of heresy.
And it was a place of change—a single man cornered all the money in the city and reinvented ideas of what money meant. Jews fleeing the Portuguese Inquisition needed Antwerp for their escape, thanks to the remarkable woman at the head of the grandest banking family in Europe. She set up an underground railroad for Jews so that they could flee persecution and find safe passage to friendlier lands like Poland or the Ottoman Empire.
Thomas More opened Utopia there, Erasmus puzzled over money and exchanges, William Tyndale sheltered there and smuggled out his Bible in English until he was killed. Pieter Bruegel painted the town as The Tower of Babel.
But when Antwerp rebelled with the Dutch against the Spanish and lost, all that glory was buried. The city that unsettled so many now became conformist. Mutinous troops burned the city records, trying to erase its true history.
To discuss the growth and decline of this city is today’s guest is Michael Pye, author of Europe’s Babylon: The Rise and Fall of Antwerp’s Golden Age.

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Parthenon Podcast Roundtable: Who Would You Eliminate From History? (And No, You Can’t Choose Hitler) Jan 01, 2022

Today is a group discussion in which the four guys that make up the Parthenon Podcast Network (Steve Guerra from Beyond the Big Screen, Richard Lim from This American President, James Early from Key Battles of American History, and Scott Rank from History Unplugged) discuss a beloved hypothetical that our listeners have separately asked each of us many times: if you could eliminate one person from our timeline, who would it be?
And to force us to think outside of the box, we've eliminated Hitler as a choice. That one is too obvious.
Check out all our shows at parthenonpodcast.com

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WASPs: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy Dec 30, 2021

From politics to fashion, their style still intrigues us. WASPs produced brilliant reformers—Eleanor, Theodore, and Franklin Roosevelt—and inspired Cold Warriors—Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, and Joe Alsop. They embodied a chic and an allure that drove characters like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby mad with desire.
They were creatures of glamour, power, and privilege, living amid the splendor of great houses, flashing jewels, and glittering soirées. Envied and lampooned, they had something the rest of America craved.
Yet they were unhappy. Descended from families that created the United States, WASPs felt themselves stunted by a civilization that thwarted their higher aspirations at every turn. They were the original lost generation, adrift in the waters of the Gilded Age. Some were sent to lunatic asylums or languished in nervous debility. Others committed suicide.
Yet out of the neurotic ruins emerged a group of patriots devoted to public service and the renewal of society. In a new study of the WASP revolution in American life, today’s guest Michael Knox Beran brings the stories of Henry Adams and Henry Stimson, Learned Hand and Vida Scudder, John Jay Chapman and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to life. These characters were driven by a vision of human completeness, one that distinguishes them from the self-complacency of more recent power establishments narrowly founded on money and technical know-how.
WASPs shaped the America in which we live: so much so that it is not easy to understand our problems without a knowledge of their mistakes. They came to grief in Vietnam and through their own toxic blood pride, yet before they succumbed to the last temptation of arrogance, they struggled to fill a void in American life, one that many of us still feel.
For all their faults, they pointed—in an age of shrunken lives and diminished possibility—to the dream.

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The Untold History of Earth: Hobbits Really Existed, Dinosaurs Had Feathers, and Yetis Roamed Our Planet Dec 28, 2021

In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place―in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.
Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents―a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia, adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving, from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves.
Today guest, Henry Gee, author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, zips through the last 4.6 billion years to tell a tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.
We discuss the following:
Dinosaurs In Flight. It’s 25 years since the discovery of the first feathered dinosaurs and Henry was (to quote Hamilton) In The Room Where It Happened, quite literally. Learn about Sinosauropteryx, how they came to be published and how it transformed our ideas of dinosaurs, birds, and flight.
Whether We Are We Really Doomed As someone who studies the Earth from its beginning, Henry believes that the current crisis of climate and extinction, although real, has been overplayed and that we can turn the tide. In the context of the Earth’s history, a rise of a degree or two amounts to no more than a hill of beans; and calls to ‘Save the Planet’ look like a case of colossal narcissistic hubris. One might as well say ‘Stop Plate Tectonics’, or even ‘Stop Plate Tectonics – NOW.’ Henry is one of the few scientists who believes there is still hope, and, perhaps, some cause for cautious optimism.
The Beowulf Effect. The Old English poem Beowulf is a vital source of information on history, language, story and belief from the darkest of the Dark Ages. Only one copy is known to exist (it’s in the British Library), and that was rescued from a fire that is known to have destroyed many other manuscripts. If Beowulf didn’t exist, how much would we know about that period? It’s a sobering thought that between 410 and 597, no scrap of writing survives from what is now England. This is an interval comparable in length between now… and the Napoleonic Wars. The same is true about fossils — what we know of the fossil record is an infinitesimal dot on an infinitesimal dot on what really happened. Almost everything that once existed on our planet has been lost. This means that anything new we find has the potential to change everything. Henry can talk about the latest discoveries on human evolution showing how the story of human evolution was much stranger than we could have imagined even twenty years ago. There was a time, not so long ago, when hobbits, yetis and giants really did walk the Earth, and some of them have left their genetic heritage in us.

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George Washington’s 1789 Road Trip Across the New United States Dec 23, 2021

In the fall of 1789, George Washington, only six months into his presidency, set out on the first of four road trips as he attempted to unite what were in essence thirteen independent states into a single nation. In the fall of 2018, Nat Philbrick, his wife Melissa, and their dog Dora set out to retrace Washington’s route across the country. By following Washington as he attempted to bring the country together, traveling as far north as Kittery Point, Maine, and as far south as Savannah, Georgia, Philbrick hoped to gain some historical perspective on our own politically divided times.
Washington accomplished an extraordinary amount to bring this unruly collection of states together in support of the creation of a federal government, of a tax plan, of a Federal City – what would become Washington, DC. Without this road trip, America may never have made it, and today’s leaders could stand to learn from George’s methods.

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The Allied Race to Retake Paris in 1945 Before the Nazis Could Destroy It Dec 21, 2021

In a stunning move, the armies of Nazi Germany annihilated the French military and captured Paris, the crown jewel of Europe, in a matter of a few weeks. As Adolf Hitler tightened his grip on the City of Lights, the shocked Allies regrouped and began planning for a daring counterattack into Fortress Europe.
The longer the Nazis held the city, the greater danger its citizens faced. By 1944, over 120,000 Parisians died, and countless more tortured in the city's Gestapo prisons and sent to death camps. The exiled general Charles de Gaulle, headquartered in the bar of London's Connaught Hotel, convinced General Dwight Eisenhower to put Paris before Berlin. Unless Paris was taken immediately, he told him, the City of Light would be leveled. The race for Paris begins.
Today’s guest is Martin Dugar, author of “Taking Paris: The Epic Battle for the City of Lights.” We discuss the story of the people who set that city free and the account of the battle for the heart and soul of Paris in one of the twentieth century’s darkest moments.

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The Son of Mississippi Slaves Who Fled to Russia and Brought Jazz to Istanbul Dec 16, 2021

Frederick Bruce Thomas was born in 1872 to former slaves and spent his youth on his family’s prosperous farm in Mississippi. However, a resentful, rich white planter's attempt to steal their land forced them to escape to Memphis. And when Frederick's father was brutally murdered by another black man, the family disintegrated. After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, Frederick went to London in 1894, then traveled throughout Europe, and decided to go to Russia in 1899, which was highly unusual for a black American at the time. Frederick found no color line in Russia and made Moscow his home. During the next nineteen years he renamed himself “Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas,” married twice, acquired a mistress, took Russian citizenship, and by dint of his talents, hard work, charm, and guile became one of the city’s richest and most famous owners of variety theaters and restaurants. The Bolshevik Revolution ruined him and he barely escaped with his life and family to Turkey in 1919. Starting with just a handful of dollars out of the millions he had lost, Frederick made a second fortune in Constantinople by opening a series of celebrated nightclubs that introduced jazz to Turkey. However, because of the long arm of American racism, the xenophobia of the new Turkish Republic, and his own extravagance, he fell on hard times, was thrown into debtor's prison, and died in Constantinople in 1928.
Although widely known during his lifetime, Frederick Thomas is now virtually forgotten. The few references to him that have been published during the past eighty years are all brief and often wrong. Vladimir Alexandrov, today’s guest and author of the book “The Black Russian,” researched Frederick Thomas’s life and times exhaustively in archives and libraries throughout the United States, as well as in Russia, France, England, and Turkey, and found a great deal of information about him.
Frederick Thomas is fascinating because of the extraordinary way he escaped the constraints of his humble origins and being black in the United States, because of how his life went from rags to riches to ruin not once but twice as a consequence of revolutionary transformations in two exotic societies, and because of the contrasting roles that race played in his life abroad--from being invisible in Russia, to returning to haunt him in Turkey, when he most needed help and the American government turned him down.

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What the Middle Ages Can Teach Us About Pandemics, Mass Migration, and Tech Disruption Dec 14, 2021

The medieval world – for all its plagues, papal indulgences, castles, and inquisition trials – has much in common with ours. People living the Middle Ages dealt with deadly pandemics, climate change, mass migration, and controversial technological changes, just as we do now in 2021.
Today’s guest, Dan Jones, author of POWERS AND THRONES: A New History of the Middle Ages looks at these common features through a cast of characters that includes pious monks and Byzantine emperors, chivalric knights and Renaissance artists.
This sweep of the medieval world begins with the fall of the Roman empire and ends with the first contact between the Old World and the New. Along the way, Jones provides a front row seat to the forces that shaped the Western world as we know it. This is the thousand years in which our basic Western systems of law, commerce, and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of seismic change. We discuss:
• The height of the Roman empire and its influential rulers, as well as the various reasons it fell, including climate change pushing the Huns and so-called “barbarian” tribes to the empire’s borders.
• The development of Christianity and Islam, as well as the power struggles and conflict ignited in the name of religion, chivalric orders such as the Knights Templar, and the rise of monasteries as major political players in the West.
• The intimate stories of many influential characters of the Middle Ages, such as Constantine I, Justinian, the Prophet Muhammad, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, El Cid, Leonardo Da Vinci, Genghis Khan, Marco Polo, Martin Luther, and many more.
• The development of global trade routes and commerce across Europe, Asia, and Africa and the expanding map during the Age of Exploration.
• The Black Death, which decimated up to sixty percent of the local population in the fourteenth century and led to widespread social unrest and the little Ice Age, the period between 1300-1850 triggered by volcanic activity that created a climate so regularly and bitterly cold that it contributed to the Great Famine of 1315-21.

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Marine Raiders: The WW2 Special Forces Who Conquered Pacific Islands One Knife Fight At a Time Dec 09, 2021

At the beginning of World War II, military planners set out to form the most ruthless, skilled, and effective force the world had ever seen. The U.S. Marines were already the world’s greatest fighters, but leadership wanted a select group to conduct special operations at the highest level in the Pacific theater. And so the Marine Raiders were born.
These young men, the cream of the crop, received matchless training in the arts of war. Marksmen, brawlers, and tacticians, the Marine Raiders could accomplish their objective before the enemy even knew they were there.
Yet even though one of their commanders was President Roosevelt’s son, they have largely been forgotten. To explore their legacy, we are joined by Carole Engle Avriett, author of “Marine Raiders: The True Story of the Legendary WWII Battalions.”
We discuss:
- The personal narratives of four men who served as Marine Raiders
- Frontline accounts of the Raiders’ most important engagements
- The explanation for their obscurity, despite their earlier fame

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The Boer Wars: The South African Conflict That Created Winston Churchill and (Possibly) Concentration Camps Dec 07, 2021

South Africa, despite abolishing apartheid in the 1990s, still stays very fraught with racial tension, making the United States' experience of 2020 pale in comparison. A series of settlements and wars from over a hundred years ago and over hundreds of years still ripple South Africa today with their effects. But South Africa didn't become what it is today by accident, though Europeans did settle it by accident ... at least at first.
Over the 18th & 19th centuries, white settlements expanded quite intentionally across southern Africa... but quite chaotically too. Those European settlers weren't the only ones expanding in southern Africa. The Zulu tribe rapidly expanded and "adopted" other tribal members who they didn't annihilate. These clashes often didn't follow racial lines, and nor were they always over resources. Most of these clashes remain forgotten by most of the world. And even the so-called Boer War remains extremely misunderstood.
Today's guest Michael Buster hosts the Forgotten Wars Podcast, a more than 40-chapter podcast with the first season focusing on these clashes over control of southern Africa with the bulk of the season focusing on Anglo-Boer Wars, fought in the 1880s and early 1900s.
Some have mischaracterized the Anglo-Boer War as the British Empire's Vietnam War, while others have drawn parallels between it and US invasion of Iraq in 2003, or just another war over natural resources (in this case gold and diamonds). But the ripple effects and implications of this regional war go way beyond the boundaries of South Africa.
We discuss:
- How the British botched abolition in the Cape Colony and sowed the seeds for many future wars. We contrast this approach with the approach Abraham Lincoln took to abolition in slave state(s) that stayed in the Union.
- How did this war helped "make" Winston Churchill? His time as a POW led to to lucrative book sales that helped him fund his first campaign and win a seat in the House of Commons
- Whether the British really invented concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War
- How to win a war fought thousands of miles from your motherland.

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Kim Philby: The KGB Mole Who Nearly Became the Leader of Britain’s MI6 Dec 02, 2021

Kim Philby—the master British spy and notorious KGB double agent—had an incredible amount of influence on the Cold War. He became the mentor, and later, mortal enemy, of James Angleton, who would eventually lead the CIA. Philby was also in the running at one point to lead MI6, which would have made the Cold War very different.
Philby's life and career has inspired an entire literary genre: the spy novel of betrayal. Philby was one of the leaders of the British counter-intelligence efforts, first against the Nazis, then against the Soviet Union. He was also the KGB's most valuable double-agent, so highly regarded that his image is on the postage stamps of the Russian Federation even today.
To delve into Philby’s life is today’s guest, Michael Holzman, author of the new book “Spies and Traitors: Kim Philby, James Angleton, and the Friendship and Betrayal that Would Shape M16, the CIA, and the Cold War.”
Before he was exposed, Philby was the mentor of James Jesus Angleton, one of the central figures in the early years of the CIA who became the long-serving chief of the counter-intelligence staff of the Agency.
James Angleton and Kim Philby were friends for six years, or so Angleton thought. Then they were enemies for the rest of their lives. This is the story of their intertwined careers and a betrayal that would have dramatic and irrevocable effects on the Cold War and US-Soviet relations, and have a direct effect on the shape and culture of the CIA in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Spanning the globe, from London and Washington DC, to Rome and Istanbul, Spies and Traitors gets to the heart of one of the most important and flawed personal relationships in modern history.

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George Washington: The First American Action Hero Dec 01, 2021

This is an excerpt from an episode of This American President, a great history podcast that is the newest member of the Parthenon Podcast Network. You can find it at www.spreaker.com/show/this-american-president or wherever you listen to podcasts.
He might look like an old man on the one-dollar bill, but George Washington was once a bona fide action hero. This episode explores our first president’s legendary exploits during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.

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Why the 1619 Project is Dangerous and Should Be Totally Rejected Nov 30, 2021

The biggest and most controversial historical debate in 2021 is the 1619 Project. Released last year in a special issue of the New York Times Magazine, it is a collection of articles which "aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of [the United States'] national narrative.” More specifically, it claims that the United States is fundamentally and irrevocably racist. Slavery, not the Constitution or 1776, are at the core of American identity. It reviews slavery not as a blemish that the Founders grudgingly tolerated with the understanding that it must soon evaporate, but as the prize that the Constitution went out of its way to secure and protect.
Specific claims include the following: the Revolutionary War was fought above all to preserve slavery, that capitalism was birthed on the plantation, and features of American society like traffic jams or affinity for sugar are connected to slavery and segregation.
The project was condemned by historians from left to right. Princeton historian Allen Guelzo said that “the 1619 Project is not history; it is conspiracy theory. And like all conspiracy theories, the 1619 Project announces with a eureka! that it has acquired the explanation to everything.” Fellow Princeton historian Sean Wilentz has circulated a letter objecting to the project, and the letter acquired signatories like James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes, all leading scholars in their field who object to very basic factual inaccuracies in the project.
Despite the 1619 Project’s numerous historical inaccuracies, the project has spread like wildfire. The creator Nicole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for Commentary. Hundreds of newspapers have endorsed it. Most concerning, public schools began incorporating into their curricula early this year. The Pulitzer Center helped turn the 1619 Project into a curriculum that’s now taught in more than 4,500 schools across the nation. It threatens to destroy civics education as it has been taught for generations in K-12 education. History teachers, under such a program, would abandon the narrative of the Civil War, emancipation, and the Civil Rights movement. Instead, they would ask students how societal structures perpetuate the enslavement of black people.
Today’s guest is Dr. Mary Grabar, author of “Debunking The 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America.”
She provides an extensive look at the divisive and false tactics used to associate America with the exact opposite values of its founding.
This episode is different because I am explicitly endorsing the argument of this author and denouncing the 1619 project. I almost never do this because I don’t want to tell you, the listener, how to think. Rather, I let a guest present his or her arguments, make the case as best as possible, play devil’s advocate when needed, but ultimately provide the best historical raw material so that you, the audience, and be the judge.
I’m making an exception with the 1619 project because I think the arguments are so poorly constructed, juvenile, and political in nature that they don’t deserve the dignity of being taken seriously. Normally, I would ignore such poorly crafted arguments, in the same way that I wouldn’t have on a guest who says that aliens built the pyramids, or that a German U-Boat sunk the Titanic. At the risk of being political, I think that the 1619 project is at the same intellectual level as UFO conspiracy theories. The problem is that it has elite support. But the effects of 1619 are seeping into public school curricula. The date of 1619 is entering public consciousness. This is only because of politics, because the political claims of the project line up with the political beliefs of certain teachers, Pulitzer committee members, and others.

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Rebroadcast: Turkey is Both a Bird and a Country. Which Came First? Nov 25, 2021

It's no coincidence that the bird we eat for Thanksgiving and a Middle Eastern country are both called Turkey. One was named after the other, and it all has to do with a 500-year-old story of emerging global trade, mistaken identity, foreign language confusion, and how the turkey took Europe by storm as a must-have status symbol for the ultra-wealthy.

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The 160-Minute Race to Save the Titanic Nov 23, 2021

One hundred and sixty minutes. That is all the time rescuers would have before the largest ship in the world slipped beneath the icy Atlantic. There was amazing heroism and astounding incompetence against the backdrop of the most advanced ship in history sinking by inches with luminaries from all over the world. It is a story of a network of wireless operators on land and sea who desperately sent messages back and forth across the dark frozen North Atlantic to mount a rescue mission. More than twenty-eight ships would be involved in the rescue of Titanic survivors along with four different countries.
At the heart of the rescue are two young Marconi operators, Jack Phillips 25 and Harold Bride 22, tapping furiously and sending electromagnetic waves into the black night as the room they sat in slanted toward the icy depths and not stopping until the bone numbing water was around their ankles. Then they plunged into the water after coordinating the largest rescue operation the maritime world had ever seen and thereby saving 710 people by their efforts.
The race to save the largest ship in the world from certain death would reveal both heroes and villains. It would begin at 11:40 PM on April 14, when the iceberg was struck and would end at 2:20 AM April 15, when her lights blinked out and left 1500 people thrashing in 25-degree water. Although the race to save Titanic survivors would stretch on beyond this, most people in the water would die, but the amazing thing is that of the 2229 people, 710 did not and this was the success of the Titanic rescue effort.
We see the Titanic as a great tragedy but a third of the people were rescued and the only reason every man, woman, and child did not succumb to the cold depths is due to Jack Phillips and Harold McBride in an insulated telegraph room known as the Silent Room. These two men tapping out CQD and SOS distress codes while the ship took on water at the rate of 400 tons per minute from a three-hundred-foot gash would inaugurate the most extensive rescue operation in maritime history using the cutting-edge technology of the time, wireless.
To talk about this race against time is frequent guest Bill Hazelgrove, author of the new book One Hundred and Sixty Minutes: The Race to Save the RMS Titanic.

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Age of Discovery 2.0, Part 6: Will SpaceX Control Mars Like the British East India Company Controlled the Indian Subcontinent? Nov 18, 2021

The British East India Company is perhaps the most powerful corporation in history. It was larger than several nations and acted as emperor of the Indian subcontinent, commanding a private army of 260,000 soldiers (twice the size of the British Army at the time). The East India Company controlled trade between Britian and India, China, and Persia, reaping enormous profits, flooding Europe with tea, cotton, and spices. Investors earned returns of 30 percent or more.
With SpaceX building reusable rockets and drawing up plans to colonize Mars, could we be seeing a new British East India Company for the 21st century? The idea isn't that far-fetched. In the terms of service for its Starlink satellite internet, one clause reads the following: "For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement."
To answer the question of whether or not space tycoons will be able to control the Moon or Mars is today's guest is Ram Jakhu, an associate professor at McGill University and a researcher on international space law.
In this episode we discuss:
-- How the East India Company’s control over India foreshadows SpaceX’s control over Mars and what happens when a corporation effectively controls a nation (or in this case, a planet)
-- Laws that apply to seasteading and their relevance to space colonies
-- Why some military strategists think space will inevitably be the new warfighting domain, and whether or not this is true
-- The past and future of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, an international treaty that prevents any country from claiming sovereignty over outer space or any celestial body

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Age of Discovery 2.0, Part 5: Death Has Always Been an Inevitable Part of Discovery, Whether on Magellan’s Voyage or a Trip to Mars Nov 16, 2021

The history of exploration and establishment of new lands, science and technologies has always entailed risk to the health and lives of the explorers. Yet, when it comes to exploring and developing the high frontier of space, the harshest frontier ever, the highest value is apparently not the accomplishment of those goals, but of minimizing, if not eliminating, the possibility of injury or death of the humans carrying them out.
To talk about the need for accepting risk in the name of discovery – whether during Magellan’s voyage in which 90 percent of the crew died or in the colonization of Mars – is aerospace engineer and science writer Rand Simberg, author of Safe Is Not An Option: Overcoming The Futile Obsession With Getting Everyone Back Alive That Is Killing Our Expansion Into Space.
For decades since the end of Apollo, human spaceflight has been very expensive and relatively rare (about 500 people total, with a death rate of about 4%), largely because of this risk aversion on the part of the federal government and culture. From the Space Shuttle, to the International Space Station, the new commercial crew program to deliver astronauts to it, and the regulatory approach for commercial spaceflight providers, our attitude toward safety has been fundamentally irrational, expensive and even dangerous, while generating minimal accomplishment for maximal cost.
Rand explains why this means that we must regulate passenger safety in the new commercial spaceflight industry with a lighter hand than many might instinctively prefer, that NASA must more carefully evaluate rewards from a planned mission to rationally determine how much should be spent to avoid the loss of participants, and that Congress must stop insisting that safety is the highest priority, for such insistence is an eloquent testament to how unimportant they and the nation consider the opening of this new frontier.
Can you talk about the dangers of voyages in the Age of Discover, namely Magellan? Marco Polo walking through mountain passes and suffering cold, diseases, and the threat of starvation. Ibn Battuta getting shipwrecked numerous times. Attacked by pirates.
Captain Cook was elected a member of theroyal society in 1775, for his geographic discoveries, but also determining a prevention for scurvey.
[leeding gums which turn blue-ish purple and feel spongy
bulging eye balls
corkscrew hair (only in non-infantile scurvy), particularly noticeable on your arms and legs
loosened teeth which will eventually fall out in the advanced stages of scurvy
fever
swollen legs, particularly swelling over the long bones of your body
1.Are there any particular stories of exploration from history that resonate with you and serve as a model of balancing safety with risk-taking? If so, why?
2.Walk us through the dangers of the early Space Age. There are notable tragedies, such as Apollo 1, and many failures of the Soviet Space Program, but overall, what was the risk level in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs?
3.Take us to the present day. What is the ISS’s approach to safety?
4.In what ways is American society far less risk-tolerant, and what do you think brought about this change from the 1960s?
5.Future space flights that are privately funded will be given far wider berth on risk than a manned NASA flight. Walk us through your “actuarial table” of balancing risk identification, mitigation, and overall cost.
6.Overall, how do you think we should understand safety when it comes to human exploration of space?

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Age of Discovery 2.0, Part 4: How Lessons From U.S. History Will Help Space Colonies Be More Like Star Trek and Less Like Blade Runner Nov 11, 2021

The human race is about to go to the stars. Big rockets are being built, and nations and private citizens worldwide are planning the first permanent settlements in space.
When we get there, will we know what to do to make those first colonies just and prosperous places for all humans? How do we keep future societies from becoming class segregated, neo-feudal dystopian nightmares (like Blade Runner) and instead become havens of equality and material abundance for all (like Star Trek)? Believe it or not, American colonial history provides us an example of each one.
Today’s guest is Robert Zimmerman, author of “Conscious Choice,” which describes the history of the first century of British settlement in North America. That was when those settlers were building their own new colonies and had to decide whether to include slaves from Africa.
In New England slavery was vigorously rejected. The Puritans wanted nothing to do with this institution, desiring instead to form a society of free religious families, a society that became the foundation of the United States of American, dedicated to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
In Virginia however slavery was gladly embraced, resulting in a corrupt social order built on power, rule, and oppression.
Why the New England citizens were able to reject slavery, and Virginians were not, is the story with direct implications for all human societies, whether they are here on Earth or on the far-flung planets across the universe.

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Age of Discovery 2.0, Part 3: Space Colonization Will Reinvigorate Humanity More Than the New World Discovery 500 Years Ago Nov 09, 2021

The discovery of the New World irrevocably changed the economy of the Old World. Triangle trade, manufactured goods went from Britain to the Americas, which sent food staples to the Indies, which sent cash crops back to England. It also caused investment dollars to flood into exploration ventures. As far back as the 1500s, tracts of land were sold in Kentucky through British crown land patents, helping fund the Virginia Colony of London, which set up Jamestown. Most importantly, it gave Europe a terra nova where the old social hierarchies no longer mattered. New forms of egalitarianism developed.
With the development of cheaper rocketry by Elon Musk and others, something similar is going to happen very soon. Today’s guest, astronautical engineer Robert Zubrin, spells out the potential of these new in a way that is visionary yet grounded by a deep understanding of the practical challenges. A new Triangle Trade will be development between Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt. Investment dollars will flood into speculative ventures such as asteroid mining. And all sorts of new human societies will be possible.
Fueled by the combined expertise of the old aerospace industry and the talents of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, spaceflight is becoming cheaper. The new generation of space explorers has already achieved a major breakthrough by creating reusable rockets. Zubrin foresees more rapid innovation, including global travel from any point on Earth to another in an hour or less; orbital hotels; moon bases with incredible space observatories; human settlements on Mars, the asteroids, and the moons of the outer planets; and then, breaking all limits, pushing onward to the stars.
Zubrin shows how projects that sound like science fiction can actually become reality. But beyond the how, he makes an even more compelling case for why we need to do this—to increase our knowledge of the universe, to make unforeseen discoveries on new frontiers, to harness the natural resources of other planets, to safeguard Earth from stray asteroids, to ensure the future of humanity by expanding beyond its home base, and to protect us from being catastrophically set against each other by the false belief that there isn’t enough for all.

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Age of Discovery 2.0, Part 2: America’s New Destiny in Space, With Glenn Reynolds Nov 04, 2021

With private space companies launching rockets, satellites, and people at a record pace, and with the U.S. and other governments committing to a future in space, today’s guest Glenn Harlan Reynolds looks at how we got here, where we’re going, and why it matters for all of humanity. Reynolds is a law professor and former executive vice president of the National Space Society, thinks commercial space is essential to the future.
Author of the book “America’s New Destiny in Space,” he discusses America’s future in space, which will be dominated by the private sector rather than the work of government space agencies. We explore how space will inspire innovation, possibly create trillions of dollars in wealth, and pump incredible new energy into human civilization.
Reynolds describes three phases of spaceflight in history so far. Visionary (early 20th century), “command-economy,” from the Apollo to the Shuttle eras, and finally, a “sustainable” phase, which he defines as “spaceflight that generates enough economic value to pay its own way.”
This means that getting into space has become far cheaper than it used to be, and that it promises to get much cheaper still. This creates immediate possibilities like cheap satellite Internet from SpaceX’s Starlink, but also more exotic technologies: space-based solar power, asteroid mining, and helium-3 extraction from the Moon. Reynolds also talks about what we need to do to bring about this future: little regulation and the government acting as a customer, but otherwise getting out of the way.

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Welcome to the Age of Discovery 2.0 Nov 02, 2021

No decade transformed Western Civilization like the 1490s. Before then, Europe was a gloomy continent split into factions, ripe for conquest by the Islamic world. It had made no significant advances in science or literature for a century. But after a Spanish caravel named Nina returned to the Old World with news of a startling discovery, the dying embers of the West were fanned back to life. Shipbuilding began at a furious pace. Trade routes to Africa, India, and China quickly opened. At the same time, printing presses spread new ideas about science, religion, and technology across the continent. Literacy rates exploded. Because of the Age of Discovery, for the first time in generations, Europeans had hope in the future.
Today, an Age of Discovery 2.0 is upon us. With Elon Musk promising affordable rocket rides to the Moon and Mars within a decade, planetary bodies will be as accessible to humans as the New World was to adventurers in the 1500s.
How will the Age of Discovery 2.0 change our civilization the way the first one did five centuries ago?
To find the answers, History Unplugged is interviewing historians, scientists, and futurists who have spent decades researching this question. We will learn how:
•Spain’s 16th-century global empire was built on the spice trade (cinnamon was worth more than gold) and those same economics will lead to Mars colonization (its stockpiles of deuterium are a key ingredient for cheap fusion power
•How slavery was a conscious choice in the American colonies (Virginia embraced it while Puritan New England rejected it) and how the same choices on human rights could make the future a libertarian paradise or a neo-feudal dystopia
•How the East India Company’s control over India foreshadows SpaceX’s control over Mars and what happens when a corporation effectively controls a nation (or in this case, a planet).
•The labor shortage – and lack of regulation – in off-world colonies will lead to incredible innovation, as did the lack of workers and government restriction in colonial America drove the rise of “Yankee ingenuity’s” wave of inventions.

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American’s Political Polarization Traces Back to 18th-Century Enlightenment Factions That Never Resolved Their Differences Oct 28, 2021

Pundits on both the left and right proclaim our democracy is in crisis. This can be characterized by an eroding of civil institutions or politicians completely ignoring democratic norms by doing whatever is necessary to seek power and asking “where are the nuclear launch codes?” However, these challenges may not be so new. And the fault lines in our society may be centuries old and stem back to the beginning of the Enlightenment, when scholars asked fundamental questions of how we know what is and isn’t true, and how do we order our society along those principles. Different intellectuals had different solutions, so you have the American Revolution on one hand, and the French Revolution on the other.
But today’s guest, Seth David Radwell a researcher of the Enlightenment and A business leader with a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, argues that our political divisions are not “unprecedented.” In his book, American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation, Radwell , proposes a new dialogue between thoughtful and concerned Americans from both red and blue states who make up the exhausted majority—a dialogue informed by our country’s history.
Increasingly disturbed by the contentious state of politics, social unrest, and the apparent disappearance of “truth,” Radwell set out to examine his own long-held assumptions about American democracy and ideals. Through a deep dive into foundational documents and the influence of the European Enlightenment, he discovered today’s raging conflicts have their roots in the fundamentally different visions of America that emerged at our nation’s founding.
In American Schism, Radwell looks at our country’s history and ongoing political tensions through the lens of the Radical Enlightenment versus the Moderate Enlightenment, and their dynamic interplay with Counter-Enlightenment movements over the last few centuries. He offers a new vision for America with practical action steps for repairing our rift and healing our wounds.

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The Iowa Boy Who Loved Baseball, Leaked Atomic Secrets to the USSR, and Jump Started the Cold War Oct 26, 2021

Of all the WW2 spies who stole atomic secrets from the Manhattan Project, none were as successfully, or as unassuming as George Koval. He was a kid from Iowa who played baseball, and loved Walt Whitman’s poetry. But he was also from a family of Russian immigrants who spent years in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and was trained as a spy for the proto-KGB.
A gifted science student, he enrolled at Columbia University, and befriended the scientists soon to join the Manhattan Project. After being drafted into the US Army, George used his scientific background and connections to secure assignments at the most secret sites of the Manhattan Project—where plutonium and uranium were produced to fuel the atom bomb.
Unbeknownst to his friends and colleagues, for years George passed top-secret information on the atomic bomb to his handlers in Moscow. The intelligence he provided made its way to the Soviet atomic program, which produced a bomb identical to America’s years earlier than U.S. experts had expected. No one ever suspected George.
George eventually returned to the Soviet Union—his secret identity was known only to top intelligence officials and his story was only brought to light after the fall of the USSR. He escaped without a scratch, was never caught, and the story remains little known to this day.
To get into this story is today’s guest Ann Hagedorn, author of SLEEPER AGENT: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away We delve into his psychologyshowing the hopes, fears, and beliefs that spurred Koval’s decisions, and how he was able to integrate himself so completely into the ideology and culture of the United States.

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Winston Churchill: Political Master, Military Commander Oct 21, 2021

From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain's greatest wartime leader and politician. Deep down though, he was foremost a warlord. Just like his ally Stalin, and his arch enemies Hitler and Mussolini, Churchill could not help himself and insisted on personally directing the strategic conduct of World War II. For better or worse he insisted on being political master and military commander. Again like his wartime contemporaries, he had a habit of not heeding the advice of his generals. The results of this were disasters in Norway, North Africa, Greece, and Crete during 1940–41. His fruitless Dodecanese campaign in 1943 also ended in defeat. Churchill's pig-headedness over supporting the Italian campaign in defiance of the Riviera landings culminated in him threatening to resign and bring down the British Government. Yet on occasions he got it just right, his refusal to surrender in 1940, the British miracle at Dunkirk and victory in the Battle of Britain, showed that he was a much-needed decisive leader. Nor did he shy away from difficult decisions, such as the destruction of the French Fleet to prevent it falling into German hands and his subsequent war against Vichy France.
To talk about these different aspects of his leadership is today’s guest, Anthony Tucker-Jones, author of Winston Churchill: Master and commander. He explores the record of Winston Churchill as a military commander, assessing how the military experiences of his formative years shaped him for the difficult military decisions he took in office. He assesses his choices in the some of the most controversial and high-profile campaigns of World War II, and how in high office his decision making was both right and wrong.

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How This Union General Who Executed Guerrillas and Imprisoned Political Foes Became the Most Hated Man in Kentucky Oct 21, 2021

For the last third of the nineteenth century, Union General Stephen Gano Burbridge, also known as the “Butcher of Kentucky,” enjoyed the unenviable distinction of being the most hated man in Kentucky. From mid-1864, just months into his reign as the military commander of the state, until his death in December 1894, the mere mention of his name triggered a firestorm of curses from editorialists and politicians. By the end of Burbridge’s tenure, Governor Thomas E. Bramlette concluded that he was an “imbecile commander” whose actions represented nothing but the “blundering of a weak intellect and an overwhelming vanity.”
Part of what earned him this reputation was his heavy handedness to suppress attacks on Union citizens. On July 16, 1864, Burbridge issued Order No. 59 which declared: "Whenever an unarmed Union citizen is murdered, four guerrillas will be selected from the prison and publicly shot to death at the most convenient place near the scene of the outrages." He was also hated for extreme measures to ensure re-election of Lincoln by suppressing support in Kentucky for Democratic candidate George McClellan. His actions included arresting prominent persons favoring the candidate, including the Lieutenant Governor, whom he deported.
Today’s guest is Brad Asher, author of a new biography on Burbridge. We discuss how he earned his infamous reputation and adds an important new layer to the ongoing reexamination of Kentucky during and after the Civil War. As both a Kentuckian and the local architect of the destruction of slavery, he became the scapegoat for white Kentuckians, including many in the Unionist political elite, who were unshakably opposed to emancipation. Beyond successfully recalibrating history’s understanding of Burbridge, Asher’s biography adds administrative and military context to the state’s reaction to emancipation and sheds new light on its postwar pro-Confederacy shift.

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The Escape of Jack the Ripper: History’s Most Infamous Serial Killer, and the Cover-up to Protect His Identity Oct 19, 2021

He was young, handsome, highly educated in the best English schools, a respected professional, and a first-class amateur athlete. He was also a serial killer, the Victorian equivalent of the modern-day Ted Bundy. His name was Montague Druitt—also known as “Jack the Ripper.”
Druitt’s handiwork included the slaughter of at least five women of ill repute in the East End of London—an urban hell where women sold themselves for a stale crust of bread. But mysteries still remain about Druit – including his thinking behind the murders, the man behind the moniker, and the circumstances behind his demise. Exploring these questions are today’s guests Jonathan Hainsworth and researcher Christine Ward-Agius, authors of The Escape of Jack the Ripper: The Truth about the Cover-up and His Flight from Justice.
We discuss:
How a blood-stained Druitt was arrested yet bluffed his way to freedom by pretending to be a medical student helping the poor
How Druitt confessed to his cousin, an Anglican priest
How Druitt’s family placed him in a private, expensive asylum in France, only for him to flee when a nurse blew the whistle
How Druitt’s identity was concealed by his well-connected friends and family, thus hatching the mystery of Jack the Ripper

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Two Revolutions and the Constitution Oct 14, 2021

The United States is fraught with angst, fear, anger, and divisiveness due to our current political climate. How did we get here? And where are we headed?
Before the American Revolutionary period, Americans thought that the British constitution was the best in the world. Under the British system and their colonial charters, free Americans already enjoyed greater liberties and opportunities than any other people, including those in Britain.
Once they declared independence in 1776, the former British colonies in America needed their own rules for a new system of government. They drafted and adopted State constitutions. They needed cooperation between the States to fight the British, so the new States tried a confederation. It was too weak, so eleven years after declaring independence, the Framers devised a revolutionary federal and national constitution—the first major written constitution of the modern world.
The new State and federal constitutions and the system of law were deeply influenced by the British system, but with brilliant and revolutionary changes.
Today’s guest is James D.R. Philip, author of the book “Two Revolutions and the Constitutuion.” He describes how Americans removed the British monarch and entrenched their freedoms in an innovative scheme that was tyrant-proof and uniquely American. It was built on the sovereignty of the American people rather than the sovereignty of a king or queen.
So, as well as describing the American Revolution and the development of the American constitutions that came before the final Constitution, we discuss the revolutionary development of the English system of law and government that was a foundation of the American system.

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Alfred Hubbard Was a 1920s Inventor, Bootlegger, and Psychedelic Pioneer Who Became the Patron Saint of Silicon Valley Oct 12, 2021

Not many people have heard about Alfred Hubbard but he was one of the most intriguing people from the 20th Century. His story begins in 1919 when he made his first newspaper appearance with the exciting announcement that he had created a perpetual-motion machine that harnessed energy from the Earth's atmosphere. He would soon publicly demonstrate this device by using it to power a boat on Seattle's Lake Union, though, at the time, heavy suspicions were cast about the legitimacy of his claims. From there, he joined forces with Seattle’s top bootlegger and, together, they built one of Seattle’s first radio stations. He was then involved in a top secret WWII operation, and even played a role in the Manhattan Project.
In the 1950s, he was one of the first people to try a new drug by the name of LSD, and helped pioneer psychedelic therapy. He was known as “The Johnny Appleseed of LSD,” as he introduced the drug to everyone from Aldous Huxley to early computer engineers in what is now known as Silicon Valley. He was a fraud, to be sure, but may have also been a genius. Famous California psychiatrist Oscar Janiger once said, "Nothing of substance has ever been written about Al Hubbard, and probably nothing ever should." And yet, there is little dispute regarding the fascinating scope of his adventurous life.
To explore his story is Brad Holden, author of the book “Seattle Mystic: Alfred Hubbard – Inventor, Bootlegger, and Psychedelic Pioneer”.

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The Normans: A History of Conquest Oct 07, 2021

The Norman’s conquering of the known world was a phenomenon unlike anything Europe had seen up to that point in history. Although best known for the 1066 Conquest of England, they have left behind a far larger legacy.
They emerged early in the tenth century but had disappeared from world affairs by the mid-thirteenth century. Yet in that time they had conquered England, Ireland, much of Wales and parts of Scotland. They also founded a new Mediterranean kingdom in southern Italy and Sicily, as well as a Crusader state in the Holy Land and in North Africa. Moreover, they had an extraordinary ability to adapt as time and place dictated, taking on the role of Norse invaders to Frankish crusaders, from Byzantine overlords to feudal monarchs.
Today’s guest, Trevor Rowley, author of The Normans: A History of Conquest, offers a comprehensive picture of the Normans and argues that despite the short time span of Norman ascendancy, it is clear that they were responsible for a permanent cultural and political legacy.

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Electric City: Ford and Edison’s Vision of Creating a Steampunk Utopia Oct 05, 2021

During the roaring twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country’s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s “Detroit of the South” would be ten times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society, introducing mass commuting by car, use a new kind of currency called “energy dollars,” and have the added benefit (from Ford and Edison's view) of crippling the growth of socialism.
New cities – St. Petersburg; Ankara; Nev-Sehir; Cancún; Acapulco; Huatulco; Norilsk; Vladivostok; Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
The whole audacious scheme almost came off, with Southerners rallying to support what became known as the Ford Plan. But while some saw it as a way to conjure the future and reinvent the South, others saw it as one of the biggest land swindles of all time. They were all true.
To tell the story of this audacious plan is Thomas Hager, author of the new book “Electric City: The Lost History of Ford and Edison’s American Utopia. He offers a fresh look at the lives of the two men who almost saw the project to fruition, the forces that came to oppose them, and what rose in its stead: a new kind of public corporation called the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal.

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Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium Sep 30, 2021

Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the nineteenth century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal.
This unlikely element ascended on the market as a desirable item – a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in- the-dark dance costume and soon became a supposed cure-all in everyday twentieth-century life, when medical practitioners and business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element, and enthusiastic customers welcomed their radioactive wares into their homes.
Lucy Jane Santos—herself the proud owner of a formidable collection of radium beauty treatments—is today’s guest. She’s the author of the new book “Half Lives,” which delves into the stories of these products and details the gradual downfall and discredit of the radium industry through the eyes of the people who bought, sold and eventually came to fear the once-fetishized substance.

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An Alternate History of the Lincoln Assassination Plot Sep 28, 2021

How deeply was the Confederate Secret Service involved in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln? Did the Confederate Secret Service assassinate Abraham Lincoln?” There are some strong indications that it did, but the facts uncovered in researching this question only raise more questions than they answer. After all, we are dealing with an issue of espionage and intelligence that originated in a government that hasn’t existed for 154 years.
But sometimes the best way to explore unanswerable questions is with a counterfactual story, or even an outright fiction. Frequent guest Sandy Mitcham (The Death of Hitler’s War Machine, Bust Hell Wide Open) is back with us today to discuss this topic by way of his new book “The Retribution Conspiracy.”
Sandy has couched his book in the form of a novel because there are some missing pieces. But he still provides an eye-opening account of spycraft and subterfuge in antebellum and Civil War America.

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What if Tsarist Russia Hadn’t Gone Communist? Revolutionaries Like Boris Savinkov Tried to Accomplish This Sep 23, 2021

Although now largely forgotten outside Russia, Boris Savinkov was famous, and notorious, both at home and abroad during his lifetime, which spans the end of the Russian Empire and the establishment of the Soviet Union. A complex and conflicted individual, he was a paradoxically moral revolutionary terrorist, a scandalous novelist, a friend of epoch-defining artists like Modigliani and Diego Rivera, a government minister, a tireless fighter against Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and an advisor to Churchill. At the end of his life, Savinkov conspired to be captured by the Soviet secret police, and as the country’s most prized political prisoner made headlines around the world when he claimed that he accepted the Bolshevik state. However, some believe that this was Savinkov’s final play as a gambler, staking his life on a secret plan to strike one last blow against the tyrannical regime.
Todays’ guest is Vladimir Alexandrov, author of To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks. Neither a "Red" nor a "White," Savinkov lived an epic life that challenges many popular myths about the Russian Revolution, which was arguably the most important catalyst of twentieth-century world history. All of Savinkov’s efforts were directed at transforming his homeland into a uniquely democratic, humane and enlightened state. There are aspects of his violent legacy that will, and should, remain frozen in the past as part of the historical record. But the support he received from many of his countrymen suggests that the paths Russia took during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—the tyranny of communism, the authoritarianism of Putin’s regime—were not the only ones written in her historical destiny. Savinkov's goals remain a poignant reminder of how things in Russia could have been, and how, perhaps, they may still become someday.

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Reviving Lost WW2 Stories With An M1 Rifle Sep 21, 2021

You wouldn’t believe how these ninety-year-old WWII heroes come alive when you put a rifle in their hands.
Andrew Biggio, a young U.S. Marine, returned from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq full of questions about the price of war. He went looking for answers from those who had survived the costliest war of all—WWII veterans.
His book, the Rifle: Combat Stories from America’s Last WWII Veterans, Told through an M1 Garand is the answer to his questions. For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America’s last living WWII veterans. Thousands from our Greatest Generation locked their memories away, never sharing what they had endured with family and friends, taking their stories to the grave. So how did this young Marine get them to talk? By putting a 1945 M1 Garand rifle in their hands and watching as their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war.
It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand rifle and handed it to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, unlocking memories Drago had kept unspoken for fifty years. On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine’s mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories.
With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. Ninety-six signatures now cover that rifle. Each signature represents a person, the battles endured during the war, and the PTSD battles fought after it. These are unfiltered, inspiring, and heartbreaking stories told by the last living WWII veterans—stories untold until now.

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Hollywood Hates History: El Cid (1961) Sep 16, 2021

Eleventh-century Spain was a violent borderland of Christian-Muslim bloodshed, but on the eve of the First Crusade, the two religions cooperated as much as they warred in Iberia. And who else to capture the heart of medieval Spain than Charlton Heston himself? Based on the real-life Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, who lived from 1043 to 1099 and was protagonist of the 13th century epic The Poem of the Cid, this movie captures medieval Spain in full Hollywood Golden Age splendor. Rodrigo defeated the Almoravids in a decisive battle in the history of Spain’s Reconquista, but was known for battling with both Muslims and Christians. The move – despite its extremely slow pacing and suuuuuper long takes – does a good job of capturing this age. It also doesn’t hurt that few people could handle the mythopoetic language of the script like Charlton Heston (John Wayne definitely couldn’t – see our review of him as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror).

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Hollywood Hates History: The Messenger – The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) Sep 14, 2021

What happens when you cast Milla Jovovich as Joan of Arc, take away her combat finesse she displayed in the Resident Evil series, but have her embody the fringe historical theory that the Maid of Orleans did not follow God’s orders to liberate France but was actually a schizophrenic? Why 1999’s the Messenger, of course! Guest Steve Guerra joins Scott to discuss the few accuracies and many inaccuracies of this film (and yes, there are flaming arrows).

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American Dunkirk – How Half a Million New Yorkers Were Evacuated from Manhattan Island on 9/11 Sep 09, 2021

The most famous large-scale sea rescue in history is the Dunkirk evacuation. Here nearly 400,000 Allied soldiers were surrounded by the German army in 1940, and Winston Churchill said, "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. But they were rescued off the coast of France between 26 May and 4 June in an improvised fleet. But few know there was actually a larger evacuation that happened in America, and it happened immediately after September 11th.
At 10:45 AM EST on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the United States Coast Guard issued the call for “all available boats” to assist the evacuation of Lower Manhattan. But hours before the official call went out, tugs, ferries, dinner boats, and other vessels had already raced to the rescue from points all across the Port of New York and New Jersey. In less than nine hours, approximately 800 mariners aboard 150 vessels transported nearly half a million people from Manhattan. This was the largest maritime evacuation in history—larger even than boat lift at Dunkirk—but the story of this effort has never fully been told.
Todays guest, Jessica DuLong, author of the book SAVED AT THE SEAWALL: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift, tells this story on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. She discusses how the New York Harbor maritime community delivered stranded commuters, residents, and visitors out of harm’s way after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. A journalist and historian, DuLong is herself chief engineer, emerita of the retired 1931 New York City fireboat, John J. Harvey. She served at Ground Zero, spending four days supplying Hudson River water to fight the fires at the World Trade Center. To tell the story of this marine rescue, DuLong drew on her own experiences as well as eyewitness accounts to weave together the personal stories of people rescued that day with those of the mariners who saved them.
As DuLong explains, “Still today few people recognize the significance of the evacuation effort that unfolded on that landmark day. This book addresses that omission. The stories that follow are the culmination of nearly a decade of reporting to discover how and why this remarkable rescue came to pass—what made the boat lift necessary, what made it possible, and why it was successful.

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Columbus of the Pacific: The Forgotten Portuguese Sailor Who Opened Up Earth’s Largest Ocean in 1564 Sep 07, 2021

Lope Martín was a little-known 16th century Afro-Portugese pilot known as the "Columbus of the Pacific"--who against all odds finished the final great voyage of the Age of Discovery. He raced ahead of Portugal’s top navigators in the notoriously challenging journey from the New World to Asia and back, only to be sentenced to hanging upon his return, while a white Augustine monk achieved all the glory.
It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal’s monopoly trade with Asia, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific—and then, critically, to attempt the never before-accomplished return: the vuelta. Four ships set out, each carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by Lope, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet.
It was the beginning of a voyage of epic scope, featuring mutiny, murderous encounters, astonishing physical hardships—and at last a triumphant return. But the pilot of the fleet’s flagship, an Augustine friar, later caught up with Martín to achieve the vuelta as well. It was he who now basked in glory, while Lope Martín was secretly sentenced to be hanged by the Spanish crown as repayment for his services.
To look at this forgotten story is Andres Resendez, author of the new book Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery

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Brown Brothers Harriman: The Shadowy Investment Bank That Built America’s Financial System Sep 02, 2021

Conspiracy theories have always swirled around Brown Brothers Harriman, the oldest and one of the largest private investment banks in the United States, and not without reason. As America of the 1800s was convulsed by devastating financial panics every twenty years, the Brown Brothers Harriman quietly went from strength to strength, propping up the US financial system at crucial moments while avoiding the unwelcome attention that plagued many of its competitors. Throughout the nineteenth century, the partners helped to create paper money as the primary medium of American capitalism; underwrote the first major railroad; and almost unilaterally created the first foreign exchange system. More troublingly, there were a central player in the cotton trade and, by association, the system of slave labor that prevailed in the South until the Civil War.
Today’s guest, Zachary Karabell, author of INSIDE MONEY: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power is here to discuss this complex marriage of money and power in America. But it’s what came after, in the 20th century, that truly catapulted the firm's influence and offers insight about their legacy and lessons for the future.
In this episode we discuss:
Brown Brothers Harriman’s essential and largely unknown role in shaping American history
How Brown Brothers Harriman helped create an axis of political and economic power, educated at elite schools, now known as “the Establishment”
How a balanced sense of self-interest and collective good helped Brown Brothers Harriman avoid the fate of “too big to fail” firms in the twenty-first century
The idea of “enough” wealth or “enough” success – has it become alien in today’s economy? Was it always this way?
What lessons can be learned from those who stewarded the expansion of America’s infrastructure in the early days of our democracy as we embark on rebuilding our infrastructure today?

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Drunk: How We Singed, Danced, and Stumbled Our Ways to Civilization Aug 31, 2021

Humans love to drink. We have a glass or two when bonding with friends, celebrating special occasions, releasing some stress at happy hour, and definitely when coping with a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. But when you consider the consequences—hangovers, addiction, physical injury, and more—shouldn't evolution have taught us to avoid it?
And yet, our taste for alcohol has survived almost as long as humans have been around. So why do humans love to get intoxicated?
Today’s guest, Edward Slingerland (author of the book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization) shows us why our fondness for intoxication has survived so long, how our favorite vice influenced the growth of civilizations, and why society as we know it couldn’t have emerged without alcohol.
We discuss anecdotes and research, including:
•Archeological evidence suggests that the desire for alcohol—not food—was the key driver of the agricultural revolution, and therefore civilization
• When humans were forced to abstain or drink in isolation during Prohibition, new patent applications decreased by 15%, then quickly rebounded as speakeasies and other creative ways of social drinking emerged
•George Washington insisted that alcohol was essential for military morale and urged Congress to establish public distilleries to keep the US Army stocked with booze
•Folk beliefs about drinking and bonding are bolstered by laboratory experiments suggesting that alcohol enhances group identity, interpersonal liking, and self-disclosure.
•Being a little drunk makes you a worse liar, but it also makes you a better lie detector.

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Teaser: Key Battles of WW2 Pacific - Guadalcanal, Part 1 Aug 27, 2021

Listen to this full episode by searching for "Key Battles of American History" in the podcast player of your choice or going to https://keybattlesofamericanhistory.com. IiBNm2LIezizl1gtsftj

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Vikings Went Everywhere in the Middle Ages, From Baghdad to Constantinople to….. Oklahoma? Aug 26, 2021

Scandinavia has always been a world apart. For millennia Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes lived a remote and rugged existence among the fjords and peaks of the land of the midnight sun. But when they finally left their homeland in search of opportunity, these wanderers—including the most famous, the Vikings—would reshape Europe and beyond. Their ingenuity, daring, resiliency, and loyalty to family and community would propel them to the gates of Rome, the steppes of Russia, the courts of Constantinople, and the castles of England and Ireland. But nowhere would they leave a deeper mark than across the Atlantic, where the Vikings’ legacy would become the American Dream.
Today’s guest Arthur Herman, author of The Viking Heart, discusses this historical narrative but matches it with cutting-edge archaeological discoveries and DNA research to trace the epic story of this remarkable and diverse people (despite myths of racial purity misappropriated by groups like Nazi ethnographers). He shows how the Scandinavian experience has universal meaning, and how we can still be inspired by their indomitable spirit and the strength of their community bonds, much needed in our deeply polarized society today.

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A Small Island in the English Channel Was the Birthplace of the Russian Revolution Aug 24, 2021

Russia’s revolutionaries, anarchists, and refugees of the 19th century found an unlikely place to scheme against the Czar. These political radicals, writers, and freethinkers -- exiled from their homeland -- found sanctuary both in Britain and on the Isle of Wight during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
This tiny island off the coast of Southern England has had a surprisingly large impact on British-Russian relations.
Peter the Great drew inspiration for the first Russian naval fleet from his sailing trip around the Island, and the Grand Duchess Maria, Alexander II’s beloved only daughter, spent long periods at Osborne House infuriating her mother-in-law, Queen Victoria. Russian radicals such as Alexander Herzen and the writer, Ivan Turgenev, regularly visited the Island in the middle of the nineteenth century and in 1909 Cowes found itself at the heart of the Anglo-Russian political and diplomatic relationship when King Edward VII hosted a visit by the Russian Imperial family.
Today’s guest, Stephan Roman, author of the book Isle and Empires, tells the story of British-Russian relations, which end when the Romanov’s make a failed attempt to flee to the Isle of Wight before their ultimate end.
The current relationship between Britain and Russia continues to be of huge importance to both countries. And here we see the origins of this relationship and how the events described in the book have created tensions which have led to conflicting, and often distorted, perceptions.

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The Best-Selling Books in American History Include Self-Help Shams and ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ Aug 19, 2021

Many would assume that the most influential books in American History would be the Bible or the classical works that made the reading list for the Founding Fathers, like Vergil, Horace, Tacitus, , Thucydides, and Plato. But in reality, a canon of 13 simple best-selling self-help books from the Old Farmer's almanac to Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are what may have established archetypes for the ideal American, from the self-made entrepreneur to the humble farmer.
Today’s guest is Journalist Jess McHugh. She explores the history of thirteen of America’s most popular books, chronologically tracing their origins in her book book AMERICANON: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books.
From educational texts like Webster’s Speller and Dictionary and The McGuffey Readers; to domestic guides such as Emily Post’s Etiquette and The Betty Crocker Cookbook; to motivational and self-help classics like How to Win Friends and Influence People and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People—these texts, many of which have sold tens of millions of copies, are the books that have, often subconsciously, come to define what it means to be American. They continue to shape generation after generation, reinforcing which ideals we should fight to uphold and encouraging a uniquely American brand of nationalism that is all-too-often weaponized to shut down new ideas that could change our nation for the better.

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The Common Factors That Cause Societies To Die, From Viking Greenland to Modern Somalia Aug 17, 2021

If we do not learn from the past, we're ultimately doomed to repeat it. While our society may not be on the decline just yet, everything eventually must come to an end. Sandwich Board guys with raggedly clothes are on to something, I guess?
As a professor of Sociology, as well as the Founder and First President of the American Sociological Association Section on Development, Samuel Cohn is well-versed in the mistakes of societies past. His book All Societies Die: How to Keep Hope Alive [Cornell University Press, April 2021] considers societal decline and explosions of violence in a variety of historical and contemporary settings, including the Byzantine Empire, the French Revolution and the present-day Middle East.
Cohn’s unique and humorous voice assesses the past and looks to the future with kind eyes, enabling readers to both accept the cycle of life our society is a part of and move forward with the knowledge necessary to preserve our society for as long as we can.
In an interview, Cohn can further discuss:
•The “Circle of Societal Death” – what it is, what causes it and how it connects to other societal collapses in the past and helps us understand the root causes and avoidable issues
•The triggers of societal destruction – what we should be looking for and working to change in order to avoid societal collapse in the future
•How crime, corruption, and violence have impacted the rise and fall of past societies
•Why Big Government is essential for both prosperity and for societal survival

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America Won the Space Race Because of a Horrible Accident That Killed 3 Astronauts Aug 12, 2021

“ We’ve got a fire in the cockpit!” That was the cry heard over the radio on January 27, 1967, after astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee climbed into a new spacecraft perched atop a large Saturn rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a routine dress rehearsal of their upcoming launch into orbit, then less than a month away.
All three astronauts were experienced pilots and had dreams of walking on the moon one day. Little did they or anyone else know, once they entered the spacecraft that cold winter day, they would never leave it alive. The Apollo program would come perilously close to failure before it ever got off the ground.
But rather than dooming the space program, this tragedy led to the complete overhaul of the spacecraft, creating a stellar flying machine capable of achieving the program’s primary goal: putting a man on the moon. Today’s guest is Ryan Walters, author of “Apollo 1: The Tragedy That Put Us on the Moon. We discuss:
•How the flawed design of the Apollo 1 spacecraft—miles of uninsulated wiring, an excess of flammable material in a pure oxygen atmosphere, and an unwieldy, three-piece hatch—doomed it from the start
•• How NASA awarded the multi-billion-dollar contract to build the Apollo 1 craft to a bidder with an inferior plan and management due to political pressure
•• How NASA’s damaged reputation and growing opposition to spending on space exploration almost led Congress to shut down the space program after the Apollo 1 fire

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The Daring WW1 Prison Break That Required an Ouija Board and a Life-or-Death Ruse Aug 10, 2021

Today’s episode focuses on the true story of the most singular prison break in history—a clandestine wartime operation that involved no tunneling, no weapons, and no violence of any kind. Conceived during World War I, it relied on a scheme so outrageous it should never have worked: Two British officers escaped from an isolated Turkish prison camp by means of a Ouija board.
Yet that scheme—an ingeniously planned, daringly executed confidence game spun out over more than a year—was precisely the method by which the young captives, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, sprang themselves from Yozgad, a prisoner-of-war camp deep in the mountains of Anatolia.
To tell this story is today’s guest Margalit Fox, author of Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History. Using a handmade Ouija board, Jones and Hill beguiled their iron-fisted captors with a tale, supposedly channeled from the Beyond, designed to make them delirious to lead the pair out of Yozgad. If all went according to plan, their captors would personally conduct them along the road to freedom, with the Ottoman government paying their travel expenses. If their con was discovered, it would mean execution.
The ruse also required our heroes to feign mental illness, stage a double suicide attempt that came perilously close to turning real, and endure six months in a Turkish insane asylum, an ordeal that drove them to the edge of actual madness. And yet in the end they won their freedom.
In chronicling this tale of psychological strategy, Fox also explores a deeper question: How could such an outrageous plan ever have worked? By illuminating the subtle psychological art known as coercive persuasion (colloquially called brainwashing), she reveals the method by which a master manipulator creates and sustains faith … and the reason his converts persist in believing things that are patently false—topics with immense relevance to our own time.

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How the Broken Marriage of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln Saved the Civil War Aug 05, 2021

Abraham Lincoln was apparently one of those men who regarded “connubial bliss” as an untenable fantasy. During the Civil War, he pardoned a Union soldier who had deserted the army to return home to wed his sweetheart. As the president signed a document sparing the soldier's life, Lincoln said: “I want to punish the young man—probably in less than a year he will wish I had withheld the pardon.”
To discuss the incredibly story marriage between Abraham and Mary Lincoln is Michael Burlingame, author of the book An American Marriage. We discuss why Lincoln had good reason to regret his marriage to Mary Todd. His revealing narrative shows that, as First Lady, Mary Lincoln accepted bribes and kickbacks, sold permits and pardons, engaged in extortion, and peddled influence. The reader comes to learn that Lincoln wed Mary Todd because, in all likelihood, she seduced him and then insisted that he protect her honor. Perhaps surprisingly, the 5’2” Mrs. Lincoln often physically abused her 6’4” husband, as well as her children and servants; she humiliated her husband in public; she caused him, as president, to fear that she would disgrace him publicly.
Unlike her husband, she was not profoundly opposed to slavery and hardly qualifies as the “ardent abolitionist” that some historians have portrayed. While she provided a useful stimulus to his ambition, she often “crushed his spirit,” as his law partner put it. In the end, Lincoln may not have had as successful a presidency as he did—where he showed a preternatural ability to deal with difficult people—if he had not had so much practice at home.

