Our American Stories

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Latest Episodes:

The Night an Iowa Underdog Beat the Boston Celtics Dec 09, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, for a brief moment, Iowa found itself on the map of professional basketball. The Waterloo Hawks arrived with modest expectations and ended up claiming a win that still startles anyone who follows the early years of the league. They beat the Boston Celtics, then faded from view as quickly as they appeared. Tim Harwood, author of Ball Hawks: The Arrival and Departure of the NBA in Iowa, tells the story of how a small Midwestern town became the home of an NBA franchise and how that unlikely chapter continues to echo through local sports history.

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The Shocking Story Behind the Diamond Engagement Ring Dec 09, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, when Tom Zoellner found himself holding a diamond engagement ring with no wedding ahead of it, he began to wonder how a single piece of jewelry had come to carry so much weight. That question sent him far from the jewelry counters where most people shop for engagement rings and deep into the long history behind them. His search led to Victorian engagement traditions, the rise of diamond marketing, and the complicated story of how a proposal ring became a cultural expectation. Tom shares how his journey reshaped the way he understood love, loss, and the meaning we assign to the things we wear. Check out his book The Heartless Stone for more of the story!

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A Listener’s Advice to His Son — Be More Sociable Dec 09, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, before Kent Nerburn became known for his reflections on manhood and love, he was a young man circling the edges of his own life. That changed during a quiet afternoon in graduate school, when his friend Craig offered a gentle observation that revealed more about human nature than any book ever could. Craig understood what many struggle to see: people respond to interest, not perfection.

Kent shares how a single gesture helped him move past the anxious self-image that once held him still and taught him what true social skill looks like from the inside out.

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Franklin: The Frontier State That Almost Was Dec 09, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in the turbulent years after the Revolution, settlers west of the mountains felt the weight of distance from the governments that claimed them. Their answer was to imagine a new state named Franklin, a place shaped not by polished politics but by the realities of frontier life. The Appalachian Storyteller traces how this fragile experiment rose and unraveled, revealing a moment when the boundaries of early America were still unsettled and ordinary people tried to shape a future that never quite arrived.

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How Maurice Sendak Redrew Childhood in “Where the Wild Things Are” Dec 09, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Maurice Sendak had a rare ability to look at childhood without sentimentality. He understood its private fears and its unruly joys, and he tried to give those feelings a place to live on the page. That effort shaped the work that made him, for many, the defining children’s book artist of the twentieth century.

Our own Greg Hengler traces how Sendak’s early life and restless imagination shaped the world that would become Where the Wild Things Are—a story that opened the door to a new kind of children’s literature and revealed just how powerful a picture book could be.

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The Untold Story of the Indian Wars Dec 08, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, The Indian Wars did not begin with a single event or a single clash. They formed slowly along the edges of a growing nation, where unfamiliar customs and competing claims to land created a series of misunderstandings that deepened over time. But why did Native Americans and settlers enter into a conflict that lasted for centuries? Here to tell the story is Ken LaCorte, host of the popular YouTube channel Elephants in Rooms.

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How Three American Candies Became So Loved—and So Hated Dec 08, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, candy corn, black licorice, and circus peanuts have been on American shelves for generations, and whether you love them or hate them, they're here to stay. But their longevity is more curious than their questionable (or delicious!) taste.

Each came from a different corner of early candy history, shaped by manufacturing experiments and changing ideas about what exactly a treat should be. The History Guy traces the origins of these three polarizing confections and explains how they've managed to continue to divide opinions for years.

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The Double Agent Who Made D-Day Possible Dec 08, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, the Allied invasion of Normandy depended on more than military force. It required convincing Germany that the real attack would land somewhere else, and that task fell to one man working deep inside a world of fragile alliances and invented identities.

Juan Pujol García, known to British intelligence as Agent Garbo, built an entire network of fictitious sources and delivered reports so convincing that German command relied on them without question. His work became one of the most striking examples of double-agent strategy in modern espionage, shaping the deception that shielded D-Day from German defenses. The late, great Stephen Ambrose tells Agent Garbo’s story.

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The Coney Island Sideshow That Rewrote Neonatal Medicine Dec 08, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, when crowds wandered through Coney Island in the early twentieth century, they expected oddities, tricks, and performers who lived on the edge of spectacle. What they did not expect were rows of premature infants resting inside newly designed infant incubators. The exhibit belonged to Dr. Martin Couney, a man who operated far from traditional medical circles yet devoted his life to caring for babies who had almost no chance of survival anywhere else.

His work unfolded in a setting that looked more like entertainment than medicine, but it forced the public to confront ideas that the established medical community had been slow to accept. Author Dawn Raffel traces how Couney’s unusual path ended up shaping medical innovations that would define modern neonatal care.

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Everett’s Last Christmas Carol Dec 08, 2025

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Jim Johnson has a habit of meeting people who stay with him long after the moment has passed. Everett Motl was one of those people—the kind you remember because something about their presence settles in and refuses to fade. What began as a small acquaintance turned into a story Johnson now carries into the holiday season, a reminder that the most meaningful Christmas stories often start in ordinary places.

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