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The Roman Brexit: How Civilization Collapsed in Britain After the Legions Withdrew in 409 AD Aug 03, 2021

Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters.
Tracing this history is today’s guest Marc Morris, author of The Anglo-Saxons. We discuss the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters - ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being.
Drawing on a vast range of original evidence - chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts - renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.

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The Dive: The Untold Story of the World's Deepest Submarine Rescue Jul 29, 2021

On August 29th, 1973, a routine dive to the telecommunication cable that snakes along the Atlantic sea bed went badly wrong. Pisces III, with Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson onboard, had tried to surface when a catastrophic fault suddenly sent the mini-submarine tumbling to the ocean bed. Badly damaged, buried nose first in a bed of sand, the submarine and the two men were now trapped a half-mile under the ocean’s surface. Rescue was three days away, with just two days’ worth of oxygen.
Today’s guest is Stephen McGinty, author of The Dive: The Untold Story of the World's Deepest Submarine Rescue. In our discussion, he reconstructs the minute-by-minute race against time that took place to first locate Pisces III and then execute the deepest rescue in maritime history. This event show how Britain, America, and Canada pooled their resources into a “Brotherhood of the Sea” dedicated to stopping the ocean depths from claiming two of their own.
Yet, the heart of The Dive is the relationship between Roger Chapman, the ebullient former naval officer, and Roger Mallinson, the studious engineer, sealed in a sunken sarcophagus. For three days they would battle against despair, fading hope, and carbon dioxide poisoning, taking the reader on an emotional ride from the depths of defeat to a glimpse of the sun-dappled surface.

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The Civil War Battle That Resembled Dante’s Inferno Jul 27, 2021

In the spring of 1864, President Lincoln feared that he might not be able to save the Union. The Army of the Potomac had performed poorly over the previous two years, and many Northerners were understandably critical of the war effort. Lincoln assumed he’d lose the November election, and he firmly believed a Democratic successor would seek peace immediately, spelling an end to the Union. A Fire in the Wilderness tells the story of that perilous time when the future of the United States depended on the Union Army’s success in a desolate forest roughly sixty-five miles from the nation’s capital.
To discuss this battle is John Reeves, author of “A Fire in the Wilderness.” At the outset of the Battle of the Wilderness, General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia remained capable of defeating the Army of the Potomac. But two days of relentless fighting in dense Virginia woods, Robert E. Lee was never again able to launch offensive operations against Grant’s army. Lee, who faced tremendous difficulties replacing fallen soldiers, lost 11,125 men—or 17% of his entire force. On the opposing side, the Union suffered 17,666 casualties.
The alarming casualties do not begin to convey the horror of this battle, one of the most gruesome in American history. The impenetrable forest and gunfire smoke made it impossible to view the enemy. Officers couldn’t even see their own men during the fighting. The incessant gunfire caused the woods to catch fire, resulting in hundreds of men burning to death. “It was as though Christian men had turned to fiends, and hell itself had usurped the place of the earth,” wrote one officer. When the fighting finally subsided during the late evening of the second day, the usually stoical Grant threw himself down on his cot and wept. What did it show about Grant and Lee?

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X-Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II Jul 22, 2021

The men of X Troop were the real Inglorious Basterds: a secret commando unit of young Jewish refugees who were trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat to deliver decisive blows against the Nazis. Today’s guest Leah Garrett draws on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members of the X Troop unit, to share this untold story of forgotten WWII heroes. She follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic rescues of the war. We discuss the story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis.
Other topics include:
● How Winston Churchill and his chief of staff convinced these mostly German and Austrian Jewish refugees, many of whom had been held in British internment camps due to their nationality, to fight for the Brits.
● The important roles these soldiers played in such major contests as D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, such as X Trooper Peter Masters' bicycle ride through occupied France, where he killed and interrogated Germany soldiers across Normandy. Nancy wake?
● The details of one of the most dramatic, little-known rescues of the war, in which X Trooper Freddie Gray drove a commandeered Jeep across hundreds of miles of German territory to free his parents from Theresienstadt concentration camp.
● The troubled legacy of the X Troop unit in England, where the commandos’ Jewish heritage has been largely ignored—and in some cases suppressed.

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The 1919 Tour de France That Took Place in the Bombed-Out Ruins of WW1 Jul 20, 2021

On June 29, 1919, one day after the Treaty of Versailles brought about the end of World War I, nearly seventy cyclists embarked on the thirteenth Tour de France. From Paris, the war-weary men rode down the western coast on a race that would trace the country's border, through seaside towns and mountains to the ghostly western front. Traversing a cratered postwar landscape, the cyclists faced near-impossible odds and the psychological scars of war. Most of the athletes had arrived straight from the front, where so many fellow countrymen had suffered or died. Sixty-seven cyclists, some of whom were still on active military duty, started from Paris on June 29, 1919; only 11 finished the monthlong tour. The cyclists' perseverance and tolerance for pain would be tested in a grueling, monthlong competition.
To discuss this story of human endurance is Adin Dobkin, author of Sprinting Through No Man's Land. He explains how the cyclists united a country that had been torn apart by unprecedented desolation and tragedy, and how devastated countrymen and women can come together to celebrate the adventure of a lifetime and discover renewed fortitude, purpose, and national identity in the streets of their towns. Dobkin profiles competitors including Frenchman Eugène Christophe, whose commitment to finishing the race after he lost the lead while stopping to repair his bike’s broken frame captured the country’s imagination, and vividly describes arduous ascents, rubble-strewn streets, and the crowds that lined the route, waving flags and shouting encouragement. The result is an immersive look at the mythical power of sports to unite and inspire

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The Apollo Program Had a Surprising Close Relationship With 1960s Counterculture Jul 15, 2021

The summer of 1969 saw astronauts land on the moon for the first time and hippie hordes descend on Woodstock for a legendary music festival. For today’s guest, Neil M. Maher, author of the book Apollo in the Age of Aquarius, the conjunction of these two era-defining events is not entirely coincidental. He argues that the celestial aspirations of NASA’s Apollo space program were tethered to terrestrial concerns, from the civil rights struggle and the antiwar movement to environmentalism, feminism, and the counterculture.
With its lavishly funded mandate to send a man to the moon, Apollo became a litmus test in the 1960s culture wars. Many people believed it would reinvigorate a country that had lost its way, while for others it represented a colossal waste of resources needed to solve pressing problems at home. Yet Maher also discovers synergies between the space program and political movements of the era. Photographs of “Whole Earth” as a bright blue marble heightened environmental awareness, while NASA’s space technology allowed scientists to track ecological changes globally. The space agency’s exclusively male personnel sparked feminist debates about opportunities for women. Activists pressured NASA to apply its technical know-how to ending the Vietnam War and helping African Americans by reducing energy costs in urban housing projects. Particularly during the 1970s, as public interest in NASA waned, the two sides became dependent on one another for political support.
Against a backdrop of Saturn V moonshots and Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius brings the cultural politics of the space race back down to planet Earth.

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Travelers & Explorers, Epilogue – What is the Point of Exploration in the 21st Century? Jul 13, 2021

What is the purpose of a dangerous journey in the twenty-first century? What is the reason
to explore when so much of the globe has been surveyed, mapped, photographed, filmed, and
catalogued? What can be gained by undertaking dangerous expeditions when little or no new
information can be obtained and Google Earth gives instantaneous photos and video feeds?

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Travelers and Explorers, Part 8: Ernest Shackleton's Frozen March at the Bottom of the World Jul 08, 2021

Ernest Shackleton was among the last of a group of intrepid men from the Golden Age of Discovery in the Victorian era. He sought honor for England and himself in embarking on a dangerous journey to lead a team of men to cross the Antarctic continent.
His story approaches the outer limits of plausibility. Few had his perseverance. When Ernest Shackleton's ship, Endurance, was destroyed by South Pole sea ice, the crew had to continue on three row boats, camp on ice sheets, and subsist on sled dogs and seal blubber. They were at sea for 497 days until landing on Elephant Island, which was completely deserted and isolated. Shackleton sailed a small lifeboat across 800 miles of violent sea to South Georgia Island to obtain a rescue vessel. He and the four men returned and rescued the 22 men left behind.

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Travelers and Explorers, Part 7: Sir Henry Stanley (1841-1904) – “Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?” Jul 06, 2021

Henry Stanley was a soldier-turned-journalist-turned explorer who charged wide swaths of the Congo. He famously searched for the source of the Nile, commanded the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition (a major expedition into the interior of Africa), and, most famously, searched and found missionary and fellow explorer David Livingstone.” He was knighted in 1899
He led major expeditions there and wrote much of the early scientific literature of Sub-Saharan Africa and contributed to nearly every field of inquiry in the subject area. His accounts remained the standard work in botany, biology, zoology, geography, and anthropology of the regions treated for decades. One English writer related of his discoveries, “The fact is now generally recognized that Stanley, after Livingstone, gave greater impulse than any other man to the movement which resulted in the rapid exploration of most parts of unknown Africa.” But Stanley's legacy has its black marks, though. He was a product of nineteenth-century colonialism and the European Scramble for Africa, and as such was used by monarchs to extend their landholdings on the continent.

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Travelers and Explorers, Part 6: James Cook (1728-1797), England's Poseidon Jul 01, 2021

James Cook came from a humble village upbringing. But by the end of his career, he circumnavigated the globe several times, discovered Australia and explored its west coast, mapped much of the South Pacific, and was worshipped as a deity by some Hawaiian natives. He also made incredible contributions to science. Two botanists on his second voyage collected over 3,000
plant species and presented their findings to the Royal Society. His crew included several
artists, who documented the botanists' findings and completed 264 drawings. Cook even
determined the cause of scurvy and implemented a diet for his crew full of fresh produce. He
did not lose a single man to scurvy on his first voyage – an unprecedented accomplishment in
the naval exploration of the eighteenth century.
During the captain's 12 years of sailing around the Pacific, he gathered enough longitudinal measurements and depth soundings for mapmakers to produce accurate charts of the South Pacific for the first time. Many were still in use through the mid-twentieth century. Global sea travel would now be safe to nearly any location on the globe. Thanks to Cook, the world had become interconnected.

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Travelers and Explorers, Part 5: Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) and His Terrifying Voyage Across an Endless Ocean Jun 29, 2021

Ferdinand Magellan was ready to conquer the natives with nothing but a few loyal soldiers. He had already discovered vast new swaths of the globe and crossed the world's largest ocean. Capturing this small island in the Philippines seemed a trifle by comparison. Magellan's confidence was supreme. He faced down the islanders of Mactan with only 60 crew members, turning down the help of 1,000 natives in battle, offered by an allied Filipino leader, in order to personally avenge an insult.
It proved to be a rash call. The captain, the first to cross the Pacific and lead his crew on a voyage of starvation and death, was killed by believing that he would forever defeat the odds.
Magellan’s reputation has recovered over the centuries. His bravery, innovation, and
perseverance are now considered unparalleled during his time. He discovered and sailed
through one of the most dangerous waterways in the world, named the Pacific Ocean, and circumnavigated the globe, albeit posthumously. His pioneering spirit in an age of discovery lives on in geographic names such as the Strait of Magellan. Despite his poor reputation, he inspired Spanish and Portuguese sailors to open eastern Asia to trade. Magellan accelerated the Age of Discovery and laid the groundwork for European colonialism, which in turn created twenty-first-century globalization.
His legacy carries influence today. New discoveries are associated with this iconic explorer. His crew first spotted the Magellanic Clouds, a cluster of galaxies visible in the night sky. NASA launched the Magellan spacecraft in 1989 to map the surface of Venus and measure the planetary gravitational field. In an unintentional homage to the Portuguese explorer, the oneton probe took the long way to reach Venus, looping around the Sun one and a half times before arriving at the gaseous planet. Craters and landmarks on the moon and Mars bear his name – a testament to a man who fearlessly forged paths into the unknown.

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Announcement: “Beyond the Big Screen” – a New Movie Podcast – Launches Next Week Jun 28, 2021

I’m please to announce that Steve Guerra is launching a new podcast called Beyond the Big Screen that comes out next week. If you member from a few years back, Steve and I co-hosted a series called Hollywood Hates History that looked at some of the worst historical epics ever put to film, including Demi Moore’s The Scarlett Letter, and The Conqueror, starting John Wayne as Genghis Khan (the part he was born not to play). This new show is in the spirit of that series.
To celebrate the show joining forces with History Unplugged, we are doing a giveaway of Amazon gift cards so you can rent or buy the movies feature on Steve’s podcast. The first five people to enter the giveaway win automatically! Go to beyondthebigscreen.com to learn how to enter.

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Travelers and Explorers, Part 4: Zheng He -- the Admiral Who Turned the Indian Ocean Into a Chinese Lake Jun 24, 2021

What would have happened if China discovered America before Europe? More
importantly, what would have happened if it colonized America? It is a
plausible scenario. Prior to the nineteenth century, China was the wealthiest, most
technologically advanced civilization in the world and dominated trade along the Pacific coast. Its navy was well funded and dwarfed its rivals. Furthermore, at the height of its power it was helmed by Zheng He, the most towering figure in 4,000 years of Chinese naval history and maritime expeditions in the pre-modern world. He led seven voyages across the Eastern maritime world. He commanded a fleet of 27,800 sailors on 62 treasure ships – each with nine masts and larger than a football field, weighing 2,000 tons. The ships ferried porcelains, silks, and exotic treasures that were sold into the markets that dotted the Indian Ocean coastline or were gifted to their rulers. Each ship was twice as large as the first transatlantic steamer, built four hundred years later. They were so massive that all the combined fleets of Columbus and Vasco da Gama could have fit on a single deck of a single vessel of Zheng He. If he had ever encountered Columbus in the Atlantic, it would be like an African black rhinoceros and a meerkat eyeing each other from opposite sides of a watering hole on the savanna.

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Travelers and Explorers, Part 3: Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) -- The Everlasting Pilgrim Jun 22, 2021

Abu Abdullah Ibn Battuta was a 14th-century Islamic scholar who spent 20 years travelling the full extent of the Islamic world, which stretched from West Africa to the Middle East to Southern Russia to Western China down to the island of Java. All of these newly-Islamicized lands needed legal experts, and Ibn Battuta’s skills were in as high demand as an IBM mainframe engineer in the 1960s or a Java developer today.
He made an entire life travelling on religious pilgrimages, going to wealthy courts, getting highly paid positions, finding new wives, fleeing when his life was in danger (including a memorable shipwreck off the coast of India), and repeating the process over and over again. In this way he went as far south as Tanzania, as far north as the Volga basin, as far west as China, as far southeast as Indonesia, and as far west as Mali. In all, he went three times further than Marco Polo.

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Travelers and Explorers, Part 2: Marco Polo (1254-1324) -- Opening the Door to the East Jun 17, 2021

Marco Polo’s legacy is arguably the greatest of any medieval figure. While he was by no means the first European to reach China – his father and uncle did so a generation earlier, making the younger Polo's journey possible in the first place– his account, The Travels of Marco Polo, popularized knowledge of India and Asia across the continent. It was a massive bestseller in its first print run and defined ideas about China and the Orient for centuries to come; it has remained in print for centuries and a bestseller ever since. In it he discussed the fabulous wealth of China and the court of Kublai Khan.
While much of his account is filled with incredible exaggerations or outright fictions – mythological animals make numerous cameos in the work – it inspired a new generation of explorers to push past the extents of the known world. His book was incorporated into some important maps of the later Middle Ages, such as the Catalan World Map of 1375, which was read with great interest in the next century by Henry the Navigator and Columbus. The effects of his journey on European intellectual and cultural life were far-reaching. Accounts of the lands in the East stimulated renewed interest in discovery and helped launch the European Age of Exploration.

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Explorers Who Pushed the Boundary of the Known World, Part 1: Rabban Bar Sauma (1220-1294) – the Reverse Marco Polo Jun 15, 2021

This is the first in a multi-part series on the most consequential travelers and explorers in history and how their discoveries, land conquests, and diplomatic negotiations shaped the modern world.
Whether it is Rabban Bar Sauma, the 13th-century Chinese monk commissioned by the Mongols to travel West form a military alliance against the Islam; Marco Polo, who opened a window to the East for Europe; or Captain James Cook, whose maritime voyages of discovery created the global economy of the 21st century, each of these explorers had an indelible impact on modern society.
Today’s episode focuses on Rabban Bar Sauma. He and his student Rabban Markos were two Nestorian Christian monks who resided in the heart of Mongolian China. From the East, they set out on a journey of several thousand miles to reach Jerusalem. They traveled in the capacity of both holy men and official envoys from the Mongol Empire to Europe, and Bar Sauma attempted to negotiate a military alliance between Europe and Persia to fight the Mamluks of Egypt.
Rabban Bar Sauma, dubbed by historians as the “reverse Marco Polo” for his journey of
discovery from China to the largely unknown lands of Europe, embarked on an epic
pilgrimage from the Eastern region of Beijing through Rome and as far as to Gascony, a
Gaulish kingdom in what is known today as the Bordeaux region of France. This multi-year journey afforded Bar Sauma an East-to-West perspective. He was the first traveler from China to set food in medieval Europe and the first Asian diplomat to correspond with European monarchs and popes.

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What Egyptian Crocodile Mummies Tell us About Life, Death, and Taxes Thousands of Years Ago Jun 10, 2021

Our story begins in 1899, when two archaeologists — Arthur Hunt and Bernard Grenfell — were on an expedition in Northern Egypt in an ancient town once known as Tebtunis on a search for mummies and other ancient artifacts.
This was during a growing Western fascination with ancient Egypt that was later dubbed Egyptomania. Researchers hunted all things Egyptian — especially human mummies, partly because they represented the Western obsession with bringing the dead back to life.
While the team were excavating the town’s cemeteries, they found something unexpected: crocodile mummies. Instead of being thrilled at the discovery, the archaeologists saw the reptilian mummies as getting in the way of what they really wanted. But a new generation of Egyptologists have a different view. They see these crocodiles as a means of understand Egyptians’ views of fear, strength, pleasing their gods, and even death. But those aren’t the only secrets they contain. To hold the mummies’ shape, priests would stuff the mummies with waste papyri that had writing on it that people didn’t have a use for anymore.
This waste papyri, plus other texts that were found in Tebtunis, reveal what daily life was like for the ancient Egyptians. It’s knowledge that’s invaluable to social historians today.
Joining the show to discuss these curiosities are Rita Lucarelli, professor of Egyptology and the faculty curator of Egyptology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and Andrew Hogan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri at the Bancroft Library. We discuss all the ways that the most unlikely of items can connect us to the ancient past and understand our predecessors.

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The 1911 Meeting of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie that Changed Physics Forever Jun 08, 2021

In 1911, some of the greatest minds in science convened at the First Solvay Conference in Physics, a meeting like no other. Almost half of the attendees had won or would go on to win the Nobel Prize. Over the course of those few days, these minds began to realize that classical physics was about to give way to quantum theory, a seismic shift in our history and how we understand not just our world, but the universe.
At the center of this meeting were Marie Curie, already a Nobel laureate, and a young Albert Einstein. In the years preceding, Curie had faced the death of her husband and soul mate, Pierre. She was on the cusp of being awarded her second Nobel Prize, but scandal erupted all around her when the French press revealed that she was having an affair with a fellow scientist, Paul Langevin.
The subject of vicious attacks in the French press, Curie found herself in a storm that threatened her scientific legacy.
Albert Einstein, already showing flourishes of his enormous genius, proved a supporter in her travails. They had an instant connection at Solvay. Curie had been responsible for one of the greatest discoveries in modern science (radioactivity) but still faced resistance and scorn. Einstein recognized this grave injustice, and their mutual admiration and respect, borne out of this, their first meeting, would go on to serve them in their paths forward to making history.
Today’s guest, Jreffrey Orens, author of the new book the Soul of Genius describes Curie and Einsteins’ relationship and uses never-before-seen correspondence and notes, revealing the human side of these brilliant scientists, one who pushed boundaries and demanded equality in a man’s world, no matter the cost, and the other, who was destined to become synonymous with genius.

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Pancho Villa’s 1916 Raid on New Mexico: The Pearl Harbor Bombing of Its Time Jun 03, 2021

Before 9/11, before Pearl Harbor, another unsuspected foreign attack on the United States shocked the nation and forever altered the course of history. In 1916, Pancho Villa, a guerrilla fighter who commanded an ever-changing force of conscripts in northern Mexico, attached a border town in New Mexico. It was a raid that angered Americans, and President Woodrow Wilson ordered the Punitive Expedition in which the US Army invaded Mexico and defeated General Villa's troops, but failed to capture him. This event may have been the catalyst for America’s entry into World War One and permanently altered U.S.-Mexican border policy.
Jeff Guinn, author of the new book War on the Border, joins us to discuss this critically important event in American history. The “Punitive Expedition” was launched in retaliation under Pershing’s command and brought together the Army, National Guard, and the Texas Rangers—who were little more than organized vigilantes.
The American expedition was the last action by the legendary African-American “Buffalo Soldiers.” It was also the first time the Army used automobiles and trucks, which were of limited value in Mexico, a country with no paved roads or gas stations. Curtiss Jenny airplanes did reconnaissance, another first. One era of warfare was coming to a close as another was beginning. But despite some bloody encounters, the Punitive Expedition eventually withdrew without capturing Villa.
Although the bloodshed has ended, the US-Mexico border remains as vexed and volatile an issue as ever.

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How a Member of Easy Company’s “Band of Brothers” Found an Unlikely Friendship with a Former Nazi Jun 01, 2021

One of the best-known screen depictions of World War 2 is Band of Brothers. This HBO miniseries followed the real-life Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division, and their mission in World War II Europe, from Operation Overlord, through V-J Day. Today’s episode focuses on one of the members of this company, Sgt. Don Malarkey. He was a hero for his service in World War II, especially in the Battle of the Bulge, yet he came to the brink of suicide, haunted by the memories of the German soldiers he had killed. Across the ocean, Fritz Engelbert was shackled in shame for having been a pawn of Hitler—he too had fought in the Battle of the Bulge—but for the Germans. He could not find peace.
Today’s guest is Bob Welch, author of Saving My Enemy: How Two WWII Soldiers Fought against Each Other and Later Forged a Friendship That Saved Their Lives. It is a rare WWII story with a happy ending. In an age when we see nothing but division in the news, the public needs inspiration from stories like this: two mortal enemies coming together after 60 years to offer each other forgiveness and reconciliation. This is the touching true story of how their unlikely friendship, forged in their 80s, dissolved six decades of guilt and shame that had pushed both men to despair.
Their boyhood could not have been more different. Don grew up scrappy and happy in Oregon while Fritz was regimented and indoctrinated by the Hitler Youth Both men fought in the Battle of the Bulge; Don as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army who served a longer continuous stretch on the bloody front lines than any man in Easy Company, and Fritz as a private in the Panzer-Lerh-Division Don was welcomed home as a celebrity while Fritz returned to live years in the obscurity of a remote German village Each was plagued with immense guilt—Don for the lives he took and Fritz over his participation in the Nazi war effort They met on the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Both scarred. Both haunted. The friendship they began that day saved their lives.

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U.S. Presidents and Their 160-Year Love/Hate Relationship With the Camera May 27, 2021

John Quincy Adams was the first president of whom we have surviving photos. His picture was taken in 1843, two decades after his presidency ended. The picture was made with daguerreotype, the first photographic technique to be made available to the public.
The picture was the beginning of a stormy two-century relationship between the president and the camera. It includes Lincoln’s somber portraits, Lyndon Johnson’s swearing in, and George W. Bush’s reaction to learning about the 9/11 attacks. Photography plays an indelible role in how we remember and define American presidents.
Today’s guest is Cara Finnegan, author of the book “Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital.”She argues that throughout history, presidents have actively participated in all aspects of photography, not only by sitting for photos but by taking and consuming them. Technological developments not only changed photography, but introduced new visual values that influence how we judge an image. At the same time, presidential photographs—as representations of leaders who symbolized the nation—sparked public debate on these values and their implications.

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Announcement: Steve Guerra’s History of the Papacy Podcast is Joining Forces with History Unplugged – Free Giveaway! May 26, 2021

Steve Guerra is joining forces with History Unplugged. We are pleased to announce that his show History of the Papacy is a part of our new podcast network.
Steve has been on History Unplugged many times before. We discussed the myth of Pope Joan, whom legend claims reigned as pope, 855-857 A.D., by disguising herself as a man. The story is widely thought to be fiction, but almost everyone took it as fact in the Middle Ages, up to the point that the Siena Cathedral featured a bust of Joan among other pontiffs.
We also did a mini-series called Hollywood Hates History and looked at some of the most historically inaccurate movies ever made. Offenders include "The Scarlet Letter," the 1995 Demi Moore atrocity; "The Conqueror," a Genghis Khan biopic starring John Wayne; and "Kingdom of Heaven," in which Legolas the Elf successfully creates universal religious harmony in the 12th century Middle East.
His show History of the Papacy will detail the biographies and interesting facts of the Papacy of Rome. It will start in the beginning, but will not go straight through. There will be many side tracks and detours along the way.
To celebrate him joining forces with us, we are doing a giveaway where the first five entrants win a 3-month subscription to the Great Courses.
The Great Courses Plus is a streaming service brings the world’s greatest professors to millions who want to go deeper on the subjects that interest them most. No exams. No homework. No schedule. Just a world of knowledge available anytime, anywhere, via video or audio. Use this app to:
• Stream any course you have purchased
• Seamlessly toggle between video and audio versions of lectures
• Download your lectures to enjoy later when not connected
More than 500 courses available at TheGreatCourses.com.
Go to historyofthepapacypodcast.com to see how to win.

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Lincolnomics: How President Lincoln Constructed the Great American Economy May 25, 2021

Abraham Lincoln’s view of the right to fulfill one’s economic destiny was at the core of his own beliefs—but some believe that he thought no one could climb that ladder without strong federal support. Some of his most enduring plans came to him before the Civil War, visions of a country linked by railroads running ocean to ocean, canals turning small towns into bustling cities, public works bridging farmers to market.
Today’s guest John F. Wasik, author of “Lincolnomics” tracks Lincoln from his time in the 1830s as a young Illinois state legislator pushing for internal improvements; through his work as a lawyer representing the Illinois Central Railroad in the 1840s; to his presidential fight for the Transcontinental Railroad; and his support of land-grant colleges that educated a nation. To Lincoln, infrastructure meant not only the roads, bridges, and canals he shepherded as a lawyer and a public servant, but also much more.
These brick-and-mortar developments were essential to how the nation could lift citizens above poverty and its isolating origins. Lincoln paved the way for Eisenhower’s interstate highways and FDR’s social amenities.
We discuss:
⋅ Lincoln’s championing of the Transcontinential Railroad and pivotal public works preceding it, including the Illinois Central Railroad and the Illinois & Michigan Canal;
⋅ How infrastructure both hindered and enabled the Confederate and Lincoln-led Union
Armies during the Civil War;
⋅ Lincoln’s support for land-grant colleges, the foundation for today’s public universities across the country; and
⋅ Lincoln’s true dedication to infrastructure, among them the sketch of a town he surveyed, and a design he created and patented.

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The Gulf of Time Separating You From Napoleon III is Bridged By One Brandy Bottle May 20, 2021

Some of the most remarkable historical artifacts found in the possession of collectors are vintage wines or spirits. A rare bottle’s journey spans continents and centuries, older than any human alive.
Today’s guest is Raj Bhakta, he’s the founder of Whistle Pig, maker one of the world’s most popular rye blends of whisky. He’s also an entrepreneur with a gift for promotion, including being a contestant on Season 2 of the Apprentice and riding an elephant across the Rio Grande in 2006, accompanied by a 12-piece mariachi band when he was running for a U.S. Congressional Seat in Pennsylvania.
During a trip to France a few years ago, by an incredible stroke of fortune, he was able to purchase 38 barrels of Armagnac vintage brandy, with some barrels dating back to 1868, right on the eve of the Franco-Prussian Wars.
He released Bhakta 50, an aged blend of 8 rare Armagnac vintages dated between 1868-1970, finished in Islay whisky casks. The youngest Armagnac is 50 years old, and the oldest in the bottle is 152 years old.
Prolonged aging imparts flavor, but also carries great risk, especially in tumultuous times. Nearly every village has been sacked time and time again, and , after its fortifications are reduced, a captured towns’ alcohol is the first thing to be consumed. Indeed, the oldest inhabitants of the Armagnac region still recall the sight of German scout planes circling the countryside, searching for the telltale black discoloration a by-product of alcohol storage that appeared on the sides and roofs of the cellars of the villagers who had hidden their brandy stocks.
In this episode we discuss how valuable items can last the test of time, the local character of brandy vs. whisky, and why craftsmanship is still needed in the twenty-first century.

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The Japanese-Americans Who Fought Nazis in Europe May 18, 2021

The experience of Japanese-Americans in World War 2 is almost compoletely understood through the lense of internment camps. But for 10s of thousands of them, their most important experience was fighting Nazis.
The 442nd Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the composed almost entirely of second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry. Beginning in 1944, the regiment fought primarily in the European Theatre,[3] in particular Italy, southern France, and Germany. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) was organized on March 23, 1943, in response to the War Department's call for volunteers to form the segregated Japanese American army combat unit. More than 12,000 volunteers answered the call, even thought many of the soldiers from the continental U.S. had families in internment camps while they fought abroad
Today’s guest is Daniel James Brown From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat. He’s the author of the new book called FACING THE MOUNTAIN, a World War II saga of patriotism and courage about the special Japanese-American Army unit that overcame brutal odds in Europe; their families, incarcerated back home; and a young man who refused to surrender his constitutional rights, even if it meant imprisonment.
They came from across the continent and Hawaii. Their parents taught them to embrace both their Japanese heritage and the ways of their American homeland. They faced bigotry, yet they believed in their bright futures as American citizens. But within days of Pearl Harbor, the FBI was ransacking their houses and locking up their fathers. And within months many would themselves be living behind barbed wire.
Based on Brown’s extensive interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as archival research, FACING THE MOUNTAIN portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese-American families and their sons—Gordon Hirabayashi, Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho. One demonstrated his courage as a resister. The three others volunteered for 442nd Regimental Combat Team and displayed fierce courage on the battlefields of France, Germany, and Italy where they were asked to do the near impossible in often suicidal missions.

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Meet the Four Congressmen Who Won the Civil War and Shaped Reconstruction May 13, 2021

The popular conception of the Civil War is that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory. But in addition to the Great Emancipator, we can also thank four influential members of Congress–Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the proslavery Clement Vallandigham. They show us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history.
Today’s guest is Fergus Bordewich, author of “Congress of War.” He shows that from reinventing the nation’s financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century.

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Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s 1897 Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night May 11, 2021

Polar exploration of the 19th century was the space travel of its day. There were moments of glory, like Ernest Shackleton’s heroic journeys to the Antarctic. There were moments of terror, such as Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition in 1845 to discover the Northwest Passage, which likely ended in starvation, cannibalism, and death. But one journey that has been largely forgotten has one of the most important stories of all. That’s the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899.
The Belgica was one of the first polar expeditions to Antarctica at the end of the 19th century. The voyage was meant to bring fame to all aboard the ship—and it certainly did, but at a very steep cost and not in quite the way the crew had imagined. Today’s guest is Julian Sancton, author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night
The Belgica would ultimately earn its fame as a harrowing survival story after the ship and her inhabitants—thanks to the deliberate decision of their captain—became trapped in the ice of the Bellingshausen sea. Surrounded on all sides by immovable sheets of ice, which threatened every day to crush the ship, the men of The Belgica were subjected to a months-long sentence of physical and mental anguish, becoming the first humans to confront the horrors of a completely sunless Antarctic winter.
They survived the world’s most hostile environment and continue to teach the world about human extremes; those who do still remember The Belgica today are mainly the teams at NASA who study the lessons it offers on the physical and psychological limits of the human body as they look towards potential manned expeditions to Mars.

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Teaser: Key Battles of WW2 Pacific - The Rise Of Imperial Japan May 07, 2021

Listen to this full episode by searching for "Key Battles of American History" in the podcast player of your choice or going to https://keybattlesofamericanhistory.com

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Gold Fever and Disaster in the Great Klondike Stampede of 1897-98. May 06, 2021

In 1897, the United States was mired in the worst economic depression that the country had yet endured. When newspapers announced that gold was to be found in wildly enriching quantities at the Klondike River region of the Yukon, a mob of economically desperate Americans swarmed north.
Within weeks, tens of thousands of them were embarking towards some of the harshest terrain on the planet, in the middle of winter, woefully unprepared and with no experience at all in mining or mountaineering. It was a mass delusion that quickly proved deadly: avalanches, shipwrecks, starvation, murder.
Today’s guest is Brian Castner, author of STAMPEDE: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike. We discuss a number of characters who joined the Gold Rush, including Jack London, who would make his fortune but not in gold; Colonel Samuel Steele, who tried to save the stampeders from themselves; the notorious gangster Soapy Smith; goodtime girls; Skookum Jim; and the hotel entrepreneur Belinda Mulrooney. The unvarnished tale of this mass migration is always striking, revealing the amazing truth of what people will do for a chance to be rich.

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From the River to the Sea: The Railroad War of the 1870s that Made the West May 04, 2021

It is remarkable now to imagine, but during the 1870s, the American West, for all its cloud-topped peaks and endless coastline, might have been barren tundra as far as most Americans knew. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad had made history by linking East and West, but, relying heavily on federal grants, it left an opening for two brash new railroad men, the Civil War hero behind the Rio Grande and the corporate chieftain of the Santa Fe, to build the first transcontinental to make money by creating a railroad empire across the Southwest to the sea. Today’s guest, John Sedwick, author of FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA: The Untold Story of the Railroad War that Made the West, is here to tell that story in detail.
The railroad companies were governments on wheels: they set the course, chose the route, and built up cities and towns along their tracks. Their choices brought life to such out-of-the-way places as San Diego, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Denver, and to Los Angeles most of all: The Santa Fe turned a sleepy backwater of 30,000 into a booming metropolis of 150,000 in three years—the most explosive growth of any city in the history of the United States.
By then, the two men behind the Rio Grande and the Santa Fe had fought all across the west to lay claim to the routes that would secure the most profitable territory and the richest silver mines. But they often led through narrow mountain passes or up treacherous canyons with room for only a single set of tracks. To win them, each side turned hundreds of their train workers into private armies backed by local militia and paid mercenaries like Dodge City’s Bat Masterson. The war left one of the two lines reeling in a death spiral and sent the other on to a greatness unequaled by any other railroad in the world.

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Lady Bird Johnson: The Most Underestimated – and Most Powerful? – First Lady of the 20th Century Apr 29, 2021

In the spring of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson had a decision to make. Just months after moving into the White House under the worst of circumstances—following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—he had to decide whether to run to win the presidency in his own right. He turned to his most reliable, trusted political strategist: his wife, Lady Bird Johnson. The strategy memo she produced for him, emblematic of her own political acumen and largely overlooked by biographers, is just one revealing example of how their marriage was truly a decades-long political partnership.
Today’s guest, Julia Sweig, author of “Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight,” argues that she was perhaps the most underestimated First Lady of the twentieth century. She was also one of the most accomplished and often her husband's secret weapon. Managing the White House in years of national upheaval, through the civil rights movement and the escalation of the Vietnam War, Lady Bird projected a sense of calm and, following the glamorous and modern Jackie Kennedy, an old-fashioned image of a First Lady. In truth, she was anything but.
As the first First Lady to run the East Wing like a professional office, she took on her own policy initiatives, including the most ambitious national environmental effort since Teddy Roosevelt.
We also discuss whether the office of the First Lady is a sign of vibrant American democracy or a source of neo-nepotism more fitting for the Royal Family.

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American Espionage Was Born in the Dark Taverns of Philadelphia Apr 27, 2021

Philadelphia is often referred to as the birthplace of a nation, but it would also be fair to say that it was the birthplace of American espionage.
Today’s guests, Keith Melton and Robert Wallace, author of Spy Sites of Philadelphia, discuss the city’s secret history from the nation’s founding to the present.
Throughout the Revolutionary War, Patriot leaders included intelligence operations as a crucial element of the new government. George Washington was America’s first spymaster, deploying his agents to overcome the advantages of the British force. After the war, spy activity centered around the city’s port facilities and manufacturing plants. As political, diplomatic, and economic activity shifted from Philadelphia to New York and Washington, DC in the second half of the 20th century, the city remained a target first for Chinese and Soviet industrial spying and, later, for Islamic jihadist recruitment operations.
Spies in Philadelphia have been putting their lives at risk to uncover enemy secrets and undertake deadly missions of disruption and sabotage for over two centuries.

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The Jazz Age Tale of America’s First Gangster Couple, Margaret and Richard Whittemore Apr 22, 2021

Before Bonnie and Clyde, there was another criminal couple capturing America’s attention. Baltimore sweethearts, Margaret and Richard Whittemore, made tabloids across the country as Tiger Girl and The Candy Kid during the 1920s for stealing millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds and precious gems along with Americans’ hearts.
Todays guest, Glenn Stout, author of “Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid,” discuss the Whittemore’s Jazz Age exploits. This era is typically defined in terms of its glamour. But not everyone in 1920s America had it all. In the wake of world war, a pandemic, and an economic depression, Margaret and Richard Whittemore, two love-struck working-class kids, reached for the dream of a better life. The two would stop at nothing to get rich and headed up a gang that in less than a year stole over one million dollars’ worth of diamonds and precious gems - over ten million dollars today.
Margaret was a chic flapper, the archetypal gun moll, right hand to her husband’s crimes. Richard was the quintessential bad boy, the gang’s cunning and muscle that allowed the Whittemores to live the kind of lives they’d only seen in the movies. Along the way he killed at least three men, until prosecutors managed a conviction. As tabloids across the country exclaimed the details of the couple’s star-crossed romance, they became heroes to a new generation of young Americans who sought their own version of freedom

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Announcement: Next Week James Early and I Launch "Key Battles of the Pacific Theatre (WW2)" Apr 21, 2021

Good news! Next week James Early and I launch a 35-part series called Key Battles of the Pacific Theater (WW2). You won't hear it on this podcast but on James's new show called Key Battles of American History. You can find it on the podcast player of your choice, or go over to keybattlesofamericanhistory.com.

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For Centuries, America’s Best Friend in the Middle East Was…Iran? Apr 20, 2021

As far back as America’s colonial period, educated residents were fascinated with Iran (or Persia, as it was known). The Persian Empire was subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams. Iranians returned the favor. They thought the American model was an ideal one to copy for their own government. 19th century American missionaries helped build schools, hospitals, and libraries across Iran. Iran loved America far more than any other Western nation due to it not meddling in colonial affairs.
So what happened? What all changed to the point that the United States helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953, and in 1979, Iranians held U.S. embassy staff hostage? Why does it seem that the only interaction the U.S. and Iran has regards the latent fear of a nuclear war?
Today’s guest, John Ghazvinian, America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present, is here to get into the long history between the two nations. Drawing on years of archival research both in the United States and Iran--including access to Iranian government archives rarely available to Western scholars--the Iranian-born, Oxford-educated historian leads us through the four seasons of U.S.-Iran relations: the "spring" of mutual fascination; the "summer" of early interactions; the "autumn" of close strategic ties; and the long, dark "winter" of mutual hatred.
He discusses why two countries that once had such heartfelt admiration for each other became such committed enemies; showing us, as well, how it didn't have to turn out this way.

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George Washington Became Great Because He Spent Years in the Political Wilderness as a Washed-Up Has-Been Apr 15, 2021

By age twenty-two, George Washington was acclaimed as a hero. As a commander of the Virginia Regiment, he gave orders to men decades older than himself. He was good at most things he tried and his name was known throughout British North America and England. Yet his military career came to ashes when he was twenty-seven. He tumbled down in power and was reduced to arguing on a law in the Virginia House of Burgesses of the banning of pigs running loose. His life is a story of careful reinvention from early missteps, culminating in his unanimous election as the nation's first president. But how did Washington emerge from a military leader to the highest office in the country?
Today’s guest, David Stewart – author of George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, says that Washington has often been portrayed as less eloquent and politically savvy than peers, but his political skills were second to none. From Virginia's House of Burgesses, where Washington learned the craft and timing of a practicing politician, to his management of local government as a justice of the Fairfax County Court, to his eventual role in the Second Continental Congress and his grueling generalship in the American Revolution, Washington perfected the art of governing and service, earned trust, and built bridges. The lessons in leadership he absorbed along the way proved invaluable during the early years of the republic as he fought to unify the new nation.
We look at five treacherous political minefields that Washington navigated in his career, including:
• Bringing his army through a winter of despair at Valley Forge in 1778, while thwarting a combination to supersede him as commander in chief, then winning a crucial battle at the Monmouth Court House
• Persuading mutinous, unpaid soldiers and officers to lay down their arms and embrace peace in 1783, then playing the crucial role in resolving the nation’s political chaos with a new constitution in 1787
• Leading the new federal government as it was created from next to nothing, then guiding the bargain for a financial program that restored the nation’s credit and ensured its solvency
• Keeping the nation out of the European war that followed the French Revolution, cooling passionate American adherents of both France and Britain
• Struggling, in his final years, with human slavery, hoping to point his countrymen toward repentance and even redemption.

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The Nazi’s Granddaughter -- Discovering War Crimes in Your Family's Past Apr 13, 2021

This episode looks at a deathbed promise from a daughter to a mother, which leads the daughter on a journey to write about her grandfather who was a famous war hero. But this journey had a terrible destination: the discovery that he was a Nazi war criminal.
Today’s guest is the daughter -- Silvia Foti – author of the book “The Nazi’s Grandaughter." Her mother was dying and she wanted to preserve family history, so she asked Sylvia to write a book about Foti’s grandfather, Jonas Noreika, a famous WWII hero. Foti’s grandmother tries to intervene – begging her granddaughter not to write about her husband. “Just let history lie,” she whispered.
Foti had no idea that in keeping her promise to her mother, her discoveries would bring her to a personal crisis, unearth Holocaust denial, and expose an official cover-up by the Lithuanian government that resulted in an internationally-followed lawsuit.
Jonas Noreika was a Lithuanian known as General Storm. He led an uprising that won the country of Lithuania back from the communists, only to have it fall under Nazi control. He was an official during the Holocaust and chief of the second largest region in the country during the Nazi occupation, yet he became a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Foti set out to write a heroic biography about her famous grandfather. But as she dug ever deeper, she “encountered so much evidence proving my flesh and blood ‘hero’ was a Jew-killer, even I could no longer believe the lie.”

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The 15-Hour Work Week Was Standard For Nearly All of History. What Happened? Apr 08, 2021

There’s nothing in human DNA that makes the 40-hour workweek a biological necessity. In fact, for much of human history, 15 hours of work a week was the standard, followed by leisure time with family and fellow tribe members, telling stories, painting, dancing, and everything else. Work was a means to an end, and nothing else.
So what happened? Why does work today define who we are? It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like?
To answer these questions, today’s guest James Suzman, author of Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same.
Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman argues that automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world.

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Low Troop Morale Can Literally Destroy a Nation. That’s Why the USO Was Formed in 1941. Apr 06, 2021

A standing army is the most powerful force in a nation, but it can also threaten its very survival. That’s because you're taking a group of young men – those who are typically the core of your workforce and paying them to spend a majority of their time on bases doing nothing all day. Not only that, but you also pay them for the privilege. And if they get disgruntled or bored, riots, coups, or even revolutions can break out.
The U.S. military has always understood the importance of troop morale, and a massive organization was formed to handle it in early 1941. On the eve of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to unite several service associations into one organization to lift morale of our military and nourish support on the home front. Those entities – the Salvation Army, the YMCA, YWCA, and others, became the United Service Organizations or, the USO. It was created to offer hospitality for traveling service members and their families. The trademark USO tours bring America and its celebrities to service members, most famously comedian Bob Hope.
Today’s guest is JD Crouch, the CEO of USO. We discuss a brief history of the USO, how the organization was formed, why it was formed, and some interesting historical nuggets from WWII.
We also get into the role of the USO supporting a racially segregated military and role of women in the military and the USO, and how the USO’s programming, services and entertainment have evolved – From serving coffee on the frontlines during WWII to providing WiFi today. Other stories that come up include Robin Williams being caught off guard by troops during revelry or an anecdote about USO staff being made honorary members of the Green Berets in Vietnam.

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Defining Treason – Why Are Founding Fathers Heroes But Confederate Leaders Not? Apr 01, 2021

There is perhaps no other accusation as damning as ‘traitor.’ The only crime specifically defined in the Constitution, the term conjures notions of Benedict Arnold, hundreds of thousands of Civil War deaths, and our own worst fears about living in a country so starkly divided between Red and Blue. Clearly this tern needs clarification. That’s what today’s guest, UC Davis law professor Carlton F.W. Larson, author of ON TREASON: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law , is here to do. He offers an accessible look at the legal definition of treason, as opposed to the way it has recently been used for rhetorical mudslinging.
We discuss how the law has historically been applied to the famous—and infamous—actions of people like John Brown, Tokyo Rose, Edward Snowden, Jane Fonda, and Aaron Burr, as well as the largely forgotten cases of men like Walter Allen and Hipolito Salazar, the only man executed by the federal government for treason since the end of the Revolutionary War. The varied stories provide snapshots of America at moments of danger: a nation terrified of an oncoming war at Harpers Ferry; in Hanoi, during a war that caused upheaval at home; and on the banks of the Hudson during the Revolution, a group of traitors from the Crown reeling from the treasonous actions of one of their own.

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“Fire Eaters” of the Confederacy: The Foot Soldiers of the South Who Made Secession Possible Mar 30, 2021

The story of the American Civil War is typically told with particular interest in the national players behind the war: Davis, Lincoln, Lee, Grant, and their peers. However, the truth is that countless Americans on both sides of the war worked in their own communities to sway public perception of abolition, secession, and government intervention. In north Alabama, David Hubbard was an ardent and influential voice for leaving the Union, spreading his increasingly radical view of states' rights and the need to rebel against what he viewed as an overreaching federal government.
You have likely never heard of Hubbard, the grandson of a Revolutionary War soldier who fought under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. He was much more than that stereotype of antebellum Alabama politicians, being an early speculator in lands coerced from Native Americans; a lawyer and cotton planter; a populist; an influential member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama; and a key promoter of the very first railroad built west of the Allegheny mountains.
Today’s guest, Chris McIlwain, is author of The South's Forgotten Fire-Eater. We discuss the story of Hubbard's radicalization, describing his rise to becoming the most influential and prominent secessionist in north Alabama. Despite growing historical interest in the "fire eaters" who whipped the South into a frenzy, there has been little mention until now of Hubbard's integral involvement in Alabama's relationship with the Confederacy. But Hubbard's story is a cautionary tale of radical politics and its consequences.

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Witnessing The Final Destruction of Hitler’s War Machine Mar 25, 2021

By mid-February 1945, the Wehrmacht had finally reached strategic bankruptcy. In January and February alone, it had lost 660,000 men. The Home Army lacked the weapons (including small arms) and ammunition to equip new divisions. In January, against a monthly demand for 1,500,000 tank and anti-tanks rounds, production fell to 367,000.
Despite this hopeless position, with Russia within seventy miles of Berlin, Hitler planned another offensive in Hungary, using the 6th SS Panzer Army, which had been pulled out of the Ardennes in January. Hitler planned to envelop a large part of the 3rd Ukrainian Front between the Danube and the Drava, sweep across the Danube, recapture Budapest, and overrun eastern Hungary. Of course it failed. Hitler committed suicide in April and the army surrendered shortly after.
How were Hitler’s forces finally defeated? What happened after the well-known Battle of the Bulge? That famed clash was not the end for Nazi Germany, yet the critical and horrific battles that followed and forced it into submission have rarely been adequately covered. Today’s guest is Samuel Mitcham, author of the new book The Death of Hitler’s War Machine: The Final Destruction of the Wehrmacht. We discuss how the once-dreaded Nazi military came to its cataclysmic end.
Hitler’s army had risked all to win all on the Western Front with its surprise winter campaign in the Ardennes, the “Battle of the Bulge.” But when American and Allied forces recovered from their initial shock, the German Army, the Wehrmacht, was left fighting for its very survival—especially on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Army was intent on matching, or even surpassing, Nazi atrocities.
The Death of Hitler’s War Machine gives the detailed and little-known account of how the Wehrmacht—at the mercy of its own leader, the Führer—was brought to its bitter end. We discuss:
•Hitler’s disastrous foreign policy that pitted the Wehrmacht against most of the world
•How Hitler refused to acknowledge reality and forbade German retreats—essentially condemning the troops to death
•Why the Wehrmacht was slowly annihilated in horrific battles, the most brutal of which was the Soviet siege of Budapest, which became known as “the Stalingrad of the Waffen-SS”
•The loss of the air war, 1943–1944, which led to the devastation of German cities and the complete disruption of her industry and infrastructure

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The USS Plunkett: The Unsinkable Navy Destroyer That Fought at Manzio, D-Day, and Southern France Mar 23, 2021

The USS Plunkett was a US Navy destroyer that sustained the most harrowing attack on any Navy ship by the Germans during World War II, that gave as good as it got, and that was later made famous by John Ford and Herman Wouk.
Plunkett’s defining moment was at Anzio, where a dozen-odd German bombers bore down on the ship in an assault so savage, so prolonged, and so deadly that one Navy commander was hard-pressed to think of another destroyer that had endured what Plunkett had. After a three-month overhaul and with a reputation rising as the “fightin’est ship” in the Navy, Plunkett (DD-431) plunged back into the war at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and once again into battle during the invasion of Southern France – perhaps the only Navy ship to participate in every Allied invasion in the European theatre.
Today's guest is James Sullivan, author of "Unsinkable: Five Men and the INdomitable Run of the USS Plunkett." Featuring five incredibly brave men — the indomitable skipper, who will receive the Navy Cross; the gunnery officer, who bucks the captain every step of the way to Anzio; a first lieutenant, who’s desperate to get off the ship and into the Pacific; a 17-year-old water tender, who’s trying to hold onto his hometown girl against all odds, and another water tender, who mans a 20mm gun when under aerial assault — the dramatic story of each plays out on the decks of the Plunkett as the ship’s story escalates on the stage of the Mediterranean.

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How Ex-Slaves Built New Lives for Themselves – and America – After the Civil War Mar 18, 2021

After the massive devastation of the Civil War, America tried to rebuild itself, leading to the era of Reconstruction. Many hoped the South would peaceably re-enter the Union, slaves would enjoy full liberty as American citizens, and the United States would emerge stronger.
But it didn’t happen this way.Thousands of freed slaves were kicked out of plantations, lived as war refugees, and arrested on charges of vagrancy. Others died of disease or starvation. Radical Republicans sought citizenship and full legal equality of black Americans, while Southerners sought segregation and white supremacy.
But despite the challenges, many former slaves did incredible things building new lives. They opened business. They started churches. Others even began schools that became universities.
To get into the Reconstruction era, today’s guest is Kidada Williams, a historian and author. She is host of the new show Siezing Freedom, which uses first-hand accounts from diaries, newspapers, speeches, and letters. We get into the challenges and triumphs of this era but also questions of what could have been done to make the Reconstruction era go right, if anything could have been done at all.

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George Washington’s Final (And Most Important?) Battle Was Uniting America By Building a New Capital Mar 16, 2021

George Washington is remembered for leading the Continental Army to victory, presiding over the Constitution, and forging a new nation, but few know the story of his involvement in the establishment of a capital city and how it nearly tore the United States apart.
Robert P. Watson, today’s guest and author of “George Washington’s Final Battle” discusses how the country's first president tirelessly advocated for a capital on the shores of the Potomac. Washington envisioned and had a direct role in planning many aspects of the city that would house the young republic. In doing so, he created a landmark that gave the fledgling democracy credibility, united a fractious country, and created a sense of American identity.
Although Washington died just months before the federal government's official relocation, his vision and influence live on in the city that bears his name.
This little-known story of founding intrigue throws George Washington's political acumen into sharp relief and provides a historical lesson in leadership and consensus-building that remains relevant today.

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Lessons Companies Should Learn From Mobsters' Business Practices Mar 11, 2021

Every day, iconic brands like J.C. Penny, Sears, Kodak, and Blockbuster vanish. As entire lawful industries are disrupted out of existence, how have some organized criminal syndicates endured for nearly a century - despite billions of dollars of law enforcement opposition and ruthless rivals dedicated to their demise?
In Relentless, Zimmerman and Forrester combine seventy-five years of Nobel Prize-winning economics research with insights from criminal prosecutors to examine how the Sinaloa Cartel, the American Mafia, the Hells Angels, the Crips, and the Bloods survive, and even thrive, whereas legal companies that play by the rules falter and often fail.
All successful leaders—both lawful and unlawful—must follow the same fundamental economic principles: assign tasks, measure outcomes, reward performance, and cultivate corporate culture. Successful criminal enterprises construct their “Four Pillars" to create high-performance teams with a long-term focus, enduring corporate cultures, and strong brands. They attract the “right” people while purging “vampires” – individuals that take more from, rather than contribute to, an organization.
Lawful managers cannot merely copy mobsters’ four pillars, but they can follow the underlying economic principles to construct relentless organizations.

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All of Human History, Civilization, and Culture Converge in One Place: Turkish Food Mar 09, 2021

Napoleon once commented that if the Earth were a single state, Istanbul (nee Constantinople) would be its capital. The general clearly knew his geography: Istanbul is the meeting point of Europe and Asia to the East and West, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to the North and South, the convergence of the Silk and Spice Roads, and the pit stop for pilgrims going to Mecca or Jerusalem. The point is that in the pre-modern period, any soldier, merchant, or pious person had to pass through the city.
And with that much cultural interaction going on, it's no surprise that Turkish food is the original fusion cuisine. Since human history, civilization, and culture converge in one place, you can make the argument that Turkish food is sort of an archeological record of the human experience.
On the far eastern side of Turkish civilization, you have the Central Asian Turkic peoples who created the forefather of today's Chinese dumplings. On the far western side, you have kebabs, eggplant dishes, and other Mediterranean cuisines that many swear is actually Greek food (don't get us started on arguments that this or that dish is actually Turkish but stolen from the Greeks, and vice versa).
Today's guest is Derek Imai, host of the Youtube Channel Meet Turkey, which explores the depths of Istanbul's society, culture, and food. It's sort of a mix of Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, the travel writing of Rick Steves, all tied together with a good dose of Ottoman and Turkish history. You can find his channel and free cooking videos on meetturkey.io.
Here are other things we discuss:
Yogurt was originally fermented horse milk made to feed horseback mounted warriors in Central Asia (including Genghis Khan's army)
The fusion of Arabic and Mediterranean cuisine produces delights (baklava) and head-scratching curiosities that mix sweet and savory (chicken pudding).
The strange names of Turkish dishes that translate terribly into English. Women's Thigh. The Imam Fainted. The Sultan's delight.

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The Forgotten Fourteenth Colony of British North America Mar 04, 2021

British West Florida—which once stretched from the mighty Mississippi to the shallow bends of the Apalachicola and portions of what are now the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—is the forgotten fourteenth colony of America's Revolutionary era. The area's eventful years as part of the British Empire form an overlooked but important interlude in our American history which is corrected with the publication of the new book "Fourteenth Colony" by today's guest Mike Bunn.
For a host of reasons, including that West Florida did not rebel against the British government, the colony has long been dismissed as a loyal but inconsequential fringe outpost, if it was considered at all. But the colony's history showcases tumultuous politics featuring a halting attempt at instituting representative government; a host of bold and colorful characters; a compelling saga of struggle; perseverance in the pursuit of financial stability; and a dramatic series of land and sea battles that ended its days under the Union Jack. In Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America's Revolutionary Era, historian Mike Bunn offers the first comprehensive examination of the colony, introduces readers to the Gulf Coast's remarkable British period, and restores West Florida to its rightful place in the lore of Colonial America.

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How to Recover Family Treasure The Nazis Plundered in the 1940s Mar 02, 2021

Today's guest recently went on a quest to reclaim his family’s property in Poland and found himself
entangled with Nazi treasure hunters. He is Menachem Kaiser, author of "Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure."
Kaiser’s story is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather’s former battle to reclaim the family’s apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as “The Killer.” A surprise discovery—that his grandfather’s cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex—leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder.
In our discussion, we get into questions that reach far beyond Kaiser's personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living?

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How 9 Former Slaves Started a Proto University in Alabama in 1867 Feb 25, 2021

Alabama State University is well known as a historically black university and for the involvement of its faculty and students in the civil rights movement. Less attention has been paid to the school's remarkable origins, having begun as the Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Alabama, founded by nine former slaves. These men are rightly considered the progenitors of Alabama State University, as they had the drive and perseverance to face the challenges posed by a racial and political culture bent on preventing the establishment of black schools and universities. It is thanks to the actions of the Marion Nine that Alabama's rural Black Belt produces a disproportionate number of African American Ph.D. recipients, a testament to the vision of the Lincoln Normal School's founders.
Today's guest is Joseph Caver, author of the book "From Marion to Montgomery: The Early Years of Alabama State University, 1867-1925." He discusses the story of the Lincoln Normal School's transformation into the legendary Alabama State University, including the school's move to Montgomery in 1887 and evolution from Normal School to junior college to full-fledged four-year university. It's a story of visionary leadership, endless tenacity, and a true belief in the value of education.

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The Pen or the Sword? How Lincoln and John Brown Disagreed on Achieving Emancipation Feb 23, 2021

John Brown was a charismatic and deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to destroy slavery by any means. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery in 1854, Brown raised a band of followers to wage war. His men tore pro-slavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords. Three years later, Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to arm slaves with weapons for a race war that would cleanse the nation of slavery. He wasn't the only one using strong methods to free slaves, but many questioned his violent methods.
Today's Guest, H.W. Brand, is author of the book "The Zealot and the Emancipator," an account of how two American giants shaped the war for freedom.
Brown’s violence pointed ambitious Illinois lawyer and former officeholder Abraham Lincoln toward a different solution to slavery: politics. Lincoln spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path back to Washington and perhaps to the White House. Yet his caution could not protect him from the vortex of violence Brown had set in motion. After Brown’s arrest, his righteous dignity on the way to the gallows led many in the North to see him as a martyr to liberty. Southerners responded with anger and horror to a terrorist being made into a saint. Lincoln shrewdly threaded the needle between the opposing voices of the fractured nation and won election as president. But the time for moderation had passed, and Lincoln’s fervent belief that democracy could resolve its moral crises peacefully faced its ultimate test.

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How States Got Their Shapes Feb 18, 2021

Why do Midwestern and Rocky Mountain states share a boxy, sharp-edged shape while East Coast state borders look like the fever dream of an impressionist painter? Much of it has to do with when these states came into existence, and whether their borders were set by an 18th century land surveyor, a 19th century committee that wanted to balance the size of free states and slave states, or a 20th century government panel basing their decisions on aerial photography.

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Great News! Frequent Guest James Early Has Launched His Own Podcast - Key Battles of American History. Feb 17, 2021

Frequent History Unplugged guest James Early (co-host of Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WW1, and Presidential Fight Club) now has his own podcast! It's called Key Battles of American History, and you can find it by going to keybattlesofamericanhistory.com. This episode has a short snipped of one of his most recent episodes on the great WW1 film "All Quiet on the Western Front." Check it out on the podcast player of your choice.

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When to Let the Past Die: The Case of Obersalzberg and Denazification Feb 16, 2021

In this episode, we’ll look at Obersalzberg--a region that became a secret headquarters for the Nazi Party in WW2 that was later completely destroyed by the Allies and Germany to denazify it--and what it means to cleanse a region from its past. For example, Is it right to destroy monuments or should they be kept no matter what, even if they celebrate a regrettable history?

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The Mountain Man Was Once Considered To Be The Purest Distillation of the American Spirit Feb 11, 2021

For a 100-year period, from the 1880s to 1980s, if you asked an American which profession was the purest expression of the nation's spirit, they wouldn't answer with soldier, baseball player, or astronaut. Rather, they would answer with "mountain man." That's because American history taught that the nation's identity developed from the friction between civilization and the frontier. And nobody did more to conquer the frontier then mountain men, a group of trappers who went out into th American wilderness after the Lewis and Clark expedition, but before it was settled by pioneers in the 1830s. In this episode we look at the background of these mountain men and why they play such an outsized role in American History.

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Sally Rand Was America's Sex Symbol, From the Roaring 20s to the Apollo Era Feb 09, 2021

She would be arrested six times in one day for indecency. She would be immortalized in the final scene of The Right Stuff, cartoons, popular culture, and live on as the iconic symbol of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933. She would pave the way for every sex symbol to follow from Marilyn Monroe to Lady Gaga. She would die penniless and in debt. In the end, Sammy Davis Jr. would write her a $10,000 check when she had nothing left. Her name was Sally Rand. Until now, there has not been a biography of Sally Rand. Today's guest, William Hazelgrove, has set out to follow her life in his new book "Sally Rand: American Sex Symbol."
You can draw a line from her to Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Ann Margret, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. She broke the mold in 1933, by proclaiming the female body as something beautiful and taking it out of the strip club with her ethereal fan dance. She was a poor girl from the Ozarks who ran away with a carnival, then joined the circus, and finally made it to Hollywood where Cecil B Demille set her on the road to fame with silent movies. When the talkies came her career collapsed, and she ended up in Chicago, broke, sleeping in alleys. Two ostrich feathers in a second-hand store rescued her from obscurity.
Overall, Sally Rand is a testament to endless resourcefulness, tenacity, and never giving up.

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If the 1700s American Fur Trade Had Turned Out Differently, Californians Would Be Speaking Russian Today Feb 04, 2021

Today's guest is David Bainbridge, author of "Fur War 1765-1840," which focuses on the catastrophic - and previously overlooked - elements of the Western fur trade in North America.
We discuss how the many First Nations fought to maintain their communities and local ecology while Russia, Great Britain, America, France, Spain, Mexico, and Hawaii contested for furs and power. With just a few minor changes in government response or markets - the North Americans on the west coast might speak Spanish or Russian and how Tlingit, Haida, and Mowachat Nations might dominate the North Coast.

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The Most Giant Leap in the Evolution of Modern Warfare was...the Jeep? Feb 02, 2021

The 1940-41 era was a bleak time in American history. The country was still in the midst of a recession within the Great Depression. Resources were limited. The German Army rolled out its powerful Blitzkrieg quick-strike capability and had begun to take over Europe. The American military knew war was coming, millions of lives would be at stake, and the future of democracy was hanging in the balance. In order to fight on equal ground, the Army realized they had to develop a vehicle for mobile warfare.”
They needed to replace the mule as a key transport for troops and weaponry across rough terrain,
In 1940, three companies competed to develop America’s first all-terrain, ¼-ton 4x4 vehicle, the Jeep, helping the allies emerge victorious in World War II. Paul R. Bruno, the author of The Original Jeeps, is the guest today. He discusses the true story of the challenges, emotions, strategy, and competition to design it, building a prototype in about 2 months. There were three competing companies, American Bantam Car Company, Willys-Overland Motors, and Ford Motor Company, all in pursuit of the sole-source government contract to build the Jeep.
Bruno adds, “What is truly amazing is that three firms produced prototype models, each overcoming unique challenges and circumstances to do so. Anyone who knows anything about manufacturing realizes it took a real production miracle to get that done on very short notice.”
“General George C. Marshall called the Jeep ‘America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare.’ President and General Dwight Eisenhower said the Jeep was a key tool that helped win the war.

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Abraham Lincoln Survived and Thrived in the Anarchy of Antebellum America Jan 28, 2021

“Some 16,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln,” Gordon Wood writes in The Wall Street Journal, “more than any other historical figure except Jesus.” So why should you read one more? Because “there has never been one like this one.” In Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times, David S. Reynolds has written “a marvelous cultural biography that captures Lincoln in all his historical fullness”:
Abraham Lincoln grew up in absolutely wild times. It was divisive, partisan, and violent. Government in antebellum America was weak and unstructured. The economy was in chaos. Gordon Wood notes thousands of different kinds of paper-money notes flew about, and risk-taking and bankruptcies were everywhere; even some states went bankrupt. There were duels, rioting and mobbing. Americans drank more per capita than nearly all other nations, which provoked temperance movements. Fistfights, knifings and violence were ordinary affairs, taking place even in state legislatures and the Congress.
But Abraham Lincoln survived and thrive in this environment. David Reynolds, today's guest and author of "Abraham Lincoln in his Times, said that far from distancing himself from the wild world of antebellum America, Lincoln was thoroughly immersed in it. After he assumed the presidency, he was able to redefine democracy for his fellow Americans ‘precisely because he had experienced culture in all its dimensions—from high to low, sacred to profane, conservative to radical, sentimental to subversive.’
“Much of Lincoln’s greatness, writes Mr. Reynolds, came from his ability to tap into this culture. He was able to respond thoughtfully to the teeming chaos of antebellum America. Lincoln was less a self-made man than an America-made man. He told his law partner, William Herndon, ‘Conditions make the man and not man the conditions.’ But, according to Herndon, Lincoln also ‘believed firmly in the power of human effort to modify the environments which surround us.’ Indeed, his capacity to shape the world around him was crucial to his life and to the life of the nation.”

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The Cuban Missile Crisis Was Horrifyling Close to Becoming a Nuclear Holocaust Jan 26, 2021

The Cuban Missile Crisis of the early 1960s nearly led to a full-scale nuclear war between America and the Soviet Union. It thankfully didn't happen, but we came much closer than many realize.
Today's guest Martin Sherwin is author of the book Gambling with Armageddon. He gives us a riveting sometimes hour-by-hour explanation of the crisis itself, but also explores the origins, scope, and consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the post-World War II world. Mining new sources and materials, and going far beyond the scope of earlier works on this critical face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union–triggered when Khrushchev began installing missiles in Cuba at Castro’s behest–Sherwin shows how this volatile event was an integral part of the wider Cold War and was a consequence of nuclear arms.
We look in particular at the original debate in the Truman Administration about using the Atomic Bomb; the way in which President Eisenhower relied on the threat of massive retaliation to project U.S. power in the early Cold War era; and how President Kennedy, though unprepared to deal with the Bay of Pigs debacle, came of age during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here too is a clarifying picture of what was going on in Khrushchev’s Soviet Union.

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Atomic Bombs, Ancient Women Warriors, and Alien Conspiracy Theories of WW2 Jan 21, 2021

This episode is a 3-in-1, in which Scott answers a trio of questions from listeners.
First question: Did ancient female warriors exist, and if so, how common they were on the battlefield? The answer is yes, but in all but a few situations, they were involved in wars in ways that didn’t involve physical combat. They were strategists – like Eleanor of Aquitaine, figureheads (like Joan of Arc), or possibly legendary – like Shieldmaidens. If they were actually involved in combat, the place where they were most strongly represented were defending their cities during sieges. I’ll explain why so few women are involved in combat, then I’ll give examples where we know they do exist.
The second question has to do with arguments for and against the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was it unfortunate but justified, or (what critics claim) a war crime?
The last topic is the Philadelphia Experiment. On October 28, 1943, the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Eldridge was claimed to have been rendered invisible (or "cloaked") to enemy devices. More specifically, it was made invisible, teleported to New York, teleported to another dimension where it encountered aliens, and teleported through time, resulting in the deaths of several sailors, some of whom were fused with the ship's hull.
This is the famed Philadelphia Experiment. And it's the perfect example of how conspiracy theories start. They rely on third or fourth-hand accounts. They make reference to scientific principles but are really built on half-baked theories that are poorly understood. Most importantly, they reference classified events so independent investigators can't confirm or deny them.

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How Ancient Egypt Lives On Jan 19, 2021

A nasty historical myth that won’t die is that aliens created the ancient pyramids. If you watch the show ancient aliens on the history channel you’ll see Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, the crazy hair guy.
Nevertheless, The enigmatic nature of the burial for these otherwise poor laborers is one of many reasons that these builders are a source of considerable speculation today. We have almost no information about them, except that they accomplished feats of engineering considered beyond the abilities of technology in the ancient world.
In today’s episode we’ll solve the myster of how the pyramids were built. But we’ll also talk abouthow they created or developed things like: mathematics, bowling, the alphabet, wigs, cosmetics, and centralized bureacracy, paper and writing, medicine, and primitive surgery. And of course, engineering – with the pyramids – and our understanding of how to commemorate the dead.

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In 1813, a Shawnee "Prophet" Launched a War to Conquer the Great Lakes Region Jan 14, 2021

Until the Americans killed Tecumseh in 1813, he and his brother Tenskwatawa were the co-architects of the broadest pan-Indian confederation in United States history. In previous accounts of Tecumseh's life, Tenskwatawa has been dismissed as a talentless charlatan and a drunk. But while Tecumseh was a brilliant diplomat and war leader--admired by the same white Americans he opposed--it was Tenskwatawa, called the "Shawnee Prophet," who created a vital doctrine of religious and cultural revitalization that unified the disparate tribes of the Old Northwest. Native American society and customs provide a window into a world often erased from history books and reveals how both men came to power in different but no less important ways.
Today’s guest, Peter Cozzens, author of the book “Tecumseh and the Prophet,” brings us to the forefront of the chaos and violence that characterized the young American Republic, when settlers spilled across the Appalachians to bloody effect in their haste to exploit lands won from the British in the War of Independence, disregarding their rightful Indian owners. Tecumseh and the Prophet presents the untold story of the Shawnee brothers who retaliated against this threat--the two most significant siblings in Native American history, who, Cozzens helps us understand, should be writ large in the annals of America.

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Millions Were Left Homeless After WW2. What Happened To Those Who Were Permanently Exiled? Jan 12, 2021

In May 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of global military conflict did not cease with the German capitulation. Millions of lost and homeless concentration camp survivors, POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and Nazi collaborators in flight from the Red Army overwhelmed Germany, a nation in ruins. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate refugees and attempted to repatriate them. But after exhaustive efforts, there remained more than a million displaced persons left behind in Germany: Jews, Poles, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and other Eastern Europeans who refused to go home or had no homes to return to. The Last Million would spend the next three to five years in displaced persons camps, temporary homelands in exile, divided by nationality, with their own police forces, churches and synagogues, schools, newspapers, theaters, and infirmaries.
Today’s guest, David Nasaw, author of “THE LAST MILLION: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War “ discusses the fate of these people.
The international community could not agree on the fate of the Last Million, and after a year of debate and inaction, the International Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from postwar labor shortages. But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last countries to accept refugees for resettlement, finally passed a displaced persons bill. With Cold War fears supplanting memories of World War II atrocities, the bill granted the vast majority of visas to those who were reliably anti- Communist, including thousands of former Nazi collaborators and war criminals, while severely limiting the entry of Jews, who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the controversial partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining Jewish survivors able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany.
By 1952, the Last Million were scattered around the world. As they crossed from their broken past into an unknowable future, they carried with them their wounds, their fears, their hope, and their secrets. Here for the first time, Nasaw illuminates their incredible history and, with profound contemporary resonance, shows us that it is our history as well.

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The Mafia Was the Glue That Held Entire American Cities Together in the 20th Century Jan 07, 2021

The Mafia and many political machines ran entire American cities in the 19th and 20 centuries. But some mobsters claim that it went much further than that. Chicago-area Sam Giancana claims that he and the mafia "owned" Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and then Harry Truman, whose career they promoted; that they had all-star athletes in their pocket, including Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays; and that Giancana conspired with other top Mafia bosses, as well as Hoffa, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, top CIA officials, top military officials, top Dallas police officials, top Texas oilmen etc. etc. to assassinate John F. Kennedy.
How much of this is true and how much is fiction? We will never know completely, but the roots of the mafia run deep in the soil of American politics.

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Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America Jan 05, 2021

Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook are just a few of today’s business pioneers who have succeeded in disrupting older existing business models, and whose motives and methods are constantly scrutinized by the government. They, in fact, resemble the robber barons of the 19th century.
Today's guest is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik, author of the book "Iron Empires." He explores the aftermath of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad—how the country’s new railroad network expanded and was consolidated over the next four decades, and the incredible impact this had on the nation.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Edward H. Harriman are the men responsible for driving the country into the twentieth century and almost derailing our nation’s economy and society in the process. Additionally, the railway tycoons are responsible for creating the big business playbook that today’s big tech business leaders still use.
Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook are just a few of today’s business pioneers who have succeeded in disrupting an existing business model and whose motives and methods are constantly scrutinized by the government, much like the robber barons back in the day.

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An Army Without a Country: Prussia’s Cult of the Military and the Road to World War One Dec 31, 2020

Almost no society worshipped its military as much as the German state of Prussia in the 1700s-1800s (outside of ancient Sparta). Prussia was famously described as not a country with an army but an army with a country. That's because during the 18th century when other European states spent 20-30 of their annual budget on the military, the Prussian army regularly accounted for as much as three-quarters of public expenditure — even in times of peace. And this expenditure was widely accepted in all levels of Prussian society.
In this episode we will look at:
• How Prussia was a hinge point between medieval and modern armies
• How militaries evolved from aristocratic officers who treated enlisted men like slaves into the army being a great equalizer that unites a nation.
• Why Frederick the Great was a military genius that Napoleon worshipped.
• Why the Prussian military was the forge that created Germany and created a militaristic society that led to World War One.

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William Miller Predicted Christ’s Return in 1844. Here's What Happened After His Prophecy Failed Dec 29, 2020

In October 1844, tens of thousands of people in New England believed the world would soon end. They followed William Miller, a man who claimed that through his study of the Bible to know the exact day of Jesus’s return to earth. His followers sold everything they had in preparation for Christ’s second coming, in which he would gather them into heaven, and cleans the Earth in fire. The “Millerites” donned white garments called ascension robes. They climbed trees or mountains to speed up their ascension.
But Christ never came. The followers sat in confused disappointment. What happened to them after they gave up completely in their lives on earth? Moreover, what made them believe in Miller in the first place? Was he a particularly charismatic speaker, or was something happening in the United States that made belief in the apocalypse ripe? If so, what are those conditions and can they happen again?

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This Civil War-Era Luke Skywalker Destroyed an Ironclad Death Star Dec 24, 2020

One of America’s greatest but little-remembered Civil War heroes was Commander William Barker Cushing, who sank the Confederate ironclad Albemarle in a spectacular mission in 1864.
Regarded as erratic and insubordinate, Midshipman Cushing was drummed out of the Naval Academy in March 1861. But with the outbreak of war, the Union needed every trained officer it could find— and whatever his flaws, Cushing was an extremely talented naval officer. Ferocious, uncompromising, courageous, and loyal, he became a U.S. Navy commando and at the age of twenty-one was sent to destroy the South’s ultimate naval weapon—the Albemarle, an unsinkable vessel with a devastating iron ram.
Todays guest, Jerome Priesler, is author of "Civil War Commando." We discuss the death-defying mission that succeeded in sinking the Albemarle, helped reelect President Abraham Lincoln, and earned Cushing a hero’s grave in the Naval Academy’s cemetery.

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The Greek Triple Agent: Alcibiades, The Strategist Who Fought On 3 Sides of the Peloponnesian War Dec 22, 2020

Imagine if Benedict Arnold defected from America, went to England, then conspired against England with France during the Napoleonic Wars. During the War of 1812, America asks for him to come back but because his military skills were so desperately needed. He then is granted the position of general and wins the entire war of 1812 against the British. We would admire him as a smooth operator – like a James Bond and Loki the god of mischief – but never look up to him like an Abraham Lincoln.
We have that in the Ancient Greek character of Alcibiades. He was called the chameleon by Greek and Roman writers and for good reason.
Alcibiades, (born in 450 BC) was a brilliant but unscrupulous Athenian politician and military commander who provoked the sharp political antagonisms at Athens that were the main causes of Athens’ defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War.
Alcibiades was intertwined with the conflicts in Athens between democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. Depending upon the circumstances, he could be said to be a proponent of each form of regime. Those shifting allegiances became even more complicated with Persia, as all of the parties within both Athens and Greece sought Persian support.
Learn how this Benedict Arnold of the ancient world played all sides and managed to stay alive far longer than anyone expected... until fate finally caught up with him.

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America’s Worst President Can Teach Us Much About Writing Raunchy Poetry and Dying Suspiciously Dec 17, 2020

The common view of Warren G. Harding is this: a likable affable fool from Ohio who was chose as Republican presidential candidate at a deadlocked national convention because he was the lowest common denominator. His cronies—the “Ohio Gang”— plundered the government while Harding pursued his vision of “a return normalcy,” which involved little more than writing raunchy poetry to his mistresses (which the Library of Congress made available to the public in 2014). Harding died in 1923, possibly at the hand of a political rival or a jealous wife. Historians agree with this assessment – in every poll of the president, Harding comes at the very bottom.
But what if this view is wrong? After all, Harding was beloved by Americans during his life and mourned deeply at his early passing. He was the first president to require a budget from Congress, improved relations with Latin America, and pushed for the inclusion of Black Americans into civic life.
In this episode, we’ll look at the legacy of America’s most hated president and if he deserves that distinction. Other topics include:
• Theories about his death There are lots and lots of theories about how he was murdered and they have to do with the belief he was always involved in scandals and womanizing.
• lurid poetry he sent to his mistress
• theories he might have been black (CSPAN episode from 1999 had lots of callers bout this)
• Whether Warren G. Harding’s reputation deserves to be rehabilitated.

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The Eternal Legacy of the First World War Dec 15, 2020

World War One was the most consequential social event in centuries. 10 million soldiers died, creating 3 million widows and 10 million orphans. Many Europeans felt disillusionment and even anger about the war. They questioned earlier notions of honor, duty, and bravery. Europe lost its economic centrality. New York replaced London as the financial capital of the world., and the US and the USSR emerged as proto-superpowers. But positive changes happened. The notion of what roles women could take on changed. Women proved themselves capable of doing much of what men came. Four empires were gone. Many new smaller nations were created from the Empires’ former territories.

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The Sad Afterlives of WW1's Leaders: The Humbling (and Exiling) of Generals, Emperors, and Sultans Dec 10, 2020

From 1914-1918, the leaders of World War One were generals who commanded millions of men, emperors who inherited dynasties with centuries of accumulated wealth, and Sultans who claimed a direct line of connection to the Prophet Muhammed. After the war, many of them lost all their money and power, and were forced into lonely exile. British Chief of Staff Henry Wilson left the army after the war and became a Member of Parliament. He was murdered on his doorstep by the Irish Republican Army in 1922. Kaiser Wilhelm II went into exile in the Netherlands and died in 1941 at the age of 82. When he died he was putting pins in a map to mark the progress of the German army. Enver Pasha fled to Germany after the war. Then he fled to Moscow and then Turkmenistan, where he took command of anti-Soviet rebels and was killed in the fighting in 1922.

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The 1919 Paris Peace Conference Laid The First Bricks of the Road to World War Two Dec 08, 2020

The Paris Peace Conference opened on January 18, 1919. Its task was the writing of five separate peace treaties with the defeated separate powers: Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria, Austria, and Hungary (now separate nations). The defeated Central Powers were not allowed to participate in the negotiations. The terms would be dictated to them. Russia was also not allowed to come. The world had been remade. Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Wilson faced a daunting task. Even as they and all the other delegates sat down to their deliberations, borders and governments were being decided in tumult, anarchy, and armed conflict. Most of the crowned heads of Europe had been deposed. The Czar and his family had been murdered. The Kaiser was in exile in the Netherlands. Bavarian king Ludwig III had given way to a socialist revolt. Austria and Hungary had declared themselves republics, making Charles I an emperor without an empire (he would eventually go into exile in Switzerland, and later Madeira). The states of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland were reemerging from the past. Communist red flags popped up, however briefly, at points in the heart of Europe. German mercenary armies, the Freikorps, fought Bolsheviks in Germany, saving the secular, socialist Weimar Republic—and even tried to annex the Baltic States, in secular emulation of the Teutonic Knights.

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WW1 Ends with Armistice: The Moment of Silence That Sounded Like the Voice of God Dec 03, 2020

After Germany's' failed spring offensive, realized the only way to win was to push into France before the United States fully deployed its resources. The French and British were barely hanging on in 1918. By 1918, French reserves of military-aged recruits were literally a state secret; there were so few of them still alive. The British, barely maintaining 62 divisions on the Western Front, planned, in the course of 1918 – had the Americans not appeared – to reduce their divisions to thirty or fewer and essentially to abandon the ground war in Europe. But with the Americans, it renewed the fighting chances for the Allies. They decisively overtook the Germans at the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in September. In November, Kaiser Wilhelm, visiting Spa, was advised that he had no real control over much of the army. While there, he received a telegram from Berlin that read “All troops deserted. Completely out of hand.” Wilhelm decided to go to the Netherlands. There, he abdicated on November 9. The war officially came to an end on November 11, where all troops kept a moment of silence.
It was a religious experience. Here's what novelist Kurt Vonnegut says about it: "I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind."

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The 1918 Battle of Meggido Shattered the Ottoman Empire and Created the Modern Middle East Dec 01, 2020

The Battle of Megiddo was the climactic battle of the Sinai and Palestine campaign of the First World War, with Germans and Ottomans on one side, and British and French forces on the other (with Arab nationalists led by T.E. Lawrence). The actions immediately after it were a disaster for the Ottomans. They now had permanently lost control over their Middle Eastern possessions. Historian Edward Erickson writes “The battle…ranks with Ludendorff's Black Days of the German Army in the effect that it had on the consciousness of the Turkish General Staff. It was now apparent to all but the most diehard nationalists that the Turks were finished in the war. In spite of the great victories in Armenia and in Azerbaijan, Turkey was now in an indefensible condition, which could not be remedied with the resources on hand. It was also apparent that the disintegration of the Bulgarian Army at Salonika and the dissolution of the Austro–Hungarian Army spelled disaster and defeat for the Central Powers. From now until the Armistice, the focus of the Turkish strategy would be to retain as much Ottoman territory as possible.”

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The Pilgrims and Native Americans Were Both On the Verge of Death Upon Meeting. Here's How They Saved Each Others' Lives. Nov 26, 2020

For thousands of years, two distinct cultures evolved unaware of one another’s existence. Separated by what one culture called The Great Sea and known to the other as the Atlantic Ocean, the course of each culture’s future changed irreversibly four hundred years ago. In 1620 the Mayflower delivered 102 refugees and fortune seekers from England to Cape Cod, where these two cultures first encountered one another. The English sought religious freedom and fresh financial opportunities. The Natives were recovering from the Great Dying of the past several years that left over two-thirds of their people in graves. How would they react to one another? How might their experience shape modern cross-cultural encounters?
Today's guest, Kathryn Haueisen is the author of the book “The Mayflower Chronicles." Being descended from Elder William and Mary Brewster, Haueisen grew up knowing the English version of the story. She learned it both in school and at home. Once her life included grandchildren with Native American heritage, she became more curious about the Native side of the story. Her curiosity took her on a seven-year journey to England, the Netherlands, Plymouth, MA, and numerous museums, libraries, books, websites, and interviews with historians and descendants of the Native communities connected to the story

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Thanksgiving Owes Its Existence To The 19th Century's Biggest Social Media Influencer Nov 24, 2020

Thanksgiving today is now a commercially driven holiday with Black Friday following closely at its heels, celebrated with a department store parade, football, and at one point in time, masked costumes. But the holiday originally came into existence all thanks to a 19th-century widowed mother with no formal schooling. She eventually became one of America's most influential tastemakers.
Sarah Josepha Hale worked at the helm of one of the most widely read magazines in the nation, Godey’s Lady’s Book, Hale published Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others, while introducing American readers to such newfangled concepts as “domestic science,” white wedding gowns, and the Christmas tree. A prolific writer, Hale penned novels, recipe books, essays, and more, including the ubiquitous children’s poem, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” But one theme ran throughout her life, from her first novel published in 1827, to a mission accomplished 36 years later; Hale never stopped pushing the leaders of her time to officially recognize and celebrate gratitude. She finally got her wish by personally petitioning Abraham Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.
Today's guest is Denise Kiernan, author of "We Gather Together." Alongside the story of Hale, Kiernan brings to the fore the stories of Indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, women’s rights activists, abolitionists, and more, offering readers an inspiring tale of how imperfect people in challenging times can create powerful legacies.
From Ancient Rome through 21st-century America, festivals resembling Thanksgiving have been celebrated the idea of gratitude, as a compelling human instinct and a global concept, more than just a mere holiday.

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The Empire Strikes Back: Germany's Final Push to Win WW1 in Spring 1918 Nov 19, 2020

Many thought that Germany was capable of winning World War One until the very end. Unlike World War 2, in which the Allies believed that victory was inevitable as early as 1943, this was not the case with the Great War. It is also easy to assume that German defeat was inevitable at the hands of an Allied coalition richer in manpower, weapons and money. Yet Germany nearly captured Paris in 1914, crushed Serbia and Romania, bled the French Army until it mutinied, drove Russia out of the war, and then came oh-so-close to victory on the Western Front in 1918. One should not underestimate the power of Imperial Germany. Until the armistice was signed in a French railway carriage on November 11, 1918, Germany's enemies didn't.

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Tank Warfare--How Military Tech Took a Quantum Leap at the Battle of Cambrai (1917) Nov 17, 2020

The British developed the tank in response to the trench warfare of World War I. In 1914, a British army colonel named Ernest Swinton and William Hankey, secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defense, championed the idea of an armored vehicle with conveyor-belt-like tracks over its wheels that could break through enemy lines and traverse difficult territory. The men appealed to British navy minister Winston Churchill, who believed in the concept of a “land boat” and organized a Landships Committee to begin developing a prototype. It all came together at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. The British saw it as their greatest victory. Church bells tolled throughout great Britain, the first time this had happened in the entire war.

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The Yanks Are Coming -- America Enters World War One Nov 12, 2020

Most Americans are indifferent about the nation's involvement in World War One (under half say the U.S. had a responsibility to fight in the war; one-in-five say it didn't). Many figure it entered the conflict too late to claim much credit, or intervention was discreditable. Some say the U.S. had no compelling national interest to enter the Great War; worse, U.S. intervention allowed Britain and France to force on Germany an unjust, punitive peace that made the rise of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party inevitable. But others argue that America's involvement saved Europe from a militaristic dictatorship that would have resulted in a worse 20th century. We look at all these aspects of America's involvement in the war in this episode.

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The Slog of War -- the Passchendaele Campaign of 1917 Nov 10, 2020

The best way to describe the Third Ypres (Passchendaele) Campaign of 1917. It’s ‘slog.’ When you think about a drudging act that seems to accomplish nothing, this battle is it. Mud. Mud to your waist. Everything sinks down several feet into mud. Tanks, Cars, guns, horses, everything stuck in mud. Images of a battlefield landscape with pockmarked holes and mist rising from the plains with shattered trees is characterized by the third battle of Ypres.
The battle took place on the Western Front from July to November 1917 over control of ridges near the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders.
Private R.A. Colwell described the scene in 1918 as follows: "There was not a sign of life of any sort. Not a tree, save for a few dead stumps which looked strange in the moonlight. Not a bird, not even a rat or a blade of grass. Nature was as dead as those Canadians whose bodies remained where they had fallen the previous autumn. Death was written large everywhere.”

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Teaser: Forging a President, Part 6: The Newly-Minted Cowboy Nov 06, 2020

This is a preview of an episode in a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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The Russian Revolutions of 1917-1923--A Bigger Threat Than the Kaiser? Nov 05, 2020

We’ve looked at many battles in this series, but we’ve only tangentially touched on how this war fundamentally altered European society. The Great War is the watershed between the pre-modern and early modern era. As an example, all we have to do is look at Russia. Before World War One, it was an autocracy, very conservative, very religious, and only a few decades away from serfdom, which the rest of Europe abandoned in the Middle Ages. After the war, it was officially atheistic, communist, rapidly industrializing, and becoming one of two superpowers that dominated the 20th century. To Churchill, the Bolsheviks represented a greater threat to civilized Europe than did the reeking tube and iron shard of the Kaiser’s Reich. Bolshevism, he declared in the House of Commons, was “not a policy; it is a disease. It is not a creed; it is a pestilence.”

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The Election of 1800 Was Worse Than 2020 in Every Way Imaginable Nov 03, 2020

The election was perhaps the nastiest election the country has seen. It had horrible partisan rancor, personal insults, and a politicized media. But we aren't talking about the 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Rather it was the 1000 presidential election, where President John Adams faced his own vice president, Thomas Jefferson.
Adams was decried as a ‘repulsive pedant’ and ‘gross hypocrite’ who ‘behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character.’ Jefferson was said to be ‘a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow’ who would create a nation where ‘murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced.
Today's guest, Jeffrey Sikkenga, Executive Director of the Ashbrook Center and Professor of Political Science at Ashland University, believes that the election of 1800 has more parallels to today than any other election, but it also can give us hope.
Only 24 years after the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that the Americans were ‘one people,’ it looked like America could be torn apart. The Constitution was only 12 years old and the great unifying figure of George Washington — who was unanimously elected twice as president — had died the year before, in 1799. Even though Washington warned about the dangers of parties in his farewell address, two competing parties had formed — the Federalists of Adams and the Democratic-Republicans of Jefferson. Power had rarely been transferred peacefully between rival parties, and never in the new country.
Sikkenga argues that nevertheless, America surprised the world. Jefferson won, and Adams, despite personal bitterness at what he regarded as Jefferson’s betrayal, followed the Constitution and stepped aside peacefully. For his part, in his inaugural address Jefferson implored his ‘fellow-citizens’ to ‘unite with one heart and one mind’ and ‘restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.’
Jefferson wasn’t just mouthing platitudes. He believed that during the election Americans may ‘have called by different names,’ but above all they were ‘brethren of the same principle.’ The truths they shared in the Declaration and Constitution — equality, liberty, consent of the governed, the rule of law — were stronger than the differences of opinion dividing the parties.

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Why WW1 Was the Graveyard of Empires (Russian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian) Oct 29, 2020

World War One shattered the empires of Russia, the Ottomans, and the Austro-Hungarians, which had all existed in one form or another for centuries. That's because it broke the fragile alliances that kept these Empires alive. In this episode, we explore the Southern Fronts of World War One in 1916-1917. Starting with Italy, since Italy’s entry into the war, Italy and Austria had fought several battles along their border in the Alps. Neither side was able to make headway until May 1916, when Austria launched the “Punishment Expedition,” which pushed the Italian army back. In the winter of 1915-16, the Serbian army, with many civilians along fled Serbia into the mountains of Albania toward the coast. 200,000 died along the way. By mid-January 1916, the Allies were taking thousands from the Albanian coast to the Greek island of Corfu. Also in January, Austria-Hungary invaded Montenegro. Within 2 weeks, the government surrendered, although the army retreated into Albania. The Austrians followed them there, occupying Albania. Things were no better in the Ottoman Empire. It was due to divisions between its Turkish-speaking populations and Arabic-speaking populations. The same centrifugal forces that pulled apart the Austro-Hungarian empire were affecting the Ottoman Empire.

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The Battle of the Somme Caused 1 Million Casualties But Was a Turning Point for WW1 Oct 27, 2020

The 1916 Battle of the Somme caused a total of 1 million casualties on all sides. the total is over a million casualties. The Allies had gained very little ground. At the end of the battle, they had gained only 7 miles and were still about 3 miles short of their goal from the first day of the war. The Somme, along with Verdun and the Brusilov Offensive, were among the bloodiest in world history up to that point. According to John Keegan, the Battle of the Somme was the greatest British tragedy of the twentieth century: “The Somme marked the end of an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been recovered.” For many, the battle exemplified the ‘futile’ slaughter and military incompetence of the First World War. Yet a more professional and effective army emerged from the battle. And the tactics developed there, including the use of tanks and creeping barrages, laid some of the foundations of the Allies’ successes in 1918. The Somme also succeeded in relieving the pressure on the French at Verdun. Abandoning them would have greatly tested the unity of the Entente. One German officer described the Battle of the Somme as ‘the muddy grave of the German Field Army’. That army never fully recovered from the loss of so many experienced junior and non-commissioned officers.

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The Flying Aces of World War One Oct 22, 2020

Since the first successful flight of an airplane, people had imagined and dreamed of airplanes being used for combat. H. G. Wells's 1908 book (The War in the Air was an example. When World War One broke out, there were only about 1000 planes on all sides. Planes were very basic. Cockpits were open, instruments were rudimentary, and there were no navigational aids. Pilots had to use maps, which were not always reliable. Getting lost was common. Sometimes pilots had to land and ask directions! At the beginning of the war, airplanes were seen as being almost exclusively for reconnaissance, taking the job formerly done by cavalry. Eventually, however, it became necessary for planes to eliminate the observation planes of the enemy, so air-to-air combat (dogfights) became common.

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The Brusilov Offensive: Russia's Mortal Blow to Austria-Hungary Oct 20, 2020

Russia had lost a great deal of territory to Germany and Austria in 1915, and they wanted to gain it back. Russian General Alexei Brusilov put together a plan in April 1916 to launch a major offensive against Austria. It ended up being Russia's greatest feat of arms during World War I, and among the most deadly military offensives in world history. Brusilov hoped to take pressure off France and Britain and hopefully knock Austria out of the war. The plan was to attack along a broad front, preventing the Austrians from using reserves and minimizing the distance between Russian and Austrian lines. The result of the Brusilov Offensive was a terrible Russian blow against Austria-Hungary, which took 1,000,000 casualties. Russia could not hold onto its land gains, but it demonstrated its military capability on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution.

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Teaser: Forging a President, Part 5: Four-Eyes Oct 16, 2020

This is a preview of an episode in a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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WW1 At Sea: The Battle of Jutland (1916) Oct 15, 2020

Although overlooked today, the war at sea was a crucial part of World War I overall. The German use of the Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (in which non-military ships could be blown up by submarines without the latter surfacing, making it impossible for innocent men, women, and children to abandon ship) against commerce not only threatened the Allied war effort, but also drew the United States into the conflict. In addition, the British economic blockade of Germany afforded by the Royal Navy’s command of the sea inflicted great damage on the war effort of Germany. Finally, the naval war held great ramifications for the future since many practices employed in the First World War were those pursued in the Second World War.

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Verdun - The 299-Day Battle That Killed 300K Soldiers And Still Scars The Earth With Unexploded Shells Oct 13, 2020

The Battle of Verdun--fought from February 21-December 18 1916 in the Western Front of France--was horrifying and hellish even by the standards of World War One. Over a 299-day-period, there were 1 million total casualties. The French were bled white, but so were the Germans.
Of these, 300,000 were killed, which is about 1 death for every minute of the battle. The French most likely lost slightly more than the Germans. About 10% of all French war dead were from Verdun. Half of Frenchmen between 20 and 30 years old were killed. Although more men died at the Somme, the proportion of casualties suffered to the number of men who fought was much higher at Verdun than at any other battle in World War I. Also the number killed per square mile was the greatest at Verdun. To this day, the battlefield is still cratered and pockmarks. Many unexploded shells (maybe 12 million) still remain. Trenches can still be seen. Alistair Horne said, “Verdun was the First World War in microcosm; an intensification of all its horrors and glories, courage and futility.”

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1915: World War One's Year of Poison Gas, Genocide, and Millions of Refugees Oct 08, 2020

In 1915, the Central Powers and Allies dug in their heels and tried desperately to break the stalemate of the war, still hoping for a short conflict on the scale of a few months. Poison gas was used for the first time. Germans experimented with flamethrowers and armored shields, while the French began using hand grenades. In April, Germans began the Second Battle of Ypres and used 168 tons of chlorine gas. On the Eastern Front, Austria launched three offensives against Russian forces in the Carpathians. All three failed miserably. As many as 100,000 Austrian soldiers froze to death. Further north, Russian forces began to retreat from Warsaw and Riga. In Poland, Russian forces adopted a “scorched earth policy.” They forced Poles and other residents of Poland and western Russia to burn their crops and abandon their homes. This created millions of refugees. In December, the remains of the Serbian Army, along with several hundred thousand civilians, fled through the freezing mountains of Montenegro and Albania to the coast. 200,000 died along the way (out of 700,000 initially). Finally, the Ottomans began the forced deportation of Armenians to Syria, which was actually a death march. It became known as the Armenian Genocide in which 1.5 million were slaughtered.

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The Battle of Gallipoli (1915) How Ataturk and the Ottomans Hurled the Allies (Including Winston Churchill) Into the Sea Oct 06, 2020

The Allies desperately wanted to take control of the Dardanelles (the straights connecting Constantinople with the Mediterranean). They were crucial to Russia and would make it possible for Russia to (in effect) have a warm-water port. The only problem is the Ottomans had controlled the Dardanelles for five centuries and were backed by Germany and the rest of the Central Powers. The Allies wanted to open the Dardanelles, open a second front against Austria, take Constantinople, and knock the Ottomans out of the war. One of the British leaders who championed the plan was Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty). The Ottomans were led at Gallipoli by a brilliant colonel named Mustafa Kemal. He would win an incredible victory for the Ottomans, save the empire from complete destruction, and keep them in the war for three more years. In 1922-23, he would fight and win the Turkish War of Independence, become the first president of the Republic of Turkey, and become one of the most influential statesmen of the 20th century.

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Teaser: Forging a President, Part 4, Man vs. Beast Oct 02, 2020

This is a preview of an episode in a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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World War 1 Trenches Were A Labyrinth of Rats, Disease, Decaying Flesh, and the Omnipresent Threat of Death Oct 01, 2020

“Rats came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. A new officer joined the company and...when he turned in that night he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.” The scene that Captain Robert Graves described in his autobiography was common for that of many soldiers. There were perhaps few places in the history of warfare as miserable as the trenches. Unlike most armies, which are constantly on the move, the armies of WW1 stayed locked in positions for months or even years. There they festered in disease, cold, hunger, and the fear that the whistle would blow and they would have to go "over the top" and face a hail of enemy artillery as they tried to charge No Man's Land.

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The Average WW1 Soldier Was a 110-Pound Villager Who Suffered Disease, Hunger, and PTSD Sep 29, 2020

This episode is an overview of the profile of an average soldier in World War One. We will look at the backgrounds, training, and provisions allotted to troops in the British, French, German, Russian, and Ottoman armies. We will look at their lives in the trenches, which were with very few exceptions absolutely miserable. We will also look at the terrible experiences that they faced on the battlefield, trying desperately to survive artillery barrages or poison gas attacks. Many suffered "shell shock" from the experienced, what we know today as PTSD.

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Germany's Plans For Total French Defeat in 1914 Failed at the Battle of the Marne Sep 24, 2020

The beginning of World War One was marked the breakdown of the western powers’ war plans. Leaders on both sides experienced surprises, shocks, and the failure of plans. The first few months saw shocking violence on a scale never experienced before, at least not in Western Europe. During the first few months of the war, an average of 15,000 lives were lost each day. (five times as much as the worst day in the Civil War). This happened at the Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6 to 12 in 1914. The Allies won a victory against the German armies in the West and ended their plans of crushing the French armies with an attack from the north through Belgium. Both sides dug in their trenches for the long war ahead.

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Germany So Completely Annihilated Russia At the WW1 Battle of Tannenberg That A Russian General Committed Suicide Sep 22, 2020

The Battle of Tannenberg was the first major battle of World War One, fought between Germany and Russia, who surprised everyone with its fast mobilization. This muddled the plans of Germany, which sought to quickly fight a two-front war against France and Russia, knock France out of the war, then focus its resources on Russia. The plan didn't work, but Germany issued a crushing blow against Russia, largely due to its fast rail movements that allowed it to focus on two Russian armies at once (and Russia failing to encode its messages did nothing to help). Germany named the battle after Tannenberg in order to avenge a defeat from 500 years earlier in which the proto-German Teutonic Knights were defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The past was alive and well in the minds of these combatants. Commanding general Alexander Samsonov was so humiliated by the defeat he committed suicide.

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Teaser: Forging a President, Part 3, Teddy Roosevelt's First Buffalo Hunt Sep 18, 2020

This is a preview of an episode in a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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Europe's Pre-WW1 Alliances Were a Doomsday Machine That Pulled the Entire Continent Into War Sep 17, 2020

An impossibly complex web of alliances that maintained a fragile peace in Europe (and surprisingly held it together since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815) always threatened to unravel. The 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, by Serbian nationalists, made Austria declare war on Serbia. A doomsday machine kicked into gear: Russia mobilized against Austria. Germany mobilized against Russia. France mobilized against Germany. Germany prepared long-held plans to attack France.

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Introducing "Key Battles of World War One": Why Europe in 1914 Had Absolutely No Idea It Was About To Enter The Most Hellish War Ever Sep 15, 2020

World War One is the watershed moment in modern history. The Western World before it was one of aristocrats, empires, colonies, and optimism for a future of unending progress. After four years of hellish trench warfare, shell fire, 10 million combat deaths, and another 10 million civilian deaths, the world that emerged in 1918 was irrevocably changed. Nation-states came out of the rubble, along with a push for universal rights. New technologies emerged, such as tanks and fighter planes. But something was lost permanently in the Great War: a sense of optimism in mankind. This episode is the beginning of a 24-part series called Key Battles of World War One. In this series, history professors Scott Rank and James Early look at the 10 key battles that determined the outcome of the war between the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire) and the Allies (Britain, France, Russia, United States).
In this first episode, Scott and James look at the state of affairs in Europe in 1914. Europe was dominated by several major powers, most of which were multinational empires. They called themselves the Great Powers. There were 5 Great Powers, as well as two other nations who desired to be, although they lacked the military and economic power of the others. Let’s go around Europe and take a look at each of these powers.

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2 Announcements: Key Battles of WW1 Begins Soon; History Unplugged Launches Youtube Channel Sep 11, 2020

Next week James Early and Scott Rank will kick off their massive series called Key Battles of World War One. By the end, you'll know every aspect of the Great War, arguably the most horrific event in human history. History Unplugged also has a new Youtube channel. Go check it out to see live recordings of each new podcast episode.

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Dreams of India's Vast Wealth Made Everyone From Ancient Greeks to Renaissance Portuguese Risk Death To Reach It Sep 10, 2020

Claims of India's fantastic wealth lead Europeans through the centuries to seek to trade with this fabled land, which existed on the far eastern reaches of known civilization.
As far back as the 500s BC, Scylax of Caryanda, a Greek explorer sailed down the length of the Indus in the service of Darius. Later Alexander's troops passed through India, and many troops stayed behind, creating an incredible East-West synthesis. Buddhism came out of this mix, as well as the early Christian heresy Manicheism. Exotic trade. For hundreds of years, Greek speakers could be found in Indian port towns.
Such legends inspired Cristopher Columbus to sail west across the Atlantic and reach a direct route, even though other navigators insisted his calculations were terrible and he and his crew would starve at sea. Yet he did reach land and traded with settlers whom he believed the rest of his life to be of India, and the name stuck, as Indians.
Today’s episode is about the impact that India had on Western Civilization and how the quest for India led to incredible long-distance travel for traders for over two millennia.

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Why 1776 -- Not 1619 -- Matters More Than Ever in 2020 Sep 03, 2020

The American Revolution has received a burst of attention in the last two decades, with Pulitzer Prize-winning monographs from David McCullough and Ron Chernow (and the biggest Broadway musical in recent history, with Hamilton). But it’s come under attack as well, with historical revisionist projects like the New York Times 1619 Project, which says 1776 was a colossal mistake steeped in racism.
Today’s guest is Edward Lengel, editor of the new book “The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution.” He argues that the American Revolution encompasses a human drama of epic proportions. At different points in time, at locations separated by hundreds and often thousands of miles, individuals—often the unlikeliest imaginable—took destiny in their hands and accomplished astonishing things that profoundly changed the course of human history. Their deeds should be unforgettable.
We discuss all sorts of things – like unsung heroes of the Revolution (Henry Knox is a favored choice), whether or not Benedict Arnold was a traitor or just misunderstood, and what the Revolution means for Americans in 2020.

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A Jewish Family Couldn’t Flee Nazi Germany. So They Wrote Letters to Strangers in America Asking For Help Sep 01, 2020

In 1939, as the Nazis closed in, Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to an American stranger who happened to share his last name. He and his wife, Viennese Jews, had found escape routes for their daughters. But now their money, connections, and emotional energy were nearly exhausted. Alfred begged the American recipient of the letter, “You are surely informed about the situation of all Jews in Central Europe….By pure chance I got your address….My daughter and her husband will go…to America….help us to follow our children….It is our last and only hope….”
After languishing in a California attic for over sixty years, Alfred’s letter came by chance into Faris Cassell’s possession. Questions flew off the page at her. Did the Bergers’ desperate letter get a response? Did they escape the Nazis? Were there any living descendants?
Today’s guest, Faris Cassell, author of the book The Unanswered Letter, discusses many things, including a previously unknown opportunity to assassinate Hitler—to which the Bergers were connected.

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Teaser: Forging a President, Part 2 Aug 28, 2020

This is a preview of a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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The Fall of Constantinople in 1453 Ended the European Middle Ages and Sealed the Rise of the Ottomans Aug 27, 2020

1453 was the most shocking year in Europe since the starting of the Bubonic Plague (1347), the beginning of the First Crusade (1095), or the crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800. Many called it the Year the Middle Ages ended. That’s because the Ottomans, an upstart empire less than two centuries removed from being a semi-nomadic chieftainship and vassal state of the Mongols, conquered Constantinople, the crown jewel of eastern Christendom and the “still-beating heart of antiquity”
Learn how Mehmet, the 21-year-old Sultan, conquered the city by assembling an army of 100,000, commissioned a cannon that could fire a 1,200-pound ball, and had warships hauled out of water and over hills in order to enter the enemy’s harbor.

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George Washington's Dream of Eternal Harmony Between White Settlers and Indians, and Why It Failed Aug 25, 2020

For George Washington, the “foreign” nation that posed the biggest threat to the survival of the infant United States wasn’t Britain, France, or Spain; it was the numerous Indian nations that still dominated large areas of the North American continent and threatened to destroy the fragile nation. Washington’s major goal as president was to secure the future of America and build the republic on Indian land.
That’s not to say that Washington wanted to trample on Indian rights. His secondary goal was to establish fair policies for dealings with Indian peoples. Washington and his Secretary of War Henry Knox believed that the most honorable and cheapest way to acquire Indian land was to purchase it in a fair treaty
This episode looks at George Washington’s dealings with American Indians, and his hope that he could grow his nation while treating the current inhabitants with justice and respect. He did not have the policies of Andrew Jackson of the 1820s or 30s, who tore up treaties and forcibly relocated Indian peoples west of the Mississippi (in fact, the Cherokee leader John Ross at this time remembered Washington so fondly that he named his son after the first president).
Washington sought a national Indian policy that might somehow reconcile taking Native resources with respecting their rights even as the nation expanded across their homelands and ignored earlier Indian treaty rights. He failed in these goals, and his failure eventually became America’s failure.

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Adolf Hitler Didn’t Survive WW2 or Secretly Flee to Argentina. Here’s Why So Many Think He Did Aug 20, 2020

Did Hitler die in his bunker…or not? I’m talking with Robert J. Hutchinson today to explore what really happened to Hitler. He’s the author of the book What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler.
According to official accounts and numerous eyewitnesses, the dictator of the Third Reich shot himself, loyal Nazis burned his body, and the bones were removed by the Russians. Yet, after WWII, 50 percent of Americans polled did not believe the captured Nazis who said Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their Berlin bunker. They thought the Führer had faked his death and escaped justice. Joseph Stalin himself told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler’s body and that he believed the Nazi leader had gotten away. There were numerous reports of top Nazi officials successfully fleeing to South America.
Incredible as it sounds, the mystery surrounding Hitler's final days only deepened in 2009 when a U.S. forensic team announced that a piece of the skull held in Soviet archives was not actually Hitler’s.
So, what really happened? Hutchinson sifts through the mountains of primary resources and debunks urban legends to uncover the truth about Hitler’s last week in Berlin.

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God's Shadow: Why A 16th-Century Ottoman Sultan Created the Modern World Aug 18, 2020

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor and geopolitical power. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans, with extraordinary military dominance and unparalleled monopolies over trade routes, controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World.
Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire’s history has for centuries been downplayed. But today’s guest Alan Mikhail presents a recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470–1520) in his book “God’s Shadow.”
Born to a concubine, and the fourth of his sultan father’s ten sons, Selim claimed power over the empire in 1512 and, through ruthless ambition, nearly tripled the territory under Ottoman control, building a governing structure that lasted into the twentieth century.
It was the Ottoman monopoly on trade routes, combined with military advances, that thrust Spain and Portugal out of the Mediterranean, forcing the merchants and sailors to become global explorers. This included Christopher Columbus, who cut his military teeth as a “Moor-slayer.” Also, Selim’s conquest of Yemen allowed his army to control the “first truly global commodity”—coffee—and subsequently made it the phenomenon it is today, a product that “energizes nearly every kind of social interaction across the world.

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Teaser: Forging a President, Part 1 Aug 14, 2020

This is a preview of a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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Making a Book in the Middle Ages Took Years and Was Literally Physical Torture Aug 13, 2020

Making a book in the Middle Ages was extremely hard work. It took the skin of several calves to make the vellum (a writing material), an army of monks in a scriptorium, rare ink for the illustrations, and six months’ time. Writing for hours on end was torture (monks called it just that when they wrote in book margins, which read like ransom notes). Yet if not for the work of these monks, every single work from antiquity would have been lost. Almost no writing from ancient Greece or Rome survives in its original form; all of it was copied and preserved in medieval monasteries.
In this episode, we explore the arduous process of making a book. We will specifically look at the Codex Gigas, the largest medieval book in the world (it’s a yard tall, 19 inches across, 9 inches thick, and weighs 165 pounds). It is also known as The Devil’s Bible because according to legend, the author sold his soul to the devil to complete it.
Overall, we have these monks to thank for keeping ancient science and philosophy alive. If not for their punishing efforts to record these ancient documents, they would have been lost forever.

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Martha Dodd: The American Soviet Spy and Hitler’s Would-Be Lover Who Dreamed of a Communist World Aug 11, 2020

In 1933, Martha Dodd, a 24-year-old aspiring writer who had already had several affairs and a failed marriage embarked with her family to Berlin, where her father was America's ambassador to Hitler's regime. Within a few weeks, she was romantically involved with Rudolf Diels, the first director of the Gestapo. Dodd was so celebrated by the Nazi elite that some believed she could become Hitler's wife (the two met but nothing came of it). She soon soured on the Nazis after witnessing their brutal anti-Semitism, but became involved with Boris Vinogradov, an agent of the Soviet secret police. Over the next several decades, Dodd's life was a whirlwind of spying, communist recruitment in America, and eventually, permanent exile.
Dodd was a dreamer who believed in the power of communism to right the wrongs of an unjust. But after decades abroad (first in Mexico, then in Prague) she ended up disillusioned with the promises of the Soviet Union. Her story is one of what happens when you cast your lot with a movement that ends up losing its political and ideological battles.

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America’s First Black Fighter Pilot Was Also a Boxer, Night Club Owner, and WW2 Spy in France Aug 06, 2020

One of the greatest unsung heroes of the twentieth century is Gene "Jacques" Bullard, a World War One fighter pilot, boxer, spy, and overall adventurer. He was the first American-born black fighter pilot in history- and he flew for France. Bullard grew up in Georgia and ran away from home after a lynch mob forced his father to flee and leave his family. He ran away from home and lived with gypsies, then hopped on German freighter to Scotland. He then continued his sojourn as a pro boxer, then as a drummer and assistant nightclub manager in Paris during the Jazz Age. Bullard took advantage of all the opportunities in Europe that would be denied to a black man back in America. He married a white socialite in Paris, opened a successful nightclub, and joined the French Foreign Legion. After being wounded, he joined the French Air Corps during WWI and shot down two German planes. Prior to World War Two he worked a spy for French Intelligence. He rejoined the Foreign Legion in WWII but was wounded and transported on a hospital ship to New York City.
Bullard spent the rest of his life as part of the French expatriate community in New York and was a fixture of the city’s multicultural life.
Today’s guest is Jon Hagadorn, host of the podcast “1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries.” He shares the fascinating life of a man whose story is worth remembering.

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Sam Colt's Six-Shooter Launched The American Industrial Revolution and Sped Western Settlement Aug 04, 2020

In August of 1831, a 16-year-old from Connecticut named Sam Colt boarded a ship of missionaries bound for a round-trip voyage to Calcutta. Restless and rambunctious, with a particular fondness for blowing things up—he’d been expelled from Amherst Academy not long before for repeatedly firing a cannon from the top of a hill to the horror of frightened townspeople—Colt had long been a source of distress for his family, who hoped that this time at sea might prepare him for a stable career in a respectable trade. Instead, it would become the setting for an idea that would change the course of American history.
Today's guest is Jim Rasenberger, author of "Revolver: Sam Colt and The Six-Shooter That Changed America. " We explore the life of the inventor who introduced repeating firearms to the world. With Colt’s revolver (allegedly dreamed up during that long stint at sea), one could for the first time shoot multiple bullets from a gun without reloading—a revolutionary mechanism that would help spark the American Industrial Revolution and speed the settlement of the West.

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The Nazi Spy Ring in America: The Third Reich's Agents, the FBI, and the Case That Stirred the Nation Jul 30, 2020

In the mid-1930s, just as the United States was embarking on a policy of neutrality, Nazi Germany embarked on a program of espionage against the unwary nation. Hitler’s attempts to interfere in American affairs by spreading anti-Semitic propaganda, stealing military technology, and mapping US defenses.
Today’s guest is Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, author of the book “The Nazi Spy Ring in America.” Using recently declassified material, he shows how Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Abwehr, was able to steal top secret US technology such as a prototype codebreaking machine and data about the latest fighter planes.
Enlisting the services of German-American fascists and anti-Semites, they resorted to ruthless methods to achieve their goals, including murdering the wife and daughter of an American industrialist. When the spy ring was busted in 1938 by FBI agent Leon Turrou, the ensuing trial caused a national sensation and played a significant role in shifting public opinion against Germany, awakening many Americans to the looming Nazi threat.
This story provides essential insight into the role of espionage in shaping American perceptions of Germany in the years leading up to US entry into World War II and sheds light on a now-forgotten but significant episode in the history of international relations.

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In 1200 AD, This Indian City on the Mississippi Was Larger Than London And On the Verge Of Starting an Advanced Civilization Jul 28, 2020

Many great Mesoamerican civilizations existed before and long after the arrival of Christopher Columbus: The Incans, Mayas, and Aztecs. But there was one civilization in North America you likely never have heard of that could have been more advanced as any of them, a reached a level of China or Mesopotamian civilization.
The Mississippian Culture of North America built a number of settlements in the centuries before Columbus arrived in the new world. The largest settlement, Cahokia, may have had up to 50,000 residents in 1200 A.D. This made it larger than contemporary London and Paris. The entire city was planned and built on a grid that matched with celestial events. In the center of the city was a mound made up of 22 million cubic feet of earth, making it nearly as impressive as the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Native cultures north of Mesoamerica (in the modern-day US) on the cusp of becoming an advanced civilization? Many of the ingredients were there, and perhaps a little more mixing would have done it.

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America's Hub of Global Trade and Culture Was and Is....the Midwest? Jul 23, 2020

When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine form. Or so we have been taught to believe. Struck by the gap between reputation and reality, she determined to get to the bottom of history and myth. The deeper she dug into the making of the modern heartland, the wider her story became as she realized that she'd uncovered an unheralded crossroads of people, commerce, and ideas. But the really interesting thing, Hoganson found, was that over the course of American history, even as the region's connections with the rest of the planet became increasingly dense and intricate, the idea of the rural Midwest as a steadfast heartland became a stronger and more stubbornly immovable myth.
I’m speaking to Hoganson today, who is author of the book The Heartland: An American History. She tracks both the backstory of this region and the evolution of the idea of an unalloyed heart at the center of the land.

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How Hollywood First Depicted the Atomic Bomb and the Manhattan Project Jul 21, 2020

Soon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called “the most important story” he would ever film: a big budget dramatization of the Manhattan Project and the invention and use of the revolutionary new weapon.
Over at Paramount, Hal B. Wallis was ramping up his own film version. His screenwriter: the novelist Ayn Rand, who saw in physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer the model for a character she was sketching for Atlas Shrugged.
Today’s guest is Greg Mitchell’s, author of “The Beginning or the End,” and we discuss the first efforts of American media and culture to process the Atomic Age. A movie that began as a cautionary tale inspired by atomic scientists aiming to warn the world against a nuclear arms race would be drained of all impact due to revisions and retakes ordered by President Truman and the military—for reasons of propaganda, politics, and petty human vanity (this was Hollywood, after all).

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A Time of Perfect American National Unity is a Myth, But Some US Origin Stories Are Better Than Others Jul 16, 2020

The cherished idea of United States as a unified country has been long believed. But today’s guest Colin Woodard argues that this is an invented tradition. He has argued for the existence of 11 separate stateless nations within the United States, where rival cultures explain the history, identity, and voting behaviors of the United States. At least 5 explanations for American ideology have existed, from Manifest Destiny to Frederick Douglas's civic nationalism. However, there is a vision of American that can bring us all together.
In his new book “Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood,” he examines how the myth of our national unity was created and fought over by five men—George Bancroft, William Gilmore Simms, Frederick Douglass, Woodrow Wilson, and Frederick Jackson Turner—and how it continues to affect us today.
If we’ve never been one America, but several, then where did the narrative of United States nationhood come from? Who came up with it, when, and why? How did it come to be accepted and at what point did it succeed in concealing the fragmented reality? In the 19th and early 20th century, a small group of individuals—historians, political leaders, and novelists—fashioned a history that attempted to erase the fundamental differences and profound tensions between the nation’s regional cultures. These men were creating the idea of an American nation instead of a union of disparate states—but their rosy vision was immediately contested by another set of intellectuals who claimed that if we are a nation at all, it is an ethno-state belonging to the allegedly superior Anglo-Saxon race. This concept eventually morphed into white supremacy and ethno-nationalism in people like Woodrow Wilson.
The fight continues today but there are narratives that could unite all of us and that's what we'll discuss today.

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40 Thieves on Saipan: The Elite Marine Scout-Snipers in One of WWII’s Bloodiest Battles Jul 14, 2020

Before there were Navy SEALs, before there were Green Berets, there were the 40 Thieves: the elite Scout Sniper Platoon of the Sixth Marine Regiment during World War II.
Behind enemy lines on the island of Saipan—where firing a gun could mean instant discovery and death—the 40 Thieves killed in silence during the grueling battle for Saipan, the "D-Day" of the Pacific.
Now Joseph Tachovsky—today's guest and whose father Frank was the commanding officer of the 40 Thieves, also called "Tachovsky's Terrors"—joins with award-winning author Cynthia Kraack to transport readers back to the brutal Battle of Saipan.
World War 2 Marines were the poorest equipped branch of the services at that time, and they were notorious thieves. To improve their odds for victory against the Japanese, they found it necessary to improve their supply chains through “Marine Methods,” stealing. Being the elite of the Sixth Regiment, the Scout-Sniper Platoon excelled at the craft—earning them the nickname of the “40 Thieves” from their envious peers. Upon returning from a 1943 trip to the Pacific theater, Eleanor Roosevelt observed, “The Marines I have met around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marines.”

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George Washington’s Team of Rivals: How His Cabinet Forefathered One of America’s Most Powerful Institutions Jul 09, 2020

The U.S. Constitution never established a presidential cabinet—the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government?
On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the U.S. Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Washington was on his own.
Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help lacking—Washington decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to. He modeled his new cabinet on the councils of war he had led as commander of the Continental Army. In the early days, the cabinet served at the president’s pleasure. Washington tinkered with its structure throughout his administration, at times calling regular meetings, at other times preferring written advice and individual discussions.
Todays guest, Lindsay M. Chervinsky, author of the book The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, reveals the far-reaching consequences of Washington’s choice. The tensions in the cabinet between Hamilton and Jefferson heightened partisanship and contributed to the development of the first party system. And as Washington faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body to summon as needed, greatly expanding the role of the president and the executive branch.

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Lessons From James Monroe, Who Defeated a Pandemic and Overcame Partisanship Jul 07, 2020

James Monroe, America’s fifth president and the last chief executive of the Founding Father generation, lived a life defined by revolutions. From the battlefields of the War for Independence, to his ambassadorship in Paris in the days of the guillotine, to his own role in the creation of Congress's partisan divide, he was a man who embodied the restless spirit of the age. He was never one to back down from a fight, whether it be with Alexander Hamilton, with whom he nearly engaged in a duel (prevented, ironically, by Aaron Burr), or George Washington, his hero turned political opponent.
Today’s guest, Tim McGrath, author of James Monroe: A life, discusses the epic sweep of Monroe’s life: his near-death wounding at Trenton and a brutal winter at Valley Forge; his pivotal negotiations with France over the Louisiana Purchase; his deep, complex friendships with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; his valiant leadership when the British ransacked the nation’s capital and burned down the Executive Mansion; and Monroe’s lifelong struggle to reckon with his own complicity in slavery. Elected the fifth president of the United States in 1816, this fiercest of partisans sought to bridge divisions and sow unity, calming turbulent political seas and inheriting Washington's mantle of placing country above party. Over his two terms, Monroe transformed the nation, strengthening American power both at home and abroad.

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Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men’s Epic Duel to Rule the World Jul 02, 2020

At the dawn of the twentieth century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany's Count von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world's first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the wondrous airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades in the quest to control one of humanity's most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship--not the airplane--that would lead the way.
In the glittery 1920s, the count's brilliant protégé, Hugo Eckener, achieved undreamt-of feats of daring and skill, including the extraordinary round-the-world voyage of the Graf Zeppelin. What Charles Lindbergh almost died doing--crossing the Atlantic in 1927--Eckener effortlessly accomplished three years before the Spirit of St. Louis even took off.
I'm talking to Alexander Rose, author of the new book “Empires of the Sky,” which gets into this story. Even as the Nazis sought to exploit Zeppelins for their own nefarious purposes, Eckener built his masterwork, the behemoth Hindenburg--a marvel of design and engineering. Eckener met his match in Juan Trippe, the ruthlessly ambitious king of Pan American Airways, who believed his fleet of next-generation planes would vanquish Eckener's coming airship armada. It was a fight only one man--and one technology--could win. Countering each other's moves on the global chessboard, each seeking to wrest the advantage from his rival, the two men's struggle for mastery of the air was not only the clash of technologies, but of business, diplomacy, politics, personalities, and their vastly different dreams of the future.

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Nazis Nearly Assassinated Stalin, Churchill, and FDR in 1943. What If They Had Succeeded? Jun 30, 2020

In the middle of World War II, Nazi military intelligence discovered a seemingly easy way to win the war for Adolf Hitler. The three heads of the Allied forces—Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin—were planning to meet in Iran in October 1943. Under Hitler's personal direction, the Nazis launched “Operation Long Jump,” an intricate plan to track the Allied leaders in Tehran and assassinate all three men at the same time. “I suppose it would make a pretty good haul if they could get all three of us,” Roosevelt later said. The plan failed, but what if it had succeeded?
Perhaps some good could have come out of it, namely a less brutal Soviet premier who killed millions. But many frightening scenarios also emerge, such as an American-Soviet pact against Europe, or a Cold War that goes hot in the 1950s. In the infinite alternate timelines that include a successful assassination of theBig Three, most of them are bad.

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In the 1850s, A Mormon Renegade Started a Massive Pirate Colony in Michigan Jun 25, 2020

In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer and avowed atheist, vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a burgeoning religious movement known as Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect’s leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor, and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king.
From this stronghold he controlled a fourth of the state of Michigan, establishing a pirate colony where he practiced plural marriage and perpetrated thefts, corruption, and frauds of all kinds. Eventually, having run afoul of powerful enemies, including the American president, Strang was assassinated, an event that was frontpage news across the country.
Today’s guest is Miles Harvey, author of “The King of Confidence.” Centering his narrative on this charlatan’s turbulent twelve years in power, Strang’s story gets into a crucial period of antebellum history and an account of one of the country’s boldest con men and the boisterous era that allowed him to thrive.

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The Good Assassin: A Mossad Agent's Hunt For WW2’s “Butcher of Latvia” Jun 23, 2020

Before World War II, Herbert Cukurs was a famous figure in his small Latvian city, the “Charles Lindbergh of his country.” But by 1945, he was the Butcher of Latvia, a man who murdered some thirty thousand Latvian Jews. Somehow, he dodged the Nuremberg trials, fleeing to South America after war’s end.
By 1965, as a statute of limitations on all Nazi war crimes threatened to expire, Germany sought to welcome previous concentration camp commanders, pogrom leaders, and executioners, as citizens. The global pursuit of Nazi criminals escalated to beat the looming deadline, and Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency, joined the cause. Yaakov Meidad, the brilliant Mossad agent who had kidnapped Adolf Eichmann three years earlier, led the mission to assassinate Cukurs in a desperate bid to block the amnesty. In a thrilling undercover operation unrivaled by even the most ambitious spy novels, Meidad traveled to Brazil in an elaborate disguise, befriended Cukurs and earned his trust, while negotiations over the Nazi pardon neared a boiling point.
Today’s guest, Stephan Talty, is author of The Good Assassin, which uncovers this little-known chapter of Holocaust history and the undercover operation that brought Cukurs to justice.

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Death From Above - How Paratroopers Evolved From a WW1 Pipe Dream To A Key Part of Combined-Arms Assault Jun 18, 2020

“Paratroopers are about the most peculiar breed of human beings I have ever witnessed. They treat their service as if it were some kind of cult, plastering their emblem on almost everything they own, making themselves up to look like insane fanatics with haircuts to ungentlemanly lengths, worshiping their units almost as if they were a God, and making weird animal noises like a band of savages... [but] generally speaking, the United States Paratroopers I’ve come in contact with are the most professional soldiers and the finest men I have ever had the pleasure to meet.”
This unattributed quote sums up the unique role that paratroopers have played in the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries. With the invention of the airplane, military strategists imaged troops clinging to the wings of Wright Bros. flyers and landing in enemy trenches. Such plans never came to fruition, but technical advances made it possible to drops thousands of soldiers with reasonable safety and accuracy. During WW2, Nazi Germany's paratroopers (Fallschirmjäger) had incredible success in Norway and the Netherlands and even rescued Benito Mussolini in a commando mission. Over 22,000 of them were dropped on Crete. Allied paratroopers famously landed in France on the eve of D-Day, making Operation Overlord a possibility.
In this episode, we look at the origins of paratrooping, its function in war, and how it was part of the evolution of military strategy in the 20 century, in which different combat arms were integrated to achieve complementary effects.

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Want to Star Your Own Nation? That's What a Family Did in 1967 When it Created "Sealand" Jun 16, 2020

In 1967, a retired army major and self-made millionaire named Paddy Roy Bates cemented his family's place in history when he inaugurated himself ruler of the Principality of Sealand, a tiny dominion of the high seas. And so began the peculiar story of the world's most stubborn micronation on a World War II anti-aircraft gun platform off the British coast.
Today’s guest, Dylan Taylor-Lehman tells us the story of Sealand, a raucous tale of how a rogue adventurer seized the disused Maunsell Sea Fort from pirate radio broadcasters, settled his eccentric family on it, and defended their tiny kingdom from UK government officials and armed mercenaries for half a century. There were battles and schemes as Roy and his crew engaged with diplomats, entertained purveyors of pirate radio and TV, and even thwarted an attempted coup that saw the Prince Regent taken hostage. Incredibly, more than fifty years later, the self-proclaimed independent nation still stands--replete with its own constitution, national flag and anthem, currency, and passports.
But Sealand is more than a quirky story. It hearkens back to the conquistadors who wanted to carve out their own sovereign nations and looks to the future of libertarian billionaires who want to build their own floating micronation of their own.

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Why the Galileo Affair is One of History's Most Misunderstood Events Jun 11, 2020

One of the most misconstrued events in history is the Galileo affair. It is commonly understood as a black-and-white morality play of science vs. religion. Galileo proves the Sun is the center of the solar system but the reactionary medieval Catholic Church is scandalized by somebody questioning their geocentric model. They imprison and torture the “heretic.” Other scientists are afraid to speak up against this oppressive regime.
The real story is much more complicated. There were churchmen on both sides of the geocentric/heliocentric debate. Galileo did not conclusively prove the heliocentric model (that didn’t come until long after his death). And much of the reason that the Catholic Church ordered his house imprisonment (not torture) was that Galileo slyly made fun of the pope in one of his writings.
Today’s guest is astrophysicist Mario Livio, author of the book “Galileo and the Science Deniers.” We get into the trial, the immediate aftermath, and the legacy that the trial has today. Livio began researching the life, ideas, and actions of Galileo; his life is filled with lessons relevant for today—whether with respect to trusting the advice given by scientists in relation to COVID-19 or any other matter of public importance.

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Henry Knox's Noble Train: How a Boston Bookseller’s Expedition Saved the American Revolution Jun 09, 2020

During the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling sixty tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some three hundred miles south and east over frozen, often-treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first major victory for the Colonial Army.
William Hazelgrove, author of “Henry Knox’s Noble Train,” joins us today to discuss one of the great stories of the American Revolution, still little known by comparison with the more famous battles of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. At this time, the ragtag American rebels were in a desperate situation. Washington's army was withering away from desertion and expiring enlistments. Typhoid fever, typhus, and dysentery were taking a terrible toll. There was little hope of dislodging British General Howe and his 20,000 British troops in Boston--until Henry Knox arrived with his supply convoy of heavy armaments. Firing down on the city from the surrounding Dorchester Heights, these weapons created a decisive turning point. An act of near desperation fueled by courage, daring, and sheer tenacity led to a tremendous victory for the cause of independence.

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Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul Jun 04, 2020

On the eve of the 1948 election, America was a fractured country. Racism was rampant, foreign relations were fraught, and political parties were more divided than ever. Americans were certain that President Harry S. Truman’s political career was over. “The ballots haven’t been counted,” noted political columnist Fred Othman, “but there seems to be no further need for holding up an affectional farewell to Harry Truman.” Truman’s own staff did not believe he could win. Nor did his wife, Bess. The only man in the world confident that Truman would win was Mr. Truman himself. And win he did.
How did he do it? A confluence of factors that resemble those of today. According to A.J. Baime, today's guest and author of Dewey Defeats Truman, 1948 was a fight for the soul of a nation. We discuss some of most action-packed six months in American history, as Truman not only triumphs, but oversees watershed events—the passing of the Marshall plan, the acknowledgment of Israel as a new state, the careful attention to the origins of the Cold War, and the first desegregation of the military.
Not only did Truman win the election, but he also succeeded in guiding his country forward at a critical time with high stakes and haunting parallels to the modern day.

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History’s First Global Manhunt: The Search for 18th Century Pirate Henry Every Jun 02, 2020

Most confrontations, viewed from the wide angle of history, are minor disputes, sparks that quickly die out. But every now and then, someone strikes a match that lights up the whole planet.
That idea applies to Henry Every, the seventeenth century’s most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular—and wildly inaccurate—reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But today’s guest Steven Johnson argues that Every’s most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a major shift in the global economy. He's the author of the new book "Enemy of All Mankind," which focuses on one key event—the attack on an Indian treasure ship by Every and his crew—and its surprising repercussions across time and space. It’s the tale one of the most lucrative crimes in history, the first international manhunt, and the trial of the seventeenth century.
Johnson uses the story of Henry Every and his crimes to explore the emergence of the East India Company, the British Empire, and the modern global marketplace: a densely interconnected planet ruled by nations and corporations. How did this unlikely pirate and his notorious crime end up playing a key role in the birth of multinational capitalism?

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History's Most Insane Rulers, Part 5: Ludwig II of Bavaria May 28, 2020

Ludwig II of Bavaria was a dreamer, above all. The king famously built fairy-tale style castles that adorned the Alps but were completely useless for defensive or social reasons (the king held large balls there where he was the only attendee and dined alone, maintaining conversations with his imaginary friends, Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette).
Lesser known about him, but equally odd, he went on high-speed midnight sleigh rides through the Alps, with him and his party dresses in full costume. His nocturnal behavior became legend among Alpine villagers. He woke up each evening at seven o'clock, lunched at midnight, ate his supper in the early morning, and went on strange adventures in the interim. Ludwig sometimes spent the entire night riding around the Court Riding School in Munich. At the halfway stage he would dismount and have a picnic, even in the foulest weather. Once he stopped in the middle of a blizzard, telling his servants that they were in fact at an ocean resort beneath the shining sun. Other times he dressed as French King Louis XIV, wore the state crown, and carried a scepter. The party then continued until reaching whatever goal existed in his imagination.

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History's Most Insane Rulers, Part 4: George III May 26, 2020

Americans might have been tempted to schadenfreude after learning the fate of British King George III. The villain of the American Revolution spent the final years of his life insane, having long arguments with imaginary figures who had died long ago (and often losing those arguments). He experienced five extended bouts of madness in his life, with the final one lasting until his death in 1820. They consisted of anxiety, hallucinations, insomnia, and manic and depressive periods. During this time George suffered from poor medical care designed to cure his madness but only worsened it. Medicine was in a primitive state at the time, and his physicians did not know that treatments such as blistering, binding him in a straight jacket, chaining him to a chair, or prescribing high doses of arsenic would damage his mental state.

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History's Most Insane Rulers, Part 3: Ibrahim I -- The Sultan Who Loved Fur and Drowned His Harem May 21, 2020

Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim (1616-1648) believed he was the sort of ruler that came out of legend, so he ordered a massive tax to fund the decoration of his palace in sable fur. He also preferred full-figured women and commissioned his advisers to find for him the largest woman in his realm. Such a woman was found; she weighted over three hundred pounds, an enormous size in the seventeenth century. How did somebody like this become sultan? Because he was born a prisoner.
Ibrahim spent the first two decades of his life in “The Cage,” a harem quarter of the palace designed to imprison Ottoman princes and prevent them from scheming to capture the sultanate. Ibrahim never left the palace grounds until he became sultan himself in his twenties. In both periods of his life the fear of political assassination relentlessly haunted him. Paranoia and seclusion damaged his sanity, which broke completely when he ascended the throne. As a narcissistic hedonist who put his own pleasure before the needs of the empire, the harm that Ibrahim caused in his eight-year reign drained state coffers, alienated the military and political classes, led to a disastrous war with the rival Republic of Venice, and nearly brought down the House of Osman, the dynasty that had ruled the Ottoman Empire for over three hundred years.

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History's Most Insane Rulers, Part 2: Charles VI -- The King Who Thought He Was Made of Glass May 19, 2020

King Charles VI of France (1368-1422) suffered from a particular disorder called "The Glass Delusion." He believed himself to be made of glass and could shatter at any moment. Advisors were told to tiptoe toward him and not wear shoes. He refused bathing for extended periods so as not to fracture.
Fate was unkind to Charles VI. He began well; the king was known in his early reign as le Bien-Aimé (the well-beloved) for his generous and affable character. He cared for the welfare of France's commoners and even allowed non-aristocrats among his counselors. But France experienced the worst decades in its history during his reign. During his forty years as king, the Hundred Years War raged on, and France continually lost battles and land holdings to England; his subjects killed in massive numbers through war, disease, and civil disorder. Forced to cede power to the English, and even to members of his family, Charles managed to survive multiple assassination attempts, but many of his advisors were not so fortunate. France's decades of decline culminated in its disastrous defeat to the English at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, which named an English king as the rightful successor to the French throne. Suffering through all this hardship, his sanity finally cracked and broke. No longer called le Bien-Aimé, after his death Charles was referred to le Fol (the mad).

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History's Most Insane Rulers, Part 1: Emperor Caligula--Bankrupting Rome By Appointing Your Horse Senator May 14, 2020

When Salvador Dali set out to paint a depiction of the infamous Roman Emperor Caligula in 1971, he chose to depict the thing nearest and dearest to the emperor's heart: his favorite racehorse, Incitatus. The painting “Le Cheval de Caligula” shows the pampered pony in all his royal glory. It is wearing a bejeweled crown and clothed in purple blankets and a collar of precious stones. While the gaudy clothing of the horse is historically correct, the Spanish surrealist artist managed perhaps for the only time to understate the strangeness of his subject matter.
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Caligula) was born in 12 A.D. and reigned from 37-41. He was the first emperor with no memory of the pre-Augustan era, that is, before emperors were deified—and had no compunction about being worshipped as a god. As the object of a cultus, the boy emperor believed in his own semi-divine status and saw no reason not to follow whatever strange desire entered his mind, such as treating his horse better than royalty. The Roman historian Suetonius writes that he gave the horse eighteen servants, a marble stable, an ivory manger, and rich red robes. He demanded that it be fed oats mixed with flex of gold and wine delivered in fine goblets. Dignitaries bowed and tolerated Incitatus as a guest of honor at banquets. Caligula repeatedly mocked the system of imperial decorum in Roman upper crust society in incidents such as these. His actions led to his violent death at the hands of political rivals.

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These Are History's Nine Most Insane Rulers May 12, 2020

Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity. When nothing stands between a leader's delusional whims and seeing them carried out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible.
This is the beginning of a series launch in tandem with Scott's new book "History's Nine Most Insane Rulers." We will look at the lives of the nine most mentally unbalanced figures in history. Some suffered from genetic disorders that led to schizophrenia, such as French King Charles VI, who thought he was made of glass. Others believed themselves to be God’s representatives on earth and wrote religious writings that they guaranteed to the reader would get them into heaven, even if these leaders were barely literate.
Whether it is Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I practicing archery on palace servants or Turkmenistan president-for-life Akhbar Turkmenbashi renaming the days of the week after himself and constructing an 80-foot-tall golden statue that revolves to face the sun, crazed leaders have plagued society for millennia.
While such stories are amusing, this book also contemplates the addictive nature of power and the effects it has on those who cling to it for too long. It explores how leaders can undertake the extraordinarily complicated job of leading a country without their full mental faculties and sometimes manage to be moderately successful. It examines why society tolerates their actions for so long and even attempts to put a facade of normalcy on rulers, despite everyone knowing that they are mentally unstable. The book also explores if insane rulers are a relic of the age of monarchs and will die out in the age of democracy, or if they will continue to plague nations in the twenty-first century.
Finally, as many armchair psychologists question the mental health of Donald Trump and other populist politicians in the United States and Europe, all but diagnosing them with mental illness, this book sets to show that truly insane rulers are categorically different in the ways they endanger their population.

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D-Day Girls: The Female Spies Who Armed the French Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Made the Normandy Invasion Possible May 07, 2020

In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To “set Europe ablaze,” in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France.
I’m talking with Sarah Rose, author of, D-Day Girls about the stories of three of these remarkable women. There’s Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE’s unflappable “queen.” Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence—laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war.

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How Economies Bounce Back From Total Collapse: The German Economic Miracle (1948-1957) May 05, 2020

After World War II the German economy was a smoldering ruin. Scorched-earth policies destroyed 20-70% of all houses. Factories, hospitals, and schools were bomb craters. Germans only ate 1,000-1500 calories a day. There was no food in the stores because price controls disincentivized shop keepers and farmers to sell anywhere except the black market.
But something happened in 1948 that changed everything. Revolutionary market changes were introduced by Minister of Economics Ludwig Erhard that overnight caused stores to re-open, factories to fire up, and delivery trucks to clog the streets. In a year, food production and domestic output skyrocketed. By 1950, journalists spoke of a Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). By the 1960s, West Germany’s economy was envied by most of the world and had surpassed struggling Great Britain.
In today’s episode, we look at how economies manage to rebuilt after total devastation. How do you rebuild a factory when the roads are blown up, there are no materials available to make it, and hyperinflation has made the money so worthless that nobody will hire you? How do you restart a nation’s economic engine when there are no parts? The example of Western Germany is a good answer to many of these questions.

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Discovering Your Grandfather Was Joseph Stalin's Bodyguard Apr 30, 2020

Delving into your family history can reveal many surprises, but for Russian-American author Alex Halberstadt, it meant learning about his grandfather's experience as Joseph Stalin's bodyguard.
As the last living member of Stalin's security revenue, his grandfather, who lives in Ukraine, spoke of the fear of coming to work every day with the possibility you could be executed in a purge. Halberstad also revisits Lithuania, his Jewish mother’s home, to examine the legacy of the Holocaust and the pernicious anti-Semitism that remains largely unaccounted for. And he returns to his birthplace, Moscow, where his grandmother designed homespun couture for Soviet ministers’ wives, his mother consoled dissidents at a psychiatric hospital, and his father made a dangerous living by selling black-market American records
His book, Young Heroes of the Soviet Union, is an investigation into the fragile boundary between history and biography. As Halberstadt revisits the sites of his family’s formative traumas, he uncovers a multigenerational transmission of fear, suffering, and rage. And he comes to realize something more: Nations, like people, possess formative traumas that penetrate into the most private recesses of their citizens’ lives.

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A Confederate Civil War Submarine Was Lost 150 Years Ago. Its Reappearance Was An Unsolved Mystery...Until Now Apr 28, 2020

One of the most mysterious submarine disasters in history was the sinking of the HL Hunley, a Confederate Civil War submarine. This 40-foot-long tin can was the first to successfully attack another ship—but the results were as disastrous as they were historic. Shortly after its torpedo exploded, the Hunley disappeared off the coast of Charleston. The mystery of what happened to the Hunley and its crewmembers persisted for over a century, until the sub was finally recovered in 2000. But the discovery of the sub only led to a more puzzling mystery—the skeletons of all eight crew members were found in the cramped interior, each seated at their stations with no indication they ever tried to escape.
Those mysterious deaths piqued the interest of today’s guest Rachel Lance, the leading underwater blast trauma specialist in North America, who found the case so fascinating that she banked her PhD career on solving it. Lance, the author of the new book In the Waves, provides a definitive answer to what happened to the submarine and its crew on that fateful night. During three years of investigation, she went through archives, delved into previously unknown aspects of blast and shock science and built her own mini-submarine and explosives.

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Reconstruction: America’s Terrible National Hangover After the Civil War Apr 23, 2020

After the massive devastation and scorched earth wartime methods of the Civil War, America tried to rebuild itself. This era was known as Reconstruction and lasted from 1865 to 1877. Many hoped at the beginning that the South would peacefully re-enter the Union, slaves would enjoy full liberty as American citizens, and the United States would emerge stronger.
It didn’t. Reconstruction showed that many of the divisions in the United States were as wide as ever. Thousands of freed slaves were not accepted anywhere and arrested on charges of vagrancy. Others died of disease or starvation. Radical Republicans sought citizenship full legal equality of black Americans, while Southerners sought segregation and white supremacy.
But despite the challenges, many former slaves said all that mattered was freedom. Rachel Adams of Georgia summed up the feeling of many formerly enslaved people when she said she could “live on just bread and water as long” as she was free. The men, women, and children who emerged from bondage built schools, developed communities and “made a way out of no way.”

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The Lincoln Assassination: Did John Wilkes Booth Act Alone Or Was it a Confederacy-Ordered Hit? Apr 21, 2020

Everyone thinks they know what happened at the Lincoln assassination… but do they? After 150 years, a multitude of unsolved mysteries and urban legends still surround the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Today's guest is Robert Hutchinson, author of the book "What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination." He takes a new look at the case and explores what really happened at Ford’s Theatre on the night of April 14, 1865. In those final weeks of the Civil War, Washington was boiling over with animosity and recriminations.
Among the questions Hutchinson explores are:
• Did the Confederacy have a hand in the assassination plot?
• Who were John Wilkes Booth’s secret accomplices, and why did he change the
plan from kidnapping to assassination?
• Why was it so easy for Booth to enter the president’s box at Ford’s Theatre?

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Japan Developed an Atomic Bomb in WW2. It Laid the Groundwork for North Korea's Nuclear Program Apr 16, 2020

Japan’s WWII development of a nuclear program is not universally known. But after decades of research into national intelligence archives both in the US and abroad, today’s guest Robert Wilcox builds on his earlier accounts and provides the most detailed account available of the creation of Japan’s version of our own Manhattan Project—from the project’s inception before America’s entry into WWII, to the possible detonation of a nuclear device in 1945 in present-day North Korea.
Wilcox, author of Japan's Secret War, weaves a portrait of the secret giant industrial complex in northern Korea where Japan’s atomic research and testing culminated. And it is there that North Korea, following the Japanese defeat, salvaged what remained of the complex and fashioned its own nuclear program. This program puts not only Japan, but also its allies, including the US, in jeopardy.

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The Celebrity Power Couple Who Mapped the West and Helped Cause the Civil War Apr 14, 2020

John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, became America’s first great political couple.
John C. Frémont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age – known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States’s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation’s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all possible: his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont.
I’m talking with Steve Inskeep, NPR host and author of the new book Imperfect Union. He writes howvJessie, the daughter of a United States senator who was deeply involved in the West, provided her husband with entrée to the highest levels of government and media, and his career reached new heights only a few months after their elopement. During a time when women were allowed to make few choices for themselves, Jessie – who herself aspired to roles in exploration and politics – threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. She worked to carefully edit and publicize his accounts of his travels, attracted talented young men to his circle, and lashed out at his enemies. She became her husband’s political adviser, as well as a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party.
Taking advantage of expanding news media, aided by an increasingly literate public, the two linked their names to the three great national movements of the time—westward settlement, women’s rights, and opposition to slavery. Together, John and Jessie Frémont took parts in events that defined the country and gave rise to a new, more global America. Theirs is a surprisingly modern tale of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of social and technological disruption and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own.

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Nazi Super Science: The Third Reich's Plans for Transatlantic Bombers, Atomic Weapons, and Orbital Death Rays Apr 09, 2020

Fiction abounds with stories of Nazi Superscience: From Captain America's nemesis Red Skull to the B-movie treasure Iron Sky (which suggests the Third Reich established a moon base after the war). But the trope is based in some fact. Nazis did aggressively research cutting edge weapons to turn the tide of a war they were increasingly losing. Some weapons, such as the V2 rocket, did see production and terrorized the Allies. Others were advanced but impractical, such as 1000-ton tanks. Still others existed completely in the realm of science fiction, such as an orbital mirror that could focus enough solar energy to create a laser that could incinerate a city or fry an ocean.

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Why Dan Carlin Believes That The End is Always Near Apr 07, 2020

With the endless talk of COVID-19, many think we are facing an unprecedented threat of the collapse of our civilization. But Dan Carlin, host of Hardcore History, doesn’t believe anything we are facing is unprecedented. He’s spent years looking at apocalyptic moments from the past as a way to understand the challenges of the future.
Dan joins us on today’s episode to discuss some of the biggest questions in history. Do tough times create tougher people? Can humanity handle the power of its weapons without destroying itself? Will human technology or capabilities ever peak or regress? Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore? The questions themselves are both philosophical and like something out of The Twilight Zone.
We go all over the place in this episode, from the collapse of the Bronze Age to the challenges of the nuclear era the issue, which has hung over humanity like a persistent Sword of Damocles. But just as he does on his own show, Dan manages to make the most complicated stories engaging and entertaining.

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American Sherlock -- Meet The 1920s Forensic Scientist Who Created Modern CSI Apr 02, 2020

Before the 1900s, solving a murder was done using conjectural theories or flimsy psychological notions of what makes a killer a killer. That all changed with the development of forensic techniques employed at crime scenes, but few know the origin story of these now taken-for-granted methods of solving murders and other misdeeds.
It all changed with the revolutionary contributions of Edward Oscar Heinrich who pioneered many of the forensic techniques used today. Today’s guest is Kate Dawson, author of the book American Sherlock, who gives Heinrich his due with an account of his work on some of the most perplexing and notorious cases of the first half of the twentieth century. The press at the time dubbed Edward Oscar Heinrich ‘America’s Sherlock Holmes’ thanks to his brilliance in the lab, his cool demeanor at crime scenes, and his expertise in the witness chair. He invented new forensic techniques. A CSI in the field and inside the lab before the acronym existed. And he was a nascent innovator of criminal profiling fifty years before the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit invented its methodology.
Never a member of a police force, Heinrich was brought in to consult on many high profile cases, including the legendary rape and manslaughter trial of movie comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (a case the prosecution ultimately lost when the jury neglected to accept Heinrich’s finger print evidence). Bloodstain pattern analysis, ballistics, the use of UV rays to detect blood, hair and fiber evidence, handwriting analysis—all were virtually unheard of methods that Heinrich employed to bring criminals to justice. Often the cutting-edge techniques that Heinrich engaged in the lab and brought to the courtroom as an expert witness would rile the authorities, even as they galvanized the public.
Edward Oscar Heinrich quietly and unassumingly offered a revolutionary approach—the immutable proof that science and reason could provide to the thrilling, often messy world of crime solving.

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How Does a Nation Have an Identity When Its People Speak Different Languages? Ask Canada (Quebec Specifically) Mar 31, 2020

A listener named Liam requested an episode looking at a deep dive into his hometown of Montreal and how it came to be a center of commerce and culture in North America. We’ll do that, but rather than talk about historical buildings and fountains (and other facts you'd find in a Frommers Guide) we’ll look way deeper and see how Montreal was a cultural powerhouse in its long history, everything from an underground railroad destination to a Prohibition-era hot spot with jazz clubs and cabarets, all the way up to its present-day status as a bilingual mecca.

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Scott's Book "History's 9 Most Insane Rulers" Launch Update and Bonus Offer Mar 30, 2020

Go to www.historyunpluggedpodcast.com to learn about Scott's new upcoming book "History's 9 Most Insane Rulers" and how you can get exclusive content.

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How the Florida of the Roaring 20s Created Modern America and Triggered the Great Depression Mar 26, 2020

The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The decade there produced the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West, as millions flocked to the grand hotels and the new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. The boom spawned a new subdivision civilization—and the most egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Nowhere was the glitz and froth of the Roaring Twenties more excessive than in Florida. Here was Vegas before there was a Vegas: gambling was condoned and so was drinking, since prohibition was not enforced. Tycoons, crooks, and celebrities arrived en masse to promote or exploit this new and dazzling American frontier in the sunshine. Yet, the import and deep impact of these historical events have never been explored thoroughly until now.
Today's guest is Christopher Knowlton, author of Bubble in the Sun. He discusses the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy. For while giant fortunes were being made and lost and the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else, the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination and the workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom, endured grievous abuses.
Knowlton discusses the forces that made and wrecked Florida during the decade: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century hurricane whose aftermath triggered the stock market crash.

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History Has Lots of Great Ideas About What To Do During a Quarantine Mar 24, 2020

Quarantines are nothing new: they've been used since at least the Bronze Age to prevent the spread of leprosy. In this episode (rebroadcasted from a Facebook Livestream), we'll look at the various ways that humans rode out the plague and other disease.
Some panicked, like the Flagellators during the Black Death. But others took advantage of the time and bunkered down with friends, taking long walks, enjoying delicious meals, and each telling stories (like in the Italian Renaissance work "The Decameron"). Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV retreated to his rural estates and went on long hunting trips when the bubonic plague struck Istanbul. Shakespeare took the opportunity to write poetry, and Isaac Newton invented physics.
Hopefully this will give us plenty of ideas of what to do as we ride out COVID-19.

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The Civil War in the American West: When Multi-Racial Armies Fought Over Gold Mines and Indian Lands Mar 19, 2020

When people think of the American Civil War, specific images spring to mind—Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Scarlett O’Hara escaping a burning Atlanta in a hoop skirt, and blue and grey uniforms clashing on bloodied battlefields. The war is well researched, but there is still the little-known, yet still vastly important, history of the Civil War in the American West.
I’m talking today with Megan Kate Nelson, author of The Three Cornered-War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West. Both the Union and Confederacy had their eyes on the prize that was the American West; making up more than 40 percent of the United States landmass, the territory would give whoever controlled it access to gold and Pacific ports. For the North, it was also imperative to protect its interests in New Mexico in particular, since that territory was not only the gateway to Southern California, but it also shared a border with the Confederacy, making it vulnerable to invasion by pro-slavery forces. As Nelson explains, the battles that took place in the region “illuminate the ways that the Southwest became a pivotal theater of the Civil War and the center of a larger struggle for the future of the nation, of Native peoples, and of the West.”
The Western Theatre saw the complex interplay between the Civil War, the Indian wars, and western expansion, reframing this struggle as a truly national conflict. Today’s political conflicts over immigration have created chaos along the Southwest’s border with Mexico. This region has long been a site of contention, however—a place in which struggles for power have sparked armed conflict and determined federal policies regarding who, exactly, is an American.

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St. Patrick Didn't Get Rid of Any Snakes, But He Is The Patron Saint of Exterminators Mar 17, 2020

Nearly 1,600 years after Patrick arrived on Ireland (first as a slave, then as a missionary who brought Christianity to the island), he is celebrated as the patron saint of the Emerald Isle and apocryphally believed to have eliminated snakes from the island (which he didn't, but the belief makes sense if you replace snakes with pre-Christian paganistic beliefs).
But what exactly are patron saints? Why is a deceased man or woman somebody who receives prayers related to travel, taxes, marriage, and telling a joke? To sort out these questions, we are joined by Michael Foley a three-time guest and a Professor of Patristics in the Great Texts Program at Baylor University in Texas.
But more than tell us about the history of patron saints, Michael includes his stories with mixology, making drinks dedicated to these men and women of the cloth. Michael is author of the new book Drinking with Your Patron Saints: The Sinner’s Guide to Honoring Namesakes and Protectors. Have a problem with the IRS? Pray to St. Matthew and mix up a classic Income Tax cocktail to toast the tax collector apostle. Afraid of a snake in your basement? Imbibe an Irish whiskey and ask St. Patrick for his extermination advice. Wish there were better choices for political candidates? Plead with St. Thomas More, who presides over statesmen, as you sip on cognac to honor his nobility.

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COVID-19 is Nothing Compared to the 1918 Spanish Flu Mar 12, 2020

COVID19, aka - the coronavirus, has triggered mass quarantines and spooked markets across the globe. To date, over 3,000 have died and over 100,000 infected. But however dangerous this virus ends up being, it doesn't belong in the same galaxy as Spanish Flu, which killed up to 100 million in 1918, which was 5 percent of the earth's population.
Today's guest is Dr. Jeremy Brown, director of emergency care at the National Institute of Health and author of Influenza: The 100-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History. He notes that great strides have been made in medicine the last century, and whatever happens next, it won’t be a second 1918.
We discuss the quarantine methods used in the ancient and medieval worlds during epidemics and pandemics; how the Spanish Flu pandemic began; what it was it like for an average person in 1918 and whether there was an omnipresent fear of death, or were people mostly resigned to their fate; how the Spanish flu pandemic ended; and finally, lessons from 1918 we should heed today.
Here's the bottom line: with coronavirus, you will definitely have it much, much better than your great grandpappy did with Spanish flu.

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The Lost History of James Madison's Black Family Mar 10, 2020

“Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president”
This was Betty Kearse's family motto; a way to remember that they were descended from James Madison, but also Coreen, a slave who worked on the Montpelier plantation whom her descendants believe had a child with the fourth president.
Kearse, a pediatrician and author of the book “The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President's Black Family” talks to us today about her family's 200-year journey from a slave-holding fortress in Ghana, to New York City to a brick walkway at James Madison’s Virginia plantation. In it she tries to reconcile a past that includes Madison, a giant of early America who authored the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, along with the abuses of slavery and rape. It's a complicated story but a critical one to hear to understand the complex origins of the United States.

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The Cold War -- Not WW2 -- Was Arguably the Defining Event of the 20th Century Mar 05, 2020

The Cold War existed vaguely in a fifty-year stretch and lacked the defining moments of a major military conflict. However, there is a strong argument to be made that it defined the 20th century. While most point to World Wars One and Two as the most important events of the century, the institutions that dominate today's nations are by-products of the Cold War: the military-industrial complex, their political systems (whether capitalist, socialist, or something in between), funding for scientific research, and even space programs.
Fundamentally at stake was a question of whether the world would accept the political beliefs of Soviet Union of collectivism and communism, or the principles of economic and political democracy supported by the United States. The Cold War established America as the leader of the free world and a global superpower. It shaped U.S. military strategy, economic policy, and domestic politics for nearly 50 years.
In this episode, we recount the pivotal events of this protracted struggle and explain the strategies that eventually led to its end. This includes the development and implementation of containment, détente, and finally President Reagan's philosophy: "they lose, we win."

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Fight House: Cutthroat White House Rivalries From Truman to Trump Mar 03, 2020

Some American presidents appear to do their jobs in a more organized way than others, but the White House has always been filled with ambitious people playing for the highest stakes and bearing bitter grudges. There is a myth that staffs all compromise and put aside petty differences for the greater good. But behind the scenes, staff members leaked stories to gain an upper hand in policy fights, tried to get each other fired, all while seeking the favor of the president.
Today's guest is presidential historian Tevi Troy, a former White House staffer and author of the new book Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. We discuss the dramatic clashes within both Republican and Democratic administrations as their heavyweight personalities went head-to-head.

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How An American Tank Gunner Successfully Dueled with Panzers in World War Two Feb 27, 2020

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He’s a natural born shooter.
At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible.
Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.
After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art “super tank,” one of twenty in the European theater.
But with it came a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack.
In this episode I'm speaking with Adam Makos, author of “Spearhead.” It's the story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.

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New York Has Been America's Capital of Spying Since the Beginning of the U.S. Feb 25, 2020

If you visit New York, your waiter, your cabbie, or the lady on the train playing Candy Crush could very well not be who they appear to be. That's because there are more spies working in New York City today than ever before, according to H. Keith Melton, the espionage advisor on The Americans, and Robert Wallace, the former chief of the CIA’s Office of Technical Service. But, as today's guests and the authors of the new book Spy Sites of New York City argue, the city has always been a hotbed of international intrigue.
From George Washington's downtown spy ring to Alger Hiss meeting his handler in a Park Slope movie theater to the hundreds of agents using the UN as a cover at this very moment. Espionage is as much a part of the city as honking horns and delayed subways. In this episode we discuss centuries of spying in the five boroughs and beyond, walking the reader through surprising meeting places, secret drop-sites, and the everyday bars, hotels, and park benches where so much shadowy history has been made.

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The 1881 Expedition to Reach Farthest North Led to Starvation, Madness, and Glory Feb 20, 2020

In July 1881, Lt. A.W. Greely and his crew of 24 scientists and explorers were bound for the last region unmarked on global maps. Their goal: Farthest North. What would follow was one of the most extraordinary and terrible voyages ever made.
Greely and his men confronted every possible challenge―vicious wolves, sub-zero temperatures, and months of total darkness―as they set about exploring one of the most remote, unrelenting environments on the planet. In May 1882, they broke the 300-year-old record, and returned to camp to eagerly await the resupply ship scheduled to return at the end of the year. Only nothing came.
250 miles south, a wall of ice prevented any rescue from reaching them. Provisions thinned and a second winter descended. Back home, Greely’s wife worked tirelessly against government resistance to rally a rescue mission.
Today I’m speaking with Buddy Levy, author of “Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition.” We look at this story and what came after: Months passed, and Greely made a drastic choice—he and his men loaded the remaining provisions and tools onto their five small boats, and pushed off into the treacherous waters. After just two weeks, dangerous floes surrounded them. Now new dangers awaited: insanity, threats of mutiny, and cannibalism. As food dwindled and the men weakened, Greely's expedition clung desperately to life.
We discuss the story of the heroic lives and deaths of these voyagers hell-bent on fame and fortune―at any cost―and how their journey changed the world.

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The Terrifying Conquests of Hannibal of Carthage Feb 18, 2020

Hannibal ad portas! The phrase was enough to terrify anyone in the Roman Republic and became an adage for parents to scare their children at nights: “Hannibal is at the gates.” The Carthaginian commander nearly destroyed Rome in the 3rd century BC and posed the republic's greatest threat until the empire collapsed in the fifth century AD. What made the general such a formidable foe? His genius for military strategy, willingness to use any level of violence necessary (Hannibal's religion called for child sacrifice), and clever use of resources.

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The Negro Leagues Made Baseball a Global Sport and Kickstarted the Civil Rights Movement Feb 13, 2020

Many people think the Negro Leagues as a sad, somber part of America's legacy of racial division. In many ways it is, says Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro League Baseball Museum. But on the 100th anniversary of its founding, he stresses that it is moreover a triumphant story about what came out of segregation, and the result was a much richer, stronger country.
It was the Negro Leagues that introduced baseball to Japan and Latin America when black players played in exhibition matches at those places (they went on a goodwill tour to Japan in 1927, years before Babe Ruth and others came, winning the hearts of locals). And, he says, it was the Negro League that kickstarted the Civil Rights Movement by its players breaking the baseball color barrier of the Major Leagues with Jackie Robinson in 1947. This was years before the Birmingham Bus Boycott (1956) or the Freedom Riders (1961).
Today I'm speaking with Kendrick about the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues, which were formed on February 13, 1920, in Kansas City, Missouri. For the next several decades, black players competed on Negro League teams every bit as competent as their white counterparts (Hank Aaron got his start in the Negro Leagues; Joe DiMaggio called Satchel Paige “the best and fastest pitcher I have ever faced.”)
We discuss legends of the sport, such as Buck O'Neil, a first baseman for the Kansas City Monarchs, who became the first black scout for Major League Baseball and was a major player in establishing the museum itself (he was also a fixture on Ken Burns' documentary on baseball).

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The Royal Touch: When British and French Kings Were Thought to Have Healing Powers Feb 11, 2020

“The Hands of the King are the Hands of a Healer” -- this phrase appears in the Lord of the Rings, referring to how Aragorn was identified as the king of Gondor by his healing powers. Tolkien likely based this ability on an actual ceremony in England and France where thousands would gather to be touched by the king and be healed of their illnesses.
From the eleventh to nineteenth centuries, it was believed that a monarch could heal scrofula – called “The King's Evil” – by laying hands on the infected area. The belief of the Royal Touch began in the Middle Ages but survived, and even thrived, well into the Protestant Reformation, when other types of sacramental ceremonies were erased. It was enormously popular with the public. Charles II touch nearly 92,000 during his reign – over 4,500 a year. So many wanted the royal touch that officials demanded the afflicted produce a certificate to prove they had not already received it and were coming back for seconds.
The ritual persisted through very different eras and religious periods because kings and queens all used it to claim that God supported their reign.

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The Worst Gambling Scandal in NCAA History Led to an Unlikely Story of Redemption Feb 06, 2020

The 1949-50 City College Beavers basketball team were incredible underdogs who experienced an incredible rise and subsequent fall from grace. At a time when the National Basketball Association was still segregated, the Beavers team was composed entirely of minority players – eight Jews and four African Americans. In 1950 the City College Beavers became the only basketball team in history to win both the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. But one year later the team’s star players were arrested for conspiring with gamblers to shave points. Overnight the players went from heroes to villains.
Today's guest is Matthew Goodman, author of the book “The City Game.” He argues these players were actually caught in a much larger web of corruption that stretched across major social institutions from City Hall to the police department, sports arenas, and even the universities themselves. It’s a historical story of duplicity and cynicism that’s all too relevant to big-money college sports today.
But it's also a story of redemption, particularly Floyd Layne, one of the players implicated in the scandal. Floyd Layne was raised by a single mother in the Bronx, an immigrant from Barbados. He was a popular, talented, cheerful kid who loved basketball and jazz. Time and again he resisted the urgings of his teammates to take money from gamblers, but finally he relented because he wanted to buy his mother a $110 washing machine for Christmas. After he was arrested, he and the other players were blacklisted from the NBA – but unlike the other players, Floyd spent years trying unsuccessfully to join the league. Eventually he gave up and began coaching youth basketball in the Bronx, where his mentees included the future Hall of Famer Nate “Tiny” Archibald. In 1975 the job of head basketball coach of City College became available, and Floyd applied and got the job – after a quarter century, he was back at City College.

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The Confederate States of America, An Alternate History: 1865-2020 Feb 04, 2020

Civil War historians have asked if the South could have won the Civil War (or at least fought to a stalemate) since 1866. If they would have won, then what then? What would a divided states of America have looked like? Would a USA and a CSA have a happy peace and maintain a cooperative co-existence, like North and South Dakota, or maintain a cold war that threatened to go hot at any moment, like North and South Korea?
In this episode, we look at an alternate timeline of the Confederate States of America, whether emancipation would have happened, which foreign alliances would be forged, and how the two Americas would react to World War Two and the rise of Hitler. Suffice it to say, in the infinite timelines that exist, there is a large number that includes the CSA, and nearly all of them are bad.

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An Admiral's List of the 10 Greatest Admirals in History Jan 30, 2020

Today's episode features a special guest, James Stavridis, a four-star U.S. Navy Admiral and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. He joins us to discuss the ten greatest admirals in history and looks at their examples of leadership and resourcefulness. Case studies include Themistocles, English Sea Captain Francis Drake, Chinese explorer Zheng He, Horatio Nelson, WW2 Pacific Theatre Commander Chester Nimitz, and Rear Admiral Grace Hopper.
Most of all, we get at what it's like to look down on a carrier strike group (made up of 7,500 personnel, an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a flotilla of six to 10 destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft) and know that you have absolute command over the fates of everyone and everything below you and how that feeling would affect the lives of these people.

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Pearl Harbor May Have Been Avoided If a Lone US Diplomat Had Gotten His Way Jan 28, 2020

Could one American diplomat have prevented the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? The answer might be yes. America’s ambassador to Japan in 1941, Joseph Grew, certainly thought so. He saw the writing on the wall—economic sanctions were crippling Japan, rice was rationed, consumer goods were limited, and oil was scarce as America’s noose tightened around Japan’s neck. Japan and the U.S. were locked in a battle of wills, yet Japan refused to yield to American demands.
In this episode, I speak with Lew Paper, author of "In the Cauldron: Terror, Tension, and the American Ambassador’s Struggle to Avoid Pearl Harbor." He describes how the United States and Japan were locked in a cauldron of boiling tensions and of one man’s desperate effort to prevent the Pearl Harbor attacks before they happened.
Through "In the Cauldron," Paper reveals new information—mined from Grew’s diaries, letters, official papers, the diplomatic archives, and interviews with Grew’s family and the families of his staff—to present a compelling narrative of how the militaristic policies of Imperial Japan collided with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s determination to punish Japanese aggression in the Far East.
We look at Pearl Harbor attack inside the ambassador’s perspective through Paper’s revelation of:
• Grew’s personal diaries detailing the events leading up to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor
• Personal interviews with Grew’s family and staff, giving the inside look into Grew’s struggle to prevent the attacks
• Detailed accounts of the correspondence between Grew and other State Department officials about the warning signs leading up to the Pearl Harbor attacks
• An in-depth look into the fast-depreciating lives of the Japanese people and how their struggles and cultural ideology contributed to the fatal attacks

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How 20K Marines Held Out Against 300K Chinese Soldiers At The Chosin Reservoir, The Korean War's Greatest Battle Jan 23, 2020

On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war.
As he was speaking, 300,000 Red Chinese soldiers began secretly crossing the Manchurian border. Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir. What followed was one of the most heroic--and harrowing--operations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time. Faced with probable annihilation, and temperatures plunging to 20 degrees below zero, the surrounded, and hugely outnumbered, Marines fought through the enemy forces with ferocity, ingenuity, and nearly unimaginable courage as they marched their way to the sea.
Today I'm speaking with Hampton Sides, author of the account On Desperate Ground a soldier's eye view of this conflict that chronicle of the extraordinary feats of heroism performed by the beleaguered Marines, who were called upon to do the impossible in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth.

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Dragons Never Existed. So Why Are They Found in Absolutely Every Ancient Folklore? Jan 21, 2020

You don't have to read the ancient folklore of China, Sumeria, or anywhere else long before you encounter a dragon. Sometimes they guard treasure. Sometimes they kidnap local maidens. Sometimes they are the primary antagonist for a hero to conquer. Mostly they perform all three roles. But the problem is they never existed. Outside of a handful of cryptozoologists, nobody argues that they are real. So why do cultures that had no contact with each other produce remarkably similar myths?
This episode looks into the theories of the spread of dragon myths. Perhaps there was an Ur-myth in Egypt or Mesopotamia that slowly spread across the world. Or it's an anthropological reaction to the fear that most humans have of lizards. More exotic theories claim dragons are the genetic memory of dinosaurs. Even more exotic theories claim they are the embodiment of rainbows (we'll explain that last one in more detail).

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The Crusades, From Both Arab and European Perspectives Jan 16, 2020

For more than one thousand years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most notorious period of conflict between the two religions. Depending on who you ask, the fall of the holy city was either an inspiring legend or the greatest of horrors.
In this episode I’m speaking with Dan Jones, author of Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands. In Crusaders, Dan Jones interrogates the many sides of the larger story, charting a deeply human and avowedly pluralist path through the crusading era.
Expanding the usual timeframe, Jones looks to the roots of Christian-Muslim relations in the eighth century and tracks the influence of crusading to present day. He widens the geographical focus to far-flung regions home to so-called enemies of the Church, including Spain, North Africa, southern France, and the Baltic states. By telling intimate stories of individual journeys, Jones illuminates these centuries of war not only from the perspective of popes and kings, but from Arab-Sicilian poets, Byzantine princesses, Sunni scholars, Shi'ite viziers, Mamluk slave soldiers, Mongol chieftains, and barefoot friar

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How the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda Radicalized Germany Jan 14, 2020

Once the Nazi Party took power in Germany, they managed to end democracy and turned the nation into a one-party dictatorship, launching an endless propaganda campaign to mobilize the public for war. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda arranged book burnings, lists of banned literature, and the release of films that exalted Aryan values and demonized Jews.
Before the rise of the Nazis, Germany was the most educated society on Earth, producing the finest literature, film, and university programs of any advanced nation. How did it succumb to such a simplistic propaganda program? The answer has to do with the ancient story of propaganda and how the masses swallow almost any message if it's repeated enough and speaks to their deepest fears.

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Star Spangled Scandal: The Antebellum Murder Trial that Changed America Jan 09, 2020

Two years before the Civil War, Congressman Daniel Sickles and his lovely wife Teresa were popular fixtures in Washington, D.C. society. Their house sat on Lafayette Square across from White House grounds, and the president himself was godfather to the Sickleses’ six-year-old daughter. Because Congressman Sickles is frequently out of town, he trusted his friend, U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key—son of Francis Scott Key—to escort the beautiful Mrs. Sickles to parties in his absence. Revelers in D.C. were accustomed to the sight of the congressman’s wife with the tall, Apollo-like Philip Barton Key.
Then one day Daniel Sickles received an anonymous note suggesting his wife's infidelity. It sets into motion a tragic course of events that culminated in a shocking murder in broad daylight in Lafayette Square.
Today's guest is Chris DeRose, author of the book Star Spangled Scandal, about the biggest media sensation in Civil War America. The press couldn't get enough of the trial, which had a play based on the events hit the stage as the trial was in progress. The trial introduced the concepts of the insanity defense, challenged ideas of chivalry and masculinity, and ensconced ideas of an unwritten law, where “honor crimes” were tolerated by judges for nearly a century after the trial.

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237 Years After the Revolutionary War, Some Say It Was a Mistake. Are They Right? Jan 07, 2020

There are few events that would shake the world order like the success of the American Revolution. Some changes would be felt immediately. English traditions such as land inheritance laws were swept away. Other changes took longer. Slavery would not be abolished for another hundred years. Americans began to feel that their fight for liberty was a global fight. Future democracies would model their governments on the United States'.

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George Washington's Spies: The Culper Ring, Nathan Hale, and the Plot to Capture Benedict Arnold Jan 02, 2020

Spycraft was seen as a treacherous craft, but it was necessary to win a war. Washington knew this, as his early attempts to gather intelligence on British-occupied New York led to an execution of Nathan Hale, a young school teacher. More sophisticated networks developed, particularly the Culper Spy ring, which involved a farmer, a whaleboat captain, a tavern owner, and a slave.

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The Revolutionary War Comes to an End Dec 31, 2019

After Yorktown, a truce was declared in America, although some skirmishes did break out until final peace was negotiated in Paris in 1783. In this episode, Scott and James looks at what happened to the British and American generals and politicians involved in the war.

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The Battle of Yorktown: Britain's Surrender in the Revolutionary War Dec 26, 2019

On October 14, 1781, Washington and French General Comte de Rochambeau attacked on October 14th, capturing two British defense. British Gen. Cornwallis surrendered two days later.

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The Siege of Yorktown: American and France Corner Britain Dec 24, 2019

The Battle of Yorktown sealed the fate of the Revolutionary War. In late 1781, American and French troops laid siege to the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia. First, a bit of backgroun. The partisan warfare that kept occurring in the upcountry of the Carolinas made it impossible for the British to obtain supplies from there. This in turn made it necessary for Cornwallis to keep his army relatively close to the coast. Greene kept his army far enough from Cornwallis to avoid a major pitched battle while constantly trying to lure Cornwallis away from the coast. Greene’s strategy was (in Allen Guelzo’s words) “dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” In this, he was assisted by a cavalry commander named Col. Henry (“Light Horse Harry”) Lee, as well as Francis Marion and Daniel Morgan. Skirmishers of the two armies occasionally fought each other, but the main armies never met.

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King’s Mountain: The Revolutionary War's Largest 'All-American Fight' Dec 19, 2019

The Battles of King's Mountain and Cowpens were fought in 1781, between the Continental Army under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton, as part of the campaign in the Carolinas. Daniel Morgan, who had been sent south by Washington, joined Nathanael Greene’s army. Greene decided to send Morgan with a force of militia and cavalry westward. This dividing of his army was risky, but Greene wrote “It makes the most of my inferior force for it compels my adversary to divide his.”

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The Treason of Benedict Arnold Dec 17, 2019

In 1788, the battle lines of the Revolutionary War moved from New England to the southern colonies. Lord George Germain, the British secretary responsible for the war, wrote to Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton that capturing the southern colonies was "considered by the King as an object of great importance in the scale of the war" Germain and the king believed that the majority of southern colonists were loyalists and that if the British army could take key parts of the South, Loyalists would rise up to join the British and at the very least, the southern colonies could be brought back into the empire. In September 1778, the Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Lincoln as the commander of Continental forces in the South. In November of that year, British forces conducted several raids into Georgia. The next month, a force of about 3000 British regulars under Archibald Campbell arrived and captured Savannah on December 29. They took Augusta a month later but soon withdrew due to the presence of American forces nearby.
Plus, we look at Benedict Arnold's treason.

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How France and America Cooperated During the Revolutionary War Dec 12, 2019

The Battle of Rhode Island (also known as the Battle of Quaker Hill and the Battle of Newport) took place on August 29, 1778. The battle was the first attempt at cooperation between French and American forces following France’s entry into the war as an American ally.

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American Politicians Nearly Had George Washington Fired During the Revolutionary War Dec 10, 2019

After the setbacks of 1777 and 1778, other American officers angled to take Washington's position as leader of the Continental Army. A conspiracy called the Conway Cable tried but failed to force him out. Washington shored up his support after victory at the Battle of Monmouth.

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The Philadelphia Campaign: When Britain Took Over Ben Franklin's House Dec 05, 2019

The Philadelphia Campaign of 1777-8 was a British attempt to capture Philadelphia, then capital of the United States and seat of the Continental Congress, led by Gen. William Howe. They did capture the city, but British disaster loomed north in the Saratoga campaign, threatening any British gains.
Correction: The Schuylkill River was pronounced "Sky-Kill", but it is actually pronounced "School - Kill."

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The Battle of Saratoga—Benedict Arnold, An American Hero Dec 03, 2019

The Battle of Saratoga was incredible turn of fortunes for the United States. British , Gen. John Burgoyne thought he would cut off New England from the rest of the colonies. Instead, he lost the battle and was forced to surrender 20,000 troops. Saratoga was also Benedict Arnold's finest hour. He loathed American commander Horatio Gates, who relieved Arnold of his command. Nonetheless, at the Battle of Bemis Heights on October 7, 1777, Arnold took command of American soldiers whom he led in an assault against the British. Arnold’s fierce attack disordered the enemy and led to American victory. The decisive Patriot victory compelled France to enter the war as an ally with the United States.

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Rebroadcast: Turkey is Both a Bird and a Country. Which Came First? Nov 28, 2019

It's no coincidence that the bird we eat for Thanksgiving and a Middle Eastern country are both called Turkey. One was named after the other, and it all has to do with a 500-year-old story of emerging global trade, mistaken identity, foreign language confusion, and how the turkey took Europe by storm as a must-have status symbol for the ultra-wealthy.

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The Saratoga Campaign: Turning Point of the Revolutionary War Nov 27, 2019

The Saratoga campaign gave a decisive victory to the Americans over the British during the American Revolutionary War. The battle also saw great heroics by Benedict Arnold.

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The Battle of Princeton Proves George Washington Was So Lucky, It Was Almost Supernatural Nov 26, 2019

Washington and his men had their work cut out for them after crossing the Delaware River. Over the next ten days, they won two battles. First, the Patriots defeated a Hessian garrison on December 26th. They then returned to Trenton a week later to draw British force south, then launched a night attack to capture Princeton on January 3rd. With the victory, New Jersey fell into Patriot hands.

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19th-Century American Radicals: Vegans, Abolitionists, and Free Love Advocates Nov 21, 2019

On July 4, 1826, as Americans lit firecrackers to celebrate the country’s fiftieth birthday, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were on their deathbeds. They would leave behind a groundbreaking political system and a growing economy—as well as the glaring inequalities that had undermined the American experiment from its beginning. The young nation had outlived the men who made it, but could it survive intensifying divisions over the very meaning of the land of the free?
In today's episode, I'm speaking with Holly Jackson about her new book American Radicals, which looks at this new network of dissent—connecting firebrands and agitators on pastoral communes, in urban mobs, and in genteel parlors across the nation—that vowed to finish the revolution they claimed the Founding Fathers had only begun. They were men and women, black and white, fiercely devoted to causes that pitted them against mainstream America even while they fought to preserve the nation’s founding ideals: the brilliant heiress Frances Wright, whose shocking critiques of religion and the institution of marriage led to calls for her arrest; the radical Bostonian William Lloyd Garrison, whose commitment to nonviolence would be tested as the conflict over slavery pushed the nation to its breaking point; the Philadelphia businessman James Forten, who presided over the first mass political protest of free African Americans; Marx Lazarus, a vegan from Alabama whose calls for sexual liberation masked a dark secret; black nationalist Martin Delany, the would-be founding father of a West African colony who secretly supported John Brown’s treasonous raid on Harpers Ferry—only to ally himself with Southern Confederates after the Civil War.
Though largely forgotten today, these figures were enormously influential in the pivotal period flanking the war, their lives and work entwined with reformers like Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Henry David Thoreau, as well as iconic leaders like Abraham Lincoln. Jackson writes them back into the story of the nation’s most formative and perilous era in all their heroism, outlandishness, and tragic shortcomings.

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Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling, and Other Historical Villains—When is Someone Misunderstood vs. Truly Bad? Nov 19, 2019

Do historical “villains” like Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling, and Emperor Caligula deserve their terrible reputations, or are they victims of biased accounts? In this rebroadcast of a live event in the History Unplugged Facebook Page, Scott gets into what makes somebody a true bad guy in the past (unsurprisingly, Hitler makes this list), somebody best described as misunderstood, and somebody who deserves a rehabilitation.

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When Does A Scorched-Earth Policy Work? A Look at the Civil War's Final Year Nov 14, 2019

Ulysses S. Grant arrives to take command of all Union armies in March 1864 to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox a year later. Over 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army. And most of all, William Tecumseh Sherman launches his scorched-earth March to the Sea. Other events include the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including the surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln.
Today I'm talking with S.C. Gwynne, author of Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War. We discuss unexpected angles and insights on the war. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers—most of them former slaves. They changed the war and forced the South to come up with a plan to use its own black soldiers.

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Medic! First Aid in Combat, From WW1 Trenches to Operation Iraqi Freedom Nov 12, 2019

Up until the recent past, if a soldier was wounded in battle, he remained in the field where he had fallen without hope of rescue. Maybe a comrade would drag him to safety, but more likely he would remain there for days, hoping for aid (or, barring that, death). Not that ancients knew nothing of combat medicine. Alexander the Great had tourniquets applied to soldiers with bleeding extremity wounds. Stretchers made of wicker were used in medieval battles. Triage was used in the Napoleonic corps.
It was not until the Civil War that something like an ambulance service developed. Everything change in 1862 when Dr. Jonathan Letterman developed a three-tier evacuation system still used today. First was the field dressing station near the battlefield. The second was the field hospital (or MASH units). Finally a large hospital for those needing prolonged treatment.
Today, death rates in battle have plummeted, thanks to the work of combat medics, who keep soldiers from dying at their most vulnerable time.

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The Confederacy Dominated the Early Civil War. So Why Did It Ultimately Lose? Nov 07, 2019

The Confederacy won the early battles of the Civil War, led by brilliant generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee (to name a few) against blundering Union commanders like the endlessly dithering George McClellan. The war only turned after Lincoln found the right generals such as Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. This Civil War narrative—that Union generals improved while Confederate ones worsened—is popular and well-supported. Is it accurate, or did circumstances of the war bring out the true character of each general?
The answer isn't a simple 'yes' or 'no' but Scott will do his best to explain what makes a Civil War general a good one and how they improved or worsened over the course of the war.

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Constantine's Conversion to Christianity: Opportunism or a Sincere Gesture? Nov 05, 2019

History Channel documentaries and pop historians have argued that when Constantine converted to Christianity in the fourth century, he was merely following the religious demographic trends of the Roman Empire and thought paganism to be a political dead end. The idea makes sense at first glance. But the story of Constantine's conversion—and later the entire empire's—goes far beyond political opportunism (although there is plenty of that).
Constantine did not choose his new religion to chase after changing demographics in the Empire; Christianity was a lower-class religion disfavored by the pagans who overwhelmingly made up the Roman army and cavalry—the exact people that an emperor really needed to appease to hold onto power. Plus, recent studies on Constantine argue that Christianity would have spread regardless of the emperor's choice, although it would have happened at a later date.
The Roman Catholic Church did drape itself in Roman symbolism and forged fictional lines of continuity between itself and the empire, but only after the sixth century, when the Western Roman Empire had completely collapsed and become a ghost that haunted Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Any resemblance between the empire and the church came after the former collapse and was largely coincidental.

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Was the US Involvement in World War One a Mistake? Oct 31, 2019

Most Americans are unclear about their country’s contribution to victory in World War I. They figure we entered the conflict too late to claim much credit, or maybe they think our intervention was discreditable. Some say we had no compelling national interest to enter the Great War; worse, our intervention allowed Britain and France to force on Germany an unjust, punitive peace that made the rise of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party inevitable. Had we stayed out of the war, the argument goes, the Europeans would have been compelled to make a reasonable, negotiated peace, and postwar animosity would have been lessened.
In this episode, we explore whether American involvement in World War One led to needless slaughter or served the purpose of creating a better future for Europe and the United States than would have been the case if Germany's Second Reich had dominated the continent.

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Hans Kammler, Nazi Architect of Auschwitz, Defector to the US? Oct 29, 2019

Hans Kammler was among the worst of the Nazis. He was responsible for the construction of Hitler’s slave labor sites and concentration camps. He personally altered the design of Auschwitz to increase crowding, ensuring that epidemic diseases would complement the work of the gas chambers. So pleased was Hitler by his work that he put him in charge of the Nazi rocket and nuclear weapons programs. At the end of the war he had more power than SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Even among the SS he was feared for his brutish nature.
So why has the world never heard of him? Today I'm speaking with Dean Reuter, author of the new book “The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America’s Deal with the Devil” he and collaborators Colm Lowery and Keith Chester spent a combined decades tracking down Kammler's trail. Long believed to have committed suicide, they discovered that he may have escaped exposure and justice through a secret deal with America.

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Announcement: Mid-Season Break for "Key Battles of the Revolutionary War" Oct 26, 2019

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 12: Crossing the Delaware Oct 24, 2019

At the end of 1776 George Washington was in a desperate situation. The Continental Army had retreated completely out of New York after losing Long Island to British General William Howe. Many of his soldiers' contracts were set to expire at years end. He needed a dramatic victory, and fast. An opportunity arose when intelligence revealed Hessian forces camped in Trenton, New Jersey that were vulnerable to a sneak attack.

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 11: New York Campaign (2/2) Oct 22, 2019

The New York Campaign ended in decisive victory for the British and terrible defeat for the Continental Army, which barely escaped destruction. It was completely driven out of New York fro the rest of the war, and the British used it as a base of attack against other targets for years to come.
Correction: It was claimed the Turtle (the words first submersible sea vessel) was unmanned. In fact, it was manned by a pilot named Ezra Lee, who steered it toward its destination then got out of it prior to trying to detonate it.

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 10: The New York Campaign (1/2) Oct 17, 2019

When the British left Boston, George Washington realized that their eventual destination would be New York City. He quickly traveled to NYC to oversee the building of defenses, organized the Continental Army into divisions, and prepared for the invasion. What happened next was the largest battle of the entire war and (if not for a miraculous stroke of good luck in the form of fog) the near-total defeat of the Patriots.

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 9: Sidetrack Episode -- the Declaration of Independence Oct 15, 2019

In the background of the opening battles of the Revolutionary War, an assembly of colonial statesmen issued a document announcing their formal separation from the British Empire. How did this document come about, what did the British make of it, and how revolutionary were these ideas to an eighteenth century audience?

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 8: The Battle of Quebec Oct 10, 2019

The Battle of Quebec, fought on December 31, 1775, marked the end of American offensive operations in Canada. General Richard Montgomery was killed, Arnold wounded, and Daniel Morgan and more than four hundred American soldiers taken prisoner. Returning forces of the Continental Army arrived ragged and nearly starved.

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 7: The Quebec Campaign Oct 08, 2019

The Continental Army thought they could rally the French-speaking residents of Canada in their uprising against the British. Such thinking led to the Quebec Campaign. Although a major defeat for the Americans, it showed the dogged determinism of American commander Benedict Arnold, who also showed his bravery in the Battle of Saratoga before defecting to the British.

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 6: Bunker Hill (2/2) Oct 03, 2019

"Dont' fire till you see the white's of their eyes!" -- famous words, and smart strategy for using terribly inaccurate muskets, but what were the conditions that gave arise to that advice? Find out in this episode, as the Battle of Bunker hill wraps up.

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 5: Bunker Hill (1/2) Oct 01, 2019

With the Revolutionary War turning from cold to hot, the British made plans to send troops from Boston to break the Colonials' siege of that city and occupy the surrounding hills. About one thousand militiamen fortified Breed's Hill to prepare for the coming onslaught. It was the first serious battle that pitted the fiery but inexperienced colonists against the battle-hardened British.

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 4: British and Continental Soldiers Sep 26, 2019

The Continental Army and the British Army were significantly different in their organizational structure, levels of experience, and funding. The Continental Army was an undisciplined, unprepared fighting force with makeshift uniforms and sloppy tactics (at least at the beginning of the war). The British Army was the world's elite fighting force and fresh of victory of the globe-spanning Seven Years War against France and her allies. What caused the Continental Army to prevail in the Revolutionary War?

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 3: Lexington and Concord Sep 24, 2019

The Battles of Lexington and Concord were of minor military significance but of world-historical importance in the modern era. They were the first military engagements of the Revolutionary War, marking the outbreak of armed conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen colonies on the North American mainland. Fought on April 19, 1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord ruin British political strategy of ending colonial opposition to the Intolerable Acts and seizing weapons of rebels. Revolutionary leaders such as John Adams considered the battle to be a point of no return: “The Die was cast, the Rubicon crossed,” he said.
Correction: Concord was pronounced "Con - cord," but locals pronounce it as "Con - Curd"

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 2: Background to the War Sep 19, 2019

Our series is picking up steam as we jump to the years immediately prior to the Shot Heard 'Round the World. James and Scott discuss the interregnum between the French-Indian War and the Revolutionary War, the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), then Townsend Acts (1767), the Boston Massacre (1770), the Tea Act (1773), and the Coercive Acts (1774).

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Key Battles of the Revolutionary War, Part 1: The World of the American Revolution Sep 17, 2019

Grab your musket and your portion of rum, Yankee, because we have a war to fight! James Early returns to the History Unplugged Podcast to kick off a massive series called Key Battles of the Revolutionary War. We get in-depth into the battles that determined the outcome of one of the most consequential wars in history. But we also go deep into the background of social, political, cultural, and theological aspects of the of the 18th century.
Scott and James kick off this episode by talking about the global-level changes in society that made the Revolutionary War possible in the 1770s, and almost impossible anytime earlier. They have to do with changes in warfare and weapons, government/society, political philosophy, British governing policy, and the American colonies themselves.

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Announcement: Key Battles of the Revolutionary War Starts Next Week Sep 14, 2019

Grab your tricorne hat and musket because next week we are kicking off a massive series called Key Battles of the Revolutionary War.

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Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World Sep 12, 2019

In 2017, over 47,000 Americans died as the result of opioid overdoses, more than died annually in this country during the peak of the AIDs epidemic, and more than die every year from breast cancer. But despite the unprecedented efforts of regulators, activists, politicians, and doctors to address the overdose epidemic, it has only become more deadly, the legion of quick fixes often falling into the very same traps that have foiled humans attempting to tame the scourge of opium addiction for centuries. To understand and combat the overdose crisis, we must understand how it came to be.
Today I'm speaking with Dr. John Halpern and David Blistein, authors of the new book “Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World.” The story begins with the discovery of poppy artifacts in ancient Mesopotamia, and goes on to explore how Greek physicians forgotten chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power, how colonial empires marketed it around the world, and eventually how international drug companies developed a range of powerful synthetic opioids that led to an epidemic of addiction.
Opium has played a fascinating role in building our modern world, from trade networks to medical protocols to drug enforcement policies.

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Eisenhower's Interstates: The Modern-Day Roman Roads Sep 10, 2019

Dwight Eisenhower inaugurated the US. Interstate System, which now boasts more than 50,000 miles of roads. The idea came to a young Eisenhower in 1919 when he spent 62 days with a military convoy snaking across America on its primitive road system. But the idea for a trans-continental road network go back much further than Eisenhower. George Washington talked of the need for a vast system of roads to stitch together the nation.
But the true genesis of the U.S. Interstate system is the Roman Empire's road network. The empire in the first century constructed a network of 50,000 miles of paved roads, connecting its capital to the farthest-flung provinces. This fostered trade and commerce but most importantly allowed the Roman army to march quickly. The United States built its network for largely the same reasons.

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After Watergate, Richard Nixon Created the Career Path for All Ex-Presidents Sep 05, 2019

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first and only U.S. president to resign from office—to avoid almost certain impeachment. Utterly disgraced, he was forced to flee the White House with a small cadre of advisors and family. Richard Nixon was a completely defeated man.
Yet only a decade later, Nixon was a trusted advisor to presidents, dispensing wisdom on campaign strategy and foreign policy, shaping the course of U.S.-Soviet summit meetings, and representing the U.S. at state funerals—the model of an elder statesman. Kasey Pipes, author of “After the Fall: The Remarkable Comeback of Richard Nixon,” tells us about surprises like this:
-- How Nixon’s advice on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) shaped Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with Gorbachev— and changed history
-- How Nixon traveled to China after Tiananmen Square to help preserve the U.S.-Chinese relations that he had opened up years earlier
-- The Saturday morning presidential radio address: a Nixon idea
-- Nixon’s surprising friendship with Bill Clinton

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Women Warriors: How Females Have Fought in Combat Since History's Beginning Sep 03, 2019

From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and WWII Russian fighter pilots, battle was not a metaphor for women across history.
But for the most part, women warriors have been pushed into the historical shadows, hidden in the footnotes, or half-erased. Yet women have always gone to war—or fought back when war came to them. They fought to avenge their families, defend their homes (or cities or nations), win independence from a foreign power, expand their kingdom's boundaries, or satisfy their ambition. They battled disguised as men. They fought, undisguised, on the ramparts of besieged cities. Some were skilled swordsmen or trained snipers, others fought with improvised weapons. They were hailed as heroines and cursed as witches, sluts, or harridans.
In todays episode I'm speaking with Pamela Toler, author of the book Women Warriors. She uses both well known and obscure examples, drawn from the ancient world through the twentieth century and from Asia and Africa as well as from the West. Looking at specific examples of historical women warriors, she considers why they went to war, how those reasons related to their roles as mothers, daughters, wives, or widows, peacemakers, poets or queens—and what happened when women stepped outside their accepted roles to take on other identities.

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 8: Dracula Untold (2014) Aug 29, 2019

Dracula Untold has absolutely no right being as historically accurate as it is. Made in 2014, this was Universal Studio's first attempt to use the intellectual property of their 1930s monster movies and turn it into a Marvel-esque cinematic universe. As a result, it is full of X-men type superpowers, CGI, and what Scott calls "supernatural shenanigans." Despite all this, the film accurately describes Ottoman forms of imperial expansion in the fifteenth century, shows us period accurate costumes, and even has actors speaking in passable Turkish! Why on earth did this film do its history homework when other so-called serious historical dramas not even bother?

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 7: The Alamo (2004) Aug 27, 2019

In the final two episodes of this mini-series, Steve and Scott talk about movies that actually do a good job of conveying history, or at least as much as possible when handled by Hollywood producers enslaved to suggestions from marketing research reports. The first film is the Alamo (2004).The purported goal of the filmmakers was to have this movie be as historically accurate as possible, or at least more so than the John Wayne Alamo film of 1960. It stars Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston, Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crockett, Patrick Wilson as William Travis, Jason Patric as Jim Bowie, and Jordi Molla as Juan Seguin.

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death, Part 8 Aug 24, 2019

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 6: The Scarlet Letter (1995) Aug 22, 2019

Demi Moore did not win any Academy Awards for her portrayal of 17th-century Puritan Hester Prynne. But she did succeed in transforming Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous moral drama into a Cinemax movie that also features Indians, deadly fights, burning buildings, flaming arrows, and a rousing speech in which Dimmsdale calls for sexual freedom. Dear listeners, this is not a good film.

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 5—The Conqueror (1956) Aug 20, 2019

In our second John Wayne film, we watch the Duke put on a fake fu manchu mustache and yellow face makeup to play the role he was born NOT to play: Genghis Khan. Scott and Steve discuss the infamous film that, in addition to featuring the worst casting choice in Hollywood history, has hundreds of anachronisms and, worst of all, may have killed dozens of the cast and crew from radiation poisoning due to being filmed near a nuclear test site. The sins of this movie are many and we do our best to chronicle them all.

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 4—The Green Berets (1968) Aug 15, 2019

John Wayne was 62 years old when he tried to portray a fit Vietnam War Green Beret colonel, but the obvious age gap isn't the only head scratcher in this film. Released in 1968, the film was Lyndon B. Johnson-approved attempt to shift American opinion on the Vietnam War. Listen to this episode to see if it worked.

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 3—The Da Vinci Code (2006) Aug 13, 2019

Based on Dan Brown's mega best-selling instructional manual on how to write terrible English, Scott and Steve discuss "The Da Vinci Code," the 2006 Ron Howard film that dares to ask the question: Has the secret life of Jesus been hidden by the Catholic Church and heroically uncovered by half-baked conspiracy theorists who have an extremely poor understandings of the gnostic gospels? The answer will shock you!

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 2: Agora (2009) Aug 08, 2019

In the second episode of this series, Stephen tells us everything he doesn't like about the 2009 film Agora, which is a lot. The movie stars Rachel Weisz (maybe the only good thing about the film) as Hypatia, a real-life 4th/5th-century philosopher in Alexandria killed by political infighting among politicians and clergy. Her actual story is very interesting and tells us much about late Roman civic life, but this movie turns her into a genius that is one part Isaac Newton, two parts Tony Stark, ready to discover a heliocentric solar system a thousand years before Copernicus; however, an ignorant mob kills her and burns her scrolls before she has the chance. To put it very mildly, the film takes liberties with the truth.

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Hollywood Hates History, Part 1: Kingdom of Heaven Aug 06, 2019

This episode is the first in a mini-series that Scott is doing with fellow history podcaster Stephen Guerra (History of the Papacy, Beyond the Big Screen) about some of the most historically inaccurate movies that have ever appear. We kick off this series with Ridley Scott's 2005 Crusader epic Kingdom of Heaven. Scott really did not like this movie. He considers it the worst example of screenwriter wish fulfillment to go back in time and teach horribly intolerant historical figures how to live by 21st-century values, even though they make no sense in context. The movie is so anachronistic that Orlando Bloom's knight character might as well wear a "Coexist" T-shirt during the entire film.
(originally broadcasted on Beyond the Big Screen)

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Announcement: 'Hollywood Hates History' Starts Next Week Aug 03, 2019

Next week an eight-part mini-series called Hollywood Hates History launches. Scott co-hosts with fellow history podcaster Steve Guerra to look at some of the most historically inaccurate movies ever made. Offenders include "The Scarlet Letter," the 1995 Demi Moore atrocity; "The Conqueror," a Genghis Khan biopic starring John Wayne; and "Kingdom of Heaven," in which Legolas the Elf successfully creates universal religious harmony in the 12th century Middle East.

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A Vote of No Confidence: How to Obliterate Your Current Government Aug 01, 2019

Americans and Europeans are confused by much about each other, especially their respective governmental systems. Europeans are baffled by American elections, the powers of the president, and most of all, the electoral college (how again is the popular vote winner not the president?). Americans are even more baffled by parliamentary politics, especially how the prime minister and even the entire ruling party can be removed before election time by this mystical tool of government called a “vote of no confidence.”
What on earth does that mean? Scott's first encounter with this term was, sadly, in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in which Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala removes the current chancellor for power for his failure to stop the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo by such a vote. Getting beyond bad filmmaking and Jar Jar Binks, what does a vote of no confidence actually mean? Where does it come from? And how has it been used in the past?
This episode goes over much more, especially the main differences with the British House of Commons vs. the American House of Representatives. Moreover, it looks at the differences between politicians being loyal to the nation vs. being loyal to their political party.

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George Washington as Man, General, Leader, and Mule Pioneer Jul 30, 2019

George Washington is nearly as famous for his character as he is a general and statesman. In this episode we look at his famed attributes for leadership and doing such things as keeping together the fragile Continental Army in the hungriest, coldest days of the Revolutionary War.
But perhaps the rarest quality of Washington was his ability not to seize power when he could. Many conquering generals – such as Napoleon – rode into the capital after great victories and took the throne. Washington was the opposite. He only assumed the presidency under great reluctance and refused to serve more than two terms – creating a status quo that lasted 150 years.

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A Shred to End All Shreds: World War I Meets Swedish Metal Jul 25, 2019

This episode of History Unplugged is unlike any we've ever done. Scott interviews Joakim Brodén, lead singer of Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton, whose new album “The Great War” is a concept record focused on World War 1. The album features songs about the introduction of tank warfare and poisonous gas, the Battle of Bellau Woods, U.S. Marine Alvin York, and Canadian hero Francis Pegahmagabow, a First Nation activist and sharp shooter. Interspersed in their discussion are numerous song clips from the album, which presents World War 1 in a way you've definitely never heard before.

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Has The Lost Colony of Roanoke Been Found? Jul 23, 2019

In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast ofNorth Carolina. Chartered by Queen Elizabeth I, their colony was to establish England's first foothold in the New World. But when the colony's leader, John White, returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers were nowhere to be found. They left behind only a single clue—a "secret token" carved into a tree. Neither White nor any other European laid eyes on the colonists again.
What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? For four hundred years, that question has consumed historians and amateur sleuths, leading only to dead ends and hoaxes. However, Andrew Lawler thinks he might have found the answer.
Lawler, author of the book “The Secret Token,” talked with an archeologist working on one of the supposed destinations of the colonists and discovered that solid answers to the mystery were within reach. He set out to unravel the enigma of the lost settlers, accompanying competing researchers, each hoping to be the first to solve its riddle. In the course of his journey, Lawler encountered a host of characters obsessed with the colonists and their fate, and tried to determine why the Lost Colony continues to haunt our national consciousness.

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Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I Jul 18, 2019

Albert Einstein’s rise to fame was not instantaneous and easy. Rather, Einstein’s celebrity was, in large part, not his own doing. His grand ideas (ideas that would change physics forever) were formulated during a time of worldwide crises. The Great War quickly escalated into an industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918. Einstein was a victim of that war, even though, as a pacifist, he never held a rifle. Trapped behind enemy lines in Germany, Einstein suffered from wartime starvation and found himself unable to communicate with his most trusted colleagues abroad. But perhaps the most damaging crisis Einstein faced was the war against science. As enemy lines were etched deeper, the worldwide science community became fractured and prejudiced. German scientists were scorned by the Allies, Einstein included. Even in Germany, Einstein was regarded as an outsider for resisting against German nationalism.
Today I'm speaking with Matthew Stanley, author of the new book Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I. As Einstein struggled to make his theory whole, his communication with anyone outside of Germany was a dangerous affair. The fact that his theory was on track to debunk Isaac Newton’s conception of the universe made things even more difficult. So, despite the fact that Einstein’s country was at war and he was separated from his closest confidants by barbed wire and U-boats, his unlikely partnership with the Quaker astronomer A. S. Eddington proved to be the most important alliance of his lifetime. Despite the fact that other scientists seeking to confirm Einstein’s ideas were being arrested as spies, Eddington believed in Einstein and his theories and was willing to risk everything to prove their truth. He fought to showcase Einstein’s ideas to scientists around the world.
The serendipitous partnership of Einstein and Eddington, two pacifist scientists a world apart, came to fruition in May of 1919, when Eddington led a globe-spanning expedition to catch a fleeting solar eclipse that offered the rare opportunity to confirm Einstein’s bold prediction that light has weight, thereby confirming his Theory of Relativity. It was the result of this expedition that put Einstein on front pages around the world. Now, precisely one hundred years later, the eclipse is a celebration of how bigotry and nationalism can and should be defeated in the name of science.

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The Forgotten Assassin – Sirhan Sirhan and the Killing of Robert F. Kennedy Jul 16, 2019

Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1968 seemed like it should have been an open-and-shut case. Many people crowded in the small room at Los Angeles’s famed Ambassador Hotel that fateful night and saw Sirhan Sirhan pull the trigger. Sirhan was also convicted of the crime and still languishes in jail with a life sentence. However, conspiracy theorists have used inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimony and alleged anomalies in the forensic evidence to suggest that Sirhan was only one shooter in a larger conspiracy, a patsy for the real killers, or even a hypnotized assassin who did not know what he was doing (a popular plot in Cold War–era fiction, such as The Manchurian Candidate).
In this episode I speak with Mel Ayton, who profiles Sirhan and argued that his political beliefs and hatred for RFK motivated the killing. Ayton, author of the book The Forgotten Terrorist – Sirhan Sirhan and theAssassination of Robert F Kennedy, examines Sirhan’s extensive personal notebooks, revisits the trial proceedings, and argues Sirhan was in fact the lone assassin whose politically motivated act was a forerunner of present-day terrorism. Overall, we reexamine the assassination that rocked the nation during the turbulent summer of 1968.

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Chief Executives in the Cockpit—When Presidents Take to the Skies Jul 11, 2019

In this episode we look at all U.S. presidents who served as fighter pilots or in any sort of military combat role. We also look at the first president to fly (it was in a rinky-dink Wright Bros. flyer), the development of Air Force One, and the theory that aviators make better leaders.

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George Mason: The Most Important Founding Father Nobody Remembers Jul 09, 2019

If a list were constructed of the most important Virginians in American history, George Mason would appear near the top. His influence on public policy, the Revolution, and the Constitution was far greater than his modern, meager reputation allows. His close friendships with Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and many others from his state allowed him to influence the direction of state and federal politics.
So why doesn't anyone remember him?
In this episode I'm talking with William G. Hyland Jr, author of George Mason: The Founding Father Who Gave Us the Bill of Rights. Hyland discusses little-known facts about this forgotten Founding Father that made him a powerful contributor to the new nation.

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death, Part 7 Jul 06, 2019

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Spies in the Ancient World, Part 2: On His Roman Emperor's Secret Service Jul 04, 2019

In this episode we are looking at ancient Greek cryptography and the Roman frumentarii, a group of wheat sellers who turned into the empire's premier intelligence outfit in the second century.
In the fourth century BC, Aeneas Tacticus wrote “How to Survive Under Siege.” He goes into considerable detail on cryptography and steganography—the art of concealing a message. Methods of steganography included writing on strips of papyrus and hiding them either on the body of a person or on a horse. The strip could be hidden in a soldier’s tunic or cuirass, or under a horse’s bridle. More creative methods included a message placed on the leaves that were used to bind a wounded soldier’s leg. Most inspectors would not be so thorough in their investigation that they would want to look upon an infected wound or tear away layers of bloodied bandages.
We will also explore the Roman Frumentarii, originally collectors of wheat (frumentum), who also acted as the secret service of the Roman Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The organization was founded by Emperor Hadrian. He pictured a large-scale operation and turned to the frumentarius, the collector of wheat in a province, a position that brought the official into contact with enough locals and natives to acquire considerable intelligence about any given territory. Hadrian put them to use as his spies, and thus had a ready-made service and a large body to act as a courier system.

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Spies in the Ancient World, Part 1: How a Bronze-Age Tribe Infiltrated Jericho Jul 02, 2019

Spycraft is as old as civilization and just as essential to running a government as taxes, roads, armies, or schools. Sun Tzu devoted an entire chapter to spy craft in his 2,600-year-old treatise The Art of War and understood that critical intelligence was impossible to gather without espionage.
This episode is the first in a two-part series on spy craft in the ancient world. We will explore the origins of spies, the ways they were used, and similarities and differences between—say—Greek or Roman spies and their 21st century counterparts. We will also look at the Old Testament narrative of the Israelite spites who scouted out Jericho and the promised land in the thirteenth century BCE. While many scholars doubt this story ever really happened in the way it was described in the Pentateuch, the story was compelling enough for the CIA to use in the 1970s as a case study of effective intelligence gathering.

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death, Part 6 Jun 29, 2019

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The Real Oregon Trail: Beyond Dysentery and the Apple II Game Jun 27, 2019

If you were a middle schooler in the United States anytime after 1985 and had a study hall with an Apple II, there is a very high chance you played Oregon Trail. After setting out from Independence, Missouri, you led your pixelated wagon across the frontier, hunting bears, fording rivers, and more likely than not, dying of dysentery.
The real Oregon Trail sprang up in the 1830s, when America was going through the worst economic slump it would see until the Great Depression. A mixture of financial urgency and a sense of destiny--Manifest Destiny--convinced tens of thousands of Americans to trek over 2,000 miles from Missouri’s western edge to Oregon Country.
But how can families cross the desert? Or the Rocky Mountains? Or descend the Columbia River? And what about the British HBC’s hold on Oregon Country? Many tried this dangerous path, including fur traders, missionaries, explorers, and early wagon trains that dared to blaze this trail before its heyday of the 1840s-1860s.
Joined with us today to talk about the Oregon Trail is history professor and podcast Greg Jackson. He's the host of the show History That Doesn't Suck

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How to Get Processed Through Ellis Island In 2 Hours or Less Jun 25, 2019

More than 12 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island during its years of operation from 1892 to 1954. Those that came typically spoke no English and fled religious persecution, famine, or epidemics in their homeland.
But what was it like to actually get processed through Ellis island? In some senses it was more tolerable than we expect. Interpreters were on hand to accommodate you in almost any language. Few were turned away for medical reasons. Processing typically only took a few hours And contrary to folk legend, inspectors did not force anyone to change their name to something Anglicized.
Nevertheless, some faced challenges entering America. Two percent were held up for physical or mental illness; some were detained for weeks or months in Ellis Island's medical ward. If a child were not admitted, parents faced the unbearable choice of returning with them across the ocean or sending them back alone to live with extended family.
But for the vast majority of immigrants, they walked through the doors of Ellis Island to begin their new lives in America. Today, over 100 million are descended from immigrants who passed through this immigration checkpoint. Learn about its legacy on immigration and political life in this episode.

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Special Announcement: Check Out My New Show 'Ottoman Lives' Jun 22, 2019

Go to www.ottomanlives.com to check out my new show about the people who made the Ottoman Empire run. The Ottoman Empire lasted for six hundred years and dominated the Middle East and Europe, from Budapest to Baghdad and everything in between. The sultans ruled three continents. But they didn't do it on their own. This podcast looks at the cast of characters who made the empire run: the sultan, the queen mother, the peasant, the janissary, the harem eunuch, the holy man, and the outlaw.

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George Armstrong Custer: Cocky Military Officer or America's Version of Leonidas at Thermopylae? Jun 20, 2019

George Armstrong Custer had a storied military career—from cutting his teeth at Bull Run in the Civil War, to his famous and untimely death at Little Bighorn in the Indian Wars. But what was his legacy? Was he a brilliant desperado sadly cut down too early in his life or a foolish glory seeker who needlessly led his men to death, getting a just end for his brutal treatment of Indians?
Custer, having graduated last in his class at West Point, went on to prove himself again and again as an extremely skilled cavalry leader. But Custer’s undoing was his bold and cocky attitude, which caused the Army’s bloodiest defeat in the Indian Wars. We will look at all these aspects of his character in this episode.

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An Interview with 95-Year-Old Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jun 18, 2019

“Colored people aren’t accepted as airline pilots.” The “negro type has not the proper reflexes to make a first-class fighter pilot.” These were the degrading sentiments that faced eighteen-year-old Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr. as he journeyed in a segregated rail car to Army basic training in Mississippi in 1943. But two years later, the twenty-year-old African American from New York proved doubters wrong when he was at the controls of a P-51, prowling for Luftwaffe aircraft at five thousand feet over the Austrian countryside.
Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr. is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. In this episode I talk with him about his early life, training, and combat missions, including the mission in which he downed three enemy fighters.
He also discusses the injustices he and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen faced during their wartime service and upon their return home. Unlike white pilots, Stewart and other Tuskegee flyers faced the extra danger that if they were shot down over enemy territory they could not hide in plain sight with the population or expect to live. Tragically, one of Stewart’s friends was shot down, captured, and lynched by a racist mob. Stewart and his fighter group defied racially-prejudice expectations and won the first postwar Air Force-wide gunnery competition for propeller-driven fighters. Stewart obtained honorary captain status from American and Delta Airlines after being denied piloting jobs with those airlines’ legacy carriers (TWA and Pan Am) 50 years ago because of his ethnicity.

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Vlad the Impaler is the (Partial) Inspiration for Count Dracula Jun 13, 2019

Vampire lore goes back to the ancient world (revenant legends abound from Rome to China) but vampire mythology doesn't come into its own until at least the Renaissance period. Was the inspiration for it all the bloodthirsty Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes, the ruler who impaled tens of thousands in the 1400s? Was he the direct inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula? Partially yes, but it's not as clear cut as most think. In this episode we will sink our fangs into vampire lore, the reign of Vlad Tepes, and where Bram Stoker got his ideas for his most famous novel.

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'A Woman of No Importance': The One-Legged WW2 Spy Virginia Hall Jun 11, 2019

In 1942, as World War II was raging, the Gestapo sent out an urgent message: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.” That spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman who—rejected from the Foreign Service because of her gender and prosthetic leg—talked her way behind enemy lines in occupied France and went on to become one of the greatest (and most unlikely) spies in U.S. history.
Today I talk with Sonia Purnell, author of the book "A Woman of No Importance." Virginia quickly established a network of spies to blow up bridges and track German troop movements; she recruited and trained guerrilla fighters, arming them with weapons she called in from the skies. As “the limping lady of Lyon” and later “the Madonna of the Mountains,” she became legend. Eluding the Nazis hot on her tail, her face covering WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused orders to evacuate. Finally—her cover blown and her associates imprisoned or executed—she escaped in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain. But, adamant that she had “more lives to save,” she dove back in as soon as she could, helping lay the groundwork for the Allied liberation of France.

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The 4,000-Year-Old Question: Is Judaism a Religion, Ethnicity, Race, or Culture? Jun 06, 2019

What is Judaism? What does it mean to be Jewish? Is it an ethnicity (being one of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), a religion (following the tenets of the Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud) or a cultural experience (a common experienced developed through millenia of being ostracized, otherized, and demonized by majority groups in their homelands).
Today I tackled this enormous question by first looking at the origins of the Jewish people. There's not universally accepted answer to this question. Some say the Old Testament account of the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, and the deportations into Assyria and Babylon tell the story. Others say the Jewish people were an offshoot of the Canaanites who developed into their own culture. We then look into the creation of the Jewish diaspora across the Mediterranean world and how Jewish identity shifted as the circumstances of this religious group changed from the ancient world to the medieval and early modern periods. There is no clear answer to all these questions, but this episode will hopefully provide plenty of historical context.

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The 500-Year Story of a Gutenberg Bible And Everyone Who Owned It Jun 04, 2019

For rare-book collectors, an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible—of which there are fewer than 50 in existence (and which can sell for $100 million)—represents the ultimate prize. One copy, Number 45, passed through the hands of Johannes Gutenberg, monks, an earl, billionaires, bibliophiles, the Worcestershire sauce king, and a nuclear physicist before arriving at its ultimate resting place, in a steel vault in Tokyo. Estelle Doheny, the first woman collector to add the book to her library and its last private owner, tipped the Bible onto a trajectory that forever changed our understanding of the first mechanically printed book.
In today's episode I'm speaking with Margaret Leslie Davis, author of The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey. She focuses on two protagonists in her story: the copy of the Gutenberg Bible itself and Doheny, a California heiress who emerged from scandal to chase it. We discussed the value we place on rare books, and the shifting wealth and power of those who hunt them.

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death, Part 5 Jun 01, 2019

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Hitler’s “Desert Fox”: The Military Career of Erwin Rommel May 30, 2019

Erwin Rommel, a German field marshal in World War Two, was probably more respected and feared than any other figure in the Wehrmacht. He issued early defeats against the British in North Africa against vastly superior forces using a mix of cutting-edge tactics with combined arms assaults and classic Napoleonic military strategy. But who was Erwin Rommel? War hero or war criminal? Hitler flunky? Military genius or just lucky?
In this episode I talk with Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. a military historian and author of the new book Desert Fox: The Storied Military Career of Erwin Rommel—offering a look at the Allies’ most well-respected opponent of WWII. He explores the complexities of the controversial Nazi leader through his improbable and spectacular military career, his epic battles in North Africa, and his fraught relationship with Hitler and the Nazi Party.

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When Irish Vets of the American Civil War Invaded Canada in 1866 May 28, 2019

One year after the Civil War ended, a group of delusional and mostly incompetent commanders sponsored by bitterly competing groups riddled with spies, led tiny armies against the combined forces of the British, Canadian, and American governments. They were leaders of America’s feuding Irish émigré groups who thought they could conquer Canada and blackmail Great Britain (then the world's military superpower) into granting Ireland its independence.
The story behind the infamous 1866 Fenian Raids seems implausible (and whiskey-fueled), but ultimately is an inspiring tale of heroic patriotism. Inspired by a fervent love for Ireland and a burning desire to free her from British rule, members of the Fenian Brotherhood – a semi-secret band of Irish-American revolutionaries – made plans to seize the British province of Canada and hold it hostage until the independence of Ireland was secured.
When the Fenian Raids began, Ireland had been subjugated by Britain for over seven hundred years. The British had taken away Ireland’s religion, culture, and language, and when the Great Hunger stuck, they even took away her food, exporting it to other realms of the British Empire. Those who escaped the famine and fled to America were inspired by the revolutionary actions of the Civil War to fight for their own country’s freedom. After receiving a promise from President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward not to interfere with any military plans, the Fenian Brotherhood - which included a one-armed Civil War hero, an English spy posing as French sympathizer, an Irish revolutionary who faked his own death to escape capture, and a Fenian leader turned British loyalist – began to implement their grand plan to secure Ireland’s freedom. They executed daring prison breaks from an Australian penal colony, conducted political assassinations and engaged in double-dealings, managing to seize a piece of Canada for three days.
Today I'm speaking with Christopher Klein, author of the book WHEN THE IRISH INVADED CANADA: The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom. He brings light to this forgotten but fascinating story in history.

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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present May 23, 2019

The received idea of Native American history--as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee--has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well.
Today's guest David Treuer has a different take on this history. Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present, Treuer argues strongly against this narrative. Because American Indians did not disappear--and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence--the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.

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How Industrialists Plotted to Overthrow FDR Over The New Deal in 1934 May 21, 2019

FDR launched the New Deal immediately after his 1933 inauguration, but it was not universally popular. Some hated it bitterly. Critics from the right thought it was part of a long-term plan to push America into Soviet-style socialism. Critics from the left like Louisiana Governor Huey Long thought it didn't go far enough. Long pushed the “Share Our Wealth” plan, demanding that Congress confiscate individual earnings over $1 million, using those funds for health care and college tuition. He called anyone who refused to endorse his plan “damned scoundrels” that were fit for hanging.
Perhaps the strangest episode in opposition to the New Deal came from a group of financiers and industrialists, who in 1934 allegedly plotted a coup d’état to prevent FDR from establishing what they feared would be a socialist state. Though the media regarded it as a tall tale, retired Marine Corps major general Smedley Butler testified before a congressional committee that the conspirators had wanted Butler to deliver an ultimatum to FDR to create a new cabinet officer, a “Secretary of General Affairs,” who would run things while the president recuperated from feigned ill health. If Roosevelt refused, the conspirators had promised General Butler an army of five hundred thousand war veterans who would help drive Roosevelt from office.

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death, Part 4 May 18, 2019

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Making Your Death Memorable: The Oldest Tombs We Can Trace To One Person May 16, 2019

What are the oldest known tombs that can reliably be traced to a person? These are surprisingly tricky to track down. While archeologists constantly find human remains at an excavation site, there are almost never any identifying marks about the person. This is particularly true in the ancient world. Other than massive sites like the pyramids, we have little knowledge about the final resting places of famous figures. We don't even know the burial site of Alexander the Great -- the biggest celebrity in antiquity.
In this episode we talk about ancient tombs, crypts, mausoleums, and burial mounds. But more broadly, we look at how humanity's understanding of life, death, and commemorating those who passed away left behind more than tombs. It may be the reason for the rise of civilization itself.

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The Kremlin Letters: Stalin's Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt May 14, 2019

From 1941 to 1945, Joseph Stalin exchanged more than six hundred messages with Allied leaders Churchill and Roosevelt. The correspondence ranged from intimate personal greetings to weighty salvos about diplomacy and strategy, and they reveal political machinations and human stories behind the Allied triumvirate.
Today's guest is David Reynolds, author of a new book about the correspondence between the three. He helped edit a volume based on the correspondence among the Allied triumvirate, which illuminated an alliance that really worked while exposing its fractious limits and the issues and egos that set the stage for the Cold War.

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The RAF Won the Battle of Britain With Strategy But Also Plenty of Luck May 09, 2019

In the summer of 1940, Germany sent armadas of bombers and fighters over England hoping to lure the RAF into battle and annihilate the defenders. Day after day the RAF scrambled their pilots into the sky to do battle up to five times a day. Britain's air defense bent but did not break. All that stood between the British and defeat was a small force of RAF pilots outnumbered in the air by four to one. After pushing back the armada, Winston Churchill declared: "Never before in human history was so much owed by so many to so few."
But how did they do it? The answer is effective tactics, plenty of bravery, and a change in German strategy that squandered all their gains.

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Why The Printing Press Appeared in the Middle East 400 Years After Europe May 07, 2019

Why were there no printing presses in the Middle East until four centuries after Europe? Did it have to do with Islam prohibiting this technology? Was the calligraphy lobby too strong? Or is the answer more complicated?
The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439. A few decades later there were millions of books in Europe. But there were few printing presses in the Ottoman Empire until the 1800s. Some historians say this has to do with lack of interest and religious reasons were among the reasons for the slow adoption of the printing press outside Europe. The story goes that the printing of Arabic, after encountering strong opposition by Muslim legal scholars and the manuscript scribes, remained prohibited in the Ottoman empire between 1483 and 1729, initially even on penalty of death.
However, we will see in this episode that scholars and sultans had no problems with the printing press. The real reason for the printing press's slow spread was twofold: First, the thousands of calligraphers made hand-copied books so cheap that printing presses were not needed. Second, Arabic letters are more difficult to render than Latin ones, meaning that the printing press had to become more technologically advanced before it could cheaply and easily churn out Arabic, Turkish, and Persian texts.

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death, Part 3 May 04, 2019

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Last Night on the Titanic: Conclusion May 02, 2019

In the final episode in this series, Veronica and Scott discuss the enduring legacy of the Titanic and why a disaster that happened 107 years ago still captures our imaginations.

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Last Night on the Titanic: Doctors and Con Artists Apr 30, 2019

The Titanic was filled with medical professionals either working as ship personnel or traveling in a non-professional capacity. There were also plenty of con artists aboard, hoping to worm their way into the wills of wealthy widows. Learn about their stories in this episode.

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Last Night on the Titanic: The Musicians Apr 25, 2019

The musicians of the Titanic famously continued playing as the ship went down, a testimony to practicing one's craft until their dying breath. But did it really happen like this?
Varying accounts exist as to whether the band played until the end and also about what the band was playing. We will explore the accounts in this episode.

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Last Night on the Titanic: The Trend Setters Apr 23, 2019

Many Titanic passengers were known for setting the styles. In this episode we will profile the two Luciles: famed fashionistas Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon and Lucile Polk Carter. We will also look at John Jacob Astor IV, perhaps the world’s richest man at the time. He founded hotels that were ground-breaking in their day and continue to set trends long after the eponymous founder's death.

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death, Part 2 Apr 20, 2019

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Last Night on the Titanic: The Life Savers Apr 18, 2019

Mr. Rogers once said, “When there is a disaster, always look for the helpers; there will always be helpers.
Many died on the night of the Titanic's sinking, but many more would have died if not for the heroic efforts of such helpers as the “unsinkable” Molly Brown and Benjamin Guggenheim, a millionaire who acted with utter calm as he gently assisted women and children to lifeboats, knowing he would die within the hour. Other helpers personally swam infants to lifeboats, using every last breath to help others before they themselves perished.

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Last Night on the Titanic: The Cooks Apr 16, 2019

The cooks and other support staff of the Titanic “drowned like rats” due to not being assigned a clear place in the pecking order of escapees. One who did survive was French cook Paul Mauge, who used his extraordinary wits to survive. This episode chronicles how cooks like Mauge arrived on the Titanic, how they survived (or didn't), and what it was like for the service personnel on the night the ship went down.

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Sneak Peek of the New Podcast Series "Espionage" Apr 13, 2019

Code Names. Deception. Gadgets. It might seem like something out of the movies, but these
are just some of the essential components of being a spy.
ESPIONAGE tells the stories of the world’s most incredible undercover missions, and how these
covert operations succeeded...or failed
Espionage is a Parcast Original podcast from the same storytelling team behind hit shows like
Unexplained Mysteries, Serial Killers, and Conspiracy Theories.
Call to Action: This is the first part of the first Espionage episode. To hear the remainder
of this episode, search for and subscribe to Espionage wherever you listen to podcasts
or visit Parcast.com/espionage to start listening now.

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Last Night on the Titanic: The Writers Apr 11, 2019

The sinking of the Titanic is memorable for its countless stories, and the reason that so many of them have found their way down to us today was the many writers that were onboard the ship. The first draft of history about the Titanic was written by man prominent writers. We will focus on six in this episode: Paul Danby, Adolphe Saalfeld, Edith Rosenbaum Russell, William Stead, Jacques Futrelle, and Lawrence Beesley

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Last Night on the Titanic: The Popcorn Vendor Apr 09, 2019

One legendary fixture on the Titanic was a gregarious popcorn vendor known as Popcorn Dan (Coxon). He was one of America's first food truck operators and a highly successful purveyor of popcorn. He was lost on the Titanic and his body was never recovered, although a NY Times article claimed it was him when it wasn't.
Coxon lived an interesting life. He resided in a Queen Anne house on the Wisconsin river, which people thought was haunted. He dressed in a fur-lined coat and loved to maintain a flashy appearance.
But he was still a working-class man. For that reason, our culinary spotlight on him is a staple of laborers in the early 20th century (now it's a delicacy)—Tripe and Onion Soup

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Teaser: Rendezvous With Death Apr 06, 2019

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Last Night on the Titanic: The Bakers Apr 04, 2019

In this episode we are looking at the life of Charles Joughin, a colorful character who has appeared in both film version of the Titanic. After the sinking, Joughin claimed he knew it was an iceberg that struck the ship because he saw a polar bear— and it waved to him (although, it should be noted, he told this story to nieces and nephews largely to mask the horror of that last night aboard the Titanic).
At around 12:15 a.m. Joughin began rousing his kitchen staff. Six of his men were already working, and the others he got up out of their beds. “All hands out. All hands out of your bunks.” He directed each of them to take four loaves up for the life boats, fifty-two loaves in all. Joughin’s staff consisted of ten bakers, two confectioners, and a Vienna baker. Of the fourteen of them, ten had worked on the Olympic, the Titanic’s sister ship, and many of them had worked together.

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The Last Night on the Titanic: Overview of the 1,500 Passengers and Crew Who Lost Their Lives Apr 02, 2019

On the night of April 14, 1912, in the last hours before the Titanic struck
the iceberg, passengers in all classes were enjoying unprecedented luxuries. Innovations in food, drink, and decor made this voyage the apogee of Edwardian elegance.
This episode is the first in a series I'm doing with Titanic historian Veronica Hinke called "Last Night on the Titanic." In it we look at individual accounts of tragedy and survival from the figures that made up the passengers and crew of the ship. They include millionaires, artists, fashionistas, bakers, cookers, musicians, doctors, and con-men.
To recreate the experience of what it was like to be on the Titanic before disaster was on anyone's mind, Veronica also goes into detail of the food and drink consumer on the ship, from tripe soup eaten by a third-class passenger to the fancy dessert eaten by a Edwardian lady.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Special Series 'Last Night on the Titanic' Starts Next Week Mar 30, 2019

An announcement for a forthcoming series coming to the History Unplugged Podcast called "Last Night on the Titanic."

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Light-Horse Harry Lee: A Founding Father's Journey From Glory to Ruin Mar 28, 2019

The history of the American Revolution is written by and about the victors like Washington, Jefferson, and Adams. But separating the heroes from the villains is not so black and white.
So how should we remember a man like Major General Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee III—the father of Robert E. Lee— who rose to glory, helped shape the fabric of America, but ultimately ended his life in ruin? He is responsible for valiant victories, enduring accomplishments, and catastrophic failures.
Today I'm speaking with Ryan Cole, author of the new book Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero
We discuss how he was a...
Brilliant cavalryman who played a crucial role in Nathanael Greene’s strategy that led to Britain’s surrender at Yorktown
Close friend of George Washington—he gave the famous eulogy of “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen” which is widely quoted today
Strong supporter of the Constitution—his arguments led Virginia, the most influential colony in the soon-to-be country, to ratify it
Victim of a violent political mob—he was beaten with clubs, his nose was partially sliced off, and hot wax was dripped into his eyes

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Bad Puns and Dirty Jokes in Rome and Ancient Greece Mar 26, 2019

"A student dunce went swimming and almost drowned. So now he swears he'll never get into water until he's really learned to swim." That was a decent dad joke to be sure. But it's not a joke your dad came up with. Nor your grandfather. Rather, it was a great-great- great(x)50 grandfather joke that dates back at least to the Roman Empire.
In this episode we will explore humor in the ancient world. What were the gags and jokes that made Mesopotamians, Greeks, and Romans laugh? Did they have higher or lower brow humor than us? While the argument can be made for low-brow humor (the oldest written joke has to do with a Sumerian wife farting on her husband), the humor also got arcane and sophisticated (like a New Yorker cartoon of the ancient world).
In particular we will looked at the Philogelos (meaning "Laughter Lover"), a Greek anthology of more than 200 jokes from the fourth or fifth century. From gags about dunces to jests at the expense of great thinkers, we see what made people laugh in the ancient world.

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Wright Brothers, Wrong Story? Why Some Say Wilbur—Not Orville—Discovered Manned Flight Mar 21, 2019

How did two brothers who never left home, were high-school dropouts, and made a living as bicycle mechanics figure out the secret of manned flight? The story goes that Wilbur and Orville Wright were an inseparable duo that were equally responsible for developing the theory of aeronautics and translating it into the first workable airplane.
Today's guest William Hazelgrove argues that it was Wilbur Wright who designed the first successful airplane, not Orville. He shows that, while Orville's role was important, he generally followed his brother's lead and assisted with the mechanical details to make Wilbur's vision a reality.

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When Danzig Became Gdańsk: What Happens to a City When Its Demographics Change Completely Mar 19, 2019

What happens to a city when its demographics change completely in the space of a few years? To explore this question, we will take a look at the case of Danzig (modern-day Gdańsk) in northern Poland. The city's population was almost entirely German from its origin in the Middle Ages to World War 2. After the war, the population became Polish. To explore this question we will zoom out and look at these big issues: 1) The centuries-long eastern movement of Germans, who spread throughout central and Eastern Europe; 2) The establishment of the Free City of Danzig by Napoleon in 1807 after he dissolved the Holy Roman Empire; 3) Why Hitler wanted to capture Danzig immediately after invading Poland in 1939, even though it held no strategic value; 4) The expulsion of Danzig's German population after World War Two and how the city transformed with the importing of Polish residents, who renamed it Gdańsk. This episode is based on a question from listener Melissa, who wanted me to talk about the history of the city/city-state of Danzig before, during, and after World War II.

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The Revolution Before the Revolution: How 1776 Happened Mar 14, 2019

In the 1760s, the American colonies were completely incapable of organized resistance. One's loyalty was to their state, as the idea of being an “American” was nearly empty. Few clamored for democracy, as Europe and the rest of the world believed that the highest form of government was monarchy. And most Americans considered themselves British – or at least part of the British Empire.
But in 1776 the United States formally declared itself as a new nation in which all men were equal. They formed a continental army. And within a few years they defeated the world's best military force.
How did so much change in 10 years? To discuss this topic is today's guest Michael Troy, host of the American Revolution Podcast. His show is a chronological history of the Revolutionary War, and he gets deep into details (at the time of this recording the show was 75 episodes in and only up to the year 1775).

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An Active Neutrality: The WW2 Experiences of Switzerland, Portugal, and Turkey Mar 12, 2019

Neutrality is not the same thing as passivity. Just ask the many nations who had to walk an extremely thin tightrope during World War 2 to stay out of the war (in which they saw nothing for themselves to gain) but not get invaded by a more powerful neighbor.
Some nations tried merely not to get invaded. Portugal had to keep up its client relationship with Britain but not anger Hitler by helping them too much. Britain claimed the right to use Portuguese ports under the terms of a 14th century treaty. But Portugal had to refuse Britain the right to use the Azores Islands as an airbase until years into the war.
Other nations profited heavily from World War Two thanks to its neutrality. Switzerland was the finance hub of 1940s Europe, as both Axis and Allied powers deposited their valuables in Swiss bank accounts and safety deposit boxes. But in recent years some have called Switzerland's actions war profiteering, especially as Switzerland laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen assets, including gold taken from the central banks of German-occupied Europe. At the war's end, Holocaust survivors and the heirs of those who perished met a wall of bureaucracy and only a handful managed to reclaim their assets. Some of the dormant accounts were taken by the Swiss authorities to satisfy claims of Swiss nationals whose property was seized by Communist regimes in East Central Europe.
Turkey was still devastated by the endless Ottoman wars from 1911-1922 and sat out World War Two. But they held vast reserves of chromite, necessary for making steel, which they happily sold to Axis powers. All the while Turkey held out the hope that Britain could use its islands to invade Europe from the Balkans in return for advanced aircraft. Turkey only entered the war in 1945 (and only to get a seat at the forthcoming United Nations) but profited well from the massive conflict.
This episode is based on a question from listener Chris Wentworth. He asked me why some nations like Turkey, were so involved with World War One but took a backseat during World War Two, which arguably did more to create our modern world than any other event.

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Kangaroo Squadron: The Tip of the American Spear in the WW2 Pacific Theatre Mar 07, 2019

In early 1942, while most of the American military was in disarray from the devastating attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, a single USAAF squadron advanced to the far side of the world to face America's new enemy.
Based in Australia with poor supplies and no ground support, the pilots and crew faced tropical diseases while confronting numerically superior Japanese forces. Yet the outfit, dubbed the Kangaroo Squadron, proved remarkably resilient and successful, conducting long-range bombing raids, armed reconnaissance missions, and rescuing General MacArthur and his staff from the Philippines.
Today I speak with Bruce Gamble, author of Kangaroo Squadron: American Courage in the Darkest Days of World War II. He was inspired to write this story by his uncle, a navigator in the squadron. A footlocker contained his military papers and other memorabilia, including a handwritten dairy filled with day-to-day details of his tour.
And an artifact from this story lives on today to honor its veterans. When a B-17E bomber crashed in a swamp on the north coast of Papua New Guinea in February 1942, the nine-member crew survived, escaped to safety, and returned to combat. But until 2006, the bomber nicknamed “Swamp Ghost” remained submerged in water and tall grass. It has been restored and is now a main attraction in the Pacific Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor.

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Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 5: Crusades In The Renaissance Mar 05, 2019

The Crusades are typically bookended between Pope Urban II's call to reclaim the Holy Land in 1095 and the fall of Acre and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291. But two of the most notable religious figures of the 1400s—Pope Pius II and John of Capistrano—show that the lines between these periods were considerably blurred. Take the example of Pope Pius II’s famous 1461 letter to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, which he wrote following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. The humanist scholar-turned-pope called on Mehmet to convert to Christianity.
Yet behind his back Pope Pius denigrated Mehmet as barbarous due to the same Asiatic pedigree and for destroying classical Greek civilization. He simultaneously worked furiously to promote a crusade against the Ottomans. This fifteenth-century project did not come to pass, but scholars in the last two decades have shown that there was no reason to see a discrepancy between Renaissance intellectualism and Holy War. In fact, Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull on September 30, 1453 (four months after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople) to urge Christian rulers to launch a crusade to save Constantinople and restore the fallen Byzantine Empire. They were called to shed their blood and the blood for their subjects and provide a tithe of their revenue for the project.
No such crusade was launched that year, but the call launched a final period of European crusading fervor that lasted until the end of the fifteenth century, what many historians consider an end point for the Middle Ages

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Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 4: The Medieval Technological Explosion Feb 28, 2019

The Middle Ages was not a thousand-year period of technological stagnation between the fall of Rome and Leonardo da Vinci. It was an incredible period of invention and scientific innovation that saw major technological advances, including gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, water mills, Gothic architectural building techniques, and clocks so sophisticated it took years to cycle through their full calculations, resembling an early mainframe computer more than a timekeeping device.

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Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 3: Witch Burnings Feb 26, 2019

At the height of the witch burning craze, thousands people, largely women, were falsely accused of witchcraft. Many of them were burned, hanged, and executed, typically under religious pretense. But this phenomena largely didn’t happen in the Middle Ages, and if so it only occurred at the very end of this period.
Witch burnings did not begin en masse until the Renaissance period and did not peak until the Enlightenment period in the eighteenth century. Although executions by being burn at the stake were somewhat common in the Middle Ages, they were not used on “witches”—only heretics and other disobeyers of Catholic teachings received this ignominious death. Witch trials and their accusations of weather manipulation, transforming into animals, and child sacrifices, have no documented occurrence before 1400.

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Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 2: Were Indulgences a Get-out-of-Hell-Free Card Or Something Else? Feb 21, 2019

Was it really possible to buy your way out of hell in the Middle Ages? If so, how much did it cost? And what did the Catholic Church do with all this money? In this second episode in our five-part series on the misunderstood Middle Ages, we will explore all these issues and more.
Additionally, you will find out that indulgences still exist today, although not in the way that you think.

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Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 1: Why the Middle Ages, Not the Renaissance, Created the Modern World Feb 19, 2019

The popular view of the Middle Ages is a thousand-year period of superstition and ignorance, punctuated by witch burnings and belief in a flat earth. But the medieval period, more than any other time in history, laid the foundations for the modern world. The work of scholars, intellectuals, architects, statesmen and craftsmen led to rise of towns, the earliest bureaucratic states, the emergence of vernacular literatures, the recovery of Greek science and philosophy with its Arabic additions, and the beginnings of the first European universities.
This episode is the first in a five-part series to explore a revisionist history of the Middle Ages, starting with the Roman Empire’s collapse in the fifth century. We will march through the accounts of Charlemagne’s reign, the Black Plague, the fall of Constantinople, and everything in between. It explores social aspects of the Middle Ages that are still largely misunderstood (i.e., no educated person believed the earth was flat). There was also a surprisingly high level of medieval technology, the love of Aristotle in the Middle Ages, and the lack of witch burnings (those were not popularized until the Thirty Years War in the Renaissance Period).
The Middle Ages were not a period to suffer through until the Renaissance returned Europe to its intellectual and cultural birthright. Rather, they were the fire powering the forge out of which Western identity was forged. The modern world owes a permanent debt of gratitude to the medieval culture of Europe. It was the light that illuminated the darkness following the collapse of Rome and remained lit into the world we inhabit today.

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Civil War Barons: The Tycoons, Entrepreneurs, and Inventors and Visionaries Who Forged Victory and Shaped a Nation Feb 14, 2019

The American Civil War brought with it unprecedented demands upon the warring sections—North and South. The conflict required a mobilization and an organization of natural and man-made resources on a massive scale.
In this episode I talk with Jeffry Wert, author of the new book Civil War Barons, which profiles the contributions of nineteen Northern businessmen to the Union cause. They were tinkerers, inventors, improvisers, builders, organizers, entrepreneurs, and all visionaries. They contributed to the war effort in myriad ways: they operated railroads, designed repeating firearms, condensed milk, sawed lumber, cured meat, built warships, purified medicines, forged iron, made horseshoes, constructed wagons, and financed a war. And some of their names and companies have endured—Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Deere, McCormick, Studebaker, Armour, and Squibb.
The eclectic group includes Henry Burden, a Scottish immigrant who invented a horseshoe-making machine in the 1830s, who refined the process to be able to forge a horseshoe every second, supplying the Union army with 70 million horseshoes during the four years. John Deere’s plows “sang through the rich sod, portending bountiful harvests for a Union in peril.” And Jay Cooke emerged from the war as the most famous banker in America, earning a reputation for trustworthiness with his marketing of government bonds.

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Women Have Been Running For President Since 1872. Here Are 4 Of Their Stories Feb 12, 2019

2016 was the first election in which a woman won the nomination of a major political party to be president of the United States. But women have been legally running for president as far back as 1872, decades before they could even vote. Since then several dozen women have run for president, almost all of them long shots with nearly no chance of winning. But these long odds do not negate their story and their campaigns tell us much about the times in which they lived.
In this episode I talk with Richard Lim, host of This American President Podcast. We look at the lives of these fascinating figures
-- Victoria Woodhull, the 1872 candidate who ran a brokerage firm through the patronage of Cornelius Vanderbilt. She was as a 31-year-old spiritualist, radical communist, and possible former prostitute with a remarkably canny ability to reinvent herself
-- Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine and the first woman to serve in both houses of the U.S. congress (she was Senator for 24 years). Smith was an early critic of McCarthyism and a 1964 presidential candidate who fashioned herself as the female Eisenhower.
-- Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, a 1972 presidential candidate, and an unlikely friend of George Wallace(!)
-- Edith Wilson, the First Lady who essentially acted as de facto president following the stroke of her husband Woodrow Wilson in 1919 until March 1921.

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War Animals: How 55 Birds, Dogs, and Horses Saved Thousands of Lives in World War Two Feb 07, 2019

Did you know that in World War Two there were “para-dogs,” or dogs that parachuted along with paratroopers in anticipation of D-Day? Or that carrier pigeons were dropped into France in their bird cages so that French Resistance members could find them and attach messages so they'd be delivered to Allied command in Britain?
America’s highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, was awarded to four-hundred-forty deserving members of “The Greatest Generation” that served in World War II. But in 1943, before the war was even over, Allied leaders realized they needed another kind of award to recognize a different kind of World War II hero-animal heroes.
Founded in 1943, the prestigious PDSA Dicken Medal is the highest award an animal can achieve for gallantry and bravery in the field of military conflict. It was given to fifty-five animals who served valiantly alongside the members of the Greatest Generation.
In War Animals, national bestselling author Robin Hutton (Sgt. Reckless: America’s War Horse) tells the incredible, inspiring true stories of the fifty-five animal recipients of the PDSA Dicken Medal during WWII and the lesser-known stories of other military animals whose acts of heroism have until now been largely forgotten.
These animal heroes include:
G.I. Joe, who flew 20 miles in 20 minutes and stopped the planes on the tarmac from bombing a town that had just been taken over by allied forces, saving the lives of over 100 British soldiers
Winkie, the first Dickin recipient, who saved members of a downed plane when she flew 129 miles with oil clogged wings with an SOS message that helped a rescue team find the crew
Chips, who served as a sentry dog for the Roosevelt-Churchill conference; Ding, a paradog whose plane was hit by enemy fire on D-Day, ended up in a tree, and once on the ground still saved lives

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Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts, Part 5: Barack Obama Feb 05, 2019

With the election of America's first African-American president in 2008, many feared that the presidency of Barack Obama would bring out the most reactionary elements in society and end his life in assassination. Did Obama's eight years as president bring out more assassination attempts than other presidents or merely those of different ideological stripes? Find out in the final part in this series on presidential assassination attempts.

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Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts, Part 4: Bill Clinton Jan 31, 2019

Many tried to kill Bill Clinton during his presidency, including former military officers, white supremacists, and a little-known militant named Osama bin Laden. Most famously, Frank Eugene Corder crashed a Cessna onto the White House lawn. Learn about other attempts on the life of the 42nd president in this episode.

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Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts, Part 3: Ronald Reagan Jan 29, 2019

After his presidency, a deranged man broke into Ronald Reagan’s California home and attempted to strangle the former president before he was subdued by Secret Service agents. This attempt on his life came on the heels on many other attempts on Reagan, the final president to serve his entire presidency during the Cold War.

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Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts, Part 2: JFK Jan 24, 2019

The only president to be assassinated in the last century was John F. Kennedy. What caused this failure in the Secret Service's typical protection procedures? Was it a perfect storm of bad luck, a lapse in judgement in the protection detail, or something far more nefarious, as conspiracy theorists have insisted for five decades?

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Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts, Part 1: FDR Jan 22, 2019

In American history, four U.S. Presidents have been murdered at the hands of an assassin. In each case the assassinations changed the course of American history.
But most historians have overlooked or downplayed the many threats modern presidents have faced, and survived. In this podcast series we will be looking at the largely forgotten—or never-before revealed attempts to slay America’s leaders.
Such incidents include:
How an armed, would-be assassin stalked President Roosevelt and spent ten days waiting across the street from the White House for his chance to shoot him
How the Secret Service foiled a plot by a Cuban immigrant who told coworkers he was going to shoot LBJ from a window overlooking the president’s motorcade route
How a deranged man broke into Reagan’s California home and attempted to strangle the former president before he was subdued by Secret Service agents.
In early 1992 a mentally deranged man stalking Bush turned up at the wrong presidential venue for his planned assassination attempt
The relationships presidents held with their protectors and the effect it had on the Secret Service’s mission
In the first episode of this series, we will look at assassination attempts against Franklin Roosevelt. He received thousands of threats on his life during his four presidential terms. The danger only increased in the World War 2 years, with his protection detail fearing an Axis assassin would take him out. There were several near-misses, with a would-be killer's bullet coming with in two feet of his head, or a torpedo nearly sinking his ship while going to the Yalta Conference to meet Churchill and Stalin.

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Understanding the Rise of Islam Through Military History Jan 17, 2019

How did an initially small religious movement envelope such enormous areas of the world? That is precisely what the community of believers under Muhammed did, conquering the Persian Empire and crippling the Byzantine Empire in a matter of decades, two global powers who were unable to do this to each other despite their best efforts. This episode looks at the rise of Islam, the most historically significant event of the early Middle Ages, through the perspective of military and social history.

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Fugitive Slaves in America, From the Revolution to the Civil War Jan 15, 2019

For decades after its founding, America was really two nations – one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this nation ultimately broke apart in the Civil War, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the “united” states was a lie.
The problem of the 1850s - how (for southerners) to preserve slavery without destroying the Union, or (for northerners) how to destroy slavery while preserving the Union – was a political problem specific to a particular time and place. But the moral problem of how to reconcile irreconcilable values is a timeless one that, sooner or later, confronts us all.”
My guest today, Andrew Delbanco, author of The War Before The War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War discusses this topic at depth in this episode. We begin in 1850, with America on the verge of collapse, Congress reached what it hoped was a solution – the notorious Compromise of 1850, which required that fugitive slaves be returned to their masters. But the Fugitive Slave Act, intended to preserve the Union, instead set the nation on the path to civil war.

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Moral Panics and Mass Hysteria: The Dancing Plague, Salem Witch Trials, and The Tulip Market Bubble Jan 10, 2019

One person's psychosis can be easily dismissed, but how do we account for collective hysteria, when an entire crowd sees the same illusion or suffer from the same illness? It's enough to make somebody believe in dark magic and pick up their pitchfork, ready to hang an accused witch.
Sadly, such paranoia has led to many witch hunts in the past. In today's episode we look at some of the most notorious historical cases of mass hysteria and moral panics. But these cases don't only extend to Puritan-era witch panics. We will also look at cases that hit closer to home—such as economic bubbles and the housing market crash of the early 2000s.
This episode includes such cases of mass hysteria as
-- Dancing mania, in which German peasants in 1374 spent weeks dancing in a fugue state, with some toppling over dead from utter exhaustion
-- The cat nuns of medieval France, where the sisters became to inexplicably meow together, leaving the surrounding community perplexed
-- The Salem Witch trials, where 19 were executed due to claims of sorcery
-- The Jersey Devil Panic, in which dozens of newspapers claimed in 1909 that a winged creature attacked a trolley car in Haddon Heights

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How a Researcher Discovered That Her Grandparents Were in the Nazi SS Jan 08, 2019

How would you react if you discovered that your family were deeply embedded within the Third Reich? Today I'm talking with Brazilian-born American Julie Lindahl about her journey to uncover her grandparents’ roles in the Nazi regime and why she was driven to understand how and why they became members of Hitler’s elite, the SS.
In a six-year journey through Germany, Poland, Paraguay, and Brazil, Julie uncovers, among many other discoveries, that her grandfather had been a fanatic member of the SS since 1934. During World War II, he was responsible for enslavement and torture and was complicit in the murder of the local population on the large estates he oversaw in occupied Poland. He eventually fled to South America to evade a new wave of war-crimes trials.
As she delved deeper into her family’s secret, Julie also found unlikely compassion from strangers whose family were victimized and ways to understand a troubled past.

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Teaser: Ottoman Lives Part 7—The Outlaw Jan 05, 2019

Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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James Holman Traveled Over 250,000 Miles in the Early 1800s. He Was Also Completely Blind. Jan 03, 2019

He was known simply as the Blind Traveler. A solitary, sightless adventurer, James Holman (1786-1857) fought the slave trade in Africa, survived a frozen captivity in Siberia, hunted rogue elephants in Ceylon, helped chart the Australian outback—and circumnavigated the globe, becoming one of the greatest wonders of the world he so explored.
Today I'm talking with Jason Roberts, author of one of my all-time favorite history books: A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler. We get into all the impossible-to-believe stories that come from Holman's life, including:
-- Holman retraining his senses to use echolocation to “see” the world around him through sight and touch
- -Summiting Mt. Vesuvius as it was on the brink of eruption
-- Riding horses at full gallop
-- Negotiating peace between the British navy and islanders in Equatorial Guinea

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The History of Cannabis and Its Use By Humans Jan 01, 2019

History is often looked at through the perspective of a very high-up official. We look at military history through the eyes of a general. We look at political history through the eyes of a president or prime minister.
But what if we look at history through the perspective of drugs? Specifically, what if we look at history through the perspective of marijuana?
This isn't as gonzo of an idea as you might think. In my days as an Ottoman historian I knew someone doing his thesis on opium smuggling in Interwar Turkey and Beyond. The Opium Wars and the massive trade in opium between South Asia and China over the nineteenth century attest to the prominent role of opium within the history of colonialism and globalization.
Today I'm talking with David Bienestock, host of the Great Moments in Weed History about how hashish arrives in Europe via the Napoleonic invasion. In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt in a failed attempt to install colonial rule. French soldiers did succeed in enthusiastically adopting the local custom of consuming hashish, a practice with a long, storied history in the Islamic world. When the occupation ended, they brought a taste for cannabis home that lead directly to the formation of Paris’s famed Club des Hashischins, where Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, and Charles Baudelaire drank coffee laced with marijuana.
In particular we discuss:
-- How the origin of the word “assassin” has to do with authorities looking down on consumers of hashish
-- Humanity's 10,000-year history with marijuana
-- How Europe first discover hashish during the Napoleonic occupation of Egypt

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Bonus Q&A on the Civil War Series with Scott & James Dec 27, 2018

Two weeks ago we finished the 25-part series on the 10 most important battles in the Civil War. Some of you had follow-up questions. We ran a poll to so which ones were the most popular. In a recording of a live-streaming Q&A session, James and Scott answer the following questions:
How many civilians died due to battles getting close to population centers (e.g., the Gettysburg battle site is close to the town)?
What was going on with John Wilkes Booth during the Civil War?
Were people at the time aware of events like Harriett Tubman's involvement in the raid on Combahee Ferry? Did that effect public perception?
For various generals (both sides), was there any correlation between how well they did in West Point and how well they did as leaders in war?
Please describe POW camps in more detail.
What do you think about the removal of the statues and the renaming of places that have been named after Confederate soldiers?

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What Would the Real St. Nicholas Drink? Here's What an Ancient History Professor Thinks Dec 24, 2018

Ever wondered what cocktail a fourth-century bishop from Asia Minor would order? That would be an obscure question to ask if the bishop in question weren't the historical basis for the Santa Claus myth. But since we are dealing here with Nicholas, bishop of the Greek City of Myra, we will delve into the question of what would be the favored drink of a cleric who gave gifts in secret while also getting into fistfights with followers of Arianism.
In this special Christmas episode I'm talking with patristics professor Michael Foley. He is the author of the book "Drinking with Saint Nick." In it he compiles holiday drink recipes; beer, wine, and cider recommendations; and instruction on how to pair them with legends of medieval saints.

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How Ancient Europeans Circumnavigated Africa, Explored Iceland, and Sent Goods all the Way to Japan Dec 20, 2018

What is the greatest extent of classical European reach, and how did they affect or influence the culture of the known world in that period?
In today's episode I answer this question—which was submitted by Karl, a listener from Norway. Greek and Roman civilization got much further afield than it had any right to. Forget about Alexander's Hellenistic Revolution reaching all the way to India in the fourth century BC. There's evidence of ancient fleets circumnavigating Africa, Greek explorers whom the Ptolemy's commissioned to travel to Scandinavia, and even Roman jewelry ending up in fifth-century Japanese tombs.
Learn how a tangled web of traders, explorers, and diplomats created the first age of globalization, fueled by commerce and transmitted by the Silk Road.

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What if George Custer Had Survived the Battle of Little Bighorn? Dec 18, 2018

George Custer, if he is remembered at all, is a cautionary tale of hubris. He grossly underestimated Sitting Bull's forces at the Battle of Little Big Horn and he was killed in one of the American military's worst defeat in its history. This defeat clouds his legacy, which up until then was quite remarkable. During the Civil War he was known as a daring and highly successful cavalry officer. Called the "Boy General" of the Union Army, he whipped the Union army's cavalry corp into shape at the age of 23. A man loved by all, he attended the wedding of a Confederate officer (a friend from West Point) during the Civil War, dressed in Union Blues. He liked the Southerners he fought against, and appreciated his Indian scouts.
This all begs the question of what if Custer survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn? What if he became a gun-for-hire? And what if he joined forces with a troupe of cancan dancers, Chinese acrobats, an eyepatch-wearing rebel cardsharp, and a multilingual Crow scout?
These questions are answered by today's guest Harry Crocker III who is author of a new alternate history book called Armstrong.
Eager to clear his name from the ignominy of his last stand - but forced to do so incognito, under the clever pseudonym Armstrong - Custer comes across evildoings in the mysterious Montana town of Bloody Gulch, which a ruthless Indian trader runs as his own personal fiefdom, with rumors of murder, slavery, and buried treasure.
Harry and I get into Old West Frontier life, how to write in the voice of your subject, and everything else about the glorious complexities of late nineteenth century American life.

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Teaser: Ottoman Lives Part 6—The Holy Man Dec 15, 2018

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 22: How the Civil War Lives on Today Dec 13, 2018

In this very final episode, James and Scott discuss the lasting effects of the Civil War and why it is the single most important event in the history of the United States. The Revolutionary War may have answered the question of whether America would become an independent nation, but the Civil War answered the question of what kind of nation it would be.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 21: What Became of the Men Who Wore the Blue and the Grey Dec 11, 2018

In this epilogue episode James and Scott talk about the Union and Confederate generals whom we've gotten to know so well after the war finished. They became presidents, professors, bankrupt businessmen, assassination victims, and everything in between.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 20: The Naval War Dec 06, 2018

The Civil War is now finished but our series is not. Scott and James discuss an aspect of the Civil War that for the most part didn't tie into our main discussion: the naval war. Learn how battles occurred on American Rivers, gulfs, shorelines, and even as far away as Alaska.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 19: African Americans in Uniform Dec 04, 2018

As the Civil War came to an end, a big question remained for the North and eventually the reunited United States. What would become of its African-American residents? Would they be given full legal rights or only partial? This question was largely answered by the contributions of African-Americans in uniform. Scott and James talk about their story in this episode.

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Teaser: Ottoman Lives Part 5—The Peasant Dec 01, 2018

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 18: The Overland Campaign Nov 29, 2018

We're nearing the end of our Civil War series. It's 1864. Lincoln is re-elected, and Sherman's March to the Sea obliterated the Confederacy's industrial base. But work remains for General Grant. He must contend with his greatest foe, Robert E. Lee. Now that Grant was directing the operations of the Army of the Potomac, Northern expectations were high. Southern expectations were also high. Grant had three objectives: 1) Tie Lee down (Grant told Meade “Wherever Lee goes you will go also.”); 2) Bleed Lee’s army as much as possible; 3) Take Richmond.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 17: Sherman's March to the Sea Nov 27, 2018

From November to December 1864, Gen. Sherman led over 60,000 soldiers from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia in a scorched earth campaign to completely demoralized the Southern war effort. Sherman explained that they needed to “make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”

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Turkey is Both a Bird and a Country. Which Came First? Nov 22, 2018

It's no coincidence that the bird we eat for Thanksgiving and a Middle Eastern country are both called Turkey. One was named after the other, and it all has to do with a 500-year-old story of emerging global trade, mistaken identity, foreign language confusion, and how the turkey took Europe by storm as a must-have status symbol for the ultra wealthy.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 16: The Battle of Atlanta Nov 20, 2018

In the fall of 1864, the Union Army now had full momentum against the Confederacy, pushing deeper into the South than ever before. General Sherman overwhelmed forces led by John Bell Hood. With the fall of Atlanta, Lincoln nearly assured his re-election in 1864.

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Teaser: Ottoman Lives, Part 4—The Concubine Nov 17, 2018

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 15: Chattanooga Nov 15, 2018

Following Union defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga, Union forces retreated to the railroad junction of Chattanooga, Tennessee. From November 23-25, 1863, Union troops routed the Confederates at the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionaries Ridge; the victories forces the Confederate troops back into Georgia, ending the siege of Chattanooga and creating the groundwork for Sherman's Atlanta campaign and March to the Sea in 1864.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 14: Chickamauga Nov 13, 2018

The Battle of Chickamauga marked the end of Union Maj. Gen. William Rosencran's offensive into southwestern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia and the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theatre. More died here than in any other battle, save Gettysburg. After the battle Union forces retired to Chattanooga while Confederates besieged the city by occupying the surrounding heights.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 13: The Battle of Gettysburg Nov 08, 2018

The 1863 Battle of Gettysburg stopped Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. It was the deadliest battle of the Civil War, with over 50,000 casualties during the three day battle, a scale of suffering never seen before or since in America. The Union won victory and had new life injected into its war effort. The Confederacy saw its best chance at striking a deadly blow against the North and demoralizing them slip away.

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September 1918: War, Plague, and The World Series Nov 06, 2018

In the late summer of 1918, a division of Massachusetts militia volunteers led the first unified American fighting force into battle in France, turning the tide of World War I. Meanwhile, the world’s deadliest pandemic—the Spanish Flu—erupted in Boston and its suburbs, bringing death on a terrifying scale, first to military facilities and then to the civilian population. At precisely the same time, amidst the surrounding ravages of death, a young pitcher named Babe Ruth rallied the sport’s most dominant team, the Boston Red Sox, to a World Series victory—the last the Sox would see for eighty-six years.
In this episode I I talk with Google executive Skip Desjardin about September 1918, a moment in history almost too cinematic to be real.

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Teaser: Ottoman Lives, Part 3—The Eunuch Nov 03, 2018

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6 Historical Figures Who Deserve Their Own Movie—History Unplugged Meets 1001 Stories Nov 01, 2018

Historical biopics perform a great service. These movies remind the world of people that would have otherwise fallen into obscurity: Oscar Schindler (Schindler's List), John Nash (A Beautiful Mind), and Solomon Northup (12 Years a Slave).
In this episode I am going to talk about six people from history that deserve their own movie. Joining me in this discussion is Jon Hagadorn, host of 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries podcast.
We present to you...
A Viking
A sixteenth-century spymaster
A blind explorer
A Russian royal
A plane crash survivor who hiked weeks through the Amazon
A World War One ace-turned jazz club owner-turned French Resistance fighter

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The Story of Bravo, The Greatest Rescue Mission in Navy SEAL History Oct 30, 2018

Today's guest is Stephan Talty, author of the new book, SAVING BRAVO, which comes out October 30. Talty tells the never-before-told story of one of the greatest rescue missions not just of the Vietnam War, but the entire Cold War.
In 1972, the Vietnam War was a lost cause. Public support in the US had cratered; the soldiers and airmen who returned home were called “mercenaries” and their cars were keyed on Air Force bases. Nixon was searching for a way to leave the battlefield, but thousands of Americans were still fighting for their lives, grasping for some meaning to their service.
At the time, few American airmen were more valuable than Lt. Colonel Gene Hambleton. He carried highly classified information and knew secrets about cutting-edge missile technology that didn’t just concern Vietnam but could change the course of the Cold War itself. When Hambleton was shot down behind enemy lines amid North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive, he was left to lie and wait to be rescued in the middle of one of the fiercest ground battles since WW2.
With time running out on the hallucinating and half-starved American, his fellow airmen would have to find a way to extract him from a flood of 30,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. It was a rescue mission that, for a moment, put a halt to the US’s futile fight in the war.
Vietnam was for many a war without heroes. But the eleven men who went after Hambleton gave their lives for a higher cause. Drawing from access to unpublished papers and interviews with the families of those lost in the mission—many of whom are still waiting for the remains of their loved ones, and answers they feel the government owes them—Talty reveals a remarkable story of bravery, compassion, and humanity, one that will speak to all of us struggling to make sense of an anxious and uncertain time. In addition to its release in October, the book has also just been optioned for film by 20th Century Fox.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 12: (Vicksburg 2 of 2) Oct 25, 2018

Welcome to the second part in our episodes on the Vicksburg Campaign, one of the most consequential Civil War battles in the Western theatre and what many historians consider to be the turning point of the war.
Grant's Vicksburg campaign is considered one of the most brilliant of the war. With the loss of Pemberton’s army at Vicksburg and later Union victory at Port Hudson five days later, the Union now controlled the entire Mississippi River. The Confederacy was now split in half. Grant's reputation soared, which led to him being appointed as General-in-Chief of the Union armies

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 11: Vicksburg (1 of 2) Oct 23, 2018

In the next two episodes Scott and James will discuss the Siege of Vicksburg. In the summer of 1863, Grant’s Army of the Tennessee came to Vicksburg, located on a high bluff converged on Vicksburg, a Mississippi town on the same river. Union occupation of the town was critical to control of the strategic river. If it fell then the Confederacy would completely lose access to critical supply lines in Texas and Mexico.
Grant's six-week campaign began in June. His army came to Vicksburg, which was defended by Confederate General John C. Pemberton's men, who built a series of trenches, forts, redans, and artillery lunettes surrounding the city. Grant's army surrounded Pemberton and outnumbered him two to one. Trapped for six weeks, the residents of Vicksburg were forced to dig caves and eat rats to survive. But, due to Pemberton's diligence and resourceful mind, they continued to trust his command despite dire circumstances.

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Teaser: Ottoman Lives, Part 2—The Sultan Oct 20, 2018

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 10: Battle of Chancellorsville Oct 18, 2018

The Battle of Chancellorsville is considered Robert E. Lee’s masterpiece. His reputation as a military genius was sealed by fighting an incredibly successful offensive battle despite being outnumbered 2-to-1 and launching attacks on multiple fronts.
After another humiliating Union defeat at Fredericksburg, On January 26, Lincoln replaced Gen. Ambrose Burnside with Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker as the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, with 120,000 troops. Hooker's plan was to send his cavalry on a raid behind Lee to cut off Lee’s communication with Richmond. He would leave 40,000 troops in front of Lee near Fredericksburg, and Hooker himself would march up the Rappahannock River and try to go around Lee’s left. If he didn’t defeat Lee at that time, he would at least force Lee to retreat. But Lee managed to achieve victory despite splitting up his forces into vastly inferior numbers and fighting the Union on multiple fronts. The outcome was 17,000 Federal casualties to 13,000 Confederates

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 9: The Battle of Fredericksburg Oct 16, 2018

Following McClellan's disastrous Union loss at Antietam, Lincoln replaced him with Ambrose Burnside, who planned to march to the city of Fredericksburg, getting there before Lee and possibly marching all the way to Richmond. But once they confronted the Confederacy at the battle of Fredericksburg the Federals made 14 total charges that were all repulsed. One Federal general wrote “It was a great slaughter pen. They may as well have tried to take Hell.”

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 8: Sidetrack Episode on Emancipation Oct 11, 2018

The entire point of the Civil War was to end slavery, right? Not exactly, and definitely not at the beginning of the War. The North went to war strictly to save the Union and had little interest in abolishing slavery in the South. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 only came about due to a complex convergence of political, social, and cultural interests, which we will address in this episode.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 7: The Battle of Antietam Oct 09, 2018

The Battle of Antietam—an 1862 clash between Robert E. lee's Army of Northern Virginian and George McClellan's Army of the Potomac—was the deadliest one-day battle in American history, with a total of 22,717 dead, wounded or missing. It came after Lee thwarted McClellan's plans to lay siege to the Confederate capitol of Richmond and tried to seize the momentum by crossing north into Maryland.

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Teaser: Ottoman Lives, Part 1: The Janissary Oct 06, 2018

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 6: The Seven Days' Battle Oct 04, 2018

Union General George B. McClellan, who led 100,000 men and moved as fast as an iceberg, attempted to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond in a series of six different battles along the Virginia Peninsula from June 25 to July 1, 1862). Confederate General Robert E. Lee drove back McClellan’s Union forces from a position 4 miles (6 km) east of the Confederate capital to a new base of operations at Harrison’s Landing on the James River.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 5: The 1862 Peninsula Campaign Oct 02, 2018

In early 1862 the Union Army launched a major operation in southeastern Virginia, the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. Lincoln replaced McDowell with George B. McClellan as commander. He reorganized the army, whipped it into shape, and also renamed it the Army of the Potomac. The goal was to roll over the Confederacy. The Rebels were not about to let that happen.

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History of Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 4: The Battle of Shiloh Sep 27, 2018

The Battle of Shiloh was a battle in the Western Theater fought April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. On the first morning, 40,000 Confederate troops struck Union Soldiers at Pittsburg Landing. They were under the command of Major General Ulysses S. Grant. The Confederate Army of Mississippi, under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, launched a surprise attack on Grant's army from its base in Corinth, Mississippi. Johnston was mortally wounded during the fighting; Beauregard took command of the army and decided against pressing the attack late in the evening. Overnight, Grant was reinforced by one of his divisions stationed further north and was joined by three divisions. The Union forces began an counterattack the next morning which reversed the Confederate gains of the previous day.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 3: Border States and the War in the West Sep 25, 2018

In the summer of 1861, four slave states had still not seceded. If even two or three joined the Confederacy, the Union would be in big trouble. Lincoln was determined to keep all four in (Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri). We will look at these developments, along with the The War in the West, April 1861 - April 1862, where many famous Civil War figures emerge, such as Ulysses S. Grant.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 2: First Battle of Bull Run Sep 20, 2018

Abraham Lincoln believed that the Civil War would be over in a few months, with the Union Army marching on Richmond by late 1861. Both sides hastily assembled armies and Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell led his unseasoned Union Army across Bull Run against the equally inexperienced Confederate Army of Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard. The Confederates won a surprise victory, particularly due to the efforts of Stonewall Jackson, and routed the Union. Both sides dug in their heels for a long war ahead.

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History of the Civil War in 10 Battles, Part 1: Background to the Civil War Sep 18, 2018

The origins of the Civil War go back decades, even before the United States became an independent nation The federal union had always been precarious, ever since the framing of the Constitution, with the institution of slavery led to two distinct cultures and societies. In this inagurual episode of the History of Civil War in 10 Battles, Scott and James discuss the main social and political issues that sparked the Civil War

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Special Announcement: A History of the Civil War in 10 Battles Begins Next Week Sep 14, 2018

The Civil War pitted brother against brother and divided a nation. It also featured the most epic—and deadliest—battles in American history. From Shiloh to Vicksburg to Gettsburg, these battles resulted in higher casualty rates than any other armed conflict the United States has ever faced.
But beyond that the Civil War did more to define and change the United States than any other event. It determine what kind of nation the United State would be.
Next week we will begin a massive multi-part series on the ten most important battles of the Civil War. We are joined once again by history professor James Early to get into the military history of the Civil War, whose effects are still being felt in the United States and the rest of the world today.

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How a 1522 Battled Transformed Russia from a Minor Duchy into Earth's Largest Empire Sep 13, 2018

The Russian Siege of Kazan in 1552 and the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan by Muscovy can be seen as the birth of a Russian Empire. It had profound consequences for the steppe region and beyond, allowing Russian expansion eastwards, eventually as far as the Pacific.
Today's guest is Carl Rylett, host of A History of Europe—Key Battles Podcast. He has put together a battle history podcast that shows how so much of the history of Europe was shaped by military forces.

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The Most Famous Founding Father You’ve Never Heard of Was Hamilton's Arch-Nemesis and a Deficit Hawk Sep 11, 2018

Alexander Hamilton had a nemesis… and it was not Aaron Burr. After Hamilton enacted a wide-scale spending program to build up America's military and infrastructure, and thus send it into debt, newly-elected President Thomas Jefferson chose a Secretary of the Treasury to dismantle his system—Albert Gallatin.
Considered a “foreigner, a tax rebel, and a dangerously clever man,” the Geneva-born Gallatin was despised by Hamilton and the Federalists. During their political careers, these two economic masterminds were locked in a battle to surmount the other’s financial system for the new nation.
During his twelve years as Secretary of the Treasury, Gallatin overcame his predecessor by
-- Repaying half of the national debt
-- Containing the federal government by restraining its fiscal power
-- Abolishing internal taxes in peacetime
-- Slashing spending
Today I'm talking with Gregory May, author of the new book Jefferson’s Treasure: How Albert Gallatin Saved the New Nation from Debt.
We discuss Gallatin’s rise to power, his tumultuous years at the Treasury, and his enduring influence on American fiscal policy.

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Lost Civilizations, Part 3: European Visitors to the New World Before Columbus Sep 06, 2018

Learn about cultures that came to America long before Columbus, suggesting that trans-oceanic voyages could be accomplished well back into the Bronze Age.

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Lost Civilizations, Part 2: The Egyptian Pyramid Builders, the Nabateans, and the Aksumites. Sep 04, 2018

Welcome to part two on our series on the greatest lost civilizations in history. Today we are looking at three groups: The Egytian Pyramid Builders, the Nabateans, and the Aksumites. These three groups are particularly beloved by believers in extra-terrestrials and religious myths.
They ask questions like these: Did the builders of the pyramids handy craftsmen, whose method of transporting massive stones are still unexplainable, simply disappear or were they part of an advanced alien race? Did the Nabateans hide the Holy Grail? Was the Kingdom of Aksum really the keeper of the Ark of the Covenant, and did this lead to their downfall?
Learn why these myths persist today in this episode.

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Lost Civilizations: Ancient Societies that Vanished Without a Trace, Part 1 Aug 30, 2018

A stock trope of literature is the king who believes that his kingdom will last forever, only to see it collapse under his own hubris (Exhibit A is Percy Bysshe Shelly's Ozymandias). But the trope is based on historical fact. Many great civilizations vanished without a trace, and why their disappearance still haunts us today.
This episode is the first in a three-part series that will look atf the greatest lost civilizations in history. Some were millenia ahead their neighbors, such as the Indus Valley Civilization, which had better city planning in 3,000 B.C. than any European capital in the 18th century. Others were completely myth-based, such as Plato's lost city of Atlantis, a technological advanced utopia that sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune"
Whatever the nature of their disappearance, these lost civilizations offer many lessons for us today -- even the greatest of societies can disappear, and that includes us.

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The Most Powerful Women in the Middle Ages, Part 3: Elizabeth of Tudor and Ottoman Queen Mother Kösem Sultan Aug 28, 2018

This is the third in our three-part series on the most powerful women in the Middle Ages. To wrap things up we will explore the lives of two female rulers — one very famous, the other almost unknown. They are Elizabeth I of Tudor and Ottoman Queen Mother Kösem Sultan.
Elizabeth I(1533-1603) is, with little debate, the greatest monarch in England's history. She is a key figure in the island's transition from the medieval to the early modern era. In her 45-year reign Good Queen Bess transformed her nation from a mid-level European power into the dominant commercial, naval, and cultural force of the Western world. She was a patron of exploration and supported Sir Francis Drake's expedition to circumnavigate the globe. Elizabeth also funded Sir Walter Raleigh's exploration of the New World. She forged a powerful English national identity by securing peace and stability, allowing the arts to flourish and famous figures such as Edmund Spencer, Francis Bacon, and William Shakespeare to produce their most renowned works.
Ottoman Valide Kösem Sultan (1590-1651) was a harem slave who ruled through three sultans. She was born a Greek Christian, sold into slavery to the imperial Ottoman harem when she was fifteen, and showed up in Istanbul without knowing Turkish. In in the years to come she managed to attract the attention of the Sultan, bear him a son, and become a Queen mother – a matriarch of the Sultan. She also manipulated two weak sons and a weak grandson to name her the official regent of the empire. The former slave girl was now in command of a transcontinental superpower.

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Teaser: Intro to Audie Murphy Series Aug 25, 2018

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The Most Powerful Women in the Middle Ages, Part 2: Catherine of Sienna and Isabella of Castile Aug 23, 2018

Female rulers dominated the Middle Ages. But it wasn't just the queens or empresses who wielded enormous power. This episode is the second of a three-part series at the lives of the most powerful women in the Middle Ages, and we will first look at the life of Catherine of Siena, the Catholic Mystic who almost single-handedly restored the papacy to Rome in the 1300s and navigated the brutal and male-dominated world of Italian politics. Then we will explore the life of
Catherine was the 23th child of a poor family and unable to write until three years before her death at 33. She spent years as a low-ranking member of a religious order and primarily spent her days in solitude and prayer. However, by the end of her life Catherine had travelled throughout the Italian peninsula as a diplomat and negotiated peace between princes.
She wrote dozens of letters to Pope Gregory and convinced him to restore the papacy in Rome. She authored “The Dialogue,” a treatise on a fictional conversation between a saint and God, which influenced theologians and the lay religious for centuries. She was named a joint Patron Saint of Italy along with Francis of Assisi in 1939 and a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
In addition to Catherine, we will also explore the life of Queen Isabella I of Castile and Leon (1451-1504), the reformer, Catholic monarch, and inquisitor. Isabella became Queen of Castile as a politically inexperienced 23-year-old caught in a political tug-of-war between her half-brother and the Spanish nobles. Upon her death in 1504, she had successfully united Spain's kingdoms, completed the Reconquista, stabilized the economy, and commissioned an idealistic Genoese sailor to find a shorter sea route to India by crossing the Atlantic in 1492.
Funding such trips to the New World was a significant reason that Spain became a global power in the next century. These brighter moments are contrasted by the darker ones in her 28-year reign. She and her husband Ferdinand compelled all Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity, expelling those who refused. This policy laid the legal infrastructure for the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition in the coming century.

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The Most Powerful Women in the Middle Ages, Part 1: Queens, Empresses, and Viking Slayers Aug 21, 2018

The idea of a powerful woman in the Middle Ages seems like an oxymoron. Females in this time are imagined to be damsels in distress, trapped in a high tower, and waiting for knights to rescue them, all while wearing traffic-cones for a hat. After rescue, their lives improved little. Their career choices were to be either a docile queen, housewife, or be burned at the stake for witchcraft.
But what if this image of medieval women is a complete fiction?
It turns out that it is. Powerful female rulers fill the Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon queen Aethelflaed personally led armies into direct combat with Vikings in the 900s and saved England from foreign invasion. Byzantine Empress Theodora kept the empire from falling apart during the Nika Revolts and stopped her husband Justinian from fleeing Constantinople. Catherine of Siena almost single-handedly restored the papacy to Rome in the 1300s and navigated the brutal and male-dominated world of Italian politics.
In this episode, part 1 of a 3-part series, I look at the lives of three extraordinarily powerful women in the Middle Ages. In particular I look at the lives of Empress Theodora of Byzantium, Aethelflaed of the Mercians (a proto-English kingdom), and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the most powerful landholder in Europe in the 12th century.
We will explore how they managed to ascend the throne, what made their accomplishments so notable, and the impact they had on their respective societies after their deaths.

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How the Vicksburg Siege May Have Turned the Tide of the Civil War—Samuel Mitcham Aug 16, 2018

“Traitor!” “Failure!” “Bungling fool!”
Southern newspapers hurled these sentiments at Confederate General John C. Pemberton after he surrendered the fortress of Vicksburg—the key to controlling the Mississippi River during the Civil War. But were they justified in their accusations?
Today I'm talking with Dr. Samuel Mitcham, author of Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned the Tide of the Civil War. He argues that these newspapers—and history itself—have wrongly marred Pemberton’s legacy.
Some of the myths he argues against are that Pemberton’s indecisiveness delayed the aid Vicksburg needed, when in fact he had been urgently requesting reinforcements, stationed nearby, but his commanding general repeatedly ignored him due to a petty grudge.
The Confederate Army fought an exhaustive battle to defend the fortress of Vicksburg from the spring of 1862 until its surrender on July 4, 1863. Trapped for six weeks, the residents of Vicksburg were forced to dig caves and eat rats to survive. But, due to Pemberton’s stalwart character and resourceful mind, they continued to trust his command despite dire circumstances.

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The Story of Malaria, The Killer of Half of Humanity Aug 14, 2018

Long before Thanos snapped his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War, another villain successfully killed half of humanity.
Malaria is a simple parasite, transmitted by a mosquito bite. But this deadly disease, which has been around as long as homo sapiens, has killed more than all wars and natural disasters combined. It has wiped out cities, destroyed empires, ruined colonies, and may be responsible for 50 billion deaths, among them Alexander the Great and Marcus Aurelius (allegedly).
Malaria's role in history is perhaps more under-appreciated than anything else. Here's two examples: Many historians believe America won the Revolutionary War due to malaria depleting the ranks of infected soldiers. Some think it caused Rome's downfall.
When the malaria parasite was discovered in the 1800s it led to containment efforts. But the real game changer was the deployment of DDT in World War Two. Deadly swamp lands (like much of the United States) were now safe for human habitation. Even South Pacific islands were no longer death traps.
However, the fight against malaria took a different turn in the 1960s with the publication of Silent Spring, a book that argued pesticides could permanently damage earth's ecological balance.
Malaria is not the killer it once was but it still plays a massive role in public affairs debates today.

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An Archeologist Talks About the Discovery of a Civil War Surgeon's Burial Pit at Manassas Field Aug 09, 2018

In August 1862, two Union soldiers were gravely wounded at the Battle of Second Manassas. They were brought to a field hospital, though both died as a result of their injuries. Their bodies were laid to rest in a shallow burial pit, intermixed with amputated limbs from other soldiers wounded in the battle. Then they were lost to history.
But in 2014, the National Park Service (NPS) first encountered the remains during a utility project. With help from the Smithsonian Institution, the NPS was able to identify the remains as Union soldiers, and worked with the Army to give these soldiers an honorable final resting place.
Beneath the surface, they found two nearly-complete human skeletons, and several artifacts including buttons from a Union sack coat, a .577 Enfield bullet, three pieces of .31 caliber lead buckshot, and an assemblage of eleven arms and legs. The discovery was something incredibly rare: a battlefield surgeon's burial pit. In fact, this was the first time such a burial pit had ever been excavated and studied at a Civil War battlefield.
Today I'm talking with archeologist and Manassas National Battlefield Park Superintendent Brandon Bies about the discovery, what it can tell us about Civil War combat medicine (when doctors did their best despite having little else but a saw an chloroform) and the new light this sheds on the horrific nature of warfare in the 19th century.

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Why U.S. Political Elections Have Always Been Chaotic—David Severa from the Early and Often Podcast Aug 07, 2018

You've heard it before: American politics have never been nastier or more divisive than they are today. Just witness the recent words of one recent front-runner candidate, who told told the media his opponent was a hermaphrodite, because he was too weak to be a man but too ugly to be a woman. The front-runner's hatchet men counter-attacked. They called his opponent a nasty low-life who was the vile offspring of a mulatto and an Indian. He was a bloodthirsty war-monger who wanted to trigger a war with America's enemies, leading to a national orgy of “rape, incest, and adultery.” The slurs kept piling up. The front-runner was called a criminal and fascist. The opponent was called an atheist cowardly weakling. Does this sound like words passed between the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns in 2016? They weren't— these were insults traded between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in the 1800 election. Jefferson's camp described Adams as having a “hideous hermaphroditical character.” Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” As you can see, American elections have always been vicious. To dive into this topic, I have on the show David Severa, host of the podcast called Early and Often – the History of Elections in America. We talk about the history of voting in the United States, all the way from the earliest colonial days to the present.

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The History of Slavery, Part 5: The Road to Abolition Aug 02, 2018

Slavery died a long death in the Western World. Abolitionists began mobilizing in the 1700s (chief among them Quakers and other Protestant sects) but the movement took decades of activism, bookmaking, and even armed resistance to succeed.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, America dealt with the contradiction of being founded on liberty and justice for all…while treating four million humans as literal property for no other reason than their skin color. Strange situations emerged, such as Thomas Jefferson forcefully arguing for universal, innate rights while most likely fathering six children with his slave Sally Hemings.
In this episode we will explore:
Whether emancipation was the result of religions movements, the Enlightenment, all of these things, or none of them; why the first thing emancipated slaves did was look for lost family members (They posted descriptions of family members in newspapers. Most looked in vain and continued to post until World War One); how slaves reacted to the very first day of emancipation.

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The History of Slavery, Part 4: African Slavery in the New World, 1500-1865 Jul 31, 2018

Slavery predates European entry into the Atlantic world in the Age of Exploration, but the system that developed during the 16th and 17th centuries was arguably a more inhumane and racially tinged institution than anything that had previously existed. The first English colonists in the Americas believed they could become wealthy through mutual trade with Native Americans. This system failed and was replaced by chattel enslavement of Africans to work on cash-crop plantations. American slavery grew and metastasized until it swallowed up over 10 million lives in the Atlantic Slave Trade.
This episode explores the origins of New World slavery (originally based on the Iberian enslavement of Muslims), the miseries that Africans experienced on slave ships, auction blocks, and plantation life, and the establishment of laws in early America that made slavery a cornerstone of the young nation's economy.

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The History of Slavery, Part 3: Christian Slaves and Muslim Masters—Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean, 1500-1800 Jul 26, 2018

As the trans-Atlantic slave trade from sub-Saharan Africa to the Americas began to grow in the 1500s, there was another slave trade that operated on an even larger scale in the same time period. It was the capture of Europeans by north-African Muslims. Barbary Pirates enslaved an estimated 1 million Europeans in the period from 1500 to 1800.
Enslavement was a real possibility for anyone who traveled in the Mediterranean or who lived along the shores in places like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, and even as far north as England and Iceland. In 1632, pirates captured the Irish city of Baltimore. They and others were snatched from their homes, taken in chains to the slave markets of Algiers, and sold to the highest bidder. Some spent the rest of their lives rowing galleys. Others toiled in quarries or on farms. Attractive women were sent to harems and became a pasha's concubine.
This episode looks at a little-known chapter in the history of slavery. Although few know the stories of these captives, the threat of piracy on the Mediterranean had a huge impact on the Western World. Thomas Jefferson developed the U.S. navy to eliminate the Barbary Threat. Miguel de Cervantes spent years in North Africa. Even John Smith of Pocahontas fame was a slave in Istanbul.
Learn about this strange period in history and how it all came to an end in the early 1800s.

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The History of Slavery, Part 2: The Medieval Slave Trade to Arabia Jul 24, 2018

The term "slave trade" conjures up images of a white slaver capturing African tribesmen, packing them like corkwood into a ship, selling them in the Antebellum South, and having a plantation owner work them to death. in the process, millions were stripped of their most basic rights as humans and suffered the worst form of indignation.
But such massive levels of slavery did not begin with the European discovery of the New World. In the Middle Ages, Vikings went on numerous slave raids of England and Eastern Europe, selling those capture on Volga slave markets. Arab slave traders purchased millions of Africans and sent them to the Middle East to work on cotton and sugar cane plantations in Iraq.
Middle Eastern intellectuals argued that Africans were at a lower mental level than Arabs and thus of a suitable condition to be enslaved (to be fair, they thought the same of Scandinavians). Slaves were humiliated at markets in Cairo where they were stripped naked to be examined by potential buyers. And Africans were taken from their homeland where they would be shipped East to Cairo, Syria, Iraq, India, and even all the way out to Indonesia.
Slavery is much older than we think but sadly universally cruel.

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The History of Slavery, Part 1: Shackled and Chained in the Ancient World Jul 19, 2018

When asked “what is slavery?” most Americans or Westerners would respond with a description of an African slave in the antebellum South, picking cotton and suffering under the whip of a cruel master. But if you asked an Irishman in 1650, he would have answered differently. He would recount the horrors of Barbary Muslim pirates invading the town of Baltimore, dragging his kinsmen off to the slave markets of Algeria. A medieval Arab would have still answered differently. He would talk about the African slave trade, albeit the one that went east to Arabia instead of the one that went west to the New World. A Roman would answer differently again, describing slavery as the rightful spoils of war and what brought a Greek to his household that tutors his children.
Slavery goes back to the beginning of the agricultural revolution. It is universal yet localized to the particular conditions in the society that enslaves others. Some researchers think slavery is common across history in that it leads to the social death of a slave. Others think that slaves were treated rather well in the ancient world, and it was only the weaponized racism of recent centuries that turned the chattel slavery of Africans brought to the New World into such a cruel institution.
This episode is the beginning of a five-part series on slavery. We are looking at the origins of the practice, why it began, the work that slaves did, what was the “best” sort of work, and how they revolted. By looking into the past we will have a better understanding of this practice, and how much it resembles slavery in the modern world.

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Prohibition: How it Happened, Why it Failed, and How it Still Affects America Today Jul 17, 2018

America has a strange relationship with alcohol. Certain drinks represented the darkest parts of the national psyche. Rum was once associated with slavery because sugar cane plantations that made rum were only profitable with chattel slavery. Whisky and hard cider were omnipresent in the 19th century, turning able-bodied men into drunkards who couldn't support their families and left them to starve.
But it was Prohibition that is strangest of all. America successfully outlawed alcohol, the first and only modern nation to do so. The unintended consequences were enormous: from physicians falsifying alcohol's positive effects so they could write prescriptions for “medicine” and make a handsome profit, to record numbers of men converting to Judaism so they could administer alcohol in rabbinical ceremonies.
Here to untangle the Gordion knot of alcohol in America's past is Cody Wheat from the Shots of History Podcast.

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What Did People Eat in the Middle Ages? Jul 12, 2018

Welcome to an anthology episode where I ask six short questions about the Middle Ages from you, the listener. Here they are in order of appearance:
What Did People Eat in the Middle Ages?How Did You Conquer a Castle?Could You Tell Me About Harold Hardrada?Why is Thomas Becket Still So ImportantDid Rome Fall Because Christianity Made it Soft?Did Any African Explorers Come to Europe or Asia in the Middle Ages?

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Almost Everything in American Politics has Happened Before, Even Donald Trump—Bruce Carlson from My History Can Beat Up Your Politics Jul 10, 2018

Cable news pundits tell you everything is “breaking news.” TV pundits discuss politics in a vacuum. But in nearly every case, the politics of today have long roots in history. This includes media celebrities winning elections by manipulating the press and lobbing gross insults (Huey Long in the 1920s), breakdowns in the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico (the 1840s Mexican-American War) and fears of presidential executive overreach (the 1780s with George Washington).
In this episode I talk with Bruce Carlson, host of the My History Can Beat Up Your Politics podcast about how nearly every issue in U.S. politics has an analogue in the past. He uses history to elevate the discussion of today's politics.

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The Quest to Make Information Free Forever: Copyright Battles From Venetian Printers in the Renaissance to 21st Century Hackers Jul 05, 2018

The © symbol (or "Copyright") is a completely forgettable character ignored by all but lawyers. It is buried at the bottom of legal notices that your brain reflexively skips over. But this little symbol represents a war that has raged for centuries between authorities that want to restrict dangerous information, publishers that want to profit by it, artists that want to stop plagiarists, and open-information activists that want to make everything public domain.
In this episode I look at the history of copyright, the battle over how much information should cost. What is the line between protecting the rights of publishers and artists so they can make a living, and depriving society of crucial information and sentencing them to ignorance and illiteracy?
The battle includesVenetian Printer Aldus Manutius, who invented Italic font in 1500s Venice. He complained of French plagiarists, who copied his techniques in order to trick book buyers, even though “[t]he lettering, upon closer inspection, betrays a certain Frenchiness” and were “produced on foul paper, ‘with [a] strange odor.”Miguel Cervantes, who battled unauthorized sequels to Don Quixote by inserting those characters into his actual sequel and mocking them.England's Statue of Anne, the first copyright law that inadvertently led to a cartel of London book publishers who artificially limited production and drove book prices through the roof.America's lax prosecution of illegal printers of British literature, leading to a boom in education.Aaron Swart'z 2010 hack of MIT's network in order to illegally download five million academic articles and “liberate” them to the Internet

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How a Rivalry Between Two Cherokee Chiefs Led to the Trail of Tears and the Collapse of Their Nation Jul 03, 2018

A century-long blood feud between two Cherokee chiefs shaped the history of the Cherokee tribe far more than anyone, even the reviled President Andrew Jackson. They were John Ross and the Ridge. Today I'm talking with John Sedgwick about the fall of the Cherokee Nation due to the clash of these two figures.
The Ridge (1771–1839)—or He Who Walks on Mountains—was a Cherokee chief and warrior who spoke no English but whose exploits on the battlefield were legendary. John Ross (1790–1866) was the Cherokees’ primary chief for nearly forty years yet spoke not a word of Cherokee and proudly displayed the Scottish side of his mixed-blood heritage. To protect their sacred landholdings from American encroachment, these two men negotiated with almost every American president from George Washington through Abraham Lincoln. At first friends and allies, they worked together to establish the modern Cherokee Nation in 1827. However, the two founders eventually broke on the subject of removal; the Ridge believed resisting President Jackson and his army would be hopeless, while Ross wanted to stay and fight for the lands the Cherokee had occupied since long before the white settlers’ arrival.
The failure of these two respected leaders to compromise bred a hatred that led to a bloody civil war within the Cherokee Nation, the tragedy of the Trail of Tears, and finally, the two factions battling each other on opposite sides of the Civil War. Sedgwick writes, “It is the work of politics to resolve such conflicts peacefully, but Cherokee politics were not up to the job. For a society that had always operated by consensus, there was little tradition of compromise.” Although the Cherokee were one of the most culturally and socially advanced Native American tribes in history, with their own government, language, newspapers, and religion, Sedgwick notes, “The warrior culture offered few gradations between war and peace, all or nothing.”

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If It Weren't For Two Iowans, Billions Would Have Died of Starvation or Been Left in a Technological Dark Age Jun 28, 2018

Norman Borlaug and Robert Noyce aren't household names. But these two Iowans influenced the 20th century more than anyone else on Planet Earth. Borlaug created drought and disease-resistant varieties of wheat that thrived in poor soils throughout the planet. Because of him, billions in the developing world avoided starvation (they probably only missed it by about a decade). Noyce invented the integrated circuit and founded Intel. He is the father of Silicon Valley, the digital revolution, and the Internet economy that connects the world.
Both men owe their success to their farm roots in Iowa.

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Introducing the History Unplugged Membership Program Jun 27, 2018

Learn how to get access to bonus episodes of History Unplugged (including a multi-part series on Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in WW2), the entire History Unplugged back catalogue, and even shout-outs at the end of each episode. Learn more by going to https://patreon.com/unplugged

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Life After Auschwitz: How European Jews Attempted to Assimilate in America After Unspeakable Tragedy Jun 26, 2018

What happened to Jews after they were liberated from concentration camps? Some tried to return to their homes, only to find them occupied by neighbors who thought them dead and refused to give up their new dwellings. Others went on to build lives in the United States, but never truly found a place to call home. They wanted to tell their new compatriots about their experiences, but were silenced. “You’re in America now, put it behind you” is what they were told.
Today I'm speaking with Jon Kean, director of the new documentary After Auschwitz, a “Post-Holocaust” documentary that follows six women after their liberation from Nazi concentration camps. The women Kean follows became mothers and wives with successful careers, but never fully healed from the scars of the past. His film captures what it means to move from tragedy and trauma towards life.

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Patton and Churchill's Experiences Before and During World War Two Jun 21, 2018

This is an anthology episode that looks at the experiences of Winston Churchill and Gen. George S. Patton before and during World War Two. Specifically this episode will explore
Patton's experiences in World War One as a tank commanderChurchill's wilderness years in the 30s in which many thought his career was overPatton's theatrical entrance into German in 1945America's (and FDR's) first reaction to the Pearl Harbor bombing

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Special Announcement: Presidential Fight Club Is Now Its Own Podcast Jun 20, 2018

Remember when we did the 44-episode series on this show called Presidential Fight Club that imagined what would happen if every president fought each other one-on-one? Now it has been re-released as its own podcast, and you can find it on https://presidentialfightclub.com. Please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts!

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An Infantry Officer's Fight Through Nazi Europe, From D-Day to VE Day Jun 19, 2018

Falling comrades, savagery of war, and the intense will to prevail in battle faced young Bill Chapman when he stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. For the following eleven months Chapman served in the most hazardous duty in the Army—dodging Nazi captures and fighting for his and his brothers-in-arms’ survival.
To talk about Bill's story on today's episode of History Unplugged is his son, retired infantry officer and author Craig Chapman. Craig reveals his father’s first-hand account of the horror, fear, and danger from the front lines of WWII’s most momentous events, from his mortar unit's landing at Utah Beach on D-Day, through the brutal fighting in southern Germany against SS holdouts and Nazi extremists in the spring of 1945, to VE Day.

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Everything You Need to Know About D-Day: H-Hour, Weapons Info, and First-Hand Accounts via Soldiers, Beachmasters, and the French Resistance Jun 14, 2018

The D-Day landing of June 6, 1944, ranks as the boldest and most successful large-scale invasion in military history.
On June 6, as Operation Overlord went forward, roughly 160,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel, supported by seven thousand ships and boats, and landed on the coast of Normandy.The seaborne invasion included nearly 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers. They established a beachhead from which the Germans were unable to dislodge them. Within ten days, there were half a million troops ashore, and within three weeks there were two million.
In this episode I take a comprehensive look at the largest amphibious assault in history

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Benjamin Franklin: Diplomat, Polymath, and Member of 18th Century Jet Set—Elizabeth Covart of the Ben Franklin's World Podcast Jun 12, 2018

Benjamin Franklin was a world traveler, consummate learner, and a polymath extraordinaire; the Founding Father was a printer, scientist, inventor, diplomat, postmaster general, educator, philosopher, entrepreneur, library curator, and America's first researcher to win an international scientific reputation for his studies in electrical theory. He even made contributions to knowledge of the Gulf Stream.
But he was just as much a product of his extraordinary world as he contributed to it. Neither Colonial North America nor the embryonic United States developed apart from the rest of the world. They were active participants in the politics, economics, and culture of the Atlantic World. The events in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America affected the way North Americans lived, dressed, worshipped, conducted business, and exercised diplomacy.
Today's guest is Elizabeth Covart, host of Ben Frankin's World podcast. She is here to talk about how Benjamin Franklin took an active part in the Atlantic World. He helped found the United States and influenced technological developments after his death.

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From Farm Fields to Classrooms: Horace Mann's War for Universal and Compulsory Education for Children Jun 07, 2018

In a remarkably short span of time, American children went from laboring on family farms to spending their days in classrooms. The change came from optimistic reformers like Horace Mann, who in the early 1800s dreamed of education, literacy, and science spreading throughout all levels of American society. But other supporters of universal education had darker motives. They feared the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants and thought they'd bring their papist ideas to the young republic. Only compulsory education could break these European children of their Catholic ways and transform them into obedient, patriotic Americans with a Protestant outlook in their worldview if not in their theology.
This episode explores the origins of compulsory education, from the Protestant Reformation (and how it was used as a weapon in the religious arms races of sixteenth-century Europe), Prussia's role as the first nation with universal schooling, how America adopted compulsory K-12 education, and whether modern-day schools are actually based on a factory from the 1800s.

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Meet Joan: The Female Pope—Stephen Guerra of the History of the Papacy Podcast Jun 05, 2018

According to medieval accounts, a woman named Joan reigned as pope, 855-857 A.D., by disguising herself as a man. The story is widely thought to be fiction, but almost everyone took it as fact in the Middle Ages, up to the point that the Siena Cathedral featured a bust of Joan among other pontiffs.
Where did the story of Joan come from, what is the purpose of creating this legend, and what narrative function does it fulfill? Moreover, is it even possible that this story is true?
Joining us to dig into the incredibly messy history of the medieval papacy is Stephen Guerra, host of the History of the Papacy podcast. We find out whether a woman ever did wear the papal tiara.

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The Most Productive People in History, Part 2: Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Edison May 31, 2018

This is Part 2 of an exploration of the live of the most productive people in history. We will look at the life, times, and work habits of medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas (the most prolific writer before the invention of the word processor), composer Georg Philipp Telemann (who produced thousands of music compositions), sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov (who wrote 500 books in nine out of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal System) and Thomas Edison, who had over 1,000 patents to his name.

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The Most Productive People in History, Part 1: From Archimedes to Ben Franklin May 29, 2018

They never knew how he did it. Few composers write more than one or two symphonies in their lifetimes. Beethoven spent a year on his shorter symphonies but more than six years on his 9th Symphony. But Georg Philipp Telemann composed at least 200 overtures in a two-year period. Over his lifetime Telemann's oeuvre consists of more than 3,000 pieces, although “only” 800 survive to this day.
He was not the only person whose productivity defied all reason. Greek scientist Archimedes discovered mathematical phenomena that weren't confirmed for 17 centuries. Isaac Newton invented classical physics and was one of the inventors of calculus. Benjamin Franklin wrote, published, politicked, invented, experimented, and humored, sometimes all at the same time.
This episode is part one of two that explores the lives of the most productive people in history. We will look at the cultures into which they were born and see the methods that they used to achieve such sweeping results.

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The Union's Secret Rebels: The Story of Gettysburg's Five Rebellious Double Crossers Who Returned as Foreign Invaders May 24, 2018

The Civil War is called the war in which brother fought against brother. But few knew of the
“Gettysburg Rebels”: the five privates from that very town who moved south to Virginia in the 1850s,
joined the Confederate army, and returned home as foreign invaders for the great battle in July 1863.
I talk about this story with Tom McMillan, author of Gettysburg Rebels: Five Native Sons Who Came
Home to Fight as Confederate Soldiers. It is the story of Gettysburg’s five native sons who abandoned
their hometown ties to join the Southern cause. But that's not to say they forgot their families
altogether. At least one of these soldiers receive a leave of absence to cross enemy lines at night and
visit his family...while in full Confederate uniform.
Willing to relinquish familial ties, Henry Wentz, Wesley Culp, and the three Hoffman brothers kept
their hometown connections hidden from Confederate leaders—a decision that would ultimately
determine the fate of the Confederacy.

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How to Reach Allied Territory When Your Plane Is Shot Down in Nazi-Occupied France May 22, 2018

Lieutenant George W. Starks' worst fear came true when his B-17 was shot down over Nazi-occupied
France. Earlier that morning, the boyish 20-year-old and his crew were assigned to the most exposed
section of the bomber formation: the “coffin corner.” Now, scattered across the countryside of
Champagne, each of the B-17’s ten American crew members discarded his parachutes and began a
wartime trek. Some were hidden by heroic civilians, a few were saved by the French underground,
others fell into the hands of the Nazis, but all miraculously survived.
Carole Engle Avriett, joins me on the podcast today. She is author of the book Coffin Corner Boys:
One Bomber, Ten Men, and Their Harrowing Escape from Nazi-Occupied France to tell these
stories. She worked with Captain George W. Starks—now ninety-four years old—to bring them to
light.

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Anthology: How Switzerland Remained Neutral In Two World Wars May 17, 2018

How was Switzerland able to remain neutral in the two world wars? Why was a tiny mountainous nation of watch-makers, bankers, and chocolateers able to dictate their own fate at a time when nobody else could? In this episode I answer this listener question and three others, and they all have to do with critical events in European history that could have changed the continent's fate. The other three questions I answer are as follows.What if Spain had become disunified after the War of Spanish Succession?Could German Unification have taken place without Otto von Bismarck?What is the largest massacre still denied today?

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Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogarty) on the Strange History of the English Language May 15, 2018

Mignon Fogarty has spent years helping others sort out the extremely peculiar grammar of the English language. But in the course of her research on how to navigate the weirdness of English, she learned the why of the weirdness of English.
Did you know that egregious once meant outstandingly good? Or that the sport badminton comes from an English manor with a love of peculiar sports? Or that many of the words in the Oxford Dictionary of English got there from the suggestions of a serial killer?
But the strangeness doesn't stop there. In today's interview Mignon tells us such stories asThe same person who came up with the rule that we shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition also said we shouldn't refer to children as "who" because they aren't rational beingsNoah Webster's first failed dictionary went too far with spelling reform. He included "wimmen" for "women" and "tung" for "tongue" and everybody hated it.The origin of certain phrases (run of the mill, beyond the pale, by the wayside)

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History's Most Insane Rulers: From Emperor Caligula to Muammar Gaddafi May 10, 2018

Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity that comes from megalomania or severe mental illness. When nothing stands between a leader's delusional whims and seeing them carried them out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible.
Whether it is Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I practicing archery on palace servants and sending out his advisers to find the heaviest woman in the empire for his wife or Turkmenistan President Turkmenbashi renaming the days of the week after himself and constructing an 80-foot golden statue that revolves to face the sun, crazed leaders have plagued society for millenia.
In this episode we look at mentally unbalanced rulers who made the lives of their subjects miserable. Some suffered from genetic disorders that led to schizophrenia, such as French King Charles VI, who thought he was made of glass. Others believed themselves to be God’s greatest prophet and wrote religious writings that they guaranteed to the reader would get them into heaven, even if these “prophets” were barely literate.
Whatever their background, these rulers show that dynastic politics made sure that a rightful heir always got on the throne – despite that heir's mental condition – and that power can destroy a mind worse than any mental illness.

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Meet Pico, The 23-Year-Old Wunderkind Who Kicked Off the Renaissance May 08, 2018

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Pico for short), was the wunderkind of the Renaissance. In 1486, at the age of 23 he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy, and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the “Manifesto of the Renaissance.”
Today we are going to talk to Professor Matthew Gaetano about this remarkable figure. Pico was called a great genius, even in his own time. He defend 900 contested theses drawn from the Greeks, Scripture, rabbis, from Persians, and from Islamic scholars into a syncretic drawing together of learning and culture from all across the then-known world.
There were also odd aspects of Pico's thought system— he defended magic and mysticism. But his complex life is an inspiration for us moderns today.

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Richard Burton: The Victorian Explorer Who Discovered the Kama Sutra, Made a Secret Pilgrimage to Mecca, and Knew 29 Languages May 03, 2018

Everybody imagines the World's Most Interesting Man to be a fictional grey-haired lothario who drinks Mexican beer and boasts of his legendary exploits. But what if a man like this really lived?
It turns out he did. He is Richard Francis Burton, a Victorian-era explorer who learned 29 languages, went undercover as a Muslim on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and wrote 50 books on topics ranging from a translation of the Kama Sutra to a manual on bayonet exercises.
In this episode I explore Burton's life and his incredible achievements. He nearly discovered the source of the Nile with his expedition partner, John Hanning Speke. He had a massive facial scar that came from a Somali tribesman throwing a spear that passed through both his cheeks. He travelled 1,500 miles in a solo canoe expedition down Brazil's São Francisco River, discovering a jungle tribe and deciphering their language.
Adventures aside, Burton is best known today for translating the Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra into English. He was the most educated explorer of the Victorian age, a time when only men of rough disposition set out to discover foreign lands, in stark contrast to the landed gentry, who were uninterested in international travel, unless it was in the comfort of a steamship to go administer a colony for the sake of the Crown or as a military officer deployed to extend the global landholdings of the British Empire.
Burton published over three dozen volumes, ranging from such topics as linguistics, ethnology, poetry, geography, fencing, and travel narratives. He spoke Greek, Arabic, Persian, Icelandic, Turkish, Swahili, Hindi, and a host of other European, Asian, and African tongues.
Learn about Burton's extraordinary life, and how a beer pitchman could never hope to live up to it.

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Panic on the Pacific: How America Prepared for a Japanese West Coast Invasion after Pearl Harbor May 01, 2018

The aftershocks of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor were felt keenly all over America—the war in Europe had hit home. But nowhere was American life more immediately disrupted than on the West Coast, where people lived in certain fear of more Japanese attacks.
Today I talk with Bill Yenne, author of “Panic on the Pacific.” He describes how from that day until the end of the war, a dizzying mix of battle preparedness and rampant paranoia swept the states. Japanese immigrants were herded into internment camps. Factories were camouflaged to look like small towns. The Rose Bowl was moved to North Carolina. Airport runways were so well hidden even American pilots couldn’t find them.
We talk about the panic on the Pacific coast and fear the Japanese were coming. As a result the most notorious events of World War Two in America—namely the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry—took place. It is a cautionary tale about how hysteria can cause leaders to seize on political issues in the name of public safety that may cause much more harm than good.

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The Hypothetical Economy of a Present-Day Confederate States of America, Alternate Theories to the Titanic Sinking, and Other Counterfactual Apr 26, 2018

In this anthology episode I answer questions from the audience all centered around one theme. Today's theme is about alternate history and alternate theories to historical questions. Well, three of the questions have to do with this (the ones about the Confederacy, the Titanic, and an American Indian in Iceland). The other two are about quack doctors in the American frontier and the influence that Zoroasatrianism had on Christianity and Islam.
Here are the questions answered in today's episode:
How would America's economy be different today if the Confederacy had won the Civil War?Are there alternative explanations to an iceberg sinking the Titanic?Did a Native American woman come with Vikings to Iceland 1,000 years ago?Tell me about quack doctors and snake oil salesmen in early America.What influence did Zoroastrianism have on Christianity and Islam?

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The 4 Successful (And Hundreds of Unsuccessful) Assassination Attempts of U.S. Presidents—Mel Ayton Apr 24, 2018

In American history, four U.S. Presidents have been murdered at the hands of an assassin. In each case the assassinations changed the course of American history.
But most historians have overlooked or downplayed the many threats modern presidents have faced, and survived. In this episode I talk with Mel Ayton , author of the book Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts—From FDR to Obama, who has looked at the largely forgotten—or never-before revealed—malicious attempts to slay America’s leaders.
We talk about the profiles of a typical would-be assassin and what they think they have to gain by slaying the U.S. president. Mel also has many stories, including:How an armed, would-be assassin stalked President Roosevelt and spent ten days waiting across the street from the White House for his chance to shoot himHow the Secret Service foiled a plot by a Cuban immigrant who told coworkers he was going to shoot LBJ from a window overlooking the president’s motorcade routeHow a deranged man broke into Reagan’s California home and attempted to strangle the former president before he was subdued by Secret Service agents.The relationships presidents held with their protectors and the effect it had on the Secret Service’s mission

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Prostitution Throughout History: Sumerian Temple Priestesses, Ottoman Brothel Workers, and Call-Girls for the Medieval Clergy Apr 19, 2018

Prostitution, often known as the world's oldest profession, can be traced throughout recorded history. This cliché is so often repeated it remains completely unexamined. Is prostitution really a natural by-product of human society or does it only appear in circumstances where human sexuality is limited or curtailed?
In this episode we dive deep into the history of prostitution, from ancient Sumeria and its temple prostitutes to Old Testament Israeli sex workers, to Ottoman Istanbul, and finally to the red-light districts of Amsterdam. In particular we will look at
Herodotus' account of the Mesopotamian ritual of sacred prostitution in which Babylonian woman had to attend the temple of Ishtar and agree to sex with any male that askedOld Testament prostitutes from Rahab—heroine of Jericho—to Gomer, a harlot whom the prophet Hosea married as an analogy of Israel's unfaithfulness to YahwehCivic brothels that existed in every medieval European cityOttoman prostitutes who used Islamic law about widows and temporary marriage to cheat the tax codeThe 19th century question over whether prostitution should be legalized and regulated to reduce syphilis or made illegal to reduce public immorality

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The Ladykiller who Killed Lincoln: The Scandalous Love Life of John Wilkes Booth Apr 17, 2018

What if People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” assassinated a U.S. President? John Wilkes Booth has been despised as a traitor, hailed as a martyr, and dismissed as a lunatic. But in the 1860s he was considered the “handsomest man in America”? Before cementing his name in history by assassinating President Lincoln, this actor extraordinaire was the Leonardo DiCaprio of the 1860s. Women packed the audiences wherever Booth played, pawed him for autographs, and tore at his clothes for souvenirs.
Women could not resist him—nor could he resist them.
Today on the show I am joined by E. Lawrence Abel, author of the new book John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him. He discusses stories of stories of infatuation, flings, and heartbreak that Booth interwove throughout his theatrical career and assassination plot. We specifically discussHow Actress Henrietta Irving attempted to kill him in a jealous rageThe “Star Sisters” broke up their act after a jealous falling-out over himPhotos of five women were found on Booth’s body, and only one was of his fiancée
Booth’s life was as dramatic as any play. Actor, lover, and assassin, Booth was a complex man whose shocking crime changed the course of American history and cast him forever in the role of an American villain.

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Ulysses S. Grant Was (Mostly) Responsible For Winning the Civil War. Robert E. Lee Was Responsible For Losing It. Apr 12, 2018

Ever since the end of the Civil War, a mythology of Robert E. Lee's military genius was developed by Confederate veterans as a way to support the idea that the South was defeated only because of the Union's overwhelming advantages in men and resources. Known as the “Lost Cause” interpretation of the Civil War, it provided a sense of relief to white Southerners who feared being dishonored by defeat.
In this episode, I explore the research of the late Civil War historian Edward Bonekemper, who wrote many books challenging this thesis. He argues that Grant—far from being a bloodthirsty drunk who won by brute force alone—was the most successful Union or Confederate general of the war. Grant won the war by excelling in three theaters. He fought six Confederate armies, defeated all of them, and captured three of them. He succeeded for two years in the West with amazingly minimal casualties—particularly when compared with those of his foes. He conquered the Mississippi Valley and chased the Confederates out of Chattanooga and Tennessee.
Lee, in contrast, has been praised for his offensives against the Union Army of the Potomac, he was carrying out an aggressive strategy with aggressive tactics that were inconsistent with what should have been a Confederate grand defensive strategy. The Union, not the Confederacy, had the burden of winning the war, and the South, outnumbered about four-to-one in white men of fighting age, had a severe manpower shortage. Nevertheless, Lee acted as though he were a Union general and attacked again and again as though his side had the burden of winning and also had an unlimited supply of soldiers.

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How Long Have Foreign Governments Attempted to Meddle in U.S Elections? Answers to This And 3 Other Questions Apr 05, 2018

Foreign governments did not only start trying to influence American presidential elections in 2016. It goes all the way back to the 18th century. In this anthology episode I answer this question and three others from you, the audience. Two of the questions have to do with presidents, one of them is only indirectly related to presidents, and the last one has nothing to do with presidents, but it's an interesting question about Nazis so we'll go with it. Here they are:How long have foreign governments attempted to meddle in American elections? Does this go back before 2016? Can you tell me about presidential assassination attempts? Do they go all the way back to Washington?How did the Cold War come to an end?Why did so many Nazis flee to Argentina after the Second World War, and how did they get there?

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The Life and Times of Aristotle, and How His Philosophy Conquered the World—Lantern Jack from the Ancient Greece Declassified Podcast Apr 03, 2018

Whether you have a BA in philosophy or have never read a book, your daily life is impacted by Aristotle. Have you ever tried to win an argument? Have you ever tried to solve a riddle? Have you tried to rationalize eating twelve doughnuts? Congratulations: you are engaging in logic, the bread-and-butter of the most impactful philosopher in history.
In this episode I talk with Lantern Jack (pseudonym of the host of Ancient Greece Declassified and graduate student in philosophy at Princeton). We get into 4th century BCE Greece, the life of Aristotle, his tutoring of Alexander the Great, and how his philosophy conquered the world.
But it's more than the life of Aristotle. Thanks to archaeology and modern scholarship, we now know more about the ancient world than we ever did before. However, the average person today doesn't have access to free, reliable, up-to-date information about ancient Greece. Unlike other fields, the Classics have remained largely confined to the ivory tower of academia. Thats why Lantern Jack started his show. The idea is to declassify the classics and help everyone know about the ideas that kicked off the modern world.

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World War Two Spycraft: Stealing Nuclear Secrets, Blowing Up Nazi Factories, and Infiltrating Japanese High Command Mar 29, 2018

Spies have been a feature of state security and military intelligence since the beginning of warfare. Entire wars have been won or lost according to these secret activities. Today we will look at spycraft during World War Two, a golden age of espionage.
Spycraft was an essential element to the war effort as ships, planes, or weapons. At no time were military secrets so valuable. Nuclear technology was vital for both sides if they did not want to fall behind the other. Learning the troop movements of the enemy could make it possible to launch an attack on the level of D-Day, permanently crippling their war machine.
In this episode I will discuss the careers of...Richard Sorge, the German playboy based in Tokyo who stole nearly all of Japan's World War 2 plan, sent it to the Kremlin, and prevented Nazi Germany's attempt to invade and capture Moscow.Nancy Wake, a socialite in France-turned- Resistance Fighter who saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives of Allied airmen by smuggling them to the Spanish border.George Koval, the Iowa-born Soviet spy who worked on the Manhattan Project and fed all the scientific breakthroughs to Russia, accelerating their nuclear program by years

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A Retired Policeman Tells us the Story of The Most Daring Jailbreak in the Underground Railroad's History Mar 27, 2018

You probably know what the Underground Railroad is—you know, the network of secret routes and safe houses set up in antebellum America and used by African-American slaves (with the help of abolitionists and allies) to escape into free states and Canada. But how did it work? How far apart were these slave houses? Five miles, twenty miles, or more? And how did abolitionists help the escaped slaves? Did they provide them food and shelter and send them on their way, or did they personally guide them? And what happened if a slave or Underground Railroad “conductor” got caught? Here to tell us one of the most amazing jailbreak stories in pre-Civil War American history is Gary Jenkins, a retired Kansas City police officer. He tells us about the capture, incarceration, trial and rescue of Dr. John Doy. In 1859, twelve free African-Americans asked Lawrence Kansas leading citizens to help them flee north to escape being captured and sold into slavery. Dr. John Doy and his son, Charles Doy volunteered to go on this dangerous mission. His book, The Immortal 10, tells this exciting story of the slave trade in Missouri though the eyes of Dr. Doy.

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What are Arguments For and Against Bombing Japan, Why Don't Militias Matter in American, and What is Close-Air Support? Mar 22, 2018

In this anthology series I answer four listener questions. Three of them have to do with World War II, one of them has to do with the second amendment. Here they are:What are the arguments for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki?What are the arguments against?The Second Amendment is one of the most controversial parts of the American constitution today. We always talk about the part that refers to private firearm ownership but we rarely talk about well-regulated militias, even though the amendment gives equal weight to both. What was the importance of militias in the past and when did they decline in impact?Can you tell me about the history and importance of Close Air Support?

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Daily Lives of Middle Eastern Women in the School, the Home, the Harem, and Everywhere Else—Marie Grace Brown Mar 20, 2018

For those who haven't studied the Middle East, the historical lives of women there can be thought to be a black hole: no information available about those who were thrown under a burkha and locked up at home or in a harem. Never mind that few women wore the clothing of modern-day Saudi Arabia in the past; women had vibrant lives there regardless of social restriction. Even in the harem, ostensibly most restrictive place in the pre-modern Middle East, women ironically could exert more power than anywhere else. In fact, if you wanted to rule an empire through your weak-minded husband or son, there was no better place to be. To discuss these issue I am joined by Marie Grace Brown, professor of history at the University of Kansas. She is a cultural historian of the Modern Middle East with a special interest in questions of gender and empire. Marie does a great job of making academic concepts about Westernization vs. modernization accessible to a non-scholarly audience. But we don't get too scholarly. At one point I ask her how she would take over the Middle East as a woman in the pre-modern world. Her award-winning book, Khartoum at Night: Fashion and Body Politics in Imperial Sudan (Stanford University Press, 2017), traces gestures, intimacies, and adornment to give a history of northern Sudanese women’s lives under imperial rule.

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How Archeologists Decide What We Remember—Chris Webster, Archeology Podcast Network Mar 13, 2018

Chris Webster is a cultural resource management archeologist. That means when the National Registry of Historic Places is thinking about adding a mining town, Spanish mission, or Native American burial site to its list, it calls in Chris.
He has worked in all phases of contract archaeology, from literature searches and Class 1 surveys to full scale excavations and lab work.
He also has to figure out what's worth preserving and what isn't. The choice usually isn't easy.

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When Weather Wipes Out Civilization -- Four Cases of Climate Killing Empires Mar 08, 2018

The deadliest army on earth can't top the weather for its destructive potential. History's mightiest empires have fallen for no more of a reason than climate change leading to failed harvests and a starving population.
But you wouldn't know that from most stories of the past. History was long about diplomatic treaties, battle tactics, or the biographies of great leaders. In the last 40 years researchers have increasingly compensated by looking at climate as a major factor in the course of human civilization. They have analyzed the history of weather patterns, climate change, ocean currents, and even geology to explain why some societies thrive and others die.
In this episode we look at four civilizations that were destroyed or permanently crippled by changes in the weather. They includeThe Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was destroyed by a joint Babylonian and Median attack in 612 BC, but initially crippled by a severe drought that was so bad a priest commented that “no harvest was reaped” one year The Greenland Vikings, a one-thriving trade empire that stretched from Denmark to Newfoundland and delivered walrus tusk to medieval royalty but dissapeared suddenly in the 1400sMedieval Iran—the economic powerhouse of early Islam that grew enough cotton to change the fashion tastes of the Middle East...until a cold snap killed whole crops, leaving it weakened until the Mongols finished the job in the 1200sEurasia of the 1500s, which due to the Little Ice Age saw massive revolts, from the 30 Years War between Protestants and Catholics to the Jelali Revolts of the Ottoman Empire to civil unrest in India and China

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George Washington's Guide to Greatness, As Told by His Great Nephew —Austin Washington Mar 06, 2018

George Washington—widely considered a man of honor, bravery and leadership. He is known as America’s first President, a great general, and a humble gentleman, but how did he become this man of stature?
My guest today is Austin Washington, a great nephew of George. He wrote a book called The Education of George Washington that answers this question with a new discovery about his past and the surprising book that shaped him.
In this episode we discuss the book that truly made George Washington who he was and little-known info about Washington’s past that explains his true model for conduct, honor, and leadership.

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Medieval Health Care: Bloodletting, Primitive Surgery, and How Surprisingly Good Doctors Could Be Despite Knowing Almost Nothing Mar 01, 2018

The Middle Ages were a terrible time to get sick. There was no sanitation inside cities and hardly any in rural areas. The common way to relieve pain amongst sick people was to inflict more pain upon them, and then hope to the stars for a bit of luck. Monks with little to no experience, aside from castrating animals and having access to a few medical books, performed surgery on human beings. The medicine was basic, and the terrible illness that plagued those times was complex.
Yet people came up with surprising ways to cope with illness in this time. In this episode I discuss...Theriac: History’s amazing wonder drug. From the 1st century A.D. to the late 19th century, one medical compound reigned supreme over all other remedies: theriac. First concocted by a Greek king worried about poisons, theriac went from being a general antidote to snake bites to an all around panacea, used to treat everything from asthma to warts, including the Black Plague.How Europe dealt with the plague: It spread from Genoa through Europe, reaching France and England by 1348. Both countries were embroiled in a devastating war that had already spanned many decades, leading many to believe that the sins of men were punishing humanity. By 1350 Germany and Scandinavia, too, had suffered deadly losses. Equally massive were the deaths in the Middle East, as 40% of the population across Egypt through the Levant, Syria, Palestine and Yemen would be lost.Where people think that illnesses came from. Most people today believethat medievals assumed all illnesses came from devilish or demonic sources, or, a variant, from some hidden sin in the sick person. It's more complicated than that. Instead, they first saw all illnesses as coming ultimately from God but also perceived and affirmed many levels of causality, and they were comfortable shifting back and forth between these levels depending on the audience and occasion of their writings.How the foundations of modern medicine were built in the Middle Ages, especially in the Islamic World. Islamic scholars and doctors translated medical texts from all over the known world, including the Greeks and Romans, Persians and Indians. They not only gathered this knowledge and translated it into Arabic (and later into Latin), they added their own medical observations and methods. Islamic doctors developed new techniques in medicine, dissection, surgery and pharmacology. They founded the first hospitals, introduced physician training and wrote encyclopaedias of medical knowledge.

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A First-Hand Account of the Battle of Ramadi, Iraq – Maj. Scott Huesing Feb 27, 2018

From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, two-hundred-fifty Marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The Marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Today I'm talking with Maj. Scott Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, He discussing retaking the city street-by-street in the dead of night, what it was like to fight 4-5 skirmishes a day for months on end, and the challenges of asymmetrical warfare where the frontline is everyone and no enemy wears a uniform. We discuss how the military shifted tactics from Cold War-style combat to effective street fighting, why he thinks women belong in combat units, his relationship with Iraqi translators, and the battle to overcome post-traumatic stress in the years following service.

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Mesopotamian Civilization (2): Everyday Life of Merchants, Temple Priests, and Prostitutes Feb 22, 2018

Welcome to part two in our series on Mesopotamia. The last installment covered the lives of the elites; now let's go several steps down the social ladder. We are going to be covering everyday life in Sumeria, Akkadia, Assyria, and any other civilization that rooted itself between the Tigris and Euphrates. In particular we will explore the lives of merchants and traders, farmers, women, temple priests, and prostitutes.

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One Nation Under (the Influence of) Alcohol: Drinking During the Civil War—Mark Will-Weber Feb 20, 2018

Bloody battles, lionhearted leaders, valiant victories, and lamentable losses—the history of the Civil War has been told time and again. Yet, one monumental component of the Civil War has gone untold… until now. Delving deep into rare Civil War memoirs and letters, today's guest, an “alco-historian,” is Mark Will-Weber, author of the book Muskets & Applejack: Spirits, Soldiers, and the Civil War. He discusses stories of the “whiskey war” to life by showing alcohol’s potency on and off the battlefield. From who drank what to how major turning points of the war happened “under the influence,” Mark sheds a unique, unconventional light on one of America’s most historic moments—and the imbibing that took place by both the Confederacy and the Union.

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Mesopotamian Civilization: Gilgamesh, Sargon, and Why 1 GB of Information on Cuneiform Tablets Weights as Much as a 747 Feb 15, 2018

Welcome to the first episode in a two-part series on Mesopotamian civilization. In this episode we are going to be covering four topics: 1) The origins of Mesopotamian civilization with Sumeria, its evolution into the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian Empires, and why education and literacy was so important (knowledge was passed down on information-dense cuneiform tablets, even though gigabyte of information on cuneiform tablets weighted nearly as much as a 747. 2) How the Epic of Gilgamesh created the genre of epic literature (or is at least the oldest such work that survives). 3) The reign of Sargon of Akkad: The King Arthur of Mesopotamia, who less known for what he actually did as much as the idea of who he was -- a symbol of justice and righteousness that people looked to in dark times. 4) Waging war the Mesopotamian way: How warfare evolved from simple infantry combat in Sumerian times to the massive siege towers and psychological warfare of the Assyrian Empire.

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Race to the Top of the World: Richard Byrd and the First Flight to the North Pole—Sheldon Bart Feb 13, 2018

In the age of adventure, when dirigibles coasted through the air and vast swaths of the Earth remained untouched and unseen by man, one pack of relentless explorers competed in the race of a lifetime: to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole. What inspired their dangerous fascination? For some, it was the romantic theory about a “lost world,” a hidden continent in the Arctic Ocean. Others were seduced by new aviation technology, which they strove to push to its ultimate limit. The story of their quest is breathtaking and inspiring; the heroes are still a matter of debate. In this episode I talk with Sheldon Bart, author of “Race to the Top of the World: Richard Byrd and the First Flight to the North Pole.” about Richard Byrd, a Navy officer and early aviation pioneer; and Roald Amundsen, Byrd’s and a hardened veteran of polar expeditions. Each man was determined to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole, despite brutal weather conditions, financial disasters, world wars, and their own personal demons.

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Positive Legacies of the Mongolian Empire: International Trade, Religious Tolerance, Career Opportunities, and Horse Milk Feb 08, 2018

The Mongolian Empire has a well-deserved reputation for its brutality (it did, after all, kill 40 million in the 12th century, enough people to alter planetary climate conditions). But it's positive legacies are nearly as profound, if less well known. In this episode I talk about the lasting influence of Genghis and his descendants on world civilization. The Mongolians patronize the arts on a scale not seen since the height of Rome; the Pax Mongolica consolidated the Silk Road and kicked off a boom in trade where ideas, technologies and goods flowed freely from Europe to Asia (spices, tea, and silk headed west while gold, medical manuscripts, and porcelain headed east; and the Mongolian approach to religious tolerance was so flexible that Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians were invited to debate their ideas before the royal court in Karakorum.

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America's Utopian Communities: From Plymouth Colony's Failed Experiments in Collective Farming to 60s Hippie Communes—Timothy Miller Feb 06, 2018

One of the oldest traditions in America is trying (and failing) to set up a utopian community. French Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed if man could return to a state of nature – free from social conditioning that put him in conflict with his neighbor – then a new, perfect social order could emerge. This sounds like hopefully wishful thinking today, but in the context of the 1800s, a utopian community really wasn't all that far fetched. The French Revolution failed, but the equally radical American Revolution succeeded. If a country could rule itself without a king and queen, some thought, why couldn't it rule itself without any ruler at all? Many utopian thinkers asked themselves that if one Greek form of government, democracy, could be dusted off after thousands of years on the shelf, then why not try other discarded ideas? Perhaps the time had come for Plato's vision of a utopia. From the 1830s to 1850s, charismatic leaders formed groups of 50 to 100 Europeans who followed a basic ideology or religious denomination and set up communist communities across America. Widely believed by the larger public to be sinks of drug-ridden sexual immorality, the communes both intrigued and repelled the American people. The intentional communities of the 1960s era were far more diverse than the stereotype of the hippie commune would suggest. A great many of them were religious in basis, stressing spiritual seeking and disciplined lifestyles; others were founded on secular visions of a better society. In fact, hundreds of them became so stable that they survive today.

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The Reasons the Mongolian Army Was Unstoppable Feb 02, 2018

Mongols were fierce on horseback, but so were the many other steppe nomads who tried and failed to conquer the walled cities of China, Persia, and Rome.
Yet the Mongols succeeded where their predecessors failed by incorporating siege engineers into their army, taking full advantage of their light supply chain, and using shock attacks in ways no other military leader had before.

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Horse and Bow- A Mongol's Two Best Friends Feb 01, 2018

Steppe nomads plagued the ancient world with their cavalries, but nobody perfected this form of warfare like the Mongols. A horse archer had such a deep kinesthetic relationship with his steed he could feel when all four hooves were off the ground, allowing for a perfect shot. Chroniclers say they could hit the wings off birds from 50 yards and fell an enemy from 500.
Learn why the bow and the horse were the foundations of Mongolian military power.

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The Rise of Genghis- From Temujin to the Great Khan Jan 31, 2018

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The Mongols Killed So Many People They Lowered the Global Temperature Jan 30, 2018

Welcome to part one of Mongol Week(s). In this multi-part series, we will look at the Mongolian Empire from multiple perspectives, including its unprecedented level of brutality (so many died from their attacks that untended farmland returned to forrest, scrubbing the atmosphere of carbon and causing global cooling).
But we will also look at their positive contributions -- the opening up of the Silk Road, religious tolerance, and rights granted to women. We will also consider the rise of Temujin (Genghis), the importance of the Mongolian horse and bow, battle tactics, and everyday life.

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Chester A. Arthur's Presidency Was a Colossal Accident...And a Huge Success Jan 29, 2018

Chester A. Arthur, America's 21st president, lands on the lists of the most obscure chief executives. Few know anything about him besides his trademark mutton-chop sideburns. Moreover, he fell into the position unexpectedly when Garfield was assassinated; the political pros though he would be a failure as president. Maybe Arthur did also. After all, he was a flunkey in the New York political machine who spent his nights eating, drinking, and smoking cigars with the other good ole' boys and frequently didn't show up at work in the New York Customs House until 1pm. He only got on the Vice Presidential ticket of Garfield because Republicans were desperate to get support from New York and needed a native son on the ticket. But Arthur shocked everyone by doing well as president. He went up against the very forces that had controlled him for decades. He implemented new rules requiring the federal government to hire workers based on their qualifications, not their political connections. He supported a civil rights act to bar racial discrimination, even though the public overwhelmingly supported it.

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The Vietnam War Was About...Stealing Asia's Tin? Jan 26, 2018

Fighting over scarce resources have fueled wars back to the Sumerian city-states squabbling over water-use rights of the Euphrates river. Did the same drive fuel America's entrance into Vietnam to take its tin? Listener Toby asks if there's any truth to the the conspiracy theory that only reason the Vietnam war was waged was for a scarce metal, not to fight the communist threat like most of us has been taught.

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About 70-90 Percent of a Society Needs to Die Before It Completely Collapses Jan 25, 2018

Some disasters hurt society (Hurricane Katrina in 2005). Bigger ones permanently alter it (the Black Death in the 1300s; Mao's Great Leap Forward). The worst of disasters completely destroy a civilization and leave behind so few they take centuries to recover (the Mongolian slaughter of Iran in the 1200s; the smallpox epidemic among Native Americans).
Today we look at the tipping points between a society being hurt and a society being mortally wounded.

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Why The Black Plague is Partially (But Not Completely) Responsible For the Renaissance? Jan 24, 2018

The death of thirty percent of Europe's population in the fourteenth century permanently altered the medieval social order, and many scholars credit the Black Plague with ushering in the Renaissance. But this is not the whole story—after all, plagues have ravaged the ancient world throughout human history without a similar cultural flowering to show for it. We look at other factors that ran parallel to the plague to transform Europe's culture.

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Did Mussollini Really Make the Trains Run on Time? Jan 23, 2018

Fascism is loved by few, but many at least credit Mussolini's heavy-handed rule for making Italy's notoriously disastrous train system operate effectively. Was this actually true or more of Il Duce's propaganda?

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How Teddy Roosevelt Became The Man He Was in the Badlands—William Hazelgrove of “Forging a President” Jan 22, 2018

Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t born as the rough riding, big-game-hunting, Amazon-exploring legend that America has come to love. So how did he become the larger-than- life character portrayed in history books? He was forged by the last vestige of the Wild West—the Badlands of the Dakota Territory. Yet this side of one of America’s most popular presidents has mostly gone unexplored
In this episode I talked with William Hazelgrove, author of the book Forging a President: How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt once stated, “I have always said I would not have been president had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.”
Faced with tremendous heartbreak and extreme adversity, Roosevelt headed West for comfort and healing. Little did he know that the ways of trappers and thieves would create his bombastic personality, and later lead him to run for president of the United States.

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The Origin of the High Five Jan 18, 2018

The origins of some cultural practices are lost to the mists of time. Not so the high five. We can trace it back to a specific day at a specific baseball game. From then on the world was never the same.

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Nobody in the Middle Ages Thought the Earth Was Flat Jan 17, 2018

One of the most widespread and pernicious bits of common knowledge about the Middle Ages that is incorrect is the idea that everyone believed the world to be flat. This is ridiculous. Nobody thought that. Anyone who knew about astronomy (which was almost everyone), had been on a boat, or had any sort of learning whatsoever knew this to be false. Then why do make this wrong assumption today?

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Which Leader Had the Best Shot at World Domination? Jan 16, 2018

Which world leader or dictator had the best chance at world domination? (i.e. Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander the Great). In this episode I discuss whether such a goal is even possible, and if so, under what conditions.

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Pinetti, the 18th-Century Illusionist and Forerunner of Chris Angel and David Copperfield—Brian Earl from the Illusion Podcast Jan 15, 2018

Giussepe Pinetti: You might not know the name, but he's considered the guy who made magic into a respected theatrical art form. Before him, it was practiced mostly by buskers on street corners, or at private engagements for the rich, not public theaters. He single-handedly changed the persona of magician from shady trickster to consummate performer
Brian Earl from the Illusion Podcast is here to talk about the granddaddy of all illusionists. He was there 200 years before David Copperfield, Chris Angel, or Penn and Teller.
Here's some fascinating aspects of Pinetti's life that Brian and I discuss:
His career began as a professor of physics in Rome in the 1770s. He performed magic tricks in class to illustrate concepts. His classes were very popularHe eventually began performing in Germany in 1780 as Pinetti, Roman Professor of Mathematics. He would pass off illusions as genuine scientific demonstrationsHe was very successful, selling out theaters across Europe. He started to dress like a general or nobleman onstage with custom tailored suits. Pinetti arrived in Prussia in a coach drawn by 4 horses. This angered Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia, whose carriage had only 2 horses. He ordered Pinetti to leave the cityA lawyer named Henri Decremps published an expose of Pinetti, explaining how his performances were just magic tricks, not demonstrations of little-known scientific principles. Pinetti publicly discredited Decremps by hiring a shabby person off the street to pose as Decremps at a performance and cause a public disturbanceA man named Count de Grisy in Naples had begun performing some of Pinetti's tricks at private parties. Pinetti pretended to mentor deGrisy and encouraged him to perform publicly. Pinetti sabotaged the performance, which the king attended

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The Origin of the Military Salute Jan 12, 2018

The simple military salute is a symbol whose meaning goes back centuries earlier than most any soldier would suspect.

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Would Somebody from 1000 BC Transported to 1000 AD Notice the Difference? Jan 11, 2018

Did technological and social change happen fast enough in the 2,000-year period between 1000 BC and AD that a time traveller would notice he were transported from one to the other?

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The English Channel—The 26-Mile Strait That Has Stopped Armies For Millenia Jan 10, 2018

Why has a puny strip of sea stopped invading armies almost as effectively as the Atlantic Ocean has for America? Because staging a successful amphibious assault is extremely hard.

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The Richest Man in History Was the 14th c. King of Mali Jan 09, 2018

Learn about King Musa, the man so rich he crashed the value of gold in Egypt by giving away too many gifts while on an extended vacation.

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Canines in Combat: How the 8125th Sentry Dog Detachment Saved Countless Lives in the Korean War—Rachel Reed Jan 08, 2018

The Korean War is widely misunderstood in the 21st century. Most have a sepia-toned nostalgia of the bravery of World War Two, or the less black-and-white nature of the Vietnam War. But not Korea. If anyone thinks of it, they might think of reruns of M*A*S*H on Nick at Nite or a barely-remembered high school history lesson on the U.S. Cold War policy of Soviet containment. For this reason, some historians have dubbed it the Forgotten War.
To explore this forgotten war, I talked with Rachel Reed, who's written a new book on the conflict. But she doesn't write about the politics or military tactics of the war. Instead, she focuses on the four-legged heroes that supported the war efforts.
Reed’s book K-9 Korea: The Untold Story of America’s War Dogs in the Korean War is an account of canines working side-by-side with servicemen to perform sentry duty on critical supply and weapons depots.
When the 8125th Sentry Dog Detachment landed in Incheon, Korea, the soldiers—man and dog— were unsure of the fates that awaited them. The human warriors soon learned that their lives depended on their canine companions for safety and strength to face unimaginable situations.

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Europe's Military Quantum Leap (1350-1650)—Patrick Wyman From Tides of History Jan 01, 2018

Want to conquer Europe in the Middle Ages? You need plenty of knights mounted on steeds to launch a full cavalry charge. Once they take out their enemies in pitched battle, you need engineers to launch a siege on your enemies castles.
Want to conquer Europe in 1600? Everything has changed. Cannon makes castles obsolete. Firearms and pikes have displaced knights as the dominant force on the battlefield. The scale of war has also grown from a few thousand soldiers on the battlefield to tens or even hundreds of thousands.
To explain this change is Patrick Wyman of the Tides of History Podcast. Patrick is a medievalist by training and explores how events in the far past still have influence today.

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Christmas Special: Fr. Longenecker on Why The 3 Wise Men Were Real...But They Weren't From the Orient or Kings (Rebroadcast) Dec 25, 2017

How do we separate myth from fact in ancient history? How do we do this when it comes down to one of the most beloved and well-known stories of all time: The Nativity? Fr. Dwight Longenecker, a Catholic priest from Greenville, South Carolina, is attempting to do that. He has set out on a quest to investigate whether there is a kernel of historical truth beneath the many legends of the Magi story. Now he thinks he has found it. The Magi were real, but they weren't from the “Orient.” Nor were they kings. Rather, they were a political delegation from a mostly-forgotten kingdom to the south called the Nabateans. And they set out for Israel for reasons both religious and political. It wasn't an easy project for Fr. Longenecker to research. While he was always fascinated by the nativity story, he knew that plenty of legendary embellishment had filled in the gaps. Matthew's bare bones account only speaks of “wise men from the East” who see a star and journey to Jerusalem, winding up in Bethlehem to pay homage to the newborn Jesus Christ before returning to their country by a different route. There's no mention of three kings, lavish costumes, camels, nor where they came from in the biblical account. No start leads them through the desert to Bethlehem. They aren't even called kings (?!) Furthermore, most Biblical scholars outright reject that the magi were historical at all. The Catholic Bible scholar Raymond Brown in his monumental study, The Birth of the Messiah notes that it was a mark of modernist orthodoxy not to believe in the historicity of the Magi story. Fr. Longenecker found that as it turns out that because of scholars' assumption that the Magi story was a fairy tale very few scholars had taken the time to investigate thoroughly the possible identity of the wise men. His research brought him into contact with new technologies which shed light on the subject. Some fresh archeological findings and new understandings from the Dead Sea Scrolls also contributed to the quest. As it turns out, it is perfectly probable that there were wise men who had the motive, the means and the method to pay homage to Jesus Christ just as Matthew recorded. The simple truth is that Matthew’s account is factual not fictional. His book The Mystery of the Magi—The Quest for the True Identity of the Three Wise Men will be published next Advent by Regnery Press. In this episode we answer the following questions: Did the wise men ride camels? What was the star of Bethlehem? Were they really called Balthasar, Melchoir and Kaspar? Are their relics preserved in Cologne Cathedral? Where do Anthony and Cleopatra fit into the story? Why did they bring gold, frankincense and myrrh? Was there really a magical star that led them across the desert?

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Bringing Abraham and Mary Todd to Life in Steven Spielberg's “Lincoln”—Historical Consultant Catherine Clinton Dec 18, 2017

Being a historical consultant for movies is never easy. How do you get the period details right while keeping it contained within an interesting narrative? But being a historical consultant about one of the most recognizable figure in history is even harder. That’s why today’s guest Catherine Clinton had her work cut out for her.
For the 2012 Steve Spielberg movie “Lincoln,” Clinton—a U.S. academic historian and expert on Mary Lincoln—was consulted by filmmakers over costume details and details about the Lincolns’ lives.
In this episode we discuss
Popular misconceptions about Mary Todd that historians know is falseWhether her reputation as a hellcat or maniac is deserved, and if not, why it became distortedChallenges of portraying historical fact while cutting necessary corners for a 2-hour film narrativeWhat “Lincoln” portrayed about Abraham and Mary Todd that other film makers have missedLessons from the life of Abraham and Mary Todd we should remember today

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Meet Nathaniel Clark Smith, the Melchizedek of Jazz—Bill McKemy Dec 11, 2017

Jazz is the most American of musical genres. But its origins are shrouded in mystery. Some like to think that Louis Armstrong and his bluesmen friends were sitting at a bar in New Orleans, when a solar eclipse and Haley's Comet occurred at the same time, causing the musical troupe to start using a swing rhythm. But musicologist Bill McKemy thinks that the origins of jazz can be traced more directly to one man. That is Nathaniel Clark Smith: The Melchizedek of Jazz. Smith was African-American musician, composer, and music educator in the United States during the early decades of the 1900s. Over the next 30 years he would lead bands in Chicago, Wichita, Kansas City, the Tuskegee Institute, and in St. Louis. He was an important educator for many of the prominent early Jazz musicians from Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis. And man was his life hard. To make ends meet he played in a minstrel show in the 1890s. He threatened lynching by having Tuskegee students play classical music and other forms of “non-black” music, against the wishes of Booker T. Washington. He risked his life to embrace the slowly emerging new opportunities for non-whites in the United States.

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The Story of Human Language, From Proto Indo-European to Ebonics English—John McWhorter Dec 04, 2017

Language not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries. For example... How did different languages come to be? Why isn't there just a single language? How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth? How does a language become extinct? In today's episode I speak with Dr. John McWhorter, a linguist from Columbia University. He, addresses these and other issues, such as how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today. We go broad and deep. For the broad, we explore language families, starting with Indo-European, comprising languages from India to Ireland including English. Other language families discussed are Semitic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Bantu, and Native American. This gets us into the heated debate over the first language. For the deep, we get into pidgins and creoles. When people learn a language quickly without being explicitly taught, they develop a pidgin version of it. Then if they need to use this pidgin on an everyday basis it becomes a real language, a creole. Some people argue that Black English is a creole, and Professor McWhorter really gets into this issue.

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The Causes of World War 2 Dec 01, 2017

In the wreckage of World War 1, Germany was slapped with a war reparations bill worth billions and the loss of much of its land. This and many other reasons launched the Second World War.

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The Causes of World War 1 Nov 30, 2017

The reasons for the Great War go way beyond the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Learn about the causes of one of humanity's most vicious wars.

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Is There Any Hard Evidence Hannibal Took Elephants Over the Alps? Nov 29, 2017

Hannibal's crossing of the Alps with war elephants is considered one of the most daring move of the Punic Wars. But is it professionally accepted among historians that he actually crossed the Alps, and if so, is there any physical evidence?

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The Greek Military Owned The Ancient World. Why Did They Roll Over For the Romans? Nov 28, 2017

When did the ancient Greeks stop making armies or supplying fighting men? One moment they're beating up the the Persian empire and conquering the known world, and the next, they're slave tutors for the Romans or philosophers in their major cities. Learn about why the Greeks dominated the Eastern Mediterranean in the ancient world and why their star fell against the Romans.

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Why Food Tells Us More About a Culture Than Anything Else—Ken Alba Nov 27, 2017

You and your ancestor from 1,000 years ago have almost nothing in common. Your clothes are different. Your worship rituals are different. Your thoughts about the opposite sex are definitely different. Almost the only similarity is that both of you are driven to obtain food. In fact, one could say that civilization itself began in the quest for food. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: “Gastronomy governs the whole life of man.”
In this episode, Professor Ken Albala of the University of the Pacific puts the subject of food and its importance in history on the table. Ken has studied widely on the types of cuisine that would be featured at a Roman feast, a medieval banquet, or a Renaissance Italian civic celebration. He’s ground Italian flour to make the sort of bread one would eat in Pompeii. He’s made stewed rabbit in a homemade clay pot the way an Elizabethean peasant would. He hasn’t tried field-mouse-on-a-stick (a popular Roman delicacy) but probably not for lack of trying.
In this episode we discuss how Roman food reflected social rank, wealth, and sophistication; why the Middle Ages produced some of history’s most outlandish and theatrical presentations of food, such as gilded boars’ heads, “invented” creatures, mixing parts of different animals; and cooked peacocks spewing flames; modern foody gastronomy; and finally, one of my favorite desserts, Turkish Chicken pudding.

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The Electoral College Isn't an Outdated 18th-Century Relic; It Keeps America From Falling Apart—Tara Ross Nov 24, 2017

The Electoral college is one of the most confusing—and, after the 2016 election, contentious—parts of American democracy. After losing two of the past five presidential races in the Electoral College (EC), Democrats are determined to never let it happen again. And many Americans—on both the left and the right—find it to be a confusing and antiquated system we would do well to get rid of. But others think it's an indispensible part of American democracy. One of them is today's guest, Tara Ross, a legal scholar and author of The Indispensable Electoral College: How the Founders’ Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule. Tara argues the EC is neither outdated nor unfair—and the stability of the United States depends on it. She argues the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. They ingeniously balanced the will of the majority and the interests of minorities, avoiding the instability that has bedeviled every other democracy. In this interview we discuss: Why the Electoral College safeguards national unity How the Electoral College prevents political crises in tight elections How the Founders came up with the Electoral College—and why they thought it was so important Why the Electoral Colege was meant to be more important than the popular vote Why the Electoral College doesn’t favor one party over the other Why the Electoral College is inappropriately—and incorrectly—labeled a “relic of slavery” ABOUT TARA ROSS Tara Ross has spent much of her legal career studying and defending the Electoral College. She is the author of two previous books, Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College and We Elect a President: The Story of Our Electoral College and her tutorial “Do You Understand the Electoral College?” is one of Prager University’s most popular videos ever, with more than fifty million views. She has written for the National Law Journal, USA Today, the Washington Times, National Review, and the Weekly Standard. RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE The Indispensable Electoral College: How the Founders' Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule Tara Ross's website

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Arabic Numerals Took Over 600 Years To Spread Across the West Nov 23, 2017

Western scholars first encountered "Arabic" numerals in the seventh century, making mathematics and accounting much easier. But Roman numerals stubbornly stuck around until the invention of the printing press made them permanently obsolete.

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A Short History of the War of the Roses Nov 22, 2017

The Wars of the Roses were a series of battles that were fought between the supporters of the House of Lancaster (Lancastrians) and the supporters of the House of York (Yorkists). The wars were called the Wars of the Roses because the Yorkists were represented by a white rose and the Lancastrians by a red rose.

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Richard Francis Burton—The Man Who Knew the Most Languages in History Nov 21, 2017

Richard Francis Burton was an explorer, translator, and contender for the 19th-century's world's most interesting man. He was also functional in dozens of languages and translated monumental works of scholarship from Arabic and Portuguese in English.

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The Scopes Monkey Trial, HL Mencken, and Religion in Public Life—Darryl Hart Nov 20, 2017

If you’ve seen the 1960 Spencer Tracy movie Inherit the Wind, you know about the Scopes Monkey Trial. In this real-life 1925 case, John Scopes was accused of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The case became an enormous media sensation. It was reported on like a boxing match, science vs. fundamentalism. But oddly enough, Scopes was not originally brought to trial by any fundamentalists. The trial was deliberately staged to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he purposely incriminated himself so that the case could have a defendant. In this episode Hillsdale Professor Darryl Hart discusses the Scopes Monkey Trial, the legal parameters of religion in American public life, and the larger-than-life figures of early 20th century America like HL Mencken.

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The Reformation Happened 500 Years Ago, But It's More Timely Than Ever—Benjamin Wiker Nov 17, 2017

Secularism, radical Islam, and nationalism all sound like buzzwords pulled straight from today’s headlines. But you might be surprised to know that 500 years ago they were at the epicenter of one of the greatest religious and political convulsions in western history—the Reformation. Today I talk with Prof. Bejamin Wiker, author of the new book The Reformation 500 Years Later: 12 Things You Need to Know. He brings to light the enduring relevance of one of the most significant events in history—and the surprising things about it you probably never learned in history class. We discuss... How Luther inspired radical reformers whom he actually despised How bad popes were even worse than you think Why nationalism was as much a force in the Reformation as religious reform was How the Catholic Church was in dire need of reform—and how it had benefited from continual reform over the course of its then 1,500-year history How the invention of the printing press both helped and harmed the Reformation Why another Reformation is inevitable—and what course it might take

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How Did You Call the Police Before the Phone Was Invented? Nov 16, 2017

Dialing 9-1-1 is a new innovation (at least in the sense of the scope of human history), but the need for emergency services goes back to the earliest settlements. How did a pre-modern civilization call for help when there were no phone lines?

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All the Presidents Who Owned Slaves and How They Treated Them Nov 15, 2017

A whole bunch of presidents owned slaves considering they took an oath to uphold the rights of their citizens. But how many of the pre-Civil War presidents actually owned slaves? And how did they treat them?

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Who Were Worse—The Spanish Conquistadors or the Aztecs? Nov 14, 2017

The Spanish conquistadors have rightly been called out for their brutal treatment and enslavement of native populations. But did they behave worse than the Aztecs?

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The Lives of Slaves, Heretics, Cave-Dwellers, and Other People Ancient History Never Tells You About—Robert Garland Nov 13, 2017

The 19th-century historian Thomas Carlyle wrote, “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” In a sense that's true. We have plenty of biographies of emperors, popes, kings, queens, and leaders of the ancient world. But what about those who made up 99.999% percent of the population and didn't have such illustrious lives? Professor Robert Garland has focused on the world of history’s anonymous citizens. We discuss daily life for workers, the poor, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, refugees, women, children, slaves, and soldiers. This includes a Greek soldier marching into battle in the front row of a phalanx. Or a Celtic monk scurrying away with the Book of Kells during a Viking invasion. Or celebrity-worshiping Romans who all had their favorite gladiatorial contender. For Garland, The true joy of studying everyday lives lies in seeing what life was like for ordinary people—and therefore what life would have been like for most of us if we had been born in a different era. Through archaeological evidence and literary records, we try to connect with a wide range of people over the ages and experience life from their perspectives. We see that although they lived in a different world, these people, loved, lost, fought, and died much like we do today. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Robert's course The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World Robert's faculty page at Colgate University

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What Did Entertainment Do To The Romans? Nov 10, 2017

You can point to hundreds of factors that led to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (which Edward Gibbon and many others have been doing for centuries). Decadence and frivolous entertainment are among the main culprits. But did bread and circuses really do in the Romans? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Syriac-The Best Language for Conquering The Ancient World Nov 09, 2017

If you were transported to the ancient world, there's only one language that could be used in Roman Briton and China alike. It was Syriac: the lingua franca of the Silk Road and your best language to learn to conquer the ancient world. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Most Valuable Lost Treasure That Still Exists Nov 08, 2017

As Imperial Spain transported literal tons of gold from the New World to the motherland, hurricanes sunk much of it to the bottom of the Atlantic. Find out about the most valuable treasure that is likely still out there. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did Vikings Have Tattoos? Nov 07, 2017

Vikings left behind nearly no writings, except for Runic scripts on rocks. New burial site excavations show they also left them behind on their bodies. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Call of Duty: WW2's Historical Advisor Marty Morgan on Bringing the War to Life Nov 06, 2017

Call of Duty is top best-selling first-person shooter series based on real events, but lately it has veered into futuristic sci-fi country. Call of Duty: World War II is an attempt to go back to the games WW2 roots. And historian Marty Morgan is there to make sure they get it right. He's an expert in military history who specializes in the World Wars. Morgan is a consultant for Sledgehammer Games. He has also has led hundreds of tour groups at the battle sites of D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and Hürtgen Forest. Marty makes sure that everything is right in the series. He focuses on which guns should be used on the Western Front or insignia on soldier's uniform. He makes sure that snipers are actually using the rifles they would have at that time (don't get him started on the erroneous use of weapons in Saving Private Ryan). He led Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, co-founders of Sledgehammer, through the battlefields of Europe in the middle of winter to get a real feel of the soldiers' wartime experience. There they faced three or four feet of snow. There were still foxholes and trenches in the middle of nowhere. In the forest they saw a 60-ton King Tiger tank left by the Germans because it was too heavy to move. He worked with the creative team to give historical accuracy to the most Hollywood of scenes in the game. At point point the writers wanted a scene with a train. They asked Marty, 'What sort of train would be transporting important equipment in April 1944 that we could crumple?” He came up with a German military train carrying a V2 Rocket that ends in a climactic crash. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Marty Morgan on Youtube www.martinkamorgan.com TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Codpiece—The Worst Fashion Trend in History Nov 03, 2017

A wealthy man in the 1500s wore a large flap on the front of his trousers to accentuate his "credentials," which looked like an exterior athletic cup. How did this bizarre fashion trend take off, why did it end, and will it make a comeback? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Almost No Medieval Peasant Cottages Survive Today Nov 02, 2017

Archeological findings have led to breakthroughs in our understand of the Roman and ancient Near Eastern worlds, but little survives from the 500s-900s. Why weren't medieval buildings made to last? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How a Nikita Khruschev Mistranslation Threatened Nuclear War Nov 01, 2017

When Nikita Khruschev pounded his shoe on a podium, declaring "We will bury you!" many feared imminent nuclear war. Turns out a better translation of his original Russian completely changes the meaning of the phrase TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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British Girl, Nazi German POW—A Love Story Oct 31, 2017

Were there any British women who fell in love with German POWs living in England in the mid-1940s? Despite the extreme cultural taboo, the answer is yes. Love always finds a way. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Assassin's Creed's Resident Historian Maxime Durand on Mixing Fact with Fiction Oct 30, 2017

Like it or not, far more millennials will learn about Renaissance and medieval history through Assassin's Creed than they ever will through a history book. That can be dispiriting on the one hand —the game, after all, seems like a completely ahistorical look on the Nizaris—or Assassin's as they are known in the West—and the knights Templar. Plenty of flipping and stabbing but little in the way of fact. But what if Ubisoft, the creators of Assassin's Creed, actually take their history very seriously? What if they are providing a truly mass-scale historical education? I figured if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So I talked to Maxime Durand, Ubisoft's in-house historian. Maxime helps to ensure the accuracy of the gameplay and story around the historical events and aspects of that time period. The games have taken in Renaissance Italy, Constantinople, Revolutionary America, Revolutionary France, the pirate-infested Caribbean, and Ancient Egypt. He tries to give cameos to real historical figures, such as the French Revolution's Babriel Riqueti, the comte de Birabeau (he was seen as the father of the revolution but at the end it was proven he was talking to the king and queen in secret). But the game also takes liberties with the past in order to tell a give story and give it license to include folk legends. An example is the The Scarlet Pimpernel or the Little Red Ghost—a paranormal inhabitant of a palace where Napoleon was based. It was said that the ghost told every king and monarch -- even Napoleon -- that they would die at a certain point. The ghost said to them he would protect them up until the point of their death. Find out how fact and fiction merge together in this interview with Maxime Durand. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Assassin's Creed Maxime Durand TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Cruel and Unusual (Medieval) Punishment Oct 27, 2017

An inquisitor thirsty for a confession had plenty of medieval tools of torture at his disposal: the iron maiden, the judas cradle, the rack, or the brazen bull. Turns out many of these devices are fabrications from hundreds of years later made for museums that wanted to display the barbarism of the "Dark Ages." TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Easter Uprising of 1916 Oct 26, 2017

Learn about one of the most important events in modern Irish history. On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, a group of Irish nationalists proclaimed the establishment of the Irish Republic. They, along with some 1,600 followers, staged a rebellion against the British government in Ireland. It all started at a modest post office in Dublin and led to a direct clash with British troops. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Misattributed Quotes—No, Mark Twain Didn't Say That Oct 25, 2017

Thomas Jefferson once said you can't believe everything you read on the Internet. With those extremely true words in mind, let's look at other quotes that are widely believed to be authentic but totally false. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How to Build a 13th-Century Castle From Scratch Oct 24, 2017

In a remote forest clearing in Burgundy, France, a 13th-century castle is slowly being constructed using only the tools, techniques, and materials that would have been available to the builders of the day. It’s archaeology in reverse. What started out as an eccentric pipe dream is now an established enterprise, drawing in tens of thousands of visitors from around Europe every year. Learn what it took to build a castle in 13th-century France in this podcast episode. If you want to learn first-hand, go to Burgundy and check it out! TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Telling Japan’s Story in The Last Samurai, Letters From Iwo Jima, and Medal of Honor—Dan King Oct 23, 2017

The Japanese military of World War Two has a nasty reputation—kamikaze pilots, baby killers, and brain-washed, honor-obsessed soldiers who threw away their lives for a lost cause. Parts of this reputation is earned but much of the stereotype has come out of World War Two films. Depicting WWII Japan fairly in film and television while humanizing its people isn't easy, but Dan King is up to the job. King is a WWII Pacific war historian who reads, writes and speaks Japanese. After returning to the US he worked on several dozen movies and historical documentaries as a technical advisor, historical & language consultant and re-enactment coordinator. He was the assistant military advisor for Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai (he had a cameo as a German officer), a researcher for Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima/Flags Of Our Fathers, and technical consultant for Nicolas Cage's Windtalkers. His passion for the subject of the war in the Pacific has also led him to seek out over 250 Japanese WWII veterans and personally interview 97 of them, in their own language. He has also been interviewed on several radio programs and has spoken to hundreds of people about Japanese aviation. Dan King was also employed by EA GAMES as the WWII Japanese technical consultant for the worldwide best selling "Medal of Honor" video game series. His basic task was to provide information to the game creators in order to make the game as accurate as possible. This included providing examples of Japanese WWII uniforms and gear; infantry weapons; tanks, large guns, ships and aircraft; Japanese language supervision during VO recording; and battle tactics and hand signals. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Dan's Site Historical Consulting A Tomb Called Iwo Jima The Last Zero Fighter: Firsthand Accounts from WWII Japanese Naval Pilots TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Teddy Roosevelt’s Journey Through Uncharted Amazonian Jungle Oct 20, 2017

Teddy Roosevelt was not afraid to tempt death. He hiked the Matterhorn during his honeymoon. He arrested outlaws on the Dakota Frontier. He hunted rhinos in Africa. But his most dangerous journey came after his failure in 1912 to retake the presidency as a third-party candidate on the Bull Moose ticket. He choose to shake off the blues in an extremely dangerous journey to South America. Roosevelt did not merely want a repeat of his African safari: a well-provisioned hunt to a foreign land that was little more than an exotic form of sight seeing. Roosevelt wanted to join the ranks of explorers who were pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge: the arctic explorers discovering the Northwest passage or the African trekkers locating the source of the Nile River. His guide, the Brazilian explorer Col. Candido Rondon, suggested they survey the River of Doubt, an uncharted capillary of the Amazon that ran through treacherous terrain of the rainforest. Many told him the journey would end in his death. Ignoring the warnings of field naturalists with experience in the Amazon, Roosevelt said, “If it is necessary for me to leave my bones in South America, I am quite ready to do so.” Learn in this episode how he almost did. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How Teddy Roosevelt Gave a 90-minute Speech After Being Shot Oct 19, 2017

Theodore Roosevelt was hell bent on becoming president in 1912. He ran as a third-party candidate for the Progressive Party, a splinter group of Republicans dissatisfied with William Howard Taft. He was so committed to winning that he gave a 90-minute speech…immediately after being shot in the chest by a would-be assassin. How did he do it without passing out? What did his audience think as he bled out before their eyes? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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When Teddy Roosevelt Arrested Three Boat Thieves Oct 18, 2017

Perhaps no president has as many unbelievable stories about his life than Teddy Roosevelt. He was an amateur boxer. He was the first American politician to learn judo. He summited the Matterhorn during his honeymoon. He joined an expedition to log data about an unchartered river in the Amazon. But perhaps no story matches his pursuit of three boat thieves in the Dakotas in the 1880s. Learn how Roosevelt travelled 300 miles in the bitter cold to arrest three thieves… all to prove to other ranches that he wasn’t a week Easterner who came out to to the frontier to play cowboy. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Carrie Nation—The Hatch-Wielding Prohibitionist Oct 17, 2017

Nothing supports the Prohibition movement like a hatchet-wielding radical ready to smash in a Midwestern saloon. Carrie Amelia Nation would know. She made a career out of physical assaulting the alcohol industry in the years before Prohibition (1920). TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Discovering Embarrassing Family Secrets and Famous Third Cousins with Genealogist Crista Cowan From Ancestry.com Oct 16, 2017

Shake a family tree long enough and something embarrassing secret is sure to drop out: a felon uncle here, an illegitimate nephew there, a grandfather arrested for indecent exposure there. Genealogy can reveal all sorts of unexpected surprises. But it can also help you find second and third cousins that you didn't know were famous. To talk about the wonders of genealogy and how to do it right is Crista Cowan. Crista is the corporate genealogist for Ancestry.com. She was the indexing manager for the company and helped them archive more than 17 billion records. She has found records in libraries, archives, and courthouses. Recently she has used DNA as a powerful tool to locate and connect biological family members. Crista has been involved in family history research for more than 25 years and has been a professional genealogist since 2002. She specializes in descendancy research, Jewish Immigration, and sharing family history with the genealogically challenged. Crista regularly teaches Family History classes at her local LDS Family History Center and at conferences and genealogy societies around the country. She has been employed at Ancestry.com since 2004 and is known as The Barefoot Genealogist. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Crista's Youtube Series: The Barefoot Genealogist TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Does American Give Automatic Birthright Citizenship? Oct 13, 2017

Anyone born on American soil gets automatic citizenship. This isn't true in the rest of the world. Few other nations in the world practice jus soli (right of the soil). Rather, your parents have to be citizens. Why is this the case? It has to do with New World senses of identity and belonging. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Was It Like To Be Enrolled at the University of Constantinople? Oct 12, 2017

The Pandidakterion (University of Constantinople) was the empire's imperial school. It can trace its origins to 425 AD to Emperor Theodosius II. Learn what it was like to be enrolled in the ancient world's premier "university." TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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John Birch-The First Death in the Cold War Oct 11, 2017

The first death of the Cold War quickly became an anti-communist icon and symbol of the American far right from the 1950s onward. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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George Washington Wasn’t the First President. He Was the Ninth Oct 10, 2017

George Washington was the First President of the United States. This is the most basic fact that an American school child can learn. Only it isn't true. He wasn’t the first. Nor the second. He was actually the ninth president of the United States. How can that be? It all has to do with the ad hoc, make-it-up-as-you-go nature of the United States government between the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the signing of the Constitution in 1789. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Anthony Esolen on Translating Dante’s Divine Comedy and Dan Brown’s Supercilious Stupidity Oct 09, 2017

‘Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them: there is no third’ —T.S Elliot The most towering epic poem in Western literature, save perhaps the works of Homer, is Dante's Divine Comedy. In this episode we are going to talk about the history of the poem, how it was understood across the centuries, and what it has to say to 21st man today. And our guest is perhaps the most qualified person on the planet to do so. Anthony Esolen is a literature professor and Dante scholar who released an acclaimed translation of Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. He has been praised for marrying sense with sound, poetry with meaning, capturing both the poem’s line-by-line vigor and its allegorically and philosophically exacting structure. In our interview we discuss Esolen's translation decision to ditch systematic line-by-line rhyming in favor of blank verse to retain the poem's original “meaning and music,” why Dan Brown's Inferno is so transcendentally terrible a book, and what Dante has to say to a modern world that has exchanged an authentic culture for mindless mass entertainment. ABOUT ANTHONY ESOLEN Anthony Esolen is a professor of English Renaissance and classical literature, a writer, social commentator, and translator of classical poetry. He has taught at the university level for decades and joined Thomas More College of Liberal Arts this fall. Besides Dante, he has translated Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, and Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Along with his academic work he has written more than 500 articles forThe Claremont Review of Books, First Things, and Touchstone magazine. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Anthony Esolen's translation of Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise “Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture” “Dan Brown's Infernal Fiction” TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Christopher Columbus Wasn’t as Good—Or as Terrible—As You Think Oct 06, 2017

Depending on which account you hear, Columbus was either the bravest explorer of the early Renaissance or a mass murdered who subjected the indigenous population of the new world to death or slavery. Learn in this episode how Columbus was both and neither of these descriptions. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How the 1565 Siege of Malta Led to the Golden Age of Piracy Oct 05, 2017

The Knights Hospitaller were kicked out of Jerusalem following the Third Crusade, but they found a new home on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Their defense fortifications were so strong that nobody could invade, not even the might Ottoman navy in the late 16th century. Learn how this warrior order helped piracy thrive in the Eastern Mediterranean. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Europeans in the Far East Before Marco Polo Oct 04, 2017

Marco Polo is the most famous European explorer to the Far East, but he definitely wasn’t the first. His father and uncle came there years before. And they found a small colony of Europeans who lived permanently in China. Perhaps the most famous pre-Polo European in the Far East is William of Rubruck. This plucky monk did his best to convert the Great Khan to Christianity. He made his effort by debating Muslims and Buddhists as to which religion was the true one. See how that turns out in today's episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Lost Technology of Damascus Steel Oct 03, 2017

Damascus swords, which were generally made in the Middle East anywhere from 540 A.D. to 1800 A.D., were sharper, more flexible and harder/stronger than other contemporary blades. According to legend, the blades can cut a piece of silk in half as it falls to the ground and maintain their edge after cleaving through stone, metal, or even other swords. However nobody knew exactly how it had been produced, and the last Damascus Steel had been produced in the early 1800s. How was the technology lost? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Alexander Hamilton’s Broadway Musical is Great, but Brion McClanahan Thinks He Screwed Up America Oct 02, 2017

He’s the subject of a hit Broadway musical, the face on the ten-dollar bill, and one of the most popular Founding Fathers. But what do you really know about Alexander Hamilton? In this interview with author and historian Brion McClanahan, he argues that Hamilton was no American hero. Brion says that America’s beloved Hamilton actually spent most of his life working to make sure citizens and states could not hold the federal government accountable. His policies set a path for presidents to launch secret and illegal wars, and he wanted to make sure American citizens couldn’t do a thing to stop the government’s overreach. Hamilton was a duplicitous man whose personality and ambition led to an America and a Constitution at odds with the one he publicly supported in 1788 and that the American public bought as a result. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America Brion's website TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Timur the Tatar’s Revenge on Bayezit—When an Emperor Literally Made a Sultan His Footstool Sep 28, 2017

One of the most chilling stories of revenge is Timur the Tatar's defeat of Ottoman Sultan Bayezit and literally making him his footstool. The humiliation likely led to his death. Learn about the clash of these two Middle East titans and what drove Timur to pursue revenge so ruthlessly. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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A Revolutionary-Era Soldier Fights a Modern One Hand-to-Hand. Who Wins? Sep 27, 2017

If we were to have a battle royale with American soldiers from its different eras all duke it out, who would win? Would a Revolutionary-era soldier win due to his scrappy toughness, or would the modern soldier win with his superior training? Let's take a stab at this question (pun intended). TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Origin of the Middle Finger Insult Sep 26, 2017

We’ve all done it in moments of anger. But why do we use our middle finger to express anger? And why do we call it “the bird.” Suggestions range from The Battle of Agincourt in 1415 to Ancient Rome. We find out the history everyone’s favorite one-finger salute in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the Norman Conquest of England Changed Everything—Jennifer Paxton Sep 25, 2017

If you were to ask a scholar about one critical moment after which the history of the English-speaking world would never be the same again, it would undoubtedly be the year 1066. I know that because I asked Prof. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America this very question. She chose that year because during this pivotal time an event occurred that would have untold ramifications for the European continent: the Norman Conquest of England. This year matters deeply for two key reasons. It turned England away from a former Scandinavian orientation toward an orientation with mainland Europe, making the island nation a major player in Europe's political, social, cultural, and religious events. It created a rich hybrid between English and French culture that had a profound impact on everything from language and literature to architecture and law. In our discussion we talk about a world of fierce Viking warriors, powerful noble families, politically charged marriages, tense succession crises, epic military invasions, and much more. But it was the Battle of Hastings in 1066 that forever enshrined in the pages of history the name of William the Conqueror, whose military and political prowess made the Norman Conquest a success. After that England was never the same. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Jennifer Paxton's Great Courses history course:—1066: The Year That Changed Everything ABOUT JENNIFER PAXTON, PHD Dr. Jennifer Paxton is Director of the University Honors Program and Clinical Assistant Professor of History at The Catholic University of America. The holder of a doctorate in history from Harvard University, Professor Paxton is both a widely published award-winning writer and a highly regarded scholar. Professor Paxton's research focuses on England from the reign of King Alfred to the late 12th century, particularly the intersection between the authority of church and state and the representation of the past in historical texts, especially those produced by religious communities. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Daily Schedule of a Samurai Sep 22, 2017

Samurai were the military nobility and officer cast of feudal Japan, serving an important role of social stability until their functions ceased in the 19th century. But what did a samurai exactly do every day? Did he roam the countryside, looking to engage in a duel? Or was his life much more mundane than that? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Did British Men Wear Wigs in the 1700s? Sep 21, 2017

You’ve seen the look in historical dramas. You laughed at the foppish dandies that appear on Masterpiece Theater. In grade school you sneered at pictures of King George with his powdered wig, adjusting it ever so slightly while drinking a cup of tea with his pinky finger extended, wondering how he further extort colonists with new taxes. You didn’t know that we call important people “bigwig” due to the aristocracy tradition of fancy wigs. But where does the powdered wig come from? Why was such a peculiar look the sign of nobility in England during the 1500s-1700s? It all has to do with syphilis, head lice, the shame of male-pattern baldness, and the fashion tastes of Louis XIV. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Who Had the Worst Flatulence in History? Sep 20, 2017

The goal of this podcast is to answer any question that you have about history... and I mean anything. To prove it, I am answering a question from a listener named Raj about who had the worst flatulence in history. I hope this episode is very educational. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Constantinople’s Walls—The Strongest Fortress Ever Built Sep 19, 2017

There are many contenders for the strongest fortress in history (Malumat in Iran or the island fortifications of Malta to name a few). But nothing can compare to the Theodosian City Walls of Constantinople. Built in 440 AD, they repelled over a dozen invasions, from Atilla the Hun to the Umayyad Caliphate to the Avars to the Russians. And they allowed Constantinople to develop into one of the richest cities of the ancient world. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How Religion Has Influenced Politics Across History, From Ancient Sumeria to the 21st Century—Paul Rahe Sep 18, 2017

In our interview, Prof. Paul Rahe says that a liberal democracy that guarantees the rights of all citizens needs the guarantee that no one religion is established as the official state belief system. At the same time, if a society doesn't have some sort of transcendent belief system, then politics will rush to fill the void left by religion (or any sort of communal belief) and metastasize into fascism or totalitarianism. We start with the relationship between religion and the political community in the pagan world – Sumeria, Akkad, Babylonia, the Hittite Empire, ancient Persia, Greece, and Rome. Then, we discuss how Christianity changed everything. For three centuries, it was independent of the political community and, in a sense, in opposition. Then, it became entangled with the political community under Constantine and, instead of being persecuted, it did the persecution. To this one can add that as a religion of faith it quite naturally gave rise to quarrels over doctrine, that these were bitter in late Antiquity, and that there was a second round of bitterness in the wake of the Reformation. The modern separation of church and state is a response to the violence that erupted, and it is a remarkable experiment. Finally, Rahe discusses Islam – which is a religion of holy law different in its ambitions from (orthodox) Judaism which is also a religion of holy law. Put simply, insofar as it is center on shari’a, Islam is ineluctably political – which means that it cannot easily be privatized. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Free Hillsdale Online Course—Public Policy from a Constitutional Viewpoint American Heritage—From Colonial Settlement to the Current Day TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why The Potato Led to the Rise of Modern Europe Sep 15, 2017

The humble potato has done more for Old World peasants than any other food. Famine plagued the lower class from time immemorial. But once the potato was introduced to Europe in the 1500s and widely planted in the 1700s, it nearly wiped out malnutrition. Learn why this tuber is the hero of the modern age. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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When Churchill Experimented with Chemical Weapons—Giles Milton of the Unknown History Podcast Sep 14, 2017

Winston Churchill is consistently ranked as the greatest leader in British History. But like any complex historical figure, he has his dark side. Most notoriously, but least well known, is his interest in chemical weapons. “If it is fair war for an Afghan to shoot down a British soldier behind a rock and cut him in pieces as he lies wounded on the ground, why is it not fair for a British artilleryman to fire a shell which makes the said native sneeze? It is really too silly.” —WSC, 1919 Churchill favored and/or used “poison gas” from World War I through World War II, notably on the Indians and Bolsheviks in 1919, and the Iraqis in the 1920s. What’s more, he wanted to “drench” German cities with gas in 1943. To discuss this issue in greater depth with us is Giles Milton. He is the host of the History Unknown Podcast and author of “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”: a book about a secret inner circle within the British government that planned all of the most audacious sabotage attacks of the Second World War. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE www.gilesmilton.com Unknown History Podcast ABOUT GILES Giles Milton is the internationally best-selling author of nine works of popular history, including Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and have been serialized on both the BBC and in British newspapers. The Times described Milton as being able ‘to take an event from history and make it come alive’, while The New York Times said that Milton’s ‘prodigious research yields an entertaining, richly informative look at the past. Giles Milton's latest book, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, became a Sunday Times bestseller in the first week of publication. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Dan Carlin of Hardcore History on Why the German Military Was Better in WW1 Than WW2 Sep 13, 2017

I was honored on this episode to interview Dan Carlin, whose podcast Hardcore History is the biggest history podcast in existence. It regularly features shows of 5-6 hours in length covering everything from the Mongol invasions to doomsday prophets of the Reformation. I met up with Dan at the Podcast Movement conference in August 2017. Since he had a six-part series on World War 1 (Blueprint for Armageddon), I wanted to ask Dan about a comment he made in the podcast, that Germany's army in World War 1 was superior to its army in World War 2. He elaborated in this episode, and as always, brings the goods. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The History of Pig Latin (ig-pay atin-lay) Sep 12, 2017

Everyone's favorite code (it's not a language) has quite a storied history. Learn how Pig Latin became the fastest, most convenient way to sound intelligent when you didn't know any ancient languages. It goes back to Shakespeare, like much does, but Pig Latin as a concept can be found in languages across the world. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Wait, Nixon Was Innocent?—Geoff Shepard Sep 11, 2017

Richard Nixon left the White House over 40 years ago, yet he remains embedded in American pop culture like no other ex-president. He was the body-less leader of Earth in Futurama, the five-time president in Alan Moore's Watchmen, and arguably the most awkward guest star in Laugh-In's history. Part of the reason is that he is thought to represent America's political id: the dark, paranoid side of politics that keeps an enemies list and never forgives. After all, Watergate was the biggest political scandal of the 20th century, leading to the only presidential resignation in American history. But what if Nixon was innocent? That's exactly the point that today's guest, Geoff Shepard, argues. He was not an outsider to Watergate: Shepard joined John Ehrlichman’s Domestic Council staff at the Nixon White House, where he served for five years, first as a staff assistant and ultimately as associate director. He also worked on President Nixon’s Watergate defense team, where he was principal deputy to the President’s lead lawyer, J. Fred Buzhardt. In that capacity, he helped transcribe the White House tapes —which run 3,400 hours—ran the document rooms holding the seized files of H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Dean, and staffed White House counselors Bryce Harlow and Dean Birch. Working from internal documents he recently uncovered at the National Archives, Shepard exposes what he calls judicial and prosecutorial misconduct that has remained hidden for four decades with his book, “The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down.” He describes it as the following: an aging judge about to step down. Aggressive prosecutors friendly with the judge. A disgraced president. A nation that had already made up its mind. The Watergate trials were a legal mess—and now, with the discovery of new documents that reveal what he calls shocking misconduct by prosecutors and judges alike, Shepard says the wrongdoing of these history-making trials was actually a bigger scandal than the Watergate scandal itself. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down Geoff Shepard's website TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How Was Alexander Able to Supply His Army Deep Into Asia? Sep 08, 2017

It's one thing to conquer the known world and beyond without the benefit of modern communications like Alexander the Great did. It's another thing to supply tens of thousands of soldiers deep into hostile territory when home is half a world away. How did Alexander manage to provision his army, and how did he do so for over a decade? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Daily Life During the Civil War for Non-Combatants Sep 07, 2017

More soldiers died in the Civil War than any other American conflict. But how did non-combatants fare? It depends on where you were and your life station. A northerner may barely know a war was going on at all if he did not read the newspaper or supply the foodstuffs to the Union army. But he definitely would if he lived in Missouri—claimed by both the Union and the Confederacy—and was subject to frequent guerilla attacks. A southerner would face impoverishment, the collapse of the regional economy, a flood of refugees, and see whole cotton crops rot. And it only got worse as the war got underway. Learn about everyday life for civilians during the Civil War in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Gutenberg Didn’t Kick Off the Reformation Sep 06, 2017

Gutenberg’s moveable type printing press was the prime mover of the Renaissance. From his machine came millions of books, leading to the democratization of knowledge, the fall of the papacy, and the rise of reason. But what if this wasn’t Gutenberg’s goal? What if he was a happy client of the papacy? What if he worked directly with the medieval church to sell indulgences? Turns out he did. Learn more in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What if Japan Hadn’t Surrendered After Nagasaki? Sep 05, 2017

The Allied Forces hoped the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would finally convince Imperial Japan to end the war. If not, they were prepared to launch Operation Downfall—the proposed plan for the invasion of Japan in November of 1945 and the spring of 1946. If Downfall had taken place, it would have been the largest amphibious operation in history. It also would have meant millions of Japanese and Allied casualties from gunfire, bombings, and suicide attacks. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and the Barbarian Empires of the Steppe—Kenneth Harl Sep 04, 2017

Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan loom large in Western popular consciousness as two of history’s most fearsome warrior-leaders. Chroniclers referred to them as “The Scourge of God” and “Universal Lord” both fascinate and repel. But few people today are aware of their place in a succession of nomadic warriors who used campaigns of terror to sweep across the Eurasian steppes. They toppled empires and seizing control of civilizations. Today Professor Kenneth Harl joins us to talk about the effects of these steppe empires on world civilization. From antiquity through the Middle Ages, nomadic warriors repeatedly emerged from the steppes, exerting direct and indirect pressure on sedentary populations and causing a domino effect of displacement and cultural exchange. Dr. Harl and I discuss these turning points in history set into motion by steppe nomads: The fall of the Roman Empire can be blamed at least in part on the Huns. Christians of Asia Minor converted to Islam after the clergy fled the nomadic Turks. The Mongol sack of Baghdad destroyed the city and its role in the Muslim world. China’s modern-day Great Wall was constructed in response to the humiliation of Mongol rule. The spread of Buddhism and trade followed the Silk Road, which allowed cultural exchange between nomads and settled zones across Eurasia. Russia’s preemptive expansion into the northern regions was a reaction to the horror of being conquered by Mongols. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Kenneth's course “The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes” ABOUT KENNETH HARL Dr. Kenneth W. Harl is Professor of Classical and Byzantine History at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he teaches courses in Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader history. He earned his B.A. from Trinity College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. An expert on classical Anatolia, he has taken students with him into the field on excursions and to assist in excavations of Hellenistic and Roman sites in Turkey. Professor Harl has also published a wide variety of articles and books, including his current work on coins unearthed in an excavation of Gordion, Turkey, and a new book on Rome and her Iranian foes. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why the Galileo Affair is Completely Misunderstood Sep 01, 2017

There are few episodes in history that are so misunderstood as the condemnation of Galileo. His trial has become a stock argument to show the fundamental clash between science and dogmatism. Turns out the whole affair was actually a giant clash of egos, with churchmen and scientists on both sides of the argument. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did Medieval Women Really Wear Chastity Belts? Aug 31, 2017

According to legends of the Middle Ages, knights used the chastity belt on their wives as an anti-temptation device before embarking on the Crusades. When the knight left for the Holy Lands, his Lady would wear a chastity belt to preserve her faithfulness to him. The metal teeth that surrounded her "credentials" would also tear to shreds the member of any would-be seducer. However, there is no reliable evidence that chastity belts existed before the 15th century. Any reference to them is likely symbolic or a satirical drawing. No actual medieval chastity belt survives, and those that appear in museums are forgeries. Were they ever in use at all? If not, how did the legend appear? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why is Louis Such a Popular Name for French Kings? Aug 30, 2017

If you want to be a French king who is also named Louis, then you have to slap enough Roman numerals at the end of your name to look like an encrypted message. Why are so many French kings named Louis? What significance does the name have for the French people? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did People in the Past Get 8 Hours of Sleep a Night? Aug 29, 2017

Doctors love to say that eight hours of nightly rest is vital to good health. But did people in the past get this much sleep, more, or less? And how did the lack of a lightbulb affect their sleep cycles. Turns out quite a bit. People actually hit the hay very early and woke up a few hours each night—sort of a reverse midnight siesta. Important cultural activity took place during this time, including scheduled prayers, visits to neighbors, and doctors orders that children be conceived at this time. Learn more about how your ancestors slept, or didn't sleep. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Real-Life Pirates of the Caribbean—Matt Albers from The Pirate History Podcast Aug 28, 2017

Pirates are popular these days: they adorn our favorite brands of bargain-basement rum and populate beloved Disneyland rides and multibillion-dollar film franchises. But who were these men and women who actually inhabited the Caribbean of the 1700s and made a living preying off trade vessels? How much of the myth of piracy is based on fact? And how much high seas adventure, myth and magic, voodoo, and treachery were there? Joining us to discuss these topics is Matt Albers, host of the Pirate History Podcast. We will talk about the golden age of piracy and the real men and women that threatened the trade and stability of the Old World empires, the forces that led them to piracy and the myths and stories they inspired. Famous names that come up include Captain Henry Morgan, Henry Avery, Charles Vane, Mary Reed, Anne Bonny, Black Bart Roberts, Ned Low, and Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach. They rub elbows with Queens, Kings, Popes, rebellious monks, Caribbean Natives, African Slaves and notorious governors like Woodes Rogers. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Pirate History Podcast Matt on Twitter (@blackflagcast) TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Would You Rather Be An Average Person Today or a Billionaire 100 Years Ago? Aug 25, 2017

It's good to be as rich as a Rockefeller. John—the patriarch of the family—rose from a lowly Ohioan bookkeeper to the leader of Standard Oil, which owned 90 percent of America's petroleum until it was broken up by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1911. He was the world's first billionaire, owning mansions in New York, Florida, and Ohio, along with several golf golf courses. But was all that money really all that great without modern conveniences? Let's look in to the conveniences of an ultra-wealthy man 100 years ago and see how they compare to an average person today. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Wasn’t There a Scientific Revolution Under the Romans? Aug 24, 2017

Scientific progress has moved steadily forward across much of the world for centuries, with few examples of abatement. The Scientific Revolution is often considered to have begun at Copernicus's 1543 publication of On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Here moderns challenged the ideas of ancient scholars, rather than accepting them at face value. Most fault the so-called Dark Ages for this millenium-long lull in human intellectual progress lasting from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. But why didn't Rome kick off the age of scientific discovery? What did they lack that the early modern world had? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What if the Nazis Had Won World War Two? Aug 23, 2017

This episode is fifth in our Alternate History Week series, where I look at famous books of alternate history and discuss why I think their alternate timelines aren't plausible. The Man in the High Castle is Phillip K. Dick's most chilling book and the most famous example of alternate history. It's set in 1962, fifteen years after the Axis Powers emerge triumphant in World War Two and rule over the former United States. Germany and Japan were victors in the war and divide the world between themselves. The book is fantastic, but I don't see any scenario in which Germany and Japan could control a post-war world. In fact, I don't see how the Axis had any chances of winning the war, short of an alien invasion. I explain why in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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If I Were Sent Back in Time to the Roman Empire, How Would I Take Over? Aug 22, 2017

This episode is fourth in our Alternate History Week series, where I look at famous books of alternate history and discuss why I think their alternate timelines aren't plausible. Lest Darkness Fall, written in 1939 by L. Sprague de Camp, is one of the classics of the alternate history genre. American archeologist Martin Padway gets sent back to Rome in 535 AD. He introduces new technology to the Italo-Ostrogothic kingdom, such as the telegraph, printing press, and brandy; wards off a Byzantine attack; introduces a constitution; and emancipates the serfs. Great story. It would never work. In this episode I explain why. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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A Vietnam POW’s Story of 6 Years in the Hanoi Hilton — Amy Shively Hawk Aug 21, 2017

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. -Joseph Stalin When consider major historical events that involved millions of people— World War 2, the Great Depression, the Cold War—it's easy to forget that real people with their own stories were part of those events. Today we're zeroing in on one story. And that's the story of James Shively, an Air Force Pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and spent six years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton POW camp. To talk with us is Amy Shively Hawk, Jim's stepdaughter and author of the new book Six Years in the Hanoi Hilton: An Extraordinary Story of Courage and Survival in Vietnam. After being shot down, Shively endured brutal treatment at the hands of the enemy in Hanoi prison camps. But despite unimaginable horrors in prison, the contemplation of suicide, and his beloved girlfriend moving on back home, he somehow found hope escaping prison and eventually reuniting with his long-lost love – proving, in his words, that “Life is only what you make of it.” In this interview we discuss: How Capt. Shively was shot down, what happened when he was captured, and his fate at the hands of Vietnamese villagers What kept Captain Shively hopeful during his six years as a prisoner of war What happened to the whole prison when two fellow inmates escaped but were captured the next day How prisoners built a full prison communications system using Morse code, toilet paper, and hidden messages even though cell blocks were forbidden from speaking to each other under threat of torture About Amy: Amy Shively Hawk is the stepdaughter of James Shively, who married Amy’s mother after his release from a Hanoi prison when Amy was five years old. Amy’s background is in journalism, speaking, and advertising/marketing. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Amy's book Six Years in the Hanoi Hilton Amy's website Headstrong: Healing the Hidden Wounds of War TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What if Byzantium Had Never Fallen? Aug 18, 2017

This episode is third in our Alternate History Week series, where I look at famous books of alternate history and discuss why I think their alternate timelines aren't plausible. Today's book is Harry Turtledove's wonderful book Agent of Byzantium. In this book, Turtledove imagines that the Prophet Muhammed, instead of developing Islam, converted to Christianity and became a celebrated prelate and saint. Without the Muslim conquests, the Eastern Roman Empire remained the pre-eminent power in the Mediterranean and remains locked in a centuries-long cold war with Zoroastrian Persia to the East. I don't think Persia would have remained Zoroastrian that long. I explain why in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What if China Had Discovered the New World? Aug 17, 2017

This episode is second in our Alternate History Week series, where I look at famous books of alternate history and discuss why I think their alternate timelines aren't plausible. Today's book is Kim Stanley Robinson's 2002 book The Years of Rice and Salt. It explores how world history would have developed if the Black Death had killed 99 percent of Europe's population, with the Islamic world, the Chinese, and American Indians filling in the void. One section discusses China discovering and colonizing the New World. Here's why I think China would have never done so. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Could One Marine Corps MEU Destroy the Entire Roman Army? Aug 16, 2017

This episode is the first of a five-part series in our Alternate History Week—our version of Shark Week, if you will. We are looking at famous books of alternate history, and I'm discussing why I think their alternate timelines aren't plausible. The first book in this series is 1632. Eric Flint's book imagines that a West Virginia town gets sent back to 1632 Germany, during the Thirty Years War, and gradually comes to dominate European politics of the age. I'm going to twist the premise of this book—a small group of technologically advanced soldiers conquers a much larger force—and discuss the question of whether a Marine Corps MEU take out the Roman military. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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The Bronze Age Collapse of 1177 BC: The Most Catastrophic Event in History Aug 15, 2017

There was an event in history worse than World War I, worse than the Mongol invasions that killed 40 million, worse than the little Ice Age that triggered famines and rebellions across the medieval world. This event was the "Dark Ages before the Dark Ages." It was the Bronze Age Collapse of 1177 BC, and it was so monumental that it inspired Homer’s ‘The Iliad’ TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Is There a Roman City in Present-Day China? Aug 11, 2017

Since the 1950s, many classicists and military historians have believed that an ancient Roman bloodline lives on in a Chinese village. The town of Liqian sits on the edge of the Gobi desert, and 4,500 miles from Rome. They have tried to prove that the ruddy-skinned, light-eyed, and fair-haired residents of Liqian are lost relatives of a missing Roman battalion of mercenaries that fought against the Chinese 2,000 years ago. Let's look into this theory and see if a piece of Rome still lives on in China. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why The Irish May Have Really Saved Civilization Aug 10, 2017

Thomas Cahill argues in his best-selling book How the Irish Saved Civilization that Ireland played a critical role in Europe's evolution from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Is his narrative correct? Without Ireland, he argues, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost -- they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. Let's discuss how Ireland gave more to the modern world than Guinness and Bono. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did Rome And China Know of Each Other? Aug 09, 2017

Rome and China were the two poles of the Silk Road. One sent precious porcelain, spices, and silks, the other sent out glassware and high-quality cloth. As Rome expanded into the Near East and China into Central Asia, did the two empires learn much of each other? Furthermore, did the two empires ever attempt direct contact? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Americana: The Brazilian City Where the Confederacy Lives On Aug 08, 2017

The United States has accepted immigrants throughout its history, but America has its emigrants as well. Did you know there is a city in Brazil founded by Confederates who wanted to flee the U.S. during Reconstruction? Welcome to Americana, Brazil. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Curtis Lemay: World War II’s Greatest Hero or Worst War Criminal?—Warren Kozak Aug 07, 2017

General Curtis LeMay is perhaps the most misunderstood general of the 20th century, despite the fact that he played a major role in so many important military events of the last century: he turned the air war in Europe from a dismal failure to a great success, he helped defeat Japan without a costly land invasion, he commanded the start of Berlin Air Lift, and he was on the Joint Chiefs during the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, the LeMay legacy that has survived into the 21st century paints LeMay as a crude, trigger-happy, cigar-chomping general who joined political forces with one of the most famous racists in American history, George Wallace. Today's guest Warren Kozak argues that Lemay was an overlooked general who made the difficult but necessary decisions that eventually helped the United States win World War II and the Cold War, as well as strengthen our military forces when we needed them most. LeMay is most often remembered for two minor marks in his life: a statement he did not actually make (about bombing North Vietnam back to the Stone Age) and a brief political affiliation with George Wallace despite their deep disagreements over racial politics. Unfortunately, these parts of Curtis LeMay’s life have overshadowed many more years of military success. According to Kozak, these accomplishments include: LeMay devised the plan to use incendiary bombs over Japan that, while killing hundreds of thousands, saved millions from an impending ground invasion of Japan LeMay turned the air war over Europe around and he was the only general to lead his troops, insisting on flying the lead bomber on every dangerous mission. He championed the creation of an independent Air Force, as well as the improvement of American military planes He turned the Strategic Air Command from a dismal failure into the deadliest fighting force in history RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Curtis LeMay: Strategist and Tactician ABOUT WARREN Warren Kozak is an author and journalist who has written for television’s most respected news anchors. Winner of the prestigious Benton Fellowship at the University of Chicago in 1993, he was an on-air reporter for NPR and his work has appeared on PBS and in the Washington Post, the New York Sun and The Wall Street Journal as well as other newspapers and magazines. Warren Kozak was born and raised in Wisconsin and lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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If the Moon Landings Weren’t Fake, Why Haven’t We Been Back? Aug 04, 2017

Conspiracy theorists have many "reasons" for why we've never been to the moon: the Van Allen radiation belts are too deadly, the challenges are too difficult, re-entry into the atmosphere is too hot. But Jason Funk, who asked today's question, points out that the cranks have at least one point—if we did go to the moon in 1960s, why haven't we been back after five decades of technological evolution? Good question. Let's dive in. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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An Interview With Jerry Yellin, the 93-Year-Old Vet Who Flew WW2’s Last Combat Mission Aug 03, 2017

I had the extraordinary pleasure to talk with Captain Jerry Yellin, a 93-year-old World War Two vet who flew the final combat mission in World War Two's Pacific Theatre. Yellin piloted for the 78th Fighter Squadron and was part of the 1945 bombing campaigns that ultimately triggered Japan's surrender. From April to August of 1945, Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. Yellin joined the war efforts when he was 19 and jumped directly into action. The stench of death, the rain of bullets, and the minute-to-minute fight for survival faced young Captain Jerry Yellin when he landed on Iwo Jima in in 1945. Little did Capt. Yellin know that his life would be turned upside down during a routine flight, which turned out to be the last combat mission of WWII. Flanked by his devoted comrades, Yellin was a flight leader in the final fight for freedom—a mission that will forever leave its mark on the history of the world. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Were Rome’s Persian Borderlands Like? Aug 02, 2017

Being a Roman isn't easy. Running an intercontinental empire across hundreds of languages, customs, and ethnic groups without the benefit of telegraphs or steam power requires constant vigilance or the whole enterprise will fall apart. Let's look at the Roman borderland's with Persia to see what life was like on the periphery of the empire. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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German POWs in the US During WW2 Aug 01, 2017

Did you know that over 400,000 German POWs were settled in the United States during World War II? Did you know that they may have built some of the stone buildings that make up your town square? Or that they were responsible for bringing in America’s harvest in the fall of 1945 when most men were still off to war? Learn about this fascinating but understudied part of America’s history. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How Emperor Justinian Changed the World—Robin Pierson from The History of Byzantium Podcast Jul 31, 2017

Justinian I of Byzantium is among the most towering figure of the ancient and medieval periods. His innovations in governance, architecture, law, and welding together religion with imperial power were blueprints of governance for the next thousand years of kings and emperors. He rose to imperial power in 527 AD and reacquired Roman lands in Europe that were lost a century ago to Vandal and Ostrogothic invasions. He removed the rotting branches of his administration, replacing bureaucrats from the aristocracy with independent counselors.Justinian also rewrote the Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis. He gathered together legal commentaries and laws of the Roman legal system into a single text that would hold the force of law. It was composed in Latin and is still the basis of civil law in many of the empire's descendant states. To talk with us about how Justinian changed the world is Robin Pierson, host of the History of Byzantium Podcast. Here are five parts of history that Justinian irrevocably changed: Laws Hagia Sophia Christianizing culture Slavs Islam ABOUT ROBIN PIERSON Robin Pierson is from London in the UK. He writes about American TV shows at thetvcritic.org and works for his father (an actor). Robin created the show to continue the narrative established by Mike Duncan’s wonderful podcast “The History of Rome.” He uses the structure of half-hour instalments told from a state-centric perspective. He pauses the narrative at the end of each century to take time to cover wider issues to do with Byzantium RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The History of Byzantium: A podcast telling the story of the Roman Empire from 476 AD to 1453

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How Texas Almost Became German Jul 28, 2017

Like much of the United States, Texas has a large popular whose ancestors originated in Germany. But Texas takes it a step further. In the 1840s a massive immigration of Germans arrived when the Adelsverein (The Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas) organized at Biebrich on the Rhine near Mainz. It assisted thousands in coming to Central Texas and establishing such settlements as New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. So many arrived that Texas practically became an outpost of Germany. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did America Switch from Tea to Coffee Due to the Boston Tea Party? Jul 27, 2017

In mid-December 1773 a force of colonists, dressed up as Mohawk Indians, boarded the three boats and dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. The protest later became known as the Boston Tea Party, but many historians (and coffee afficionados) believe it also sparked an anti-tea (read anti-British) sentiment in the colonies. John Adams wrote to Abigail on July 6, 1774 that "...I have drank Coffee every Afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better." Did Americans really ditch tea for coffee due to the American Revolution? Find out in this episode. The inspiration for this episode came from Black Rifle Coffee Company, a coffee roaster owned and operated by U.S. Veterans. Their stuff is really good; you should check it out. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did a 6th-Century Irishman Really Reach America? Jul 26, 2017

Archeological evidence proves that Leif Ericsson, the Icelandic Viking, arrived in the New World centuries before Columbus. But what if he was in turn beaten by an Irish monk a full five extra centuries. St. Brendan the Navigator is celebrate for his legendary journey to the "Island of the Blessed," described in the ninth-century work Voyage of St Brendan the Navigator. It tells of how he set out onto the Atlantic Ocean with dozens of pilgrims, accidentally camped out on a whale, and may have reached New England. For centuries historians dismissed his account as fiction. But true accounts sneak here. There are factual descriptions of sheep on the Faroe Islands. Volcanos and icebergs of Iceland are observed. Some archeologists even think there is evidence of a medieval Celtic church in New England. Find out in this episode if Leif Ericsson has lost his status as the first Westerner to reach the New World. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Emperor Norton I of the United States Jul 25, 2017

Emperor Norton is San Francisco's original oddball. In 1859 he proclaimed himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States." He later expanded his pretense by claiming to be "Protector of Mexico" as well. But rather than get in trouble with authorities for sedition, he became a beloved celebrity. Newspapers printed his imperial edicts. Local police paid for his uniform. He became the basis for some of Mark Twain's characters. To this day locals have petitioned to name bridges in his honor. Find out how a few delusions of grandeur can go a long way. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Dorsey Armstrong on the Legend of King Arthur: From Noble Knight to Guy Ritchie’s 'Excalibro' Jul 24, 2017

For a guy that lived 1,500 years ago, King Arthur has remarkable staying power. He became a stock figure in Welsh and Latin chronicles of Britain by the 800s. His story spread to France, Germany, Scandinavia, and Iceland after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and books on him were best-sellers there. Cathedrals across Western European featured stained-glass Arthurian scenes. In modern times Arthur has been on the big screen non-stop. They include Camelot (1967), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), the Clive Owen flick King Arthur (2004), and this year's Guy Ritchie-directed King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, dubbed by critics for its tough-guy swagger as “Excalibro.” Even the new Transformers film features Arthur fighting directly alongside the Autobots (don't ask). Arthur's ongoing legend is even more remarkable considering he may very well have never existed. Historians speak of an “Arthur-like figure” when trying to pin down his origins because they are so obscure. The Gododdin and many other later poems speak of something important that happened in sixth-century Britain, when the Saxon advance was halted by a warlord. It may have been Arthur himself. Archeological and historical evidence supports the existence of an Arthur-like figure in early Britain, most famously Cadbury Castle in Cornwall, which was the center of operations for a leader of great military and logistical skill who thwarted the Saxon invasion. But many other researches think that “Arthur” was actually succession of warlords that tried, and utimately failed, to halt the Saxon onslaught. The Celtic monk Gildas wrote extensively of the Saxon invasion in The Ruin and Conquest of Britain, citing the critical siege at Badon Hills, and makes no mention of Arthur at all. But whatever historians say about Arthur or an Arthur-like figure, they all agree that Arthur, King of the Britons, never existed. For that, we have Arthurian legend to thank. Dorsey Armstrong, professor of medieval literature at Purdue University who has published extensively on Arthur discusses with us why the Arthurian narrative—despite, or because of, its tenuous connection to historical fact—has enthralled writers, artists, and a limitless audience in countries spanning the Western world and beyond for all these centuries. With origins in the exploits of a 5th-century Celtic warrior, the legend of a noble king and his knightly cohort caught fire across Europe, spawning a vast literary tradition that reached its height in the Middle Ages, with major contributions from writers both in Britain and throughout the Continent. By the 12th century Geoffrey of Monmouth added Merlin to the legend in his History of the Kings of Britain. Guinevere first appears here also, and French poet Chrétien de Troyes added Lancelot to the canon in 1177. But the appeal of the saga far outlived the medieval era. It remained dynamically alive in folk culture and theater through the Renaissance, only to see an epic literary and artistic resurgence in the 19th century. It continues to the present day in multiple forms—from fiction writing and visual arts to film and popular culture. No other heroic figure in literature compares with King Arthur in terms of global popularity and longevity; today, each year sees literally thousands of new versions of the story appear across diverse media. What does this amazing phenomenon tell us about our culture, our civilization, and ourselves? What is it about this particular story that has so deeply gripped the human imagination for so many centuries, in so many places? Find out in this episode RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Dorsey Armstrong's course King Arthur: History and Legend The Camelot Project Arthuriana: The Journal of Arthurian Studies The New Arthurian Encyclopedia TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Can We Learn from the Kurds About Nationalism and Nation Building? Jul 21, 2017

The Kurdish people are arguably the largest stateless people on Earth. An estimated 35 million live in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere, but do not have a nation to call their own. Despite this they have been critical power brokers in the military and political conflicts of the Middle East. What can we learn from the Kurdish people about nationalism and nation building even if they do not have a nation of their own? To answer this question I have called upon the help of Djene Bajalan, professor of history at Missouri State and specialist of the Kurdish regions of the Ottoman Empire. I can think of nobody who is more qualified to answer this question. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Had Native Americans Been Resistant to Old World Diseases How Different Would the New World Have Been? Jul 20, 2017

Smallpox is arguably the deadliest weapon in history. Ninety percent of some Native American tribes were wiped out by this disease when they first encountered Western explorers. But what if they hadn't been wiped out? Would Native American groups have been able to successfully repel Western powers and keep North America for themselves? Or would colonial history largely have played out the same? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Is the Biggest Forgery in History? Jul 19, 2017

You probably haven't heard of the Donation of Constantine. It was a fake letter that represented one of the biggest real estate scams in history. How did an anonymous medieval clergyman try to forge a letter from Emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester justified all the land holdings of the Roman Catholic Church? Find out in today's podcast. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How Did the Ottoman Imperial Harem Operate? Jul 18, 2017

Nothing fascinated Europeans about the Ottoman Empire quite like the harem. Since no foreigners were permitted to enter it themselves, imaginations ran while about what sort of licentiousness happened behind the doors of Istanbul's Topkapi palace. But even though a sultan could have four wives and limitless concubines, the harem wasn't a sensual fantasy land. It was more of an imperial cadet academy, where foreign girls were turned into the wives of aristocrats and even future sultans. The harem was a large section of private apartments located on the grounds of Topkapi Palace. It consisted of more than 400 rooms. There the girls took lessons in theology, mathematics, embroidery, music, and literature. The most important lesson they gained, however, was in politics. The harem staff held enormous powerful as state administrators. They were typically eunuchs that supervised the female's quarters but also had influence on the palace. When the harem "cadets" entered the palace, they were placed at the lowest rung of a viciously competitive hierarchy in which one earned a promotion by attracting the attention of the Sultan. They began as a concubine and was not allowed to leave the palace without the permission of the Queen Mother (valide sultan), the reigning sultan's mother and a former concubine herself. If a girl managed to share a bed with the sultan, she became a gözde (the favorite). If she continued to curry his favor, then she became ıkbal (the fortunate). A woman to whom the sultan wanted a permanent union would become one of his four wives (kadın). If she birthed him a son who went on to become sultan, she became the next Queen Mother. Learn more about harem life in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Where Did Sea Monsters From the Edge of Medieval Maps Come From? Jul 14, 2017

Have you ever seen a picture of an old map of the world and wondered why they contained enormous serpents, giant squids, Krakken, and other terrifying creatures drawn on its edges? What is the purpose of these creatures? Obviously oceans of the past were not infested with mythological creatures in the past. What function did they serve for the artist and for the consumer? Click here to read more about this topic via an article from the Smithsonian, which inspired me to record this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Are Some Inventions That Are Much Older Than We Think? Jul 13, 2017

Many of us assume that cars, computers, and batteries are modern inventions. Before that time we lived in a technological dark age too barbaric and boring to contemplate. But what if the 21st century's most important inventions aren't all that recent? What if pioneering artisans and craftsmen created functional cars centuries earlier? What if we had batteries in the Roman empire? Find out in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Who Was the Most Powerful Woman in the Middle Ages? 2/2 Jul 12, 2017

Joan of Arc has one of the most incredible stories in history. Consider this: How did an illiterate peasant lead an army into victory against England in the Hundred Years War? Learn about her upbringing, her visions from God, how she learned years of military strategy in a matter of weeks, and why she convinced King Charles VII to give her command of the army even though she had no combat experience. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Who Was The Most Powerful Woman in the Middle Ages? 1/2 Jul 11, 2017

Eowyn, the Shieldmaiden of Rohan, is one of the best characters from the “Lord of the Rings.” But J.R.R. Tolkien didn't invent her out of thin air. Ever the scholar of Anglo-Saxon England, Tolkien based is based on a real person who lived in the war-infested realm of Mercia. Learn about Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, ruler of part of England in the 900s, and slayer of Vikings. This is the first in a two-part series on the most powerful women in the Middle Ages. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How One Man Ruled 1920s Kansas City Like a Caesar—Jason Roe Jul 10, 2017

America attempted to legislate morality in the 1920s by outlawing the production, sale, and transport of intoxicating liquors through the Volstead Act. But that didn't stop the drinks from flowing during the “dry” years. Famous organized crime networks formed to meet the demand, and we all know about the Prohibition-era mobsters like Chicago's Al Capone and New York's Lucky Luciano. But did you know about one of the darkest, most corrupt, most lawless corner of the United States at this time? That's right. Kansas City. Kansas City of the 20s and 30s was ruled with an iron fist by Tom Pendergast. He controlled the city without holding elected office. The “Pendergast Machine” ran local government and the Democratic Party in Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri, during the Progressive Era and Great Depression. Political offices were bought. Ballot boxes were stuffed. He grew his empire by trading favors, building constituencies one precinct at a time, controlling votes, controlling politicians, and later controlling city government and the police department. His office at 1908 Main Street was called the unofficial capital of Missouri. The city's poor and working class lined out in front for several blocks, seeking help from Pendergast. He granted it like a king holding court, offering jobs or retributive justice to those who needed it. To talk with us about the Pendergast Machine is Dr. Jason Roe. He is a digital history specialist and editor for the Kansas City Library’s digitization and encyclopedia website project. But the Pendergast years weren't all bad. The libertine spirit of the city made it a magnet for artists and musicians. Jazz and other cultural milestones thrived in the “Wide Open” environment of Kansas City. Musicians such as Charlie Parker said jazz was born in New Orleans but grew up in KC. Most of all, Pendergast single-handedly launched the career of an obscure Missourian World War One vet into public office. He then orchestrated his rise to Missouri Senator. The young man then fell into the vice presidency. Then, after the death of America's longest-serving president, into the Oval Office. That man's name was Harry Truman. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Jason's writings on the KC Public Library website Jason's project Civil War on the Western Border TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Was There a Real-Life Dr. Frankenstein? Jul 07, 2017

Was there a real life Dr. Frankenstein who tried to bring the dead back to life by science and alchemy? Yes there was, and his name was Johann Dippel. He lived in the transitional period between alchemy and modern science. He may have experimented on bringing dead animals back to life, but because of these daring experiments modern chemistry, biology, and even the medical sciences owes him much. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Who is the Bravest Person Who Ever Lived? Jul 06, 2017

In the early 1800s there was no English explorer greater than James Holman. He covered a distance almost twenty times farther than Marco Polo on foot or cart—almost never using trains or steamships. He travelled among 200 different cultures, charted undiscovered parts of Australia, and by October 1846 had visited every inhabited continent. He did all this despite being completely blind. How did Holman travel the world when any sort of international exploration was exceptionally dangerous? Learn how in this episode. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Does China Really Have a 5,000-Year-Old History? Jul 05, 2017

Few will dispute that China has one of the most ancient cultures on earth, but is there any truth to the claim—made by many residents of China—that there is a 5,000-year-long line of continuity in its culture? Would an inhabitant of present-day China from five millennia ago really have anything in common with a bullet-train-riding businessman from Guangzhou drinking a Starbucks while on his way to Beijing? The answer, as always, is tricky, but there is some truth to the claim. Or at least more truth to the claim than almost any other culture could make. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Is July 4 Celebrated The Way It Is (Fireworks n’ Hot Dogs)? Jul 04, 2017

Why do Americans celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks? Are we trying to take the National Anthem as literally as possible, creating “Bombs Bursting in Air”? Or is there another reason? It turns out that much of the festival trappings of the Fourth of July date way further back than most realize. They even predate the founding of the United States. Many of the most cherished "American" traditions go back to Renaissance Italy. Some even extend back to Imperial China. However, hot dogs are still pure U, S, and A. Nothing can change that. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Is There Any Language In Use Today That Could Be Used 1,000 Years Ago? Jun 30, 2017

Any fan of Shakespeare knows how much the English language has changed over the last 400 years. A student of Chauncer knows even better. A brave student of Beowulf knows almost better than anyone else. You literally have to be a scholar to read "English" of 1,000 years ago. But are there any languages that haven't changed to this degree? Languages that a normal citizen can pick up a text from a millenium ago and understand perfectly? The answer is yes. Listen to this episode to learn which one. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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When Did The Roman Empire Really End? Jun 29, 2017

Rome didn’t fall in 476 when Romulus, the last of the Roman emperors in the west, was overthrown by the Germanic leader Odoacer, who became the first Barbarian to rule in Rome. Nor did it fall in 1453 when the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople. Depending on how you define ‘Rome,’ it didn’t fall until the Napoleonic Wars. Or the end of hostilities following World War I. If you visit Turkey, you might meet somebody who still calls himself a Roman. Listen to this episode to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Did Hitler Hate the Jews? Jun 28, 2017

The horrors of the Holocaust are as vivid now as they were in 1945 when the world discovered the horrors of Nazi Germany's atrocities. But why did Hitler hate the Jews so vehemently? Furthermore, why did he shift precious resources away from the war effort and toward the eradication of an ethnic group that posed no military threat to Nazi Germany? To answer this question I called up Richard Weikart, a scholar of 20th century Europe and author of the book Hitler's Religion. Check out Richard’s book by clicking here. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard Weikart is a professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus, and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He has published numerous scholarly articles, as well as five previous books including The Death of Humanity: and the Case for Life (Regnery, 2016) and From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. He has appeared in several documentaries, including Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In addition to scholarly journals, his work has been featured and discussed in the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, National Review, Christianity Today, World magazine, BreakPoint, Citizen, various radio shows, and other venues. Weikart lives in Snelling, CA, with his wife and children. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Was There an Objective Reason for the European Colonization of Africa? Jun 27, 2017

By the late 1800s Europe's Great Powers controlled nearly 80 percent of the African continent. Much research has analyzed the brutal aspects of its colonization—particularly in the Belgian Congo—but less on why Europe colonized Africa. Were the reasons only for financial exploitation or was there another reason? Listen to this episode to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Understanding Putin Through the History of Russian Invasions — Mark Schauss from the Russian Rulers in History Podcast Jun 26, 2017

In today's episode we are possibly going to bite off more than we can chew... by discussing the entire history of Russia. OK, maybe not the entire history of Russia. But we will discuss how invasions of Russia over the centuries have shaped its psyche today, and even explain Vladimir Putin's rationale for invading the Crimea. Thankfully we have a guest who can guide us through our figurative Siberia. He is Mark Schauss, host of the Russian Rulers in History Podcast. Mark has spent over 200 episodes looking at all rulers in Russia's history, from Rurik the Varangian Chieftan who founded Kievan Rus in the 800s to Vladimir Putin. Mark thinks that the dozens of invasions of Russian — the Viking raids of Kiev, the Mongol Raids in the 1200s, the Ottoman invasions of the 1500-1700s, the Napoleonic Invasion of the early 1800s, and Nazi Germany's invasion of 1941 — created the Russian psyche of today. That is why Russia invading its neighbors might seem aggressive to other nations but perfectly natural to a nation that spent much of its existence under threat of being swallowed up. But Mark notes that the constant flow of people in and out of Russia had good consequences as well. Catherine the Great, fearful of smallpox killing her population in the 1700s, had them inoculated on a massive scale. News of the program's success spread around the world, even reaching George Washington and prompting him to inoculate American soldiers in a similar way. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Russian Rulers in History Podcast Russian Rulers in History podcast in iTunes ABOUT MARK Mark's podcast has been downloaded more than 2 million times. He is also an internationally known lecturer on environmental and nutritional health issues and has spoken in North America, Asia, South America, Europe and soon in Australia. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did People Get Depressed in Ancient Times? Jun 23, 2017

Depression is not a modern phenomenon. Take the example of Abraham Lincoln. He is an unusual psychological case study. He was both chronically melancholy, and yet among the strongest people in history. Here's a quick rundown: Lincoln lost his one true love and married Mary Todd, a mentally unstable woman who abused him. He loved his sons deeply but one died very young, and another (Willie) died at 11 in the White House. This almost broke Lincoln. But the same philosophical-psychological outlook caused Lincoln to be both depressed and incredibly strong. Learn about how depression plagued the past as much as it does the present. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Were Ancient People More Advanced Than Us? Jun 22, 2017

The ancients had abilities that have fallen into near-complete disuse in the modern age. Consider memorization. The average peasant of 1,000 years ago had 10x more memorized than you ever will. They cultivated the skill in the ars memoriae, who were living databases of information. Plus they were infinitely more handy than us. Can you sew your own clothing? That one is easy. What about making your own shoes, butchering an animal, removing its skin, tanning the leather, then rending the fat to make candles? If you can answer ‘yes’ to all those things, then you are merely average for a medieval peasant. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Was Africa Never as Developed as The Rest of the World? Jun 21, 2017

Today's question is a tricky one that has to do with global politics, colonialism, and threatens to enter the minefield of race. Why do so many African nations sit at the bottom of global development indexes? The answer has nothing to do with race—consider Botswana, one of the great economic successes of the past 50 years. After all, half a century ago people were asking why every nation run by Asians is poor. Rather, the issue has to do with harsh environmental conditions of the African continent, its lack of natural harbors that makes water transport difficult, and the growing pains that all young nation-states experience. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did King Arthur and Merlin Truly Exist? Jun 20, 2017

Did the greatest king who ever lived ever live? That's a tricky question. The fabled first king of England, the mythological figure associated with Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table, may have been based on a 5th to 6th century Roman-affiliated military leader who staved off invading Saxons. Learn how the legend of Arthur (and Merlin) grew over the centuries and became popularized by such writers as Geoffrey of Monmouth until he was practically synonymous with England herself by the High Middle Ages. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What the Saints Drank and Monks Brewed—Michael Foley Jun 19, 2017

Michael Foley loves contradictions. He is a Catholic professor of patristics—a study of the lives of early Christian theologians—at a dry Baptist university. That didn't stop him from writing a book that pairs wines, beer, spirits, and cocktails with the solemnities and saints’ feast days of the Church calendar. Sadly, because he was in his office, he couldn't enjoy a cocktail himself while we were doing this interview. Michael is the author of Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner’s Guide to a Holy Happy Hour. It mixes Church history with drink recipes and adds a pinch of catechetical charisma to create a unique guide through the liturgical calendar. In addition to shedding light on the history behind each saint’s day, Foley brings to light the refined and temperate art of drinking, an art which involves a discerning palate, a sense of moderation, and a generous dose of self-knowledge. He promotes moderation and reverence, for pouring and mixing a special beverage in honor of a particular saint adds an extra note of jubilation and recognition. In this interview we discuss The Catholic origins of whiskey, tequila, sparkling wine, and much more The drinking habits of St. August, Pope John Paul II, and the disciples Tips on giving the perfect toast and on mixing the perfect drink The origin of Dom Pérignon:The méthode champenoise was invented by a Benedictine monk Perignon, who, when he sampled his first batch, cried out to his fellow monks: “Brothers, come quickly. I am drinking stars!” Original cocktails, including two for St. Augustine of Hippo: one for his sinful past and one for his holy conversion How Chartreuse, the world’s most magical liqueur, was perfected by Carthusian monks and is still made by them, even though only two monks at any time know the recipe. How the California wine industry began when Blessed Junipero Serra and his Franciscan brethren brought the first wine grapes to the region. And its rebirth in Napa County after Prohibition was thanks in large part to a chemistry teacher and LaSalle Christian Brother named Brother Timothy. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner's Guide to a Holy Happy Hour https://drinkingwiththesaints.com/ Drinking with the Saints Facebook Group TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Who Built the Pyramids? Aliens? Jun 16, 2017

Today's question comes from Nayeli Carpenter She asks about lost civilizations: pyramid builds, Egyptians, Mayans, Incans, especially the ones where cultures disappeared mysteriously. I'm going to confine this question to everyone's favorite historical conspiracy theory—that Egypt's pyramids were so advanced and contained hidden astronomical secrets that only an advanced civilization (coughcoughalienscoughcough) could have designed them. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Can You Explain the 1915 Armenian Genocide? Jun 15, 2017

Today's question comes to us from Kevin deLaplante, creator of the Critical Thinker Academy and host of the Argument Ninja Podcast. Can you tell me about the 1915 Armenian Genocide and why today's political leaders (such as Barack Obama) are hesitant to describe it as such? TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How Important Was the Spice Trade to Medieval Europe? Jun 14, 2017

Today's question comes from Jaime Martínez Bowness: Hi - here's a quick list of topics I thought of: The importance of the spice trade in Medieval times TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Happened to Places Like Catalonia After Rome’s Fall? Jun 13, 2017

Today's question comes to us from Nate Finch: I would love for you to do a podcast (series?) on Mediterranean "empires" after Rome (e.g. the Catalonian "empire", which extended all the way to Italy, the empire of the Venetian merchants, etc.). Heck, you could even do a series on regional identities in Spain, France, Italy, Turkey... the possibilities are endless. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Was Hitler a Christian, Atheist, or Something Else? — Richard Weikart Jun 12, 2017

No matter how little you know about history, you know something about Adolf Hitler. And if you want to shut down an opponent, you can claim that Hitler said/did/believed the same thing. Godwin's Law exists for a reason. But Hitler remains a persistent mystery on one front—his religious faith. Atheists tend to insist Hitler was a devout Christian. Christians contend that he was an atheist. And still others suggest that he was a practicing member of the occult. None of these theories is true, says historian Richard Weikart in his new book Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich. Delving more deeply into the question of Hitler’s religious faith than any researcher to date, Weikart reveals the startling and fascinating truth about the most hated man of the twentieth century: Adolf Hitler was a pantheist who believed nature was the only true “God.” In this episode we discuss the following: How Hitler’s Frankenstein's monster religion of pantheism, eugenics, Germanic folk belief, and even Islam served to create the most notorious monster of the twentieth century Hitler constantly lied, so if he took a dose of truth serum, what would he say about his religious beliefs Why members of Hitler's inner circle (especially SS leader Heinrich Himmler) loved the occult so much that they regularly consulted astrologers...until Hitler stamped out the practice Why Hitler went on a propaganda crusade to white-wash Christian symbolism out of old photographs How atheists and conservative Christians both misunderstand what Hitler believed How Hitler actually was intent on destroying Christianity Check out Richard's book Hitler's Religion by clicking here. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard Weikart is a professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus, and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He has published numerous scholarly articles, as well as five previous books including The Death of Humanity: and the Case for Life (Regnery, 2016) and From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. He has appeared in several documentaries, including Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In addition to scholarly journals, his work has been featured and discussed in the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, National Review, Christianity Today, World magazine, BreakPoint, Citizen, various radio shows, and other venues. Weikart lives in Snelling, CA, with his wife and children. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Who Was WW2 Spy Zig-Zag? Jun 09, 2017

Today's question comes from Dean Wallace: Could you tell me about the career of [World War Two] agent Zigzag? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Is The World’s Oldest University? Jun 08, 2017

Today's question comes from James Ganong: Could you please tell me the history of oldest university? I think it is in Egypt... WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Tell Me About the Varangians (The Vikings of Russia) Jun 07, 2017

Today's question is about the Varangians, a group of Vikings that conquered Kievan Rus and became the first rulers of the Russian state. I'd love it if you could talk about Kievan-Rus, the Rurik dynasty, The Varangians...any of these would be great. WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Can We Really Know Anything in History Or Is It All Fake News? Jun 06, 2017

Today's question comes from C. M. Ho: How much of history has been the figment of some power hungry person or group? Some historians or those that call themselves historians are not adhering to the truth either. The news, it is said, is also manipulated. Is this a new phenomena or has it always been like this? It scares me to think that truth is nowhere to be found. WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher .

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Every President’s Go-to Drink, From Washington’s Whisky to Obama’s Homebrew—Mark Will-Weber Jun 05, 2017

There are books about presidents. There are books about cocktails. Then there are books that create and attribute a cocktail to each of the 45 U.S. presidents. Journalist and editor Mark Will-Weber has written such a book. He actually written three: Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking; Drinking with the Democrats; and Drinking with the Republicans What began as a fun exploration into Warren G. Harding's flask that he hid in his golf bag during the Prohibition years turned into a wide-ranging survey of America's love-hate relationship with alcohol...and how it affected each of its presidents. Some like George W. Bush and Donald Trump were complete tee-totalers. Others like Obama and Clinton drank in moderation. Still others imbibed so much that they gave inaugural addresses completely hammered or even went on drunk driving cruises with terrified Secret Service agents in tow. But most of all, Mark gets into America's complicated relationship with alcohol and how it transformed from the libertine years of the Founding Fathers to the alcoholic years of the Civil War to the stern years of Temperance. And he even offers suggestions for how Republicans and Democrats can use drink to get along in these divided times. In this episode we go over: Favorite libations of each president Richard Nixon's love of drunk dialing Mark's favorite cocktail: McKinley's Delight (whiskey, sweet vermouth, cherry liqueur and absinthe) RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE Recipe for McKinley's Delight How Gary Hart's Downfall Forever Changed American Politics George Washington's Tavern Porter from Yard's Brewing Company MARK'S BOOKS Mint Juleps With Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking Drinking with the Republicans: The Politically Incorrect History of Conservative Concoctions Drinking with the Democrats: The Party Animal's History of Liberal Libations ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Will-Weber, a seasoned journalist and magazine editor, is the author of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The complete History of Presidential Drinking, The Quotable Runner, and The Running Trivia Book. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What Were French Trappers Doing in 1700s America? Jun 02, 2017

Today's question comes from Suzanne: I would enjoy anything about the French in North America, Canada and the US, early American History of the Michigan Territory, Seven Years War, etc. WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did the Inventor of the Guillotine Die By Guillotine? Jun 01, 2017

Today's question comes from August Berkshire: Is it true that the person who invented the guillotine was guillotined himself? What the story behind both events? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What is the Bloody Mary Myth Based On? May 31, 2017

Today's question comes from Goa Yong: Is Bloody Mary a real person? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Was Leif Erikson First to Visit the New World? May 30, 2017

Today's question comes from Ryan: Was Leif Erikson really the first explorer of European descent to explore North America? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Tevi Troy on Pop Culture in the White House: From Washington’s Library to Trump’s Twitter Account May 29, 2017

In the 21st century presidents can't stay out of the spotlight. Barack Obama released his NCAA tournament brackets every year on ESPN, was a regular guest on Jimmy Fallon and the rest of the late night circuit, and was the first president to use Twitter. Donald Trump has gone even further with social media, using Twitter as a permanent means to bypass traditional media channels. But they are not the first consumers, or producers, of popular culture in the White House. Throughout America’s history, occupants of the White House have interacted with and been shaped by popular culture. Our guest today, Dr. Tevi Troy, author of What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House tells us fun and informative little-known anecdotes about everyone from George Washington to Donald Trump, revealing how each one has woven popular culture into different aspects of their leadership. In this episode we learn The literary works that shaped the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. Why Abraham Lincoln’s love of theater prompted him to ignore advice from advisors the night of his assassination. That voracious reader Teddy Roosevelt viewed books as job training and didn’t hesitate to read at parties. That Dwight D. Eisenhower loved Westerns so much that his staff struggled to keep him in supply. How Saturday Night Live irrevocably branded Gerald Ford as a klutz, contributing to his 1976 defeat. How Ronald Reagan identified the unifying role of film and often used movie quotes to rouse support. Why Barack Obama used celebrity endorsements to sell his policies to the American people. Tevi is not only a historian of U.S. politics. He was also a high-level player. In 2007 he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was the chief operating officer of the largest civilian department in the federal government, with a budget of $716 billion and over 67,000 employees. Basically, he controlled Medicaid and Medicaid. In light of his experience Tevi has all sorts of fascinating stories about how the George W. Bush White House used history to dictate policy—in one instance all of Bush's advisors were requried to read a book on the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic to develop public policy against disease outbreaks. In that position, he oversaw all operations, including Medicare, Medicaid, public health RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Tevi Troy's Website What Jefferson Read, Obama Watched, and Ike Tweeted Tevi on Twitter TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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When Did People Start Using Last Names? May 26, 2017

Today's question comes from Melanie Padon: When did people start using last names and why? How did they come up with them? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Did Conquering Armies Really Salt the Earth of Their Enemies? May 25, 2017

Today's question comes to us from Peter Swanson. My question is what is the history of "salting the earth" after a military victory. How would an army in the ancient world have transported tons and tons and tons of salt and spread it everywhere? Isn't that a waste of time? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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What if JFK Had Lost the 1960 Election? May 24, 2017

Today's question comes to us courtesy of Brandon. Here's his question: This is Brandon Wall, and I'm wondering what would have happened if Nixon beat JFK in the 1960 presidential election. How would the world be looking these days, for instance, if Nixon had handled the Cuban missile crisis instead? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Justin from the Generation Why Podcast: What Assassination Had the Most Impact on History? May 23, 2017

Today's question comes to us from Justin from the Generation Why Podcast. It's a true crime podcast that you should definitely check out. Here's his question: What murder or assassination through history do you think had the most impact on the world? From Cleopatra to Archduke Franz Ferdinand to JFK, which one do you think changed the world the most? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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Why Your Favorite Presidents (Lincoln, Washington) Actually Screwed Up America—Brion McClanahan May 19, 2017

Quick – name your favorite president. You probably said Washington or Lincoln, right? C'mon. You can be more original than that. Well, Brion McClanahan is original. He gladly tells people that the greatest president in American history was John Tyler. Confused looks then follow, usually with a question of "Who was that again?" On the other hand, we all have presidents whom we think were terrible. You can point to a Jimmy Carter, a Herbert Hoover, a Warren G. Harding, or (if you're an insufferable history nerd like me) Millard Fillmore. But Abraham Lincoln? Brion McClanahan—again, being original here—makes the argument that Lincoln, far from being America's savior, may have done her irreparable harm. But he is not making this argument for the sake of being a contrarian. Rather it's a position grounded in thorough research an consideration of what the real responsibility of a president is. After all, he wrote a book called 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: And Four Who Tried to Save Her. I can almost guarantee that you won't be able to guess who he names as the good and bad presidents. In this episode we discuss who they were, why they were so good or bad, and whether Brion has seen Hamilton on Broadway (he has a book on him coming out later this year). McClanahan argues that... Lincoln violated the Constitution because as commander in chief he believed he had to “subdue the enemy,” no matter the collateral damage. His violations created a blueprint for more executive abuse in the future. By the time Obama left office earlier this year, Americans suffered under twenty-eight consecutive years of unconstitutional executive usurpation of power. Over a two-year period, the Obama administration delayed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act twenty-eight times, ostensibly to give employers time to comply with the law. This was a blatantly unconstitutional power grab by the executive office. History has shown that presidents tend to abuse their power in their second term, and that the best presidents tend to serve less than eight years in office. MORE ABOUT BRION Brion McClanahan is the author or co-author of four books, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, (Regnery, 2009), The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution (Regnery History, 2012), Forgotten Conservatives in American History (Pelican, 2012), and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes, (Regnery, 2012). He has written for TheDailyCaller.com, LewRockwell.com, TheTenthAmendmentCenter.com, Townhall.com, and HumanEvents.com. McClanahan is a faculty member at Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom, has appeared on dozens of radio talk shows, and has spoken across the Southeast on the Founding Fathers and the founding principles of the United States. If you would like to book Dr. McClanahan for a speaking appearance, please email him. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Brion's website Brion's podcast Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom Brion's Book: 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: And Four Who Tried to Save Her TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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How a Horse Became a Sergeant in the Korean War — Robin Hutton May 19, 2017

The story of Reckless—a pack horse in the Korean War who was a beloved household name in the 1950s and the only animal in U.S. history to officially achieve the rank of Sergeant—is one of the strangest, most inspiring, and (sadly) unknown stories of the 20th century. In battle, Reckless made 51 trips—on her own—through 35 miles of rice paddies to deliver ammunition and supplies to her fellow Marines. She was trained to step over communications lines, get down at the sound of incoming fire, and ignore the noise of battle. She carried wounded soldiers to safety and was injured twice herself during the war, earning her two Purple Hearts. Not only was Reckless a great war hero, she fit in with her comrades like any other Marine—regularly swilling beer with the other Marines and inserting herself into group activities. When Robin Hutton discovered her tale in 2006, she was so inspired by the little mare’s story that she was determined to reintroduce Reckless to the world. To rediscover the story of this heroic horse, Hutton interviewed seventy-five Marines who served with Reckless and uncovered over 200 photos, spanning her war days and beyond. Sgt. Reckless reveals heartwarming and hilarious anecdotes about Reckless’s feats and antics, bringing to life the touching story of how a young Korean man’s horse became one of the greatest Marine wartime heroes of all time. Here are other astounding facts about Reckless: In just one day of battle, Reckless made 51 trips carrying 386 rounds (almost five tons) of ammunition, walking over 35 miles through rice paddies and up steep mountains with enemy fire coming in at the rate of 500 rounds per minute. Reckless also carried wounded soldiers away from battle, and she herself was wounded twice, earning two Purple Hearts. Reckless ate anything and everything—but especially scrambled eggs and pancakes in the morning with her morning cup of coffee, along with beer in the evening with her comrades. The Marines loved Reckless so much that in the heat of battle, they threw their flak jackets over her to protect her when incoming fire was heavy, risking their own safety. On April 10, 1954, Reckless was officially promoted to sergeant—an honor never bestowed, before or since, on an animal. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Video: Sgt. Reckless: Korean War Horse Video Robin Hutton's Sgt. Reckless Website Sgt. Reckless Facebook Page Robin's Book: Sgt. Reckless: America's War Horse TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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When Camels Roamed the American Southwest—The U.S. Camel Corps (1856-1866) May 11, 2017

Welcome to the first episode of the History Unplugged podcast. We are kicking things off by exploring the US Army’s failed experiment of using camels as the military’s main pack animal in the American Southwest. Camels are more than a zoo curiosity that spits on you in front of a field trip of first-graders. They are more than the mascot of your favorite cigarette brand. Camels were the long haul-truck of the ancient world. They created the global economy and the spice road. Were you a Roman Senator you want cinnamon from Sri Lanka or nutmeg from Indonesia? It came to you by camel. Were you a Chinese emperor who wanted gold, henna, storax, frankincense, asbestos, cloth, silk gauze, silk damask, glass, and silver from Arabia? A camel brought it to you. But did you know that America almost chose the camel as its preferred method of long-distance travel in the early nineteenth century? Before railroads or long-distance trucks, some Americans dreamed of millions of camels flooding the Southwest to make desert crossings easy and safe. A Secretary of War named Jefferson Davis thought the plan would work. He dispatched an Army Officer to the Middle East to purchase several dozen dromedaries and hire a few cameleers. Thus the U.S. Camel Corps was born. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE To listen to a country song inspired by one of the cameleers, Hi Jolly, click here. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE HISTORY UNPLUGGED PODCAST This is the first episode of History Unplugged. It celebrates unsung heroes, mythbusts historical lies, and rediscovers the forgotten stories that changed our world. There are two sorts of episodes that we feature on the History Unplugged podcast: the call-in show and author interviews. For history lovers who listen to podcasts, it is the most comprehensive show of its kind because it's the only one that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. It features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with 4 wives and 12 concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?) and long form interviews with historians who have written about everything—and I mean everything—including gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk. For the call-in show it features an actual history question submitted from a listener just like you. I (Scott) will answer your question in 5-10 minutes. You can submit your questions to me by going here. You can ask me anything. What did the Vikings eat? What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with 4 wives and multiple concubines? If you were sent back in time with your current knowledge, how would you conquer the Roman Empire? What would be the best way to assassinate Hitler? The second sort of episode on our podcast is the long form interview (40 minutes - 1 hour) with top history book authors. These authors have written about everything—and I mean everything—including gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk. I sit down with them and go in-depth on their topics. So far I've been blown away by the stories I've heard. Here are some of our guests lined up in the next few days. Robin Hutton, author of Sgt. Reckless, America's War Horse Mark Will-Weber, author of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking Prof. Richard Weikart, author of Hitler’s Relgion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

